Short summary of the last chapter:

Spoiler :

Voice found a Gryphon’s nest, and tried to heal the baby. The mother Gryphon told him he had to stay until the baby Gryphon was healed, on pain of character deletion. He also started to enact some plan to make the Gryphon get healed just by being around the plants.

Also, let me know if anything is wrong with the chapter! Be sure to comment!

After waking I reoriented myself. Once I had gathered my bearings I began to plot out my plan. I had thought up a way to actually use the healing properties of the plants without picking them or making them potions.

Step 1) Get my seeds as powerful as possible.

Step 2) Find a way to change the type of seed a plant had.

Step 3) Plant the modified seeds.

Step 4) Get paid in Gryphon blessings.

As least that was the plan. The book on seeds I had gotten from the Falcon guy was actually quite extensive. As was the amount of chapters in his research notes.

After flipping through my compendium to the section on green healing herb seeds, I read. I read all about them, then I went to the section about changing the seeds. It was a sub-category of changing the plant in general.

He didn’t make the exact type of seed I wanted, but he made one close. It would send out its smaller than average sized seeds to blossom nearby. He was trying to make the seed able to travel long distances.

That was as much of a start as I could hope for. At least the seed was propellant, that was the biggest step. The biggest stroke of luck was that one of the many seeds I took was one from the successful propellant plant.

The next day I planted it and my common weed, and had Eli give them as many nutrients as possible. Sol, Tear and Moro were in charge of keeping them in the best health possible.

SparrowHawk was in charge of collecting the seeds once the plant started its pollination process. The bird had actually caught a few small rodents the day before. The food, once cooked and seasoned with green healing herb seeds, was made into a stew and fed to the baby Gryphon.

The Gryphon barely ate, but it did eat some. The stew didn’t seem to have any big effect on its health, but it didn’t decrease at least. After making sure that the fairies knew their parts, I got back into deciphering the spell.

I tried imitating it, but I could only handle making two mana types at once. Whoever made that plague was some sort of magical genius. There is no way something like that is possible normally. I’m glad that guy isn’t here at least.

Whoever made that spell had something wrong with them. I had no problem killing off a few NPCs to get my way, but to them it was real. To the person that made this disease, well that person was knowingly committing genocide. That’s fucked up.

Over the course of the next few days I made magical alterations to the seeds that SparrowHawk gave me. Eli planted them, and then the process repeated.

I made the seeds of the common weed slightly mimic the propellant seed. That way they both were more of a pollen than seeds.

With each generation the seeds of both plants became smaller and smaller. The amount of seeds inside each plant grew with each generation as well.

It was all thanks to the fact that I changed the flow of mana a bit with each seed. I made it structured the exact way I wanted, until it became more like I needed. On the third day I received a notification.

You have created a new sub-species of the Green Healing Herb. You have created the Pollinating Green Healing Herb.

Pollinating Green Healing HerbThe Pollinating Green Healing Herb is a plant that has been genetically and magically modified to fit the purpose of Voice0fReason. This plant sends its pollen into the air. Each ounce of pollen has the same amount of healing power as a single seed from the Green Healing Herb. When combined with Common Weed and water, these spores will create a healing potion. These spores do not need to be ground to put them into a potion.

You have created a new sub-species of the Common Weed. You have created the Pollinating Common Weed.

Pollinating Common WeedThe Pollinating Common Weed is a plant that has been genetically and magically modified to fit the purpose of Voice0fReason. This plant sends its pollen into the air. Each ounce of pollen has the same amount of power as a single seed from the Common Weed. When combined with another alchemic ingredient and water, these spores will create a potion. These spores do not need to be ground to put them into a potion.

FINALLY!

A smile plastered itself across my face. I had finally done it. It took three long, tedious, and above all BORING days of work. With Tear’s help I created an especially moist atmosphere.

Suddenly the entire area began to glow with a faint green aura. I felt a small wave of…, the only word to describe it would have to be freshness.

The thin green mist was revitalizing. The mist seeped into every part of the small cave. A large portion of the mist settled on the baby Gryphon. The Gryphon’s body began to glow with a bright green light.

The Gryphon’s body slowly absorbed the mist. Sadly, the baby Gryphon still didn’t get better. The symptoms of curse seemed to lessen, but was not gone altogether.

Congratulations! You have created a healing field!This field heals 1 hp every 10 seconds. Increasing the potency of the ingredients used to make this field would increase its healing capabilities.

