Short summary of the last chapter:

Spoiler : Voice decided to go around town looking for EDI. He found out she was helping npcs for free. He decided to do the same. After helping a large amount of people he gathered some ingredients and made some potions.

Hey guys I’m doing a point of view this chapter. Tell me if you like it. If not I’ll just keep to Voice. And also tell me if you find anything wrong, in any of the chapters. I will fix it as soon as i see the comment. Thanks for reading!

Susan’s POV:

By the time Susan came back with the needed information, Voice was lightly snoring on the desk.

“I guess after working so hard he deserves so kind of rest.” She went a few houses down and got Evan. Evan seemed to fawn over Voice as if he were a younger brother or a son, maybe a bit of both. Susan shook the incestuous thought out of her head.

As always the blacksmith was working on some weapon or armor. Susan didn’t really care which. Metal never really piqued her interest as much as harnessing the raw potential of the natural world. She would often come see Elizabeth, and by extension Evan. She would test out new remedies for her friend, it would never work, but occasionally she would hit something that helped a bit. As was her habit she was already up the stairs. She didn’t even remember if she said hi to Evan. She decided since she was here she might as well say high to her friend. Elizabeth was knitting on the bed.

I guess after all these years of basically being bed ridden she is used to it.

Susan said hi and asked to borrow Evan for a bit. Elizabeth greeted her and answered yes. She didn’t even think about it. If it was her best friend Susan’s request there wasn’t much she’d say no to.

Susan went back downstairs, and found Evan. He was putting a sword on the grind wheel. “Excuse me Evan, but I need your muscles.” She said eyeing his muscles. Susan always found a way to make Evan feel a little uncomfortable. Truth is Susan was trying to formulate a way to steal the behemoth’s muscular structure.

“Whatcha’ need em for exactly? And I do hope I can keep em on me. I’ll be needin em for the next sword I’ll be makin.” Evan’s natural speech was a terrible mess of words. He only corrected it in his wife’s presence; even then it was only when she was sick. Most people got to know THIS Evan and thought the Evan that spoke in full English was an imposter.

Susan sighed; Evan always had some weird knack for figuring out her thoughts. Well they had known each other almost as long as he knew Elizabeth.

“Well Voice was at my place all night, and I need your help to bring him up stairs.”

Evan rushed to put down the sword and go to Susan’s place.

I’m impressed with how much Voice means to him now. I wonder if I should tell him my speculations on Voice. I guess I’d better not. As long as Voice is helping people it doesn’t matter for what reason.

Susan remembered the potions Voice made; she decided to identify all of them. The chore took half an hour, but was well worth it. Many of the potions had a little under twice the potency of what they should have.

I can’t believe a beginner could make these! I’m going to have to set up some intense training for him. He might even surpass me one day.

She went to the library while Voice was asleep. She talked to Lydia for a while. Lydia was a longtime acquaintance. Seeing as Susan often bought books for entertainment, and was a somewhat well-known author on Herbology, Lydia greeted her warmly.

“Well hello there Susan! I haven’t seen you in a few days. Something really interesting must be happening around your place, hm?”

Lydia never left the library. She had all of her purchases done by the assistant librarians, or delivered directly to her room on the third floor. Somehow, though, she knew all the town gossip.

“Well,” replied Susan with a warm smile, “Since you already seem to know, I have taken an apprentice. “ Susan was pretty happy about having an apprentice; Lydia wouldn’t be able to ruin her happy mood today.

Lydia smiled, already guessing what the alchemist was going to ask.

“So my apprentice is going to come by soon. I’ll need you to give him something to help him along. Of course you can’t tell him I asked you to.” Susan asked Lydia in the most non-pleading way she could. Lydia smirked. Lydia usually charged quite a bit for favors. Susan was dreading what this one would cost her. Lydia was the ultimate master within the realm of knowledge. If you had any question about anything written in any public book, and many private ones, she was the person to ask.

Lydia asked Susan, “So how many apprentices have you had in the some odd years you have been studying alchemy?”

Susan answered, “None, besides him.”

Lydia asked, “And why was that again.”

Susan sighed; this was an old game Lydia liked to play. Susan would often come in to sell a particularly powerful piece of alchemic information, and Lydia would badger her.

“So you came to sell another piece of knowledge?” Lydia would ask.

Susan would always sigh and answer, “Yes, I have knowledge and need money.”

Lydia would ask, “So why don’t you get an apprentice? You could get them to make a few potions for you, and share your information with them.”

