John walked down into the cellar of his new house. It was sectioned off into four equal rooms. Again, even down here there was no indication of what the previous owner did for a living. Well, John was going to change that in a hurry. He mentally ticked off what each of the rooms would be used for. The room on the left, the farthest down the small hallway that connected all four rooms with the stairs he designated as his study. He would go out and commission bookshelves, a solid table, and a comfortable chair for starters. He would need to start simply after all. Being newly brought to his past world just a short time ago he would need to acquire capital.

The room farthest down on the right he would make into storage for items that needed a dark cool place. He had already decided to become a mage and what synergized with mage? Alchemist. So, he would absolutely need a dark dry room for certain components.

The rooms directly to his left and right would become his labs. With each room being fairly large, roughly forty by twenty feet, John had lots of room for experiments. He felt he could run at least four large size set-ups at once. It could take quite a bit of time for some creations to come to fruition. He had once heard of a potion that needed ten years to age before it could be bottled for use. While he would not be doing anything so grand just yet, one thing he had learned, it’s better to be ahead of the game, instead of playing catch-up.

So, for starters, he would set up his first lab in the left room. He would begin with a simple design for beginners. A caldron, mortar, pestle, various containers to hold components etc. Starting up as an alchemist was not cheap.

However, John had one advantage.

His mana pool was now massive compared to even the best of mages.

And everyone knew alchemy absolutely devoured mana.

Each potion an alchemist created used different amounts and different types of mana. Meaning John was made to be an alchemist in this world now.

Being a mage synergized exceptionally well with alchemy. Mana control was the key in both fields. Both fields required you to infuse mana into your creations. The biggest limiter was how much mana you could infuse in spells or potions before you ran out.

Running out of mana during a spell would create a power backlash that would shock your system. Depending on the type of mana used, and how much had been infused into the spell, at best the backlash would knock you out, at worst you would be lucky to just explode. There had been tails of mages melting parts of their brains and surviving. John figured he would rather just explode. So, you never tried to cast a spell if you had insufficient mana reserves.

John felt with his mana pool as it was now, he would be able to go all out with even the most powerful of spells and still have fuel in the tank to sign his name in the sky with flaming letters.

With alchemy if you didn’t have mana, the potion would fail in one way or another. Either you were left with unusable sludge, or it could possibly destabilize and explode. Though a failed potion was much safer than a failed spell by a large margin. Uless you were working with poisons or more dangerous chemicals. Then you made sure you had the mana to finish your work.

As an example, the average alchemist could produce about five to six potions a day. That was to say, medium grade potions. Low grade or worse, they could double that number. Only the best alchemists with a larger mana pool could create high potions. They would be limited to maybe three to five a day. But would be able to create dozens of medium grade potions.

John knew with how deep his mana pool was, he could easily create high potions by the dozens. Then there were the mythic level potions. Very few countries could boast of having access to such an alchemist.

John’s future looked bright indeed.

But he knew he needed to keep his head down for the foreseeable future. Without ability, his mana was useless. Without power he was exposed. If he was found out, he would likely be set up as the crowns “head of alchemy”. In other words, a prisoner. He would be kept under constant watch with little to no freedom. He doubted he could even get a pleasure visit from a prostitute. For fear he could be targeted by a spy and killed or some such nonsense. No, the crown would keep him under lock and key till he died an old miserable man.

What John needed right now was power. Enough power to prevent anyone from trying to cage him. He knew he would need to put on a show at least once, to get the point across that he was not to be trifled with. So power was required.

He could get a loan from Kails and start his plan in motion.

A primer spell book, and a beginners lab set up.

Then he would lock himself away and learn to fine tune his mana control.

He would sell small batches of his alchemical creations to make a living, while learning fine magic control.

He figured in less than a year he would be capable of stepping out into the light without having to fear for his future.

There would be another bonus to his emergence. The strong often came after the strong to prove themselves. John just knew he would be the apex predator in those confrontations, which would net him some him some sweet looting rights. No one would tell the winner they couldn’t take the spoils of war.

Once more John rubbed his hands together just imagining all the loot he would acquire from fools that would come at him. This world was just more primal than earth that way. Or at least the earth of present day. And it played well to what he would be setting himself up to become.

He was done with being the average guy next door.