Author's Note: Okay, um wow. I reread my previous chapters and cringed. To those who have corrected me on my errors, I cannot thank you enough. Remember, if you see any plot holes or spelling errors, then I will leave earth, for no apparent,
raisin!
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Null puts the list Rosemary gave him in his inventory. When he did, the ingredients that he needed to gather showed up on the left side of his vision.
Null thinks, 'How convenient.'
Null heads out into the forest.
'Okay, guess I'll get the easy ones first. Glitter grass huh? Where to look, where to look?'
12 minutes of walking and he finds what he's looking for. It's a grass that when hit by the sun, it starts to sparkle.
“Identify”
Glitter GrassUsed as an alchemy ingredient.
Depending on what its used for,
it can help cure or make some poisons
'Hmm, so all I have to do is walk up to it and grab it? Yeah right. What's the catch?'
Null carefully tries to pull a grass blade to test it out, but when he tore it, the grass blade turned entirely into glitter. It went everywhere, including on Null.
'Ugh! Dammit I hate glitter, the herpes of the art world! I can get if off! I'm ruined! Ruined! I guess you can't tear it huh? Whatever. Let's get this over with.'
Null, with his hands, scoops up the Glitter Grass from the roots and puts it in his inventory. When he did, the list on the side of his vision changed. The number under glitter grasses went from 100 to 99.
'Good. I don't have to count it myself. Anyway, I am not going to be digging up grasses with my hands. I need a shovel, but I barely have any money left. Oh, I still have that fine sword that I won for defeating that Queen Deathroll.'
Null goes to the blacksmith shop. It's the same person who sold him his armor and arrows.
The blacksmith speaks to him saying, “Why are you covered in glitter? It's not even Friday night.”
“...I want to sell this sword.”
The blacksmith does identify on the sword and examines it. “Oh, a fine sword huh? Must've gotten something even better to want to sell this.”
“I can't use it. I'm a librarian.”
“You're a what?”
“How much can I sell it for?”
“I'll give you 12 gold for it.”
'12 gold? That was much more than I anticipated.' “Deal.”
Null pockets the money and talks to the blacksmith again saying, “Do you have any shovels?”
“Do you want big shovels or small shovels?”
“Both.”
The blacksmith goes to the back and gets both shovel sizes.
“The big shovel is 25 silvers. The small one is 5 silvers. Your total comes to 30 silvers.” Null pays the man and leaves.
After several hours with shovel in hand, he finally gets the last glitter grass.
'Okay next item on the list is, dancing red vine. This one sounds fun.' Null thought sarcastically.
'According to this paper, dancing red vine grows around trees. Okay.'
Null looks around a lot of trees and sighs. 'This one is a bit harder to find than the Glitter Grass.'
After walking around a while, he finds a bunch of trees covered with red vines. Just to be sure it's what he's looking for, he does identify on it.
“Identify.”
Dancing Red VineUsed in alchemy.
Mostly harmless, but doesn't like to be touched.
'Okay, since the name isn't Exploding Red Vine, I don't have to worry about it bursting into flames, but I'm still wary. The first plant was glitter. What will this one do?'
Null carefully tries to grab the vine. It then starts to move away from his hand. Null tries again. It moves. Every time he tries to grab it, it moves away. He then starts a game of whack a mole with his hands.
'My god, it's moves like the Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Men!'
Null decides to hit it with the big shovel, but due to his librarian class, it didn't do any damage. When he hit the vine, it started whipping Null, but it didn't hurt.
'Wait, what am I doing?'
Null then plucks the vine from the base of where it grows and the vine dies.
'Well I now know how to defeat it.'
Since all the vines he was looking for were all in one place, he finishes, and moves on to the next item.
'Now next is, imp figs. They sound like something that will irritate me. I'm already one step ahead.'
Null buys a net. He has never even seen an imp fig and doesn't know what they can do, but he just figured that it will have to be more troublesome than the last thing on the list. Null finds it, and when he tries to grab it, it tries to runs away, but Null's net caught him. It was actually easier to deal with than the Dancing Red Vine.
Later on, he finds two imp figs in one place, and they run away in opposite directions. Null was still prepared for this. He used duel wielding nets to capture them.
It took him 11 hours to find all the 25 imp figs. After he was done, Null took a nap on a branch, then started looking for the final thing on the list.
'Now it's time for the most troublesome thing on the list. I don't even know how to go about even finding it.'
