Short summary of the last chapter:

Spoiler : Voice sold the potions he made to his master. He then delivered them to a blacksmith he had met earlier. He was told all about the blacksmith’s wife’s condition. He accepted then solved the quest using knowledge from outside the game. He obtained max intimacy with the blacksmith.

Voice inwardly smiled. He could get free items from the blacksmith. He instantly made a decision.

Well, I guess until I outgrow this guy’s stuff I might as well just use him, instead of doing the job myself.

“Thank you for the offer Evan. Sadly I’m a little busy learning Susan’s trade, so I must decline the offer of apprenticeship. I would like to take you up on the offer of crafting for me. “

“Of course, of course, I’ll make you anything you want just name it. If it’s within my power I’ll make sure you get it. I’ll provide the materials for anything mundane. If it’s exotic I’ll need some help to get the materials.”

Voice thought it best to keep the favors as minimal as possible, so that he could keep the favors coming for longer.

In the best case I could provide materials and get the weapons and armor forever!

“I am glad you are willing to do that for me, but I would feel bad if I didn’t at least provide you the materials. So would it be ok to give you the materials and have you make the stuff?”

Evan immediately agreed. With those conditions he could still afford to let his wife lead a good life, without worry of money issues. Susan handed Voice a key to her apothecary, so that he could use it at any time; even when she was asleep.

Voice bid farewell to the trio and decided to find the other four players. They had a week before the general populous would be allowed into DIVE, so he wanted to make a good impression on them before they started forming clicks; even though they may have already started. He would be sure to see what strengths they had, and use them accordingly.

Voice went to the square; it seemed the NPCs didn’t take notice of the sudden appearance of five individuals. Maybe someone saw where the others went. He decided to go for the DefiledHealer. That person seemed to be watching everything from afar, so was the most plausible choice as he was most likely a person that found it hard to get along with others. This would be perfect since he could more easily separate this person from the others. ShortDwarf didn’t have any glaringly obvious characteristics to go off of so he would be one of the last ones Voice went after. Voice would need more information. LastingBeauty wouldn’t be that hard, what with her name and character who seemed extremely vain. People that exemplified personality flaws were some of the easiest to manipulate.

EDI was a complete mystery. Other than her tattoo there was no information. She could be vain, or very nervous about people forgetting who she was. Voice knew she needed to be on his team though. Character creation didn’t really give information on what you could change, since she figured out that she could have a tattoo she must have high intellect.

So DefiledHealer, then EDI, then LastingBeauty. That’s a good list; I’ll go with that.

He asked around the fountain if anyone had seen where the man that was sitting on the fountain went. After asking around for a few minutes someone told him that man went following one of the other four people that came into the city yesterday. Since he couldn’t get any more information about Defiled, he decided to go try to find EDI.

It was surprisingly easy to get information about her. One NPC told Voice

“It’s like she just has a hankering for helpin’ folks out.”

Another told him, “Yeah, she helped me out, sweet little thing didn’t even ask for a reward. If you find her tell her that if she has any problems make sure ta make sure an come see me.”

All in all Voice decided she was doing charity work for the city.

I hate it when other people work the same as me, but is she trying to upstage me? Doing all this work for free must have some benefits not listed in the quests. Shit what if I could have gotten better rewards from keeping Evan’s wife from kicking the bucket!

As his curiosity was growing about the other two he asked about them as well. Apparently they did a really low level quest, bought a weapon each and left the town to hunt.

Shit looks like that damn dwarf beat me to her.

He decided to find EDI, and help her do ‘charity’ around town.

At least the NPCs will like me more, maybe I could even get a discount at their shops.

He checked his stats window. He noticed that the title Vitamin C King was equipped.

Funny when I got the title Susan’s Apprentice it didn’t automatically get equipped. Maybe it’s because everyone will recognize me anyway? But no one has said anything about Susan so far.

He tested it out. Apparently people only recognize that title if he has it equipped, or tells them he is her apprentice. He decided to keep the King title and just introduce himself as her apprentice.

He saw a couple with a child. The child had a long gnash across his stomach. Voice quickly ran over to where the trio was standing. As he got closer he noticed the woman was holding the crying child’s hand, and yelling at the man. He remembered a similar scene in his childhood, minus the gnash of course. He couldn’t recall it particularly well since he was only around four years old, but after that his father left. He hadn’t seen him since.

