After a week of hard travel, sleeping in the carriage at night, we arrived at a small town. I would have said the trip outside the city was enjoyable, but I would be lying.
This whole week, I had been getting a crash course on alchemy. Which involved reading books, grinding petals, and getting cuffed over the head whenever I asked a stupid question. All the while, there was no mention of the system.
Thankfully, after a couple of days, the carriage driver warmed up to me. He was a pretty stereotypical peasant. Plain looking, with frayed clothing, and a dirty appearance. He also stunk to high heaven, like almost everyone else! Thankfully, my nose had adjusted to this fantasy world funk. It also helped that I didn’t smell that nice either.
Anyway, the carriage driver was a nice enough guy. Although he loved his two horses a bit too much to be normal. Pop and Top he called them. But he thankfully filled me in a bit about the system.
There were resource pools and skills. Skills used energy from the resource pools. He knew of only three resource pools. Mana, Vitality, and Stamina. He said that there might have been more, but he didn’t care to know.
So much for that avenue. It seemed that commoners were more focused on staying alive. Although I would have thought that system know-how would be common knowledge.
Also, the carriage driver only had one resource pool, Stamina. Apparently, that is what most people had. Just the one. That did indeed make me feel very special, because I had two resource pools! Or perhaps more, Gladgleer never really made it clear.
“Kid. Stop staring into space and follow me.”
Speaking of Gladgleer, he was walking a fair distance ahead of me, so I jogged a bit to catch up.
The town was pretty average in my eyes. Classical fantasy houses and shops lined the dirt street. There was a chicken just out for a stroll, pecking bugs from the ground while dodging foot traffic. There was the sound of overlapping voices centred around the shops and the unmistakable clinking of coins changing hands. And also the sound of a hammer on metal in the distance, where I spotted a column of black smoke rising into the sky.
As we walked, we passed a boisterous hall that smelled like booze. Nailed to the thick wooden beam above the entrance was the unmistakable symbol of the adventurer guild, a wyrm or some kind of long dragon coiled around a sword stabbed through its head.
After a bit more walking, we seemingly arrived at our location. It was either an alchemist's shop or a bar, named, The Glass and Copper Cork. But, after Gladgleer unlocked the door and stepped inside, the idea that it could be a bar was dispelled by the shelves of herbs, potions, and other odd items. The shop smelled very strongly of medicinal herbs, stinging my nose and making my eyes water a bit.
I followed Gladgleer to the back of the shop, where he unlocked another door that led to stairs going to the second floor. Hanging on a hook by the base of the stairs was a feather duster, which he grabbed and shoved into my hands. “Get dusting the shelves. You break anything, I’ll simply add it to your debt.” With that said, he went upstairs with his large backpack in hand.
Shrugging my shoulders, I got to work. It wasn’t like I had never dusted before. It also gave me a chance to take a closer look at all the cool stuff.
While I was dusting near an ornate blue and white stained glass bottle, I heard the creak of the wooden door opening. At first, I thought it was Gladgleer, but it sounded from the front of the shop. Taking a peak around the shelf, I saw a woman dressed in leather armour, with metal pieces around the ends of her arms and legs, protecting her shins and forearms.
Then I heard the sound of glass shattering, followed by a faint ghostly wail as a white vapour rose to the ceiling and disappeared. Looking behind me on the floor, the ornate glass bottle was shattered.
“Shit.”
When I looked back up, the armoured woman was standing in front of me with a confused expression. “I thought Gladgleer was back in town? But it looks like that wasn’t right, just some little thief.”
With a look of mock outrage on my face, I responded “I am no thief, of this shop. And I am Gladgleer, thank you very much.”
“What?” The woman looked even more confused.
“If you want to see the geezer Gladgleer, he’s upstairs, probably combing what little is left of his hair, HA!”
I was interrupted by a now familiar cuff to the back of my head.
“Get back to dusting. And I’ll be adding that ghost's friend potion to your debt after you clean it up.” Gladgleer turned to the woman. “Miss Thorn, how very nice to see you. I assume you have been busy with the collection quest in my absence?”
The two of them walked to the back of the shop while I picked up the shards of glass and put them… Where was I supposed to put them? For now, I just gathered them in a pile on the shelf for later and went back to dusting.
…
After the geezer and lady were done with whatever business they had, I was brought upstairs and shown to my room, which was about as small as a broom closet. The walls were bare, and so was the floor except for a straw mattress. The rest of the upstairs space was stuffed with a variety of cauldrons, glassware, and even more herbs and minerals. After that, hell began.