“You know why I won’t get one. No one is even half as intelligent as they need to be to understand my work. If I ever met someone like that then I would be probably need to dissect their brains to see if they were mortal.”

Back in the present:

Lydia said, “Well if this boy is enough to pique your interest, then I guess I can help.”

“Alright, thanks. But what do you want in return?”

“Oh nothing much, just let me borrow him for a while.” Lydia gave a small wicked grin.

Susan was worried what Lydia might do, but she didn’t really have a choice to further his knowledge enough to understand her work.

Voice’s POV:

He woke up in a very comfortable bed. Susan was sitting at a chair, writing on a parchment. She seemed to be studying morning vine roots. She had cut it open and was she was pouring some sort of bubbling liquid. She hadn’t noticed him yet so he decided to take a peek at her notes.

She had been experimenting with the effects of something called the corodus flower. It could melt metal, but left all living things alone. He decided to interrupt her and ask,

“So why are you pouring an acid on a plant?”

Susan was pulled from her intense concentration when Voice spoke his question.

“Be quiet and look if you’re interested.” Susan used a bit of a harsh tone.

Voice was taken aback by this. He had never heard her use such a tone.

Well whatever, this seems interesting; and she did let me stay in her bed after all.

So he watched. The bubbling liquid quickly turned the root into some sort of rust colored sludge.

“Eureka!” Susan exclaimed in a mild, yet extremely happy roar. “I’ve been working on this most of the time you were asleep. It was conjectured that by some alchemist, his name escapes me, that corodus fluid, a poison made of the corodus flower, could under the right conditions melt living matter. I’ve used iron root, which can give metallic properties to many animals and plants, to cause the hard root of the morning vine to turn to metal. The newly metalized roots melted when I introduced them to the corodus blossom!”

Voice thought it was weird for the corodus root to turn things into sludge, but it sounded like rust. “So what you’re saying is that the iron root turns the root into an iron like substance. And the corodus root oxidizes it?”

“What do you mean by oxidizes?” Susan didn’t know what that word meant, but it seemed like Voice understood the basic principle of the test.

“It’s a chemical reaction where water gets into iron or steel like metals and causes a bonding between the oxygen in the water and the metal itself.”

Susan was very intrigued. She forgot about her experiment, giving it no more thought since it didn’t expose anyone to danger. What was all this about water containing oxygen?

“What do you mean the oxygen in the water?” Susan asked to make sure he did not misspeak.

“Ugh, well I’m not a chemistry expert or anything, but water is H two O.” He began writing on one of the empty sheaves of paper. “Two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen form some sort of fusion because of the electrons in the valence shell. This particle becomes a water molecule. It takes millions of water molecules to equal even a drop of water.”

“Wait, wait, wait. You mean to tell me that even a single drop of water contains as much ‘water molecules’ as the beach has sand? Well, what else is made up of these? I assume the air we breathe has at least the oxygen molecule since we call it oxygen.”

Susan had never felt so inquisitive, at least not since she left her master’s alchemy lab several years ago. Back then she was always coming up with new questions. She would in fact ask questions whenever she had gotten an acceptable answer to her last question. It made her the most irritating pupil her master ever had, but also the one best suited to teach his trade to.

“Um, I’m sorry, but I don’t know a lot about it. I do know that everything in the world, in the universe, is made up of atoms. There are something like a hundred and twenty elements. Each one is a type of atom.”

“So fire is an atom?” Susan asked enthralled.

“No, fire is just heated air. I’m sorry I really don’t how to explain it.”

Susan felt a brief instant of sadness, the feeling of being let down by your hero, but this man had done nothing other than speak about a new piece of reality to her. Why should she be sad now that she had a whole new area of science to study? As she thought this she felt elated. She would find out where this man learned his information, and go there. She would give him the shop for the information, so that she would have no responsibilities.

“Perhaps you could tell me where you got this information then? Then I could go learn it there myself.”

Voice inwardly cursed. The rules never said it was bad to tell the NPCs that they were from another world, but then again there hadn’t really been any rules. Voice decided to tell her, if only to see her reaction to him.

“Well you see, your world is only one of many. I came from a world only one step away from this one. Probably the two closest worlds, well we have only started to discover this one. Anyway I could go back there and get some information, but time goes slower there. So if I were gone for only a week in my view, I would have disappeared for over a month in your world.”