He interrupted them.

“Hello, sorry for the interruption, but I see you son has a rather large wound on his stomach. It isn’t bleeding profusely but it should still be treated. If you could bring me some cloth I think I could help. “

The man looked hesitant, but only for a moment. The couple ran inside to look for something to be used as a bandage. Voice quickly used his plant location skill to locate some common weed. He had four leaves from the green healing herbs he had gathered earlier. He quickly started mashing the ingredients together. In less than a minute he had the Green Healing Goop ready.

The couple brought out some thin white cloth that looked like the man had torn it apart. Voice asked for a pitcher of water before he could start.

After receiving the water Voice took the boy’s shirt off and told him to lay down to be bandaged.

If I bandage him after giving him the potion I will make it look like I did a much more intense job. I should get even better rewards to turn down. Then I’ll get even more intimacy.

Voice went to combine the goop and water to have the boy drink, but his hand slipped on the handle of the pitcher and he accidently spilt the water on the boy’s outstretched stomach. The world slowed down for a second as the water fell. He managed to catch the handle of the pitcher, so at least he made it look intentional.

The couple was watching the entire time so he made sure his facial expression stayed impassive. After pouring the rest of the water on the boys wound to ‘clean’ it, he applied the goop.

Hopefully it will at least form into a crappy potion to help the boy.

After letting the goop set he saw it was not fusing to the water. He rubbed it into the wound gently, thinking that it might help the process. After he realized it wouldn’t work he gave up and bandaged the boy.

After completing the bandaging he received several notifications.

Learned Skill First Aid

For successfully cleaning, and applying medicine and bandages to a wound you have learned the First Aid skill.

You have gained 2 wisdom for applying first aid without the skill.

You have gained 1 intelligence for gaining knowledge on first aid.

You have completed the strange couple’s quest. Talk to them for your reward.

When he was done the man said to him, “Thank you sir. We were debating where to take him since I am only a guard, and we don’t have a lot of money. Please take this, it’s only five silver but it’s all we have.”

Voice was sorely tempted to take it, but instead said, “Don’t worry my good sir I did not do this for the reward.(Writer’s note: He’s lying out his ass) I did this to help a child in need. There is no need for reward. If you wish to reward me, give your praises to Susan, my master. Without her I would not be able to make such a healing poultice as I did.”

While the couple was stunned by his generosity he walked off.

You have gained 15 fame for possibly saving the young boy’s life, without asking for reward.

Your fame in the city of Rand has reached 150. You are now somewhat known in Rand. You have about as much reputation as the local head priest at the chapel.

You have gained 1 charisma for successfully convincing others of a motive you did not have.

What the hell? Can this system read my mind? Is that fair, is that even legal?

You have gained the skill Deception for convincingly lying to at least three people at once.

Well, thought Voice happily, as long as I get something from it.

“Identify skill: Deception.”

Deception.

Current Level: Novice Level 1 Exp 0.00%

By using lies to make yourself look better, you have learned the deception skill.

Each level in deception provides a 1% chance that your lies will be accepted by those without knowledge of material you are lying about, furthermore each level grants a .5% chance that your lies will be accepted by those with knowledge of material you are lying about. For every rank you increase your deception skill you will be able to gain bonus deception abilities.

To level this skill you must successfully use it to deceive people.

While in battle you are able to deceive enemies as to what your next action will be.

“Identify skill: First Aid.”

First Aid

Current Level: Novice Level 1 Exp 0.00%

By using salves and bandages, you have learned how to give first aid.

Each level in first aid provides a 10% healing bonus to healing using the first aid skill, and you will become quicker at fixing wounds. For every rank you increase your first aid skill you will be able to suture more increasingly difficult wounds.

To level this skill you must successfully use it to help the wounded.

Even if nothing good came directly from wasting my materials, I guess I did get two skills.

Voice thought about the money he would have made selling the potion. It was about five copper without haggling.

Wait a minute. Susan said she sold the glass bottles for two copper. Does that mean the potions I made are basically worthless!?

Voice had a dilemma. He wouldn’t be able to make a profit with potions if he left this city. He could get the bottles for only a copper for five, because he was Susan’s apprentice, but they would cost ten times that if he were to buy them anywhere else.

