Staring at the single story wooden house, I could distinctly smell the strong smell of herbs and medicines inside.
This was the alchemist's house, and store of the village. It was surprisingly hard to find. The village was several hundred meters in diameter, and the alchemist’s house was hidden near the center of the woods I had hidden my room the night before. I had to ask some villagers where it was and even needed to show me the little path that was cut to reach him.
When I heard there were herbs all over the forest area planted by the alchemist, I suddenly felt an urge to search for it, but I knew any good medicine maker would hide the growing plants from prying eyes. Also, rare herbs had many conditions for growing and achieving such a thing. Inside the dungeon it was not currently possible.
I walk up to the door and knocked.
A moment later the door opened to a boy that looked around 13 with a pair of thick glasses.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“I am looking for potions and to trade herbs,” I said.
“Oh, please enter, Master is in the other room, I will call him,” the boy said and opened the door for me to enter.
Within the room was a huge assortment of herbs hanging to dry, and on several tables were lots of glass bottles and alchemy tools.
“So science class comes from this stuff huh?” I thought jokingly.
“So you’re the one that wants to buy potions eh?” a voice called.
I looked and saw a really old man with a cane in his hand wearing an old robe. He looked to be in his late 80s and had a long beard with thick round spectacles on his face.
“Yes sir, I gathered a large number of herbs, and wish to trade for potions,” I said.
“Let me see them then? Boy, get a box so he can drop them inside,” the old man said.
The boy started to move around and began to empty some boxes and put them in front of me.
All the while, I was flipping through the book until I reached the vegetation part of the archive, and I could remove them like I did with the minions.
There were 35 healing herbs, so I pressed the icon, which formed new words below and removed 30 from the book.
The pen began to glow and I touched it at the bottom of the box.
The next moment, the 30 healing herbs appeared in the air above it and fell into the box.
“30 healing herbs, how much?” I asked.
The two just looked at me surprised.
“Boy, what in the world is that book?” the elder asked.
I smiled wryly and closed it. “It’s a class related book,” I said.
“Hmm, so an ancient class inheritance. I see, I will drop it then,” the elder said and walked over to the box and sat down on a stool. He picked up one herb and began to look at it.
He took his time to examine it, and when he finished he put it back in the box.
“Boy, where in blazes did you find these herbs? They are high quality and filled with vitality,” he asked.
I didn’t answer for a long while, and scratched my head not knowing how to answer.
“This is related to your class it seems. Well just so you know, I can tell these herbs should only appear in a place with high mana concentration. That said, even then the vitality isn’t that good. Is there at least one thing you can answer?” he asked.
“Yes, that I can answer,” I said and summoned the wood puppet.
“This is a living puppet that can use nature magic, and I have it grow the herbs and crops,” I said and call the puppet back.
“A summoner? No, summoners work with living animals and not inanimate constructs. Not to mention, puppets are extremely rare in this nation and only elves and dwarves have the technology to make them. Still, if it's like this, then with the base price of healing herbs being 80 copper per bundle of 20 I will give you one silver coin for each.” he said.
“Wait? 20 healing herbs in the capital cost nearly two silver!” I exclaimed.
“That is the capital boy, we are far from it in a place near the forest that is abundant in herbs. Also what are you complaining, you produce your own herb,” he said.
I just sighed as I understood what he meant.
“Fine. Do you buy crops or is it only herbs?” I asked.
“Nah, the food market exists for that. I take herbs only,” he said.
I nodded and after I accepted the 10 extra herbs back, I took the silver coins and brought out one by one the other herbs in groups of 20. I got around four silver for the herbs, but I got 12 silver from the alluring flower. The effects were extremely good it seemed and mine were even better with the high vitality in them.
That said, for potions I was able to get five mana regeneration potions for two silver each.
“Hey, what are the ingredients for making mana regeneration potions?” I asked as I put 10 potions in my bag.
“That is easy, mana drop, flower petal, and medical herb,” he said.
“Mana drop… flower?” I muttered.
He turned and pulled out a flower with a large blue petal.
“This boy, this is a low grade medical flower. Its ability to absorb mana is far weaker than a mana herb but it’s true strength is that its petals have the effect of causing living beings to gather more mana from the air. If you compare this flower to a mana herb then for something like a monster, this flower is more valuable as the effects grow stronger as the monsters eat them instead of the instant burst of mana from mana herb where a large portion of mana is lost. Also, it’s one of the first few flowers that releases mana after reaching maturity so the air around it is purer and more abundant in mana,” he explained.
