Flora still wore the Seven Masters Uniform from the day before and wanted to change back to her mech-suit. 'How does my inventory work in the workshop?' She tested a few things:
Changing into a mech-suit in her WS worked. Her Seven Masters Dojo uniform landed in her inventory. But when she exited the shop, her body still wore the Seven Masters Dojo uniform, and the suit was back in her inventory.
She re-entered the workshop, and she still wore the Seven Masters Dojo attire. She destroyed the chest armor plate of the mech-suit and went back to her lair. There, she checked the suit, and it was unscathed.
Then, she logged back and tried to put a toaster in her inventory. It failed, you couldn't store workshop items. Flora didn't expect it to work. Otherwise, you wouldn't need a printer.
Next, she drank a vial of snake-bite poison.
Beginner snake-bite poison
Type: Poison
Effect: 9 dmg during 10 sec
Tier: 1
Rating: B
Immediately, a debuff appeared in her vision.
Poison: Snake-Bite poison: 30 x ~1 dmg per second. Time remaining: 10 sec.
'This is bad! That's 300 dmg, and I only have 190 health!'
Because she remembered that Physical Regeneration worked better while resting, she sat down. Then she jugged down a health potion. Another debuff appeared:
Potion Cooldown: No other health potions show effect. Time remaining: 25 sec.
"Suggestions, Aidan!"
"Meditation raises regeneration, Milady."
Flora closed her eyes and took a long breath. Her focus was solely on breathing in and out. After a minute or two, she opened her eyes.
"Why am I not dead or defeated?"
Aidan showed her the combat log. Her defense absorbed 22% of the damage. Therefore she only got 211 poison damage, and the health potion gave her 46 and the regen 6 health back. That left her with 31 hp.
"Very good. Now, why did I get that much damage? The description said nine dmg!"
"The vial had ten doses, and it's a weapons poison. A poisoned weapon can apply the toxin three times. 3*10*9 is 270."
"Guess, I didn't read the fine print," Flora admitted sheepishly. "Let's continue with the test."
She exited the workshop and checked the poison vial. It was full again and stayed filled even after logging back. At last, she found an exploit she could use. Her current methods weren't sufficient to drain her HP, especially if she needed the mana for crafting. So she wanted to supplement with poisons.
"Restart the training-coffin, dear," Flora said. After the bruised-debuff had vanished, she still felt physically exhausted but wasn't sore.
"Let's brainstorm. I want to apply poison to myself. Preferably in the coffin, so I don't have to think about it while designing, and you can do it when I sleep.
One option is to craft a needle, apply poison to it, and prick my skin."
She visualized the steps for it. Alone coating the needle in the rattling coffin without spilling the poison challenged her imagination.
"Maybe a valve and a guiding system for the vibrating needle to hit the entry point?" she muttered. "Another option is a drinking helmet like those football game/frat-party beer guzzler hats. I could fill it with health or mana potions as well and activate what I need the most. But can I swallow when I'm asleep? Let's test it!
Oh! Aidan, I want to participate in the free-running workshop with spells, please remind me half an hour before the start. The same goes for my martial arts classes."
"Yes, Milady. When do you want me to tell you about the other items on the to-do list?"
"Good point!" Flora considered it. "When I come home tonight."
Flora noticed she forgot to assign work to Aidan.
"Do you want to read any specific book, Aidan?" She opened the marketplace and browsed the selection. "Oh, look, there are more books of the '1000'-series! '1000 useful Plants', '1000 Gems, Rocks and Metals', '1000 common Runes and Glyphs', '1000 Beauty Tricks'..."
While reading, Flora clicked the Buy-Button.
"'Introduction to Magetech' might be the most useful, Milady."
"Very good! What else do we have with the word 'introduction' in the title?"
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Flora purchased the introductory books to smithing, tailoring, alchemy, mechanics, woodworking, arts and crafts, cooking, leatherworking, runes, enchanting, survival, archery, sword fighting, and hand-to-hand combat.
Flora calculated her Mana-Regeneration. 22 OV Magical Regeneration - 5 OV for the training-coffin, - 5 OV for the page-turner. Aidan had the mana-battery disabled overnight because he needed all the regeneration she got, but that still left her with only 12 OV. If she would wear the mech-suit, only 7 OV!
Fortunately, the shop had clothes with Mana-Regeneration. Aidan told her that she had five equipment slots: Head, torso, legs, feet, and hands, and Flora filled them all up. She bought a nightcap (+1 OV to both regenerations), cheap satin gloves(+1 OV), a blue mage robe (+3 OV), and the 'Slippers of Leyline Walking'(+2 OV).
In the potions section, Flora found elixirs that raised attributes for half an hour. Delighted, she purchased two of each kind.
After she fetched the clothes, 28 elixirs, and 20 books from the mailbox, she was simultaneously embarrassed and happy about her shopping spree. She left the page-turner with the mountain of books and returned to her workshop.
Now, she had 21 Magical Regeneration and was ready to start working on the potion guzzler helmet. Grinning, she started to work.
First, she made a conical shape out of a flexible material. Then she arranged the potion bottles on it and marked their location. Next, she added the piping, valves, electronics, and mechanisms to secure the vials with a quick-release function. She wanted to change the used bottles fast. The programming on how to release a specific potion at a particular time was a challenge. If she tried to prevent activating empty vials, she had to integrate sensors. That would cost more mana, and her goal was to be as mana efficient as possible.
