Author’s corner: HELLO HELLO! Some more simple crafting this time!

ANYWAY, for some reason I’m really not all that happy with the second part of this chapter. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know. I may come back here in the future to rewrite it… This chapter was literally a last minute addition, I had this idea when going to bed yesterday. Yet the new character suffered a huge alteration from the original idea to now…

ALSO, do you guys remember me saying about writing another story…? Well, I’ve gone and did it… Sorry… I’m almost finishing chapter 1 by now, and It’s an reincarnation story, with a little twist, the main isn’t reborn as a human, but as a dragon. EXCEPT, that he is born from a line of dragons that swore to serve as companions for humans. I’m even being lazy with this story and simply using the same characters from Insania, just because. Of course there are some exceptions. I will upload it later to that folder in the google docs… As mentioned before: I will only work on this after Insanias chapter, so it won’t affect updates.

ALSO(2) The Side-story should be out later today, as soon as I get back home.

Have a good read!

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I feel a bit silly, you know? I mean, it is common sense, even within the game, but I still forgot about it anyway… I mean…

Why would this place be open in the middle of the night? Even if it was a guild with a bar mixed, it would not make sense for it to be open when it is like, two or three o’clock in the morning. Even if it were open, by now would be the time where they would be refusing any new client and slowly letting the ones inside leave.

I sighed while walking back down the street.

So, what should I do now? Just go outside at random and start to hunt the first animal I find? But will I even find something if I do it like that? I don’t think so. A hunter must always gather your information before going to a hunt! Maybe appear at Melinda’s house. It has been some time since I last saw her, so she must be worried… Nah. I just get the feeling that she isn’t. Oh well. Maybe take a walk around the city? I do hear that some cities change completely when it’s the middle of the night.

Doing so I decide to wander about (once more) through the city. Since this floor I had pretty much explored everything, I took an elevator to the lower one. This one didn’t have anything too new, except for this stall that made one mean rabbit barbeque.

The following floors were just as boring as the first. Gladly, since the city’s illumination came from crystals, the streets were fairly safe. And with many players still walking around, the amount of petty thieves were low.

Only when I got to the tenth or so floor, I found something that actually caught my attention.

There was this one door that simply called for me to see what was inside it. Why? Because it was slightly open, and a strange blue glow came from within it. A small and simple plaque was above it, and all it said was Sol’s alchemy.

It was shady, had a dangerous glow to it and pretty much was shouting trouble. What did I do? Of course I went in! What else would I have done?

By the way, I’m not an insensitive jerk, so I did knock on the door a few times. Have to at least look like a polite person, you know?

“Come in…” Came a fairly unmotivated voice from inside. I opened the door and closed it on the way in.

I ended up in a long corridor that made a curve to the right up ahead. The strange blue glow was coming from there. In the middle of the way was a closed wooden door. Deducing that I should probably follow the corridor, I walked it down until I came to what seemed a shop’s counter, with some flasks here and there filled with different colored liquids.

However, there was no one here, and the glow was coming from an open door even further down this room. Confused about what I should do, I stood there waiting for a moment, until that same voice came again.

“Come inside the workshop. I don’t want to get up to go there…”

I was a bit surprised about this blatant show of laziness, but I still complied and walked in, passing the counter towards the door.

The workshop was something that you would actually expect to see in a mad scientist laboratory. There were lots of test tubes with dangerous looking liquids, a whole lot of these glasses contraptions you use to process alchemical products. Heck, there was even a flask whose smoke took the shape of a skull! AND IT WAS LAUGHING AT ME!

The blue glow came from a huge glass contraption that took literally the whole back wall of the house, and the finished product was some kind of thick looking blue slime. There was almost enough to fill a whole bucket with it on the final container of the contraption.

But the best part of all this. Is that there was a bed in the middle of this dangerous looking room. And there was a bundle of blue hair laying face down on the couch.

“Mhhm mmm-hm mhmm.” The bundle tried saying something, but any sound it made was muffled. It seemed to sigh for a moment, then it moved around and laid face up, then it twisted it’s head upwards so it could look straight at me. “What? Just a brat? Oh well… Welcome to Sol’s alchemy… Yadda yadda yadda… are you buying or selling?”

I was a bit shocked at her choice of words. And yes, it was a she. It was a small girl looking no older than eight years old. She was the size of Aliwa, making her very small for her age, except her blue hair that was ridiculously long.

She was an elf, although I wasn’t sure which one, with long ears, but she was also a shade, some kind of shadow-like undead being. I could tell by the black sclera in her eyes. For those wondering, sclera is that white part of your eyes.

Eyes, aside, she was a pretty cute girl if I had to say, with childish features and wearing a simple nightgown while laying on the bed.