Looking at the flower, I saw the interesting flower’s shape and even felt a bit of the mana from it.
“Do you have seeds for this and mana herb?” I asked.
“Mana herbs are rare boy, but I do have them, but it will cost you five silver for one seed,” he said.
I clearly frowned at that and he saw it but just grinned.
“This flower’s seed costs how much?” I asked.
“One silver for a small pack of 10. I raise these myself so I have plenty and their requirements aren’t as bad, unlike mana herb that needs constant mana being injected. If only there was a dungeon around here for me to find some mana stones,” he cursed.
“I'll take two packets of Mana Drop flower seeds,” I said and took two silver coins out.
“Good boy, Hains get the packs for the boy,” the alchemist said.
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The boy ran into a different room and after a bit he came back with a small leather pouch and handed it to me.
I opened it and counted 20 seeds then took the pen out and archived the seeds to make sure they were mana drop flowers.
“Alright, I guess that is all. I will probably be returning more often as I get more herbs and such,” I said.
“Come back anytime boy. Oh and boy, one suggestion for improving your herbs more. Make some bone meal off some animal bones and sprinkle it on your fields. The quality will shoot to a new level,” he said and I nodded thanking him.
I looked at the book loot, but sadly it hadn’t gathered bones from the goblins or wolves. Thinking about it, wouldn’t skeletons count as a bone puppet through necromancy? Nah don’t need something that could get me in trouble.
I look at the current prey and pressed to loot them.
Loot results
3 Gray Wolf pelts
1 skeleton of Gray Wolf
2 Gray Wolf flanks
4 Gray Wolf claws
13 Wolf pelts
4 skeletons of Wolf
14 Wolf flanks
25 Wolf claws
6 Wild Cat pelts
12 Wild Wat Claws
142 Rat tails
89 Rat incisors
142 Rat Skeletons
“Is this a joke, now that he mentions skeletons that it appears. Maybe I need to recognize something as a drop like the brains that can be used for making lye for leather processing, eyes for alchemy or something. Put simply, I need books on all crafts and materials,” I said pissed off.
I walked back to the inn and entered my room a bit pissed by this stupid dungeon maker system.
Sitting down on my bed, I opened my book and looked over my dungeons. The first dungeon I placed already had 40% of the corridors with tall grass on the floor. As a result, grass munchers and herbivores were attracted to the dungeon. Rats were already populating the dungeon where grass was making small trails in the grass. Nothing bigger had ventured inside though.
I took three seeds from the mana drop flowers and planted them at the three farthest bunches of herbs. What came from it surprised me.
You have planted a flower that performs mana synthesis. Mana synthesis is the process of using mana to grow instead of sunlight. Once that plant reaches maturity it will absorb much smaller quantities of mana and release purer, richer mana. This plant must be protected or else invading beasts will take it to further their growth into monsters.
“Wow, who knew there was something like this. The old man said it released mana back into the air, but I didn’t think it had this big of an effect,” I muttered then noticed something new.
I have stated that the dungeon gathers mana before. The gathering of up to 200 mana was rather quick and happened within minutes, but after that it had a five mana gathering capability per hour.
At that moment the mana gathering was at -10, but after planting the seeds it said +15 mana next to the flower icon that appeared.
“So they absorb five mana regeneration from the dungeon and then return it during the adulthood,” I muttered. “Now that I think about it, the puppets gather mana from the planting root skill as well. Then the puppets being a monster also evolves, if they live in a high mana density area they would be able to grow faster right?”
Wondering this I opened the farm dungeon and went to plant the plant, but a window appeared
This plant can’t be planted as a seed in this dungeon due to the lack of mana in the air. If you wish to continue, the seed will use the mana from the Book of Dungeon Maker as its source of mana until it reaches maturity.
Reading it again I was rather surprised by that, but still added one in the herb field. When I looked at the mana regeneration of the dungeon, I was shocked because it was -30 mph.
“Wait what?” I muttered. Looking for something that indicated the mana gathered by the book I found nothing that could indicate what showed the mana.
“Damnit! Show me the fucking mana gathered already!” I cursed.