As soon as he finished his first sentence Susan knew what was coming. The Sun Goddess told of the outsiders approach. It was stated that in the future five outsiders would appear. For a month and a week it would be only them. But then a massive outpour of outsiders would come in. The outsiders were not bound by normal societal laws. Since they could die and resurrect it would not be a problem for them to take on a city by themselves. Susan realized the true power of the outsiders from her apprentice. This man would one day rule the alchemy world, and probably the ‘chemistry’ one too if she had anything to say about it.

“So you’re an outsider huh? The Sun Goddess spoke of your arrival. She said you would change our world completely.”

Voice was impressed, she had not reacted in any way that he thought she would. She did not freak out, and did not call him a liar.

Hmm, maybe she is extremely intelligent, or maybe just a trusting fool. The sun goddess must be Kelsey. She did appear as the Sun.

Susan continued, “So is there any way you could get me more information about this chemistry?” Susan begged him with big wet eyes. Unfortunately Voice always realized when he was being taken advantage of. He would never allow such a thing to happen. It was the most despicable thing to use another living being for your own purposes. Of course NPCs and other players were exempted from his rule, but since she was asking so nicely though he might get something out of it.

“I’ll try to look, but you have to be patient. Remember the time difference.”

Brenton logged out of the game. He used the restroom, seeing as how he had been in the pod for a while, and grabbed another quick bite to eat. It was nighttime by now. He was glad no one tried to take him out of the pod for socializing. He did a little research about chemistry. He memorized the first ten elements of the periodic table, as well as the overall shape of the table.

When he logged back in he got two messages:

For showing Susan a new line of research you have gained maximum intimacy with Susan the Alchemist. She is now willing to go to any lengths for you. Seeing as she will spearhead the chemistry science this is probably good.

For using too much outside knowledge for in game purposes knowledge will be severely limited in game. NPCs will no longer understand things that are not researched in their world. Players will no longer gain bonuses to things that outside knowledge would give them unless they practice it in game.

Ps. Way to ruin it for everyone.

Pps. Jackass.

Voice was very confused. It did seem as though DIVE knew that he was using outside knowledge somehow, but how would it effectively block it? He went to Susan to try to explain the ten elements he discovered.

“I’m sorry I just don’t get any of this. It’s like I know it’s not hard to grasp, but my mind just won’t hold the information down. I’m such a failure as a scientist.” Susan looked as though she would burst into tears. Distraught at the sight Voice quickly comforted her.

“Don’t worry the system message, er… the Sun Goddess told me you probably wouldn’t be able to understand. It seems as though I’ve taken too much knowledge from my world.”

“Oh so that means this entire venture was for naught!?” Susan was on the brink of crying now.

“No! It just means we have to research all of this information in this world, please don’t cry Susan.”

Susan immediately realized this is what she wanted. This was a whole new field to study, with no previous knowledge except for a small start. Susan beamed at Voice. Her life was given new purpose. She could never tell him how much she admired him for setting her on this path.

“Well as long as I can study it then I will!”

Good, Voice inwardly sighed a sigh of relief. It looks like Susan won’t cry after all. I would have hated for the intimacy to drop over something this small. Geez even if she can’t study a new stupid science she could study plants!

“As long as you can study this new science do you mind if I borrow your alchemy book?” Voice figured it was a pretty big deal for an alchemist to give away their book. It was like a miner giving away rights to his mine. However since he achieved the highest intimacy possible with Susan he thought he might as well try.

Susan knew he didn’t understand what he was asking. Giving lending others your recipe book was like a miner giving away his mine, but since he had helped her discover this new fascinating toy ‘chemistry’ she didn’t mind. Already she was leaving the vault of alchemy to carve out a new, better vault named chemistry.

Outsiders really are weird. Susan thought to herself.

“Sure go ahead, but just remember I’m only doing this because I like you, most people would call for a duel if you asked them that. Here let me get the protection spells off it. Also I suggest you put some protection spells on yours. I have a scroll of book binding so no one will be able to take it off your person without your permission, but you really should add a little more security to it unless you want everyone to be able to make your potions.”

Voice didn’t realized others could copy his book. He decided to get more defense spells for his book as soon as possible.

“Thanks Susan! So are you sure it’s alright for me to copy some of your recipes?” Voice feigned concern at the thought.

“Sure give me a second.”

Susan handed him her recipe book, his own started glowing when she did.

You have obtained Susan’s Alchemy Recipe Book. You now have access to all of Susan’s recorded recipes and notes on her experiments. Estimated quality: Artifact, Estimated value: 100 gold.