This healing field will effect everything within range. This healing field will damage skeletons.

Congratulations! You are the first player to create a healing field!You have gained 50 fame. You have gained 15 intelligence for showing outstanding intellect in the field of healing.

I went up to the mother Gryphon. Now, I’m going to need something if you want me to keep this up.

The mother Gryphon was gently nuzzling her young. She looked haggard. “What is it Hermit? And why do you not already have it?”

I shook my head. Of course I don’t have them. I had no idea that I’d be healing a baby Gryphon with a cursed plague.

I need for you to bring me the body of a human. It has to be one that is an other-worlder. I’m also going to need a dead tree trunk. And it would be helpful if you could find me a venomous snake. Dead. I just need to extract its venom.

Without questioning why I need the products, the mother Gryphon flew off. To Ancestor I thought, Ah, thank god she didn’t ask why I needed all of that stuff. It would have been taxing to make something up.

Ancestor agreed. “Yes, well I think it is a good plan to see about unraveling the curse, as well as to keep yourself in the game.”

My plan was to have two things that might help with the baby Gryphon, and one that would help me. I had the mother collect the dead tree trunk so I could plant the better version of the healing plants. If I could make those spores permeate the air, then the healing field I made would be even more potent.

The snake was to unravel the mana signature of the venom. If I could figure out how to deconstruct basic venom, then I could work my way up to higher tiered things like curses. It would give me a much bigger chance to successfully destroy the curse plaguing the baby Gryphon.

The other player was for me. I wanted to see if having other sentient beings kill for me would still grant me points. There was no reason not to capitalize on the service I was providing. I was healing the baby Gryphon, it was only fair to be paid.

Plus, if they had their characters permanently deleted, I wouldn’t have to suffer any consequences from their hate of dying.

Wait a fucking minute! As the thought started to form in my mind I began to get angry. THIS FUCKER!

Why would the game makers put us in a situation that could get our character’s permanently deleted while doing this test for them?

Answer: They wouldn’t. No one in their right mind would put a bunch of players, no matter how high level, in a place where they might lose the one thing keeping them playing this game.

You have broken free from the fear effect caused by the Gryphon Mother.After realizing the illegitimacy of an earlier conclusion, you have become immune to the fear effect caused by the Gryphon Mother that caused the fear effect. Your Trait ‘Complete Immunity’ has increased from 50% damage protection to 55% damage protection.

What the fuck do you mean an ‘earlier conclusion’!? You told me that! Shitty program was trying to pass this situation off as my own mistake.

I had thought it was weird that a random monster could delete a character completely, but it made sense now that I knew it was just a fear effect.

I inadvertently sneered at the baby Gryphon. Of course I wouldn’t harm the thing, yet. I would wait until I had the large blades, and make sure to have a little fun. I wonder if a mother Gryphon would jump off a cliff to save her young? Especially if her wings were clipped.

The thought amused me. I replayed it a few times before trying my hand at de-configuring the plague spell again.

I tried to fuse light mana to the darkness pool at the center of the spell, but the spell only absorbed it and caused 3 damage to the Gryphon. I healed the thing and tried again. I tried messing with the mana tubes, but that only caused the gryphon more damage.

I barely had time to heal the beast before its mother returned. Inside her gigantic claws was a rotting tree trunk, and a dead snake. In her jaws was a limp elven woman. I quickly glanced at my points. They had indeed rose by 16 points.

I had a total of 362 points total. If I could somehow kill off both of the people in the group of two, then I’d have more points than someone would get for killing me.

Thank you. I need you to make sure no others find this place. The healing area might seep into the air and draw people here. If that were to happen, then your hatchling might be in danger. I disgustingly shook my head. Gryphon feathers sell for a high price in our society.

I could feel the mother Gryphon’s anxiety and anger. She had an iron will, since she managed to not let her anger escape her.

All I need right now is for you to answer one question. She was listening intently. Can baby Gryphons eat snakes after the venom is drained? She looked confused for a moment.

“Of course. It’s not like we are as weak as humans.” She scoffed as she flew down to guard our sanctuary.

I gave the seeds for the Blood Lotus to Moro and Sol. “You two start planting these and make sure they get the same treatment as the other healing plants. I also want you to only allow the Green Healing Herbs with the fastest and most potent spores to repopulate.”

I was basically using this entire situation to test out a few great theories that would massively help out my town, once I started one that is.