Book of Dungeon Maker mana pool: 3253/100,000
Mana regeneration: 50 (-60) mph
“FUCK THIS!” I shouted and slammed the book shut and dropped myself in bed.
“Fucking book and fucking system from this shitty book shitty world…”
After a half hour of cursing the entire world to hell I finally got over the system’s bitching and opened the book again and saw the mana slowly dropping.
I summoned the guardian and told him to focus on the mana drop flower. I sent him back and watched him stop near that batch of herbs. When I asked about the mana regeneration, I saw it dropped by a third.
“So that is it, this thing absorbs two thirds of the mana from the air and one third from the dungeon. The others absorb five but this one ten, wonder what the difference is?” I muttered.
I pressed on the plant and checked the counter but something different appeared.
“Three minutes until mana is gathered? Does this thing mature just with mana?” I asked myself. I kept watching the dots while cursing how there wasn’t a decent video image out loud. Sadly when I wanted something to happen the fucking book ignored me.
After three minutes were up, the -30 suddenly changed to +30 and the guardian moved away and returned to his duties. Not only that, when I looked at the regeneration of the book I saw it was 80 (-30).
“Nice, the flowers add to the book and the dungeon’s regeneration. So that means that the dungeons will gather more mana and in turn exp for me. I doubt it’s that easy, it says I should guard them. This clearly means that once they enter full bloom the attraction of true monsters into the dungeon will be larger. I wonder, what are the evolution paths for wooden puppets and or requirements?” I said out loud hoping for something to appear and to my joy it did.
Evolutionary Table
Low Grade Guardian Puppet
None Currently Available or known
Common Grade Common Wooden Puppet
Farmer
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
Farmer? Is it because of the fields?
I look at the single option and wondered if I should take it, I didn’t have resources to make equipment from anything… wait equipment.
Summoning the guardian I looked up at him.
“Tell me, can you only make weapons with your creation skill?” I asked.
“Yes Master, this servant can only make weapons of the longsword variation as this is the weapon this servant knows how to use,” he replied.
“And what of the wooden puppet?” I asked.
“They as well can only make weapons, but they have the potential to learn to create different items if master is capable of showing them the form and correcting them in their craft,” He said.
“Do you know the evolutionary paths of the wooden puppet?” I asked.
“This servant does not, this servant only knows how to supply the basic knowledge. Afterwards it is for Master to experiment. This servant does know that puppets are highly adaptable and can learn any skill. Previous master had once made beast puppets but process of reaching such form is beyond this servant,” he said.
“Beast puppets! That means that the format of the puppet changes depending on what it knows. For a beast, does that mean quadruped? Did he really have a puppet train walking on all fours? That’s a surprise, I wonder how it ended. Still he succeeded and it will bring me more joy if this thing is quick and large enough to carry me or at least I can make him large enough.” I thought.
“Show information of puppet farmer,” I said out loud.
Common Grade Wood Farmer Puppet
This puppet is a support class puppet, it has no fighting capabilities but instead it focuses on nature based magic. They possess a degree of farming knowledge that can always improve crops, and by using their Natural Creation skill which is converted to Nature Molding skill they can slowly alter crops for better production, taste, or effects.
Their knowledge of farming stems from their master, so as long as the master can learn more about agriculture these puppets can implement it to a much greater degree. Also, with the knowledge of planting they can access the Book of the Dungeon Maker’s gathered items to use items that could aid in improving the farming.
Farmers can cultivate any vegetation from a forest tree to a flower garden.
Requirement for Evolution
Equipped with a Hoe
Evolve skill Natural Weapon Creation to Nature Molding
“How do I have a puppet get Nature Molding skill?” I asked the guardian.
“As this servant said previously, Master must have it learn to grow different items,” he replied.
I dismissed the guardian and sit there thinking about what to do with the puppets. At that moment I had one puppet and the guardian. It would take several more hours before the next one appeared and the current one was busy.
“I have to wait for now, can’t overstep the bounds wanting everything with one worker. Let’s first set up the dungeons carefully, then I will worry about the puppets as they slowly arrive. I only have 42 puppets that I can make and use right now until I can kill more demons so I need to be careful with my choices.”
*Ding*
A new Wooden Puppet has been completed.
“Guess I don’t have to wait after all. Let’s get busy quick!” I said, and summoned him.