From dawn to dusk, I was taught alchemy. The geezer chattered on incessantly, only broken by the occasional customer who came in and bought a potion or two. And when he wasn’t nattering, I was forced to read books. Thick books. Like, american hamburger levels of thick. This went on for 5 ridiculously long months.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
I wouldn’t say that alchemy was boring. Certainly more exciting than chemistry. For example, I could distill monster blood to create some kind of blood marble that can be used as a lure for other monsters. A blood marble… Can chemistry do that? Well, maybe. I was never really that good at chemistry, so I don’t know its limits. But alchemy just seems so much easier, in a sense.
Alchemy seemed to rely heavily on magic to create stuff. But magic needed to be manipulated in the right way for it to have any effect. Plus, magic was required when working with magical materials. But still, magic seemed to fill in a lot of logic holes.
Of course, this is where me and the geezer disagreed. When I mentioned that if a person had enough magic they could power through logic, he said “It is a poor alchemist that relies too heavily on magic.”
So that was a bummer. But what did cheer me up was a book about the system. Which also happened to be the thinnest book in Gladgleer’s collection. But thankfully, I was able to get some good info out of it.
There were five resource pools. Mana, Mind, Vitality, Stamina, and Deftness. And there were also levels and ranks. With the first rank being five levels, and each rank after that doubling in levels. How many ranks were there? The book didn’t say. What do levels give you? Resource points, but the book didn’t say how many, or if it changed for each tier.
But most importantly, the book did detail how I could see my- the system. It was also creepy as hell. The book outlined some kind of blood ritual to see the system that looked to be straight out of the Necronomicon.
It was night, the room lit by a single crystal lantern overhead, and I was currently performing this bloody ritual at Gladgleer's behest. It began with cutting my palm and draining some blood into a bowl. Once I had enough, I bandaged the cut. Then I had to draw out an occult-looking ritual circle with my own blood, complete with odd symbols that gave off an unsettling feeling.
“Good. Everything looks to be in place. Now drink this.” Gladgleer handed over a potion bottle. The liquid looked sludge-like, red in colour with pale worm-like threads floating in it.
“Uhhh. Do I have to? I didn’t read anything like this in the book.”
“Just do it.”
I hesitated for a second, but then shrugged my shoulders, popped the cap, and chugged the potion down. It tasted as bad as it looked, and I could feel those white worm-like threads slithering down my throat. After chugging the last of the potion, I involuntarily shivered as the horrible sensation disappeared down my throat. But the taste still stuck to my tongue, making me gag.
“Good. Now swallow this.” Gladgleer tossed what looked to be a clear glass marble at me. Although it was about the size of a marble and spherical in shape, it wasn’t smooth. The outside was warped, like the sphere had tried to fold into itself.
“A potion, plus some strange marble? None of this was in the book.”
Gladgleer sighed. “That ‘marble’ is a levelling stone.”
I waited a second, hoping he would also explain more, and perhaps also explain what the potion was. But, it seemed that was as much information as I was going to get.
After I swallowed the marble, which was another unpleasant affair, Gladgleer signalled me to begin the chant. Having practiced it beforehand, and having the book open in front of me, I completed it successfully… After a couple of failed tries.
Hey, nobody’s perfect!
After finishing the whole ritual, the blood of the ritual circle shifted, forming numbers and words.
//
Name: Gladgleer
Age: 8
Tier: I (1/5)
Resource Pool(s): (1)
* Mana (0/0)
* Mind: (0/0)
* Vitality (0/0)
Skills: N/A
//
This…was a bit confusing.
“Take the pool point and add it to vitality.” Gladgleer pointed at the 1 next to the resource pool(s). “Simply will it, and the point will move.”
Deciding to try it, I willed the number 1 to move into vitality. And it did. The blood forming the number moved, slithering across the wooden floor, and the system changed.
//
Name: Gladgleer
Age: 8
Tier: I (1/5)
Resource Pool(s): (0)
* Mana (0/0)
* Mind: (0/0)
* Vitality (1/1)
Skills: N/A
//
“Good. Now it is time to take a skill. You will take the [Flesh Cauldron] skill. To do so, focus on the skills portion of the system. And then-”
Before Gladgleer could finish, I was already focused on the Skills portion of the system. I expected the blood to move again, but instead, I felt like I was suddenly pulled away from my body as my vision narrowed and then disappeared in the distance.
And finally, something normal happened. A system screen appeared before me, glowing in that familiar blue light.
//
Welcome to the system!
Skills Available:
* [Blood Bag]
* [Healthy Consitution]
* [Vital Surge]
* [Luscious Hair]
* [Clear Skin]
* [Strong Heart]
* [Dense Muscle]
* [Iron Bones]
* [Thick Skin]
* [Extravagant Curves]
* [Sleep Resistance]
* …
* …
//
Ohhh yeah. Skills baby!