5 days have passed. He still has yet to find any sign of the Winterbell Flower. Null is now in the mountainous region near Holdendale.
'There are no clues on how to go about this. How am I even supposed to find it?'
He then hears a bell chyme. It's faint, but he can barely make it out. When the wind blows, it rings again. Null stops to try and focus on hearing it. He goes in the direction it rings the loudest. After 20 minutes of hearing, he finds it. It's a drooping flower that looks like a bell. It's surrounded by a sheet of ice on the ground. Every time the wind blows the flower, the bell chimes and a blast of cold air comes from it.
'My intuition tells me I'm dead if I touch that.'
Null experiments. He grabs a stick. When he touched the stick a little, the end touching the flower started to freeze. When Null touched it enough to get it to ring out, The whole stick flash froze. If it wasn't for Null letting go of the stick in time, his arm would have been frozen too.
'I didn't know it would be that bad. How am I supposed to get it?'
He thinks for a moment and gets an idea. Null marks the location of the flower on the map so he can find it later. He then goes to town and buys a bucket. Afterwards, he goes towards the closest water source to the flower and fills it with water. He then heads back towards the flower. First he throws the water from the bucket on the flower and steps back. That water made the bell chyme which caused the water to flash freeze.
He goes back to the water source, fills it back up with water, and heads back towards the flower. Null throws water on the Winterbell Flower again with similar results. He keeps pouring water on it until the water no longer flash freezes. He then carefully, with his fighting gloves on, grabs the plant that's now frozen in a big ball of ice. It's cold, but he now doesn't have to worry about the bell chiming and freezing everything.
'That's was far easier than I thought it would be. Well it was an F-rank quest, and I'm not complaining.'
Null makes it back to the alchemy guild. He presents the ingredients he was supposed to get to Rosemary. She smiles. “Well, well, I wasn't expecting you back for another week or quitting. The last two items on the list should've taken at least that long. You only took about a week. Well, a deal's a deal. I'll teach you everything you need to know about alchemy.”
She takes Null to the garden behind the alchemy guild. It's filled with all kinds of plants. Some of the plants look very weird to Null. Some flowers have petals that rotate around the stamen like planets. There are plants that are constantly changing colors. Some of the herbs were even levitating. That plant really intrigued Null.
“Identify”
Floatingway?????
That's all it said.
'Some of these plants are so powerful my identify can't fully get any information out.'
Next thing Null knew, he was on the ground convulsing.
'Huh? Poison? But when?'
“Who gave you permission to do Identify on my precious plants?” Rosemary said sweetly with a smile.
“Um, I'm sorry. It won't happen again.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Null health was dropping fast. It had already reached halfway down.
“You sorry?”
“Yes. Please? I'm about to die.”
She injects Null with the antidote.
“Good.” She said sweetly.
“Now follow me if you will.”
Null had gotten a new found fear of her and followed without ever looking at any of the other plants.
Rosemary speaks to Null saying, “Now as I said before, actually getting the ingredients is the most important part of being an alchemist. Some of your alchemy ingredients will be found in minerals or even different monsters, but the ingredients you will be dealing with the most are found in plants. To be able to make high level potions, you need to learn to get more potent plants, which you will only be able to do with higher levels of the gardening skill. Without the gardening skill being at the appropriate level, some plants could get easily damaged becoming useless, or even cause you harm. The plants that you picked were some of the lowest. How did you find that experience?”
“Honestly, it was a real pain in the ass.”
“You talkin' shit about plants?”
“No, of course not. I love plants.” Null said with sweat dripping through his clothes.
“The first thing we need to learn is the different ways to extract the needed chemicals from different materials.”
She takes Null to a room in the back of the garden. When he goes in, it looks like a chemistry laboratory. There are vials filled with different chemicals everywhere. Null learned his lesson the first time and chose not to use Identify on them. She shows him different types of vials and what they do.
“This process is called distillation. It works by separating what chemicals you need from those you don't by evaporation or condensation.”
She shows him around some more. “This process is known as extraction. It works like distillation, but instead of separating by evaporation, you separate by extracting the material you need as a solid or a liquid.”
She showed Null everything, from mixing, to compounding, to how to use different tools.
“Okay, that's enough of that. Now it's time for some practical knowledge. I will teach you how to make a health and mana potion. Anything else you want to learn how to make you'll have to experiment with on your own.”