Voice went around town for the next few hours helping anyone that needed a bit of first aid, or healing. By the end of the third hour he had gained ten fame; and had helped about a dozen people. He also gained one vitality from all the running, and one dexterity for accurately placing all of the goop and bandages. Oddly enough he only gained half the experience for his alchemy skill for making the green healing goop, but that was acceptable since he was leveling four skills at once. He leveled deception, first aid, gardening, and alchemy at the same time.

His deception skill had leveled significantly. It was already novice level three. His alchemy skill had finally leveled up to novice level two. All of his potions now gained an additional 4% total bonus to potency, thanks to the bonuses from alchemy and Herbology.

After finishing the quests he spent the next several hours picking plants he identified three different plants, leveling up his identify skill to level two. It seemed if he identified plants, both Herbology and identify leveled up.

While he was running around town, he noticed a house that had vines growing from the roof to the ground. He identified it as:

Morning Vine

Found on vines that grow on buildings. It is an ingredient in making mana potions.

If combined with common weed it will make the lowest know potency of mana potion.

Ps. It tastes horrible.

He eventually found a large pond. It was about fifteen feet from side to side. He jumped in and waded to the middle. He gathered two plants; one looked like two green rods connected at the bottom. Each rod had a single yellow petal forming a semi-circle around the tip.

Yellow Skunk Cabbage

An aquatic flower. Its petals can be used as to help with burns.

It can negate burning status of up to 7 points/sec.

Can be made into a potion.

The second plant he found was a lily pad. A large green pad had a frog on the middle. One side of the pad had a beautiful flower growing out of it. It had dozens of white petals encircling a yellow stem in the middly.

Typical of the first lily pad in the game I see has a freaking frog on it.

Water Lily

The flower of this plant is used in many training facilities.

The flower can be used in a potion to instantly regenerate small quantities of stamina.

After he had gathered dozens of each of the plants, and over a thousand common weed, he headed back to Susan’s.

When Voice checked his inventory he noticed that he had a total of twelve slots in his ‘small backpack’ as well as five potion slots on his belt. The green healing herb seemed to stack up to 99, so most likely other potion materials would also stack that high. He did take note of the common weed however.

I was wondering how I could carry so much. I’m glad it stacks up to 999 before making a new stack, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to carry any other ingredients!

By now he had a general idea which direction it was at all times. It only took him an hour to get back. All the while he was gathering all the green healing herbs and common weed he could.

His gardening skill leveled up twice, but once it leveled up to four the common weed no longer gave experience to it. He ended his common weed hunt once he had a thousand common weed.

Once he arrived at Susan’s it was nighttime. Dusk had come and gone while he gathered as much of the common weed as he could. Voice thought the city of Rand was huge. You could easily walk all around it for an entire day and never cross the path you had taken before.

Tonight I’m going to experiment with all of these ingredients. Susan’s intimacy is pretty high so I bet I can trick her into buying them from me anyway.

Once he was back at Susan’s he unlocked the door and quietly began to work. At first he tried creating just one of each type of potion using a new ingredient plus two common weed. The water lily formed a white goop very similar to the green healing goop. The morning vine blossom formed a purple paste, and the yellow skunk cabbage some kept decomposing until it resulted in a fine powder. From this he gained: one potion that restored 26 stamina, a potion that restored 28 points of mana, and a potion that could cure burns of up to 12 fire damage per second.

Obtained novice stamina potion.

“Identify.”

Novice stamina potion.

This potion was made by a promising, up and coming alchemist. It restores a base amount of 25 stamina.

Restores: 26 points of stamina.

Obtained novice stamina potion.

“Identify.”

Novice mana potion.

This potion was made by a promising, up and coming alchemist. It restores a base amount of 25 mana.

Restores: 28 points of mana.

Obtained novice burn heal potion.

“Identify.”

Novice burn heal potion.

This potion was made by a promising, up and coming alchemist. It cures a base amount of 10 burn/sec.

Cures: 12 burn/sec.

Next he tried to use some of the left over materials. He thought that most likely this game would include a way to make potions that you may not know beforehand.

Whenever he made a potion out of the unused parts he got the same message.

