Two days passed in the blink of an eye. It was the fourth day since Forgotten Lands launched and the afternoon sun was about to set. Yet, instead of hurriedly moving around in an attempt to collect rare Cards and adventure through dangerous regions to conquer dungeons and rescue hundreds of damsels in distress, Zayn didn’t move around a lot.
He left Old Farthma’s house only once in that time. The remaining time was spent studying in the underground library, nurturing a tremendous number of herbs and other plants, and bothering Old Farthma.
The old Alchemist was slowly giving in to his relentless questions. It was about time.
One way or another, Zayn successfully leveled most of his Cards.
Blink
Uncommon - Level 2(1.2%)
Scent of Treasure
Common - Level 6(52%)
—
Card Set – Demonic Treant
Common – Set of 3
Level 31
1)Rapid Plant Growth – Level 15(63%)
Effect – Accelerates the growth of plants.
Has a low probability of enhancing a plant’s quality.
2) Iron Bark – Level 9(74%)
Effect – Reinforces the Card Holder’s skin passively
Can be used actively to temporarily enhance the Card Holder’s skin drastically.
3) Root Strike – Level 7(90%)
Effect – Manifests Roots that can be control freely.
Lesser control of vines, and branches.
Set Effect – Card Level of all linked Cards will be combined.
-–
Energy consumption decreases with increase in Card Level.
Range of Card effects expand with increase in Card Level
Card effects increase with Card Level
—
Since he didn’t want to waste his energy, Zayn didn’t focus on Blink all too much. Zayn hadn’t used Blink once. It was not worth using Blink if he could get more proficiency with his other Cards in Old Farthma’s Farming Hall. Even Scent of Treasure leveled up rapidly just like that. He used Scent of Treasure now and then to learn how to distinguish the smell of herbs and how much more potent high-quality herbs smelled.
However, the most important was the Demonic Treant Card Set. It reached Level 31. Each Card of the Set was now as powerful as it would be at Level 31 – a Level most Card couldn’t reach that easily, not even after weeks, or months of hard work. Yet Zayn had several Cards of such a high level. It was all thanks to the Card Set and the Farming Hall…and a considerable amount of crazy grinding. Mindless grinding. Day and night.
Instead of relying on Rapid Plant Growth, Zayn used Iron Bark and Root Strike actively as well. Their proficiency increased drastically but they didn’t reach the same heights as Rapid Plant Growth. But that was mostly because Zayn didn’t fight any enemies to use Iron Bark and Root Strike against. He used Root Strike to control the roots and branches in the Farming Hall to repot certain plants and move them around without damaging their essence.
No major events happened in the last few days. The only thing that could be considered a surprise was when Rapid Plant Growth reached Level 10.
Rapid Plant Growth advanced to Level 10. +1 Soul Essence.
Zayn had already forgotten the reward one received whenever a Card broke a threshold. But the reward came with a heavy price. Every threshold indicated an increase in proficiency required before a Card could level up. That was also why Rapid Plant Growth reached ‘only’ level 15 after Zayn used it far more than a thousand times on increasingly rare herbs and other plants.
By now it was difficult to find challenges big enough to increase Rapid Plant Growth’s proficiency by more than 5%. Fortunately, Zayn expected something like that already. He wasn’t surprised at the turn of events and anticipated the increase in the difficulty in leveling Rapid Plant Growth much worse than it was. It sounded bad, but it was not THAT bad. It took more time to level up Rapid Plant Growth, but it was not as if Zayn had to use much energy to execute Rapid Plant Growth at Level 31.
Other than mindlessly grinding day and night, Zayn spent some time with his brothers as well. He worked with his brothers on more videos and guides after they read through the flood of comments. Zayn spent no more than three hours with his brothers before he went to the Dragon Lair Gym.
Since the Dragon Lair Gym had the Dragon Breath Nutrition Solution and a rather advanced set of machines, Zayn decided to purchase the gym membership. It was not cheap, but it came with a discount for all branded products, which included the Dragon Breath Nutrition Solution.
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Zayn even sparred with one of the Dragon Lair Dojo members, a dude way above his weight class, and knocked him out with three strikes. The ferocity in Zayn’s movements had been terrifying, but the killing intent in each strike was even worse. Zayn’s opponent was sure that he was about to die. Fortunately, Leonard Ritheon called for the end of the battle before anything worse could happen.
After the short, yet terrifying, spar, Zayn and Leonard talked quite a lot. Zayn was starting to think about becoming the partner of a Gym, or a Dojo to train potential Players, and talking to Leonard provided intel and more reasons to consider such a step. It would take a while before he was influential enough to partner with a large Dojo, but the time would come.