Susan has fused her recipe book to yours. You now own Voice’s Recipe Book with bonus content from Susan the Alchemist.

“Identify: Voice’s Recipe Book with bonus content from Susan the Alchemist.”

Voice’s Recipe Book with bonus content from Susan the Alchemist

A one of a kind super ultra-rare book… is included in this novice's book.

You have basically obtained most of the important information on a large amount of plants. Susan’s book augmented your own. Susan’s book protection spells have been added to yours.

Your book can never be taken out of your inventory unless you intentionally do so.

You can read and write in your book while it is still in your inventory.

Your book is now encrypted. Only you can easily decipher it.

The weight of your book has become one pound. No matter how many pages you add to it, it will remain one pound.

Your book is now 100% resistant to fire.

Your book is now 100% resistant to wind.

Your book is now 100% resistant to earth.

Your book is now 100% resistant to wind.

Your book is now 100% resistant to poisons.

Your book is now 100% resistant to potions.

Your book is now 100% resistant to magic not cast by you.

Your book is now 100% resistant to magic you cast that can harm it.

Your book cannot be opened without your permission.

Your book has a password combination.

Your book can’t be understood by those lacking in knowledge of alchemy.

Your potions have been increased by 25% potency.

Ps. You can’t sell this book.

The first thought that Voice had after this was:

,,,

After his initial shock of several minutes, he read the information boxes. It seemed as though Susan’s enchantments on her book transferred to his. He was amazed at how much this book could sell for. He also found it quite unbelievable that it was Artifact quality. He was slightly concerned with some of the protection spells. He opened his book to see some of his own information on the materials he had worked with augmented with Susan’s. When he opened it he got a message:

Please set the password combination. It must be at least four numbers. You may also add up to 10^10 numbers, 10^10 letters, twelve security questions, an iris scan, a finger scan, a blood scan, and a cat scan.

Ps. -(Both types of cat scans, it can scan your cat, or give you a diagnosis of your brain. Jk, jk. But the pet one is real)-

He set the combination. Voice asked himself what kind of crazy shit was in this book for her to have so much security. When he looked at his book he noticed one thing.

EVERYTHING IS ENCRYPTED!!!

Voice asked, “So what is the encryption code?”

Susan was stunned, she had forgotten that she had made a bet with her master. She had vowed to never take a pupil. Her master said it would be impossible for her not to feel the need to share her information with someone. She did indeed feel that way at times. That is why she would sell that info to the librarian Lydia. Her master mad a bet:

“Since you are so insistent on never taking an apprentice, if you ever do you must turn over your alchemy book to this person.”

Seeing her hesitant face he gave her a scroll he had prepared the day before.

“Use this scroll, or I win the bet by default. I must mention that if you use this scroll, whoever you give your alchemy book to will have it absorbed into theirs.”

She had totally forgotten about that stupid bet after all this time. She was lost in thought when she heard Voice calling her name.

“Susan? Oh your back. I was just asking what the encryption code is.”

“Encryption code?”

Voice told her about the encryption part of the book, no doubt she didn’t think about it since she was so smart. It was probably so simple to her it didn’t even register.

“Oh, that. Uh I don’t really know. I had that spell designed so that only people with at least moderate knowledge of each plant could gain my theories and research regarding each one.” Voice waited with a blank expression. “I guess that you will have to find and study each plant a bit in order to unlock the information. I would tell it all to you but honestly there is so much in there that I’m not even sure anymore. And unfortunately I can’t’ read it, as it has been encrypted. You could try to find a descriptor, but you would have to give them your book. If you did that the book would become theirs.”

Susan was apologetic that she didn’t have any info for Voice. She had never thought this would happen.

Voice was quite angry. The system says I can’t sell this book, but if I can’t read it what’s the point in having the damn thing? Plus, how the hell can she be so fucking STUPID!?

Voice was put off by the lack of proper thought Susan had shown. He had obtained some god tier alchemy book, but it was virtually useless since he couldn’t read any of the information, and he had a nagging feeling that no amount of decryption would work.

He wanted to at least make sure his information was still there, but had no idea how to search through it.

Just then a notification popped up.

To search for items in your alchemists book merely say Search, followed by the name of the thing you wish to search. If that particular piece of information is in your book it will turn to that page.

“Search: Green Healing Potion.”