The potion you are trying to make has failed. You either have the wrong materials, are improperly mixing them, or do not have the skill to make them.

Bullshit system, giving me stuff I can’t even use.

He carefully made the rest of the materials into potions. During this entire process he kept careful track of where each of his hits with the pestle landed. With his level in dexterity he could accurately hit the same marks about ninety percent of the time.

He only stopped three times during the entire endeavor. Twice to replenish his depleted satiety, and once about two thirds of the way through to give his wrist a break. The first material he ran out of was the green healing herb. He wanted to level up his alchemy as much as possible before working on the other potions. By the time he had used all of the green healing herbs he had leveled up his alchemy to Novice Level 4.

All of his potions now got a total of plus 6% from the start. He also received a skill after making a whopping 300 health potions.

For continually hitting the same marks with precision, you have gained the critical strike skill.

“Identify Skill: Critical Strike.”

Critical Strike

Current Level: Novice Level 1 Exp 0.00%

For continually hitting the same marks with precision, you have gained the critical strike skill.

This skill has an activation cost of 50 stamina. It can be used whenever a critical is possible, in or outside of combat. It deducts stamina regardless of the result of the action’s success of a critical or not.

Each level in critical strike provides a 10% bonus to critical success. For every rank you increase your critical strike skill you will be able to gain more benefits from a successful critical event.

To level this skill you must successfully use this skill to increase the value of a critical event.

That’s an awesome skill, but I don’t remember ever seeing the word critical displayed. Not to mention I’ve never been able to harvest multiple materials from one plant before.

Voice knew that mathematically his health potions should have been healing around 26 health per potion, but his average potion healed more than twice that. It was odd to see a potion that healed less than 55.

Maybe I’ve been getting critical hits a lot on my potions.

He decided to talk to Susan about it when she woke up. He looked in his alchemy book while on his second satiety break, the first being about halfway through the health potions creation. It had recorded the general way to make the health potions, as well as the best method he had discovered for each step of the creation process. Furthermore since he had been so thorough in analyzing the way he made each potion the book even told him where and how hard to hit.

He smiled, that means I don’t even have to analyze the new potion to see if it is better. I’ll just try a bunch of different methods and see which is best. All I have to do is keep detailed track of each step.

That is exactly what he did, for the first ten of each of the new potions he tried out a variety of different methods to obtain optimum results. After the first ten he went with the best method recorded in his book. After every nine potions after the first ten he would again experiment, having had time to think up a better way to create a certain part of the potion.

The averages of the mana and stamina potions were about 40. While this wasn’t as great as the 60 for the health potion, he had not had the sheer quantity of materials to work with. Since they too started with restoring 25 points, without his bonuses and detailed work they would be only a little better than half the strength. The burn remedy potion had gone from the original 10 points/sec to an astounding 20 points/sec. That was an increase almost as high as the health potion. He had a total of 65 potions of stamina, and mana each, as well as 50 potions of burn remedy.

It took about two minutes to make each potion. Since his critical strike skill could be activated every 45 seconds, he used it about twice each potion. Every time he activated it he would get a message saying ‘critical strike increased result by 10%.’ A little over half way through he started getting the message ‘critical strike increased result by 20%.’

As soon as he finished he stretched, and almost fell off his chair having received various windows.

You have gained the title Night Owl

When you have this title equipped people will recognize you as a person that loves the night. This title makes other night owls friendlier. You become 25% more productive at night.

You gain an automatic + 10 intimacy with other night owls with this title equipped. This does not raise the rank of intimacy.

For working diligently on potions, and showing momentous accuracy you have gained four dexterity.

You have gained 25 fame for making an amazing amount of potions in front of an audience.

Wow, what a hall. And 25%!? I can’t wait till tomorrow night to try that out. Wait what did that say about an audience?

Voice looked around and saw that several dozen people staring intently at him. As he looked at them he noticed the sun had risen a while ago. It was probably already noon.

How did I not notice this many people for so long?

When he looked at the audience they noticed he was done. A cheer ran through the crowd. Susan came over with an apple, a slice of cheese, and a half loaf of bread. There was a gleam in her eyes, and Voice thought she might be drooling slightly when she looked at his potions.