For now, Zayn purchased 2 Dragon Breath Nutrition Solutions every day after his training session ended. His physique was improving rapidly, and the changes were apparent. The growth of his muscles and the recomposition of his physique attracted the attention of the other gym members. They were interested in his exercises, but Zayn didn’t tell them.
He told his brothers about the exercises and forced them to start working out. Since he promised his mother that he would take care of his brothers Zayn decided to go all out. He purchased normal Nutrition Solutions for them, pushed his older brothers beyond their limits, and made sure that they finished every single drop of the Nutrition Solutions.
His mother saw what Zayn had done over the last two days and was surprised. The way Zayn threw the Nutrition Solutions around was terrifying. A single bottle was worth 500 Credits, yet her son treated them as if they were worthless.
Did Zayn earn that much money?
One way or another, Stephanie Dexter understood quickly that the sibling trio was serious about their work. It was nice to see them happily working together.
“Did you watch their videos already?” Malcolm asked his wife one day.
She hadn’t, until now. The married couple began to watch their kids’ videos – snippets of it, at least. It was just enough to look at the comments and the other interesting stuff.
At first, Malcolm and Stephanie were shocked. They would have never expected that the videos of their little boys were this expensive to look at. To watch a single video, one had to pay more than Malcom earned on a regular day. The guides were even more expensive. Was that a mistake?
They scrolled down to read the comments and expected their poor children to be insulted badly due to the astronomic prices they were asking for, but none of that happened. The comments, 95% of them, were good.
That was the most shocking, and it resulted in a drastic change in Malcom’s attitude toward his childrens’ work.
“Maybe we should let them be. I think they’re onto something. They’ll make it big!”
**
The more time Old Farthma spend with Zayn the more often she found herself lying. But not to Zayn. She lied to herself.
Despite telling herself that she would never accept Zayn as her disciple she taught him far more than some disciples learned in several months. She even showed Zayn a few brewing tricks and explained the potion-making process in great detail.
After she realized that Zayn was studious, a fast learner and that he was serious about making his potions, Old Farthma decided to help him out. She didn’t want to see Zayn buying old tools and recipes from potential scammers. Not only were the tools and recipes of those old merchants overpriced but the merchants wouldn’t even know if the potion recipes were faulty or not.
Failure and injuries were bound to happen with faulty potion recipes, and that was something Old Farthma didn’t want to happen to anyone, not just Zayn.
“Take this,” She said, throwing a bronze Card, an Uncommon Card, in Zayn’s direction. Old Farthma had no idea why she was doing this to herself, but recalling the tireless work of the young Immortal, she had to give him a helping hand. It felt like she was obliged to do so.
Zayn caught the Uncommon Card and his eyes widened as he started to read the Card’s description.
Alchemist’s Instinct
Uncommon - Level 1(0%)
Utility
Passive/Active
Requires Energy and Stamina to be used.
Effect – Passive – As a True Alchemist you know instinctively how to concoct and improve potions.
Active – Your instincts call for the return of the True Alchemist. Your Dexterity and Perception improve drastically while brewing potions.
Failure rate decreases drastically. Probability to create potions of higher quality increases.
-–
Failure Rate decreases with increase in Card Level.
Probability to create potions of higher quality increases with Card Level.
Likelihood of attaining epiphany increases with Card Level.
Potency of Alchemist's Instinct increases with Card Level.
—
“Wow.” Zayn swallowed hard, his eyes fixed on the Uncommon Card.
He had been searching for a Common Card called Potion-making, for a while now, but Alchemist’s Instinct was much better. The Card’s description was a little longer than most Common and Uncommon Cards but that showed only how valuable Alchemist’s Instinct was.
“Are you sure that I can take this?” Zayn asked.
He wanted Alchemist’s Instinct, but the Uncommon Card was worth a fortune. Zayn was unsure if he deserved to receive such an expensive gift from Old Farthma.
“If you don’t want the Card, I can take it back. But I’m pretty sure that you want the Card. It will help you brew potions, and it allows me to worry less about this impatient bunny in my house,” Old Farthma nagged.
Zayn nodded, pressing the Uncommon Card against his chest, “Thank you.”
He really meant it.
Utility Card has been linked to your Deck. Please prepare for the Influx of Information!
“Don’t thank me just yet. I want to see you perform miracles for me!” Old Farthma declared, throwing aside her former attitude. Now that she gave Zayn a helping hand, she might as well help him properly.
Zayn endured the influx of information that impacted heavily, and grit through the headache. He smiled at Old Farthma, who lead him to her workshop where she retrieved two old parchments which she placed down on the table next to the cauldron.
“Pick one, and get started,” She ordered, the vigor in her eyes returning, “It’s time for your first practical lesson!”