Eli was also put to work giving nutrients to the plants. With the massive amount of spores produced by the plants, SparrowHawk had a difficult time keeping them all in check.

If the plants were all planted at the same time, the effect would have multiplied many fold. The only real drawback was that it would have only activated once every x amount of time.

The plants only sent out spores about once every twelve hours. Since they were each planted at different times, they sprayed in intervals. That way the field was constantly maintained.

I studied the venom of the snake. It was mostly nature and water mana, with streaks of darkness spiraling through it.

I tried to perfectly replicate the proportions of the mana. I associated being able to create this triple mana spell with the possibility of breaking the enchantment the baby Gryphon was under.

I had to make sure I didn’t have a repeat of what happened back in the worm tunnels. That would be the worst case scenario.

Base water mana was 44%. The water mana was in the shape of a sphere. The nature mana was exactly 40%. It was in 16 small bubbles that were each exactly 2.5% of the total mana used. The 16% darkness mana made 1% spirals in each of the nature mana bubbles.

I was stunned when I looked at the mana. Not because of the complexity of the structure, but because I had assumed that all mana was in 5% blocks.

Replicating that mana was going to be next to impossible. I decided to start with the easiest part. I created a large glob of water.

I made sure to go to the edge of the cave so I could collect water that wasn’t part of the healing field. I worked too hard to have it screw up over something small.

Tear still had to maintain the mist area to keep the field going, but I had a plan that would help with that. After I tried to re-make the venom anyway.

I created a large ball of water. With Ancestor’s help I added in exactly 10/11ths of that amount of nature mana. Then I put in 2/5ths of the amount of nature mana worth of darkness mana. The totals came to: 88 water mana, 80 nature mana, and 32 darkness mana.

I forced the darkness mana inside of the nature mana orbs. By the time the darkness mana was split into 16 equal parts, I could no longer hold the water mana. The entire concoction fell to the ground below. Covering some small part of the forest below with an unfortunate fusion of mana.

At least now I know I can put three types of mana together if I have it perfectly structured. I just have to keep my mind as analytical as possible.

After the first failed attempt, I decided to go about making my enchanted product.

I forced up a mound of rock. Using the idea from my lenses earlier, I created an object that absorbed fire mana, and output water mana. After only an hour of funneling mana through it, I finally had a success.

I forced the fire mana into the water mana, and added tiny tendrils of water mana into the end of the fire mana streaks. The rock began burning with the fire mana it absorbed.

The ball of molten rock began creating a miniscule amount of water. “Tear, you can stop now buddy.” The jellyfish instantly went back inside of me. The color of Tear’s water ball was diming, so combat was out of the question anyway. Tear needed to regenerate a nice bit of mana before helping me again.

I put the enchanted rock in a hole I instructed Eli to create. It wasn’t big enough to trip over, but it was deep enough so that I wouldn’t touch the lava while walking. The enchantment took most of my mana, but it was worth it.

I now had a way to make the entire ‘healing field’ thing a reality. The mana conversion was my favorite part. Changing one type into another made the mana amount drop drastically, but I didn’t want it to produce too much water vapor.

Normally one would think the fiery ball would melt through the ground, right? Well the genius of my plan took care of that. For the rock around the lava ball to melt, it had to been under hot temperature for a small length of time.

The lava orb absorbed that fire mana back into itself before the rock around it could sustain a high enough temp to melt. It was a self-sufficient enchantment on all accounts.

The reason for those enchantments was simple. For mist to form the temperature near the ground has to be almost 0 degrees Fahrenheit. There also has to be enough moisture in the air for it to accumulate into balls.

The fire enchantment absorbed the fire mana around the area, that is to say it absorbed the heat. Not only did the enchantment get fuel, but it also got the temperature to the needed point.

The water enchantment converted the large amount of heat into water mana. Since the conversion rate was so low, it only made a tiny amount of water. That low amount was what I needed though.

The mother Gryphon might not like the possibly dangerous enchantment so close to her rat, but I could just explain it away by saying it was needed for the treatment.

I looked at the player’s dead body. I decided to get a bit of dissection going on Elves. Upon close inspection I easily saw that she was a High Elf. Well this will be fun.

Not only would I gain attack damage against High Elves, I’d also get a better look at how High Elf women were supposed to look. If I made even the smallest mistake, and someone saw that, my disguise would become useless.

First I started by stripping her clothes. I kept them since they’d be useful later. After that I began the gruesome task of deconstructing the body. I started by peeling the skin off with one of my staff blades.