But there was something seriously wrong with the atmosphere around her, but I couldn’t quite put my finger in it.

“Sorry for intruding. It’s just that I saw that glow coming from the front door and I wondered what was sold in here.” I said truthfully. The girl lifted one of her eyebrows and lazily spun around the bed once more.

“Hmm… You just had to make my job harder…” She complained. “Well, I sell pretty much anything you might imagine that is related to alchemy… Health potions, Mana potions, rage potions, energy potions, glues, paints, spices, magical artefacts and on and on and on…” she said while waving her hand in the air like it didn’t matter. “So… What will you want? Although I do have a lot of time, I don’t want to spend it working, so be quick.”

Well, at least she is direct.

“Well, I was actually kind of wondering if I could learn alchemy myself…”

“Nope. Don’t want to. Too bothersome.” What?

“Wait, what do you mean by that?”

“Taking disciple is too bothersome. Having to teach them how to do this and that… DON’T WANNA!” She shouted that last part, leaving me confused for a moment.

“You mean… You are the one who makes these potions?” I asked surprised, and she sighed.

“I may look like this, but I’m actually six hundred years old… ” Huh?

A WILD LOLI-BABA HAS APPEARED!->Doubt<-BuySellRun

“Yeah, I get that face a lot…” She said with a wave of her hand.

I shook my head to clear away my shock and tried to focus on what was really important here. But just as I was about to talk, the blue glow from the liquid in the wall contraption started to dissipate, and the elf’s face suddenly lighted up, as she stood up in the bed and ran towards it, picking a small cup in the way.

She opened a tap and the blue liquids slowly started to drip into the cup, and she closed it once the cup was full. A sweet smell permeated the room while she took back the cup and sat cross legged into the bed.

“What is that?” I asked when my curiosity won over me.

“It’s a sweet.” Huh? “I’ve been working on it for quite some time now! Around a week or so?” She said in her childish voice while sinking her finger into the liquid and taking it to her mouth. A wide smile appeared on her face as she slowly savored the taste. “Sweets are the only thing that are still worth living for!” She said in a happy tone, then remembering me she protected the cup with her body and looked coldly. “I’m not giving you any, understood?”

Is she really a granny? I’m starting to have my doubts… Anyway, back to the main topic.

“Isn’t there anyway you can teach me alchemy?” I asked once again.

“Didn’t I already say no, you brat?” She complained back to me. “I don’t want to do something so bothersome as that again!”

“…Oh, I see…” If trying to ask won’t work, let’s try another approach. “Basically, you are so bad at it that you can’t even teach someone, huh?” I turned my back and walked away. “I’ll find a better teacher then. Bye!”

Before I could get too far I felt a small hand grabbing the back of my armor.

“HOLD ON RIGHT THERE, BRAT!” She said furiously, I turned back to her with a taunting smile. “Now, I may take you complaining that I’m lazy, worthless and what not. But I AM the best alchemist of this whole town, and don’t you ever dare say otherwise!” She said with her eyes burning.

“Well, I don’t really have any proof of that, do I?” She almost fumed after these words.

“Look here, don’t go thinking that I don’t know the game you are playing brat.” She said with a menacing tone.

“But it doesn’t mean that you won’t play it, right?” She widened her eyes for a moment, then made impish smile.

“Alright. You got me, brat. But this game won’t be only on your rules alone. No, no.” She lifted her finger to give emphasis to her words. “You will have to impress me. Show me something that I find interesting. Anything, and I’ll teach you.” I smiled widely at her, and she answered me with a wicked smiled. “Don’t think that it will be easy, though. I haven’t lived six hundred years for nothing.”

“Fair enough.”

She let go of my armor and sat back on the bed while crossing her arms, making a haughty pose. I took this time to think, the challenge was a bit unusual, that’s for sure, but I did have something I could probably use.

I took out the last of the special arrows I had and lined them up in front of her with a proud smile. She looked at them with curiosity then back to me curious.

“So… What about these arrows?”

“Well, look and behold, for these arrows here are no special arrows!” I said and pointed to the first one. “This one here can freeze whoever it touches, this one can set them on fire, this can poison your enemies, this one here can either ignore gravity or do a mean knock back!” I said full of pride.

She raised her eyebrows for a moment, seemingly interested while she looked at the arrows, then finally shrugged.

“What? Can’t you do all that with magic? What’s so new about it?”

Huh? My more than perfect plan was completely shot down? Just like that? Why?

No, calm down, what she just said is true, it may be possible to do all that with magic, so let’s try something different. It’s time for my trump card!

“Then, what about this?” I said while taking one flash bomb and giving it to her.