“So Voice0fReason,” Susan said in a bit too formal tone,”It seems as though alchemy really is in your blood. You are going to be a great alchemist one day. I mean,” She set the food down in front of Voice indicating for him to eat. He realized he was ravenous, so he did. She continued, “Since you seem to about double the effects of some potions you must be a researcher. There is no way this is just luck. You did increase the effects of four different types of potions, and the healing potions are probably common quality at least.”

Voice thought to himself only common quality? Why would she need to go out of her way to try to drag me down? FUCK! I’m just learning, it’s not like I’m an NPC that has spent her whole pointless life doing this shit.

Seeing his negative reaction to her words Susan quickly amended her sentence. “What I meant was, usually the best quality you could hope for with these ingredients is mundane. Most people couldn’t go past low. But you somehow managed to bring it up to common. While the others look to be about mundane quality. Imagine what you could do with materials ranked common!”

Voice was a bit confused, he thought these ingredients were ‘common’ quality, so he asked.

“So what quality are the ingredients I’ve been using?”

Susan smirked, as if she had just won a prize from under a hated enemy. “Low, you have been using low quality ingredients to create common quality potions. Admittedly only the health potion is common quality, and even it is on the low side of common, but the fact that you can use materials to such a degree is nothing short of miraculous.”

Voice was quite happy to hear this. All of his hard work paid off, he had suffered a lot, but with his constant perseverance he managed to obtain something no ordinary human could (Brah, you only worked for like two days). An idea sparked in his mind. I could go see if there are any books on plants. This is a big city I’m sure they would have some.

After Susan had looked over the entire batch of potions she made Voice an offer for them, after Voice told her he was going to keep the best 9 health, mana, and stamina potions the price dropped, but was still substantial. Usually it would have been 5cp per potion, but since they were all so freakishly high quality Susan offered a total of four silver. Basically it was twice the going rate of the potions. Voice knew his potions were extraordinary so he wondered for a second if Susan was trying to cheat him, but only for a second. Her intimacy was high enough that he didn’t really think she would.

Besides, she needs to make a profit too. With that he agreed and took the silver. He looked out the store window and saw money changing hands. It seemed he was the source of a small gambling ring. Susan even went out to collect some. She came back with a big bag of silver.

Voice scowled inwardly, I knew she was way too generous!

Despite his expectations at the quasi-betrayal of Susan, she came over and gave him several more silver coins.

“This is for winning me such a large bet.” She gave him a wink.

“Susan, what was the bet about?”

“Oh just how many of the ingredients you would be able to go through before passing out. At first I told a couple of my friends that you were working on potions for a few hours. Don’t give me that look, of course I’m going to watch my star pupil work the night away. I’m not a philistine! Anyway, I told my friends and they told theirs, you know how it goes. Somewhere along the way a richy rich type came along and proposed a bet, seeing as you were looking drowsy. So we started betting on how much you could go through.”

“What was your bet then?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I bet you would go through it all! HAHAHA.”

Voice didn’t know if he should be grateful for the acknowledgement from his ‘master’ or punch her. He decided gratefulness because a punch would probably lower intimacy. All in all today he made 10 silver pieces.

“Susan, do you know anywhere that sells books on alchemy?”

Susan looked like she had just seen Santa pop out of her chimney. “You really ARE a researcher. Here let me go get you some information!”

Stats WindowNameVoice0fReasonClassN/AHealth100Mana110Stamina130Level1Current TitleVitamin C KingHealth Regen/Sec1.0Mana Regen/Sec1.9Stamina Regen/Sec1.1Strength11Agility10Wisdom19Intelligence11Endurance11Dexterity25Luck10Vitality13Charisma11Fame185

Skills WindowIdentify Novice Level 2 Exp 20.00%Skill Fusion Novice Level 2 Exp 25.00%Identify Skill Novice Level 3 Exp 75.00%Herbology Novice Level 1 Exp 40.00%Gardening Novice Level 4 Exp 46.00%Plant Location Novice Level 2 Exp 30.00%Alchemy Novice Level 4 Exp 75.00%Planting Intuition Novice Level 1 Exp 00.00%Alchemical Fusion Novice Level 1 Exp 00.00%First Aid Novice Level 1 Exp 60.00%Deception Novice Level 3 Exp 75.00%Critical Strike Novice Level 2 Exp 53.33%