After a while, she canned her attempts and integrated an AI socket. 'I let Aidan decide, and I just swallow.'
The resulting helmet looked like March Simpson's hairstyle with Christmas ornaments stuck in. She added a brim and a see-through protective shell. Now, it looked like the hat of an Irish leprechaun, which was slightly better in Flora's book. A tube from the top to her mouth and a chin strap completed the design.
Name: Leprechaun Guzzler Hat
Type: Potion Guzzler
Built-In AI Skill: Release Potion; Cost: 3 mana
Capacity: 80 vials
Tier: 1
Rating: F (counts as S)
Price: 2 VirDos
Because she had the other designs ready, she added the conical 'Bamboo Hat Guzzler' and the Marge Simpson Design as 'Grenadier Guard Guzzler Helmet'.
Immediately, she loaded the Leprechaun Guzzler with mana potions and poisons and two health potions for incidents only and donned it. She asked Aidan to keep her health and secondary the other pool-stats as low as safely possible and the mana supply at one drink per minute max.
While working on the helmet, she had one more idea on how to poison herself. Formerly, she worked in collaboration with the food industry. All household appliances had to be nontoxic, especially those in contact with food. What if she employed all the poisonous substances she had never been allowed to use before?
In the material selection, she found none of the old materials where the industry had an 'Oopsie guess the plastic we used for baby bottles is really bad'-moment, but something better: toxic waste.
Flora held 5 kilos close to her chest, and instantly a debuff icon appeared.
Poison: Tier 1 Toxic Waste: - 3 hp/minute. Time remaining: 5 sec.
Even her metal handicap rose, so Flora guessed that it contained heavy metals as well. She cackled as possibilities for the material streamed to her mind.
Her mech-suits armor plating consisted of marble, and she experienced breakage. 'I can't exchange it entirely to toxic waste. The metal handicap would rise too high. Furthermore, the material is even less suited for armor than marble. But what if I mix it with some rubber? Toxic rubber?'
Flora knew just the right candidate for that. She had designed a blender with amazing power and used the material for the knobs on the underside, at least until the media revealed that it was toxic. The rubber was a dream: heat resistant, flexible, shock-absorbing, and almost no abrasions. Fortunately, she had data about the material on her cloud. With Aidan's help, she registered the substance with the system. The registration process wasn't easy. You had to know not only the chemical formula but also the fabrication method.
"You created a new material.
The system recognized the material 'X34P2V1' from the earth.
You transferred a substance from Earth to the Cetviwos.
If you register it, you will get 100 kg free and 20% of the sale by the workshop material selection."
"Yes," Flora smirked. "Aidan, dear, here are all my notes on materials. Please register them with the system."
Flora took 50 kg of the rubber, 15 kg of toxic waste, 50 grams of white dye, and 50 kg of marble and put it in the fusion-box. After a few attempts, she got her optimal substance. It was heavy, hard to destroy, flexible, and of course, toxic. Flora thought it was beautiful with its white base and black, green, and silver streaks.
The next step consisted of forming the armor plates and integrating them with the mech-suit. Flora enjoyed the work. With glee, she juggled the parts telepathically and shaped them with caresses using transformation. She still had to switch to the workshop tools when her mana dried up, or when she hadn't learned the necessary spell yet. But she mixed it up smoothly, and an amateur wouldn't be able to distinguish the manual steps and the magic steps.
When Aidan reminded her about the free-running workshop, she suppressed the urge to tune the mech-suit further.
Name: SmasherXXXRulz - Toxic Counterflow-Training
Type: Mech-suit
Regular Mode: 5 OV Mana-Regeneration.
Built-In Skill: Taser: Electrifies wearer. Cost: 10 mana.
Effect: Toxic-Aura: - 5 hp per minute, stacks 3 times, 1 meter radius.
Effect: Radioactive-Aura: - 5 hp per minute, stacks 3 times, 1 meter radius.
Tier: 1
Rating: C
"Not bad. When my health gets too low, you have to disable friendly fire." Flora said mentally to Aidan, while wrapping up her work. "How is the registration of the materials going?"
"I tried to register 197 out of the 259 substances with enough data. The system accepted 43 submissions, 102 were already registered, and the rest had patents protecting the production method."
"Good work, carry on."
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Flora beamed to the Riverstones and checked on the printer, eager to see if Lana upgraded it. The design, the printer, and the materials influenced the final rating of the product. To Flora's dismay, the printer's score was still only B.
Lana beat around the bush when Flora contacted her. But Flora had heard her fair share of business bullshit and understood the Riverstones had cash flow problems. She was sure Robby wouldn't appreciate it if she started meddling in his company. Therefore, Flora decided she would be subtle about it.
Then, Flora printed the Leprechaun Potion Guzzler and her new mech-suit. She put on the suit directly but transferred the helmet to her inventory.
"I shelved it because it is impractical for free-running and not at all because it is ugly and embarrassing!" she said to the thin air, trying to convince herself.
"Of course, Milady!"
"Aidan, you are the best! I'm so lucky I don't have an obnoxious AI."
"Milady's genius shines so brightly even the second-worst rated hat in the aesthetics category can't diminish your grace!"
"I take back my last statement!"