“This is… A leather ball?” She asked confused. “Aren’t you a bit too young to be losing your mind like this?”

“And who said this is a normal leather ball? Try activating it!”

She tilted her head in confusion, but still did what I asked. I had hurriedly closed my eyes, but I still heard her crying in surprise as the bomb went off.

I slowly opened my eyes and saw that she had fallen on the bed with the scare and seemed confused for a moment, then her face paled as she looked towards her right side, where some potions were. I followed her gaze and noticed that some of the potions were starting to shine dangerously.

Before any of use could react, all the right side of the workshop was blown up in a huge and colorful explosion, throwing me and the granny-child into the opposing wall.

“Some of those were very sensible to light…” She explained after some time.

“Sorry…”

“Meh, no need to worry. At most they take a few months to get done.”

“Sorry…”

She sighed once again.

“But you still don’t pass. Magic like that one isn’t all that rare either… Although the use to blind is a good idea.” She said in a shrug.

“And I spent so many crystals on that…” I said in a half-joking tone, but granny seemed to perk up at these words.

“Wait, Crystals? As in elemental crystals?”

“Err… Yeah?”

“But there isn’t any Elemental crystal that does something like that. Not even the major ones!” She turned her head in my direction and said. “Are you saying that you made that with those crystals?”

“Yes?”

She started laughing loudly then pointed at me with her finger.

“Brat, if you show me how you did that, I’ll teach you alchemy. It’s the first time I see something so interesting like that!”

“Err… Granny…”

“What?”

“That’s a pillar. I’m still on the floor.”

“…”

“And I’m also out of crystals right now. So I need to mine some more.”

“I see, then just let me get changed and I’ll give you a hand!” She said, this time looking towards another pillar. Seems like she was still affected by the blind.

She waited for a few moments so the debuff could go away, then she ran towards the bed and slid beneath it. After some time she came out carrying an old wooden box, she put it on the bed and opened it, taking what looked some clothes and armor from it.

Then, right where she was she took out her nightgown with one motion, I hastily turned away amazed by her lack of self awareness. I heard her chuckle for a moment while she was putting the armor on.

When she finally said that she was done, I turned back and saw her wearing an elven chain-mail armor that fit her perfectly, covered with a light leather jacket tinted green. She also had a similarly made chain mail leggings. The strange part was that I didn’t see any weapon. She also had folded her hair in half and tied it in the top of head, or else they would keep dragging on the floor.

Before I even had the time to react, she grabbed my arm and started to drag me out of the room. Yes, she literally dragged me on the floor, not even giving me time to get up and walk.

She only let go of my hand when we were outside of the shop, where she had to lock the door and put a plaque saying that it was closed. I took this time to stand up and take some distance, so she wouldn’t grab me again. Not that it worked, as she quickly took a hold of my arm and dragged me down the road.

Except that we didn’t go towards the elevator. She dragged me towards the outer end of the city and stood in the border.

“Huh… What are we doing here?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Jumping!” She said as she pushed me.

Huh? Jumping?

WAIT! AREN’T WE FALLING RIGHT NOW! THIS CRAZY GRANNY! WE ARE GOING TO DIE!

Just as we were about to reach the ground, I saw the mad granny taking a sealed test tube from her waist and throwing it on the ground beneath us. The tube shattered on impact and a huge foam started to take shape in it’s place.

When we hit it, it felt like I had just jumped into a huge water-bed, as the foam stopped our fall and slowly started to dissolve.

“So, what do you think?” She asked me with a teasing smile.

“It was crazy, suicidal, completely unnecessary and could have gone terribly bad.” I turned my head to her. “How much for one flask of that?”

“I’ll do it for one gold to you.” She said while standing up again.

“Deal.” It was expensive, but would surely be worth it.

She promised to give me one of those once we went back to her shop. For now she waited for me to find an ore vein and extract some crystals. Once I had all the crystals I needed, I sat on the ground and showed her the crafting process of the flash-bomb. She watched everything in awe, then tried it herself.

“Wait. Those arrows you showed me earlier, were they also made this way?” She asked as she was breaking the crystals.

“Well, kind of. Those use a step further from this process.”

“I see…” She took out a simple grinder composed of a wooden pot and a stick and started to grind the crystal even more. I usually simply rolled the crystal within my hands, but that seemed to be a lot more effective. “I wonder if I can add these to alchemy…” She said distractedly.

“Okay, I showed you the crystal thing. Now you teach me alchemy.”

She blinked surprised, the shrugged. Calling me to come closer to her, she passed on to me the skill.

Sol, the eccentric alchemist has taught you the Crafting Skill: Alchemy.Skill: Alchemy [lvl 1]

0%Allows you to use herbs, minerals and some monster parts to make alchemical products.