After removing the skin on both sides of the body, I began to look at the muscle tissue. I was a little worried that I didn’t feel anything in particular about cutting another person up, or gutting them afterwards, but that was a problem for someone else to deal with.

After digging into the body a bit I found some interesting differences between a High Elf, and a human. For instance, High Elves have a much smaller lung size, that could realistically account for the low level of physical prowess the High Elves had.

Most of the muscles seemed to be thicker near the heart and below the forearms. That could have just been the case for the one girl. It suggested she was into something where she had to use her hands. Probably just flipping through books or some such.

After the muscles came the organs. They were the most fun to take apart. The intestines were pretty gross so I tossed those after only a bit of looking. Somehow it felt perverted to look at them.

Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not into necro. I harvested the organs, and after dissecting them all, I fed them to the baby Gryphon. It especially seemed to like eating the heart and brain.

I decided that throwing away the skin and bones would be wasteful. After cutting off the top part which formed the face, I called out Kretchof.

“Here. Take this. Give it to the priest. See if you can get some kind of item for it.”

I got a notice saying that I had completely dissected a High Elf, and would receive a 100% damage bonus while fighting them. I decided to keep the whole ‘surgeon’ thing a secret. I wouldn’t want someone to get ahead because I did work on dissecting people.

Kretchof left with a pile of bones and skin, and came back several minutes later. I was triple checking the enchantment I had placed on the rock.

When Kretchof came back, he handed me an item. “Master. You have been given a gift from the alter.”

Kretchof handed me two tiny eggs.

Dark-kin Spider EggDark-Kin Spiders are found in remote regions where caves have absorbed the power of darkness. This mutated spider has absorbed a small amount of darkness and earth mana into its body. Its silk is highly coveted for its durability and elegance. This egg will hatch when it is infused with at least 100 points of darkness mana. Dark-kin Female Spiders are rare. It is said that only 1 out of a million Dark-kin Spiders are female.

“The priest told me this was for being the first other-worlder to sacrifice at the only alter.”

These spiders would be a great asset. “Kretchof. Can you make it so that the dungeon doesn’t convert this into undead? I want them to still be able to create their webs. Also we need a food supply for them. Some type of weak insect to start with. Rats wouldn’t be remiss either.”

Kretchof disappeared for a moment. When he came back he looked a bit worried. “Well, Master, it is possible, but you have shown an aversion towards killing non-evil humanoids and animals. I could gather up a large amount of insects and rodents, but I would have no way to feed them. If they are monsters though, that will take a large amount of time.”

“Do it. Don’t feed these two mana until you gather a large supply of food for them. Make sure there is enough food to breed to keep them going or else they will still die out quickly. I want to make money off of their silk eventually.”

Kretchof took the eggs and went back to the dungeon. I went back to trying to create the venom to mimic the snake’s venom. I was just hoping the two spiders made enough silk to make a profit, since they were almost certainly both male.

Kretchof’s POV

Master has entrusted me with a very important task. I am to make a livable environment for these spider things to grow in. He even trusted me enough to figure out that he wanted me to breed these things for him.

He stated he wanted me to keep a food supply large enough for them to continue. Obviously anyone with a modicum of intelligence would know that breeding these spiders would be the best way for a profit to be made.

One of the eggs clearly had the red speck indicating a male, and the other had a purple speck indicating a female. Master was anything but below average in the intelligence area. He was the single most cunning person I’d every met.

I called the young necromancer girl to me. I had been training her by having her create death wards in the rooms closest to the throne room. She had already made the wards in four rooms. That was impressive in and of itself.

The wards would cast a random low level death spell on any who entered. It was a great way to bulk up the defenses without using and DPs. She had almost finished her fifth one when I returned. I waited patiently outside of the room until she finished. Even though the rooms got shuffled every few days, the enchantments on them would stay the same.

After she left the room to start on the sixth one, I intercepted her. “Hold there, young apprentice. My Master has given me a task. A task I think you to be capable of doing.” Her eyes lit up at the idea of getting a task from my Master.

As if she would be so lucky to get a task directly from him. Only his most trusted tools would be given jobs higher than sweeping the floor.

“My Master has given me these for his dungeon.” I showed her the eggs. “These are Dark-kin Spider eggs. He wishes to create an area for them to breed. Unfortunately, they have no food supply to feed themselves. He has tasked me with finding small insect and animal monsters. Mind you they must not be animals, but monsters.