His book instantly opened and turned to the exact page he needed. Which was almost the first page in this case. It had all the information on what he had discovered, as well as a few things he didn’t know. Such as if you were to heat the green healing potion and evaporate the water, it would turn into a powder after about a day. The book gave a brief description of the process. This green healing powder was especially potent and could be add to another green healing potion instead of one of the common weeds’ blossoms.

This brought up a whole new level of potion making to Voice’s attention. Sure he realized the effect of common weed was only to bulk up the effect, but he had no idea you could substitute it with other ingredients. This was going to alter the way he made potions.

Unfortunately most of the page was still in gibberish. His method for creating the potion was untouched, so he guessed his method was better, or at least more precise, than Susan’s. He asked Susan if he could borrow her lab for a short while, so that he might try some of this new knowledge out.

Susan absentmindedly answered yes. Voice was worried about how she was reacting to this whole situation. Since he didn’t want to go through the trouble of finding out what was wrong he told Susan about a very simple alchemy test. He might not be able to bring in knowledge from his world, but he could at least give her an extremely general idea as to where she should begin.

He suggested that Susan go see Evan. When she asked why he answered,

“Well you can since rust is just iron and oxygen what would you get if you took the oxygen out?”

“Obviously iron.”

“Exactly, now I’ve never done any blacksmithing, but I’m pretty sure Evan might be able to help you turn a rusted object back into iron.”

Susan thought this idea was great. She was so enthralled by it in fact that she left her store, completely forgetting about her book.

After she had left Voice spent about a minute to gather the needed materials, and make a health potion. He had used critical strike a total of two times. His stamina didn’t recharge yet, but he didn’t have a way to know what would be a critical strike in drying the health potion anyway. He checked his alchemy skill and was surprised to see that he did not get any experience from this potion. He was either too advanced for getting any worthwhile exp from this potion, or the system recognized what he was going to do and would give him exp upon completion.

As he finished he noticed a customer waiting at the counter. He quickly looked for Susan, than remembered that she was with Evan. He was slightly upset at being pulled from his work.

Shit, well I guess I did agree to help her with the shop.

“I’m sorry about that sir, I was rather absorbed in my work. “

“No problem,” the man answered, amicably. “It’s just what one would expect from Susan’s disciple. So what are you working on, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Voice decided that if he showed this man the experiment he might be able to finish it. So he smiled and restarted his experiment.

“I am trying to use this alembic to try to turn the health potion into a sort of powder.”

The man nodded his head seriously.

Voice didn’t hear any other questions from the man so he continued. It took about ten minutes of fiddling with the heating mechanism, but finally managed to get the heat to where the liquid should boil at the perfect temperature. His alchemy book had recorded the process and augmented the knowledge Susan had stored there. The liquid slowly started evaporating. After another ten minutes the rest of the water in the mix had all gone. What was left was an exceptionally fine green powder.

When it was done he gained a total of four hundred exp for the alchemy skill. Normally a potion made by someone that started alchemy two days ago would heal the average of 25 hp. With his 32% total bonuses that could be raised to 32.5, but with his critical skill it was raised by an addition 40%. Since he could easily make a potion of 43 potency, the only explanation for his massive green healing potion of 74 points was a heck of a lot of critical hits. This potion healed about three times as much as a normal potion made with the same materials. Voice was pretty proud of himself.

When he evaporated the water, he put the powder in a cloth bag. He examined the bag.

“Identify.”

Green Healing Powder Bag

A bag filled with a very rare powdered form of the low quality green healing potion.

It is rare because the level of mastery needed to make it would indicate the use of better materials.

This powder heals a base amount of 50 hp.

While the description said 50 hp, he assumed that it was only based on a 25 point health potion. The powder he had in his hands healed 222.

Since Susan said to heat the water, and it should only double the effects, I guess the slower you evaporate it the higher the quality.

You have gained one wisdom.

Voice was very excited, not only was he right about the powder, but he gained another point of wisdom. His mana regen speed was now two points per second.

He decided that he would definitely make more of this powder, and then substitute both common weeds in his recipe for the powder.

Stats WindowNameVoice0fReasonClassN/AHealth100Mana110Stamina130Level1Current TitleVitamin C KingHealth Regen/Sec1.0Mana Regen/Sec2.0Stamina Regen/Sec1.1Strength11Agility10Wisdom20Intelligence11Endurance11Dexterity25Luck10Vitality13Charisma11Fame185

Skills WindowIdentify Novice Level 2 Exp 35.00%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 5 Exp 22.22%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 54.00%