You can use the system help to create your items from now on.

You have received a few beginners recipe.

Even the system call her odd? Wow, she must be a really crazy one, huh?

“I guess you might want a few starting lessons, right?” She said with a sigh, then took a quick look around. And started to point at some places.

“That rock, that tree, that one too, the one near that rabbit, and that one on city’s gate. Gather these plants for me, then come back here.” She said while taking some instruments from her small bag she brought. “Also, if you find any more crystal, make sure to bring them!” She said before I got out of earshot.

I noticed this before, but it seems that the NPCs don’t have inventories like players do. At least I didn’t see them using it earlier on, so it must mean that they have it, right?

It took some time, but I finally gathered all the herbs she had pointed me to. But damn, that is one good eyesight she has, I can barely see her from here, yet she pinpointed all these herbs so easily, and with just a simple glance!

I also found a couple of iron veins and gathered a few more crystals.

By the time I got there, she was already laying face down in the grass, just like when I firstly met her. I even heard a slight snoring. Besides her, were some simple equipment, like the grinder, some test tubes and one of these things you use to heat the liquids in the glass equipment, and a distiller.

She seemed to hear me approaching, as she woke up and lifter her head from the ground, looking towards me.

“Hmm… Yeah. It’s these herbs alright…” She rolled aside then looked at the grinder. “Since you already have everything gathered, just ask for the goddess and she’ll do everything for you…” She said halfheartedly. Seems like she is back to being bored, but…

“Err… I think I’d rather do this manually…” I said a bit awkwardly. This made her shot up and look at me surprised. “Well, I’ve been training blacksmithing, leather working and skinning manually, so…” She looked at me completely at loss. “I’ll tell you all the combinations I know up to now if you teach me?”

“Deal.” She said sitting up once again, clearly a lot more excited.

Then she started to guide me. Firstly, she had me grind a red flower until it became a fine dust. Meanwhile, I left the leaf of another one boiling in the water, I saw the leaf slowly losing its color and the water getting a greenish coloration. When the process was done, I had to take out the water and mix it with the grinded flower before boiling once again, until the liquid took a reddish coloration.

What I got was a health pot slightly better than the one I got from Argento!

Afterwards, she had me take one of the mana crystals I had gathered while mining and put it in an acidic solution. The acid quickly dissolved the crystal in a bubbling solution, then she had me add another liquid to mix with the first one and then put it into the distiller. I saw as all the liquid left the solution leaving behind a blue paste. She told me that all I needed to do now was to add water and that paste would become a mana potion.

There were also other process to make mana potions, but it seems that using mana crystals rewards the most potions per material spent.

All this time I had been explaining her what I had gathered from Crystal tinkering, such as grinding increasing elements and combinations I had found.

“Well, for now, I guess I’ll teach you these two so you can get the basic, but by the time you come to the shop next, I’ll give you a book with some recipes for you to follow. Teaching them all one-by-one is a bit too much for me.”

“I see…” I said, then she stood up and gathered all the items she brought with her.

“Now, teach me mining.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, teach me mining! I want to play a bit more with these crystals!

“Err… How do I do it?” I asked a bit confused. I mean, can I even teach skills to NPCs?

“You never taught anyone?” She asked surprised, then shrugged. “Well, you look pretty young, I guess…” For some reason the tone of her words really annoyed me… “It’s simple. Just focus on your skill, and when the goddess show you it’s information, you get that window and push it towards the one you want to teach. All you need is to be above level 5 in that skill.”

I blinked in surprise. That was fairly simple. Bringing up the window and pushing it towards her head like all the other NPCs did to me, it seemed that she learned the skill, as she stared at the air for some time, then nodded happily.

“Just as a warning, I’m not giving you my pickaxe.” I said in a deadpan face, but she laughed it off.

“I know. I plan on getting one myself.” She looked back towards the city. “It’s been almost a hundred years since I found something so interesting and new!” She said in a happy mood. I could only laugh dryly at this.

“By the way, do you know where I can find some level 15 or so beasts around here?” I asked her before she could run off.

“Hmm? Why would you want something so specific?” She asked confused, but once again shrugged. She does that a lot, doesn’t she? “Well. The last time I came out, I heard that there were some red tails somewhere to the north. They look like foxes, but can cast magic, so be careful.” She said pointing into a direction. Was that the north? When I looked at the minimap, it said that was the west… “Also, be careful, because there seems to appear a fairly strong monster there from time to time.”

I thanked her and saw as she ran off to the city to get herself a pick axe. Meanwhile, I went towards the true north. Even if I took a pretty big detour, I was finally going to find myself some new preys.

Sidestory Runic Path