They should also be low levels. You are to gather at least one hundred living specimens of any type of insect or small rodent a spider might eat. If you feel up to the task you will be greatly rewarded. I will teach you one of my most guarded necromantic arts. If you complete it within a day that is.”

She pushed her finger in the air to accept the quest I just made. “Alright, I accept.”

I had my minions create a path for her to the surface. The path led straight to the forest Master had subjugated to my power not long ago. I would be continuing to help the pathetic citizens of River’s Cross by taking the monstrous rodents and insects from there. That would surely please Master.

My minions were hard at work connecting other dungeons to my Master’s labyrinth. They connected a few already, but one in particular was giving us trouble. The monsters from that dungeon were overflowing at an enormous rate.

It was an aquatic dungeon, and had a massive amount of overflow monsters constantly pouring from it. The monsters were mostly fish, with a few amphibian types included. The fish died quickly outside of the water, but the other monsters from it did well to survive.

The aquatic dungeon filled the room it was connected to, and poured out onto the floor near it for several yards. The things that didn’t die outside of water kept moist. The fish bodies were pouring out of the room though. In fact they were pouring out of the area. The frog monsters ate ravenously, but the amount of fish was too much. I made a supply line that led to that part of the dungeon. It was only big enough for a single mole to enter, so was excluded from the dungeon changing.

The fish that spewed from the area were brought to me, and resurrected or fed to the necromancer girl. She insisted that she would only eat cooked meat, so I had to have the fish cooked first. Pathetic human that she was, she would have died had I cooked it inside the dungeon. I had to have it cooked outside of the dungeon, then brought quickly to her.

It decreased the amount of time the moles could be making the dungeon expand, but the girl’s practice increased the overall difficulty of the dungeon. I determined it was worth the amount of effort put in. The left over fish were stored throughout the dungeon. The rotting fish corpses would make the stench of undead increase several times over.

I used a single DP to create a fungus that would grow well on dead bodies. The dungeon had gained about 12 DP over the past week. That way the insects would have something to feast on. I only used a tiny bit of DP, so I only created a single square inch of moss for the things to eat.

The moss quickly spread though. The huge amount of fish bodies rotting nearby, was a huge help in this endeavor. I had some of my undead cut off small bits of the moss and put it with the other fist piles. The number of fish piles was huge.

The moss quickly covered enough total fish bodies to occupy a large city. When the necromancer returned I would not have to worry about food for either the insects or rodents she might bring.

The reason the aquatic dungeon monsters gave us so much trouble though, was the fact that they seemed immune to my effect at mind control, and occasionally went on rampages. The rampages would kill off several dozen of my undead at a time. I had to devise a way to keep the monsters that could live without being submerged in water, from going on rampages. Then this entire endeavor would be pleasing to my master.

Spoiler :

Stats WindowNameVoice0fReasonClassMana EnchanterLevel 45Health: 100Mana: 2880Stamina: 350Current Title: SurgeonHealth Regen: 1/sMana Regen: 25(20)/sStamina Regen: 5.1/sStrength50Agility50Wisdom250Intelligence288Endurance51Dexterity50Luck0Vitality50Charisma35Compassion95Leadership66Logic22Piety89Unused Stat Points0Fame1535

Skills WindowAutomated Novice Level 9 Exp 25.00%

Speed Reading Novice Level 9 Exp 00.00%

Auto Read Novice Level 20 Exp 50.00%Group Skill: Key to Self-Sustained Alchemy Apprentic Level 40 Exp 00.00%

Group Skill: Long Distance Inspection Expert Level 75 Exp 00.00%

Group Skill: Automatic Nursing Novice Level 12 Exp 50.00%

Group Skill: Con Artist Novice Level 20 Exp 23.05%

Group Skill: Magical Mastery Adept Level 50 Exp 00.00%

Group Skill: Skill Mastery Adept Level 50 Exp 21.23%

Group Skill: Tactical Survival Adept Level 50 Exp 00.00%

Group Skill: Tactical Combat Training Adept Level 50 Exp 00.00%

Group Skill: Breakdown Novice Level 12 Exp 46.64%

Group Skill: Harvesting Mastery Novice Level 3 Exp 11.11%

Group Skill: Crafting Mastery Novice Level 5 Exp 00%

Group Skill: Body Enhancement Adept

Affinities WindowLight70%Water75%Wind25%Nature75%Metal50%Earth45%Fire25%Darkness100%