She goes back to the garden and picks some plants. The plants that Rosemary picked looked ordinary.
Null thinks, 'Whew, it looks like health and mana potions don't require too powerful of plants to make. That's a relief.'
“First step is to pick and cut open the plants. Let them dry out in the sun.”
Null does this. Some of the plants are thin so he has to be careful. After drying in the sun, she gives Null a pestle and mortar.
“Take this and grind each of these plants into a fine powder. Make sure to wash the pestle and mortar after switching to a different plant. We don't want to contaminate the potions.” Null's hand gets tired from grinding all the ingredients.
'Ow. My hand is more tired than from when I did that mastu- researching marathon. For research.'
This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
It takes a while, but Null eventually grinds all the ingredients. Some were formed into a powder while others a paste.
She then hands Null a book. “Just follow these instructions. It's just mixing together different things. The Lev Herb requires extraction to extract the useful components. It's because one of the chemicals that the Lev Herb contains actually nullifies a chemical found in the Nayil Flower. Other than that, it's not that difficult.”
It was difficult work, but Rosemary was a lot more patient with Null than Jackson. He finally finished making both potions.
“Identify.”
Small health potionCan recover 500 health
“Identify.”
Small mana potionCan recover 500 mana
She then smiles. “Good job. Keep this book. It not only teaches you how to make health and mana potions. It can also teach you how to make different poisons and potions that give different effects. Some of those potions have nasty side effects so be careful. This book only covers the basics. Alchemists are stingy. You have to make your own high leveled potions.” She then gives Null the book.
“Also, take these seeds. These seeds grow up into plants that are ingredients for health and mana potions. The higher your gardening skill, the higher chance that the plants will grow and the faster they will grow. Right now, your gardening skill is at Beginner level 1, which means you have a 50% chance of growing these specific plants, which should be enough for you.”
Null talks to Rosemary saying, “Thank you for your time, and thank you for the book and seeds.”
“You're welcome!”
Null buys a bunch of vials and bottles and leaves the alchemy guild.”
He then feels relieved. 'Finally! Finally I'm free from the rest of any of the races! My dream of solitude is now within reach! I can now do everything on my own! What's my next step? Well I'm still far too weak to venture out too far on my own, as I would be an easy target for bandits and monsters, so I guess I'll go find a place devoid of monsters and people and set up my new place. That will be where I will stay for now.'
Null starts to look around. 'It needs to be close to a mountainous region so that I can mine. There also needs to be a water source close by. More importantly, it has to be a place where no person would never ever want to go.'
After 3 days, he finds a spot. It's 3 miles away from a mountain. It's 1 mile away from a lake. There are no monsters except for some rabbits and the occasional boar. It's far from a road path or a dungeon, and it's pretty barren besides some shrubs, so he doesn't have to worry about people coming by.
He sets out to build his hut. It's made out of twigs and leaves. He then builds an enclosure to keep animals away from. This is where he'll be planting his seeds.
'Okay. Now I'll build my bloomery. I need to buy a chisel for that. Maybe I should just buy all the tools that I might need when I go back to town. I also need to build a forge. It doesn't have to be fancy, as all I would need to do is keep making cheap things out of metal until my blacksmithing hits beginner level 5.
Then I'll set to work on my true forge. I'll do the same for the alchemy. I'll keep making health and mana potions until I hit beginner level 5 in alchemy, but what will I do with them all? Hmm.. maybe once in a while, I can go back to town and fight those monks. I still need to get stronger so that I can completely cut myself off from people. Okay I've set out my plan.'
4 days pass. Null had gotten the Light Orb skill while he was in town. He has been reading the alchemy book Rosemary had gave him. There is something useful he learned how to make from it: gunpowder. He's going to use it to blast open the side of the mountain so that he can mine. Since Null doesn't have anything else, he wraps the gunpowder in paper, then ties it to a string. Null hides behind a rock and lights the string. It travels to the bomb where big explosion occurs. He does this several more times. Null waits for the smoke to clear, and then starts mining. While he's mining, he starts drawing and painting different pictures when his endurance starts running low. He paints different perspectives from within the newly made cave. That day, he mined about 70 pieces of iron ore, and 130 pieces of coal.
3 more days pass, and his plants come in.
'So these plants take about a week to grow? Good. Let's get started.'
Null has been constantly using Identify on everything. He's trying to level up his identify so he can check out the individual specs of each of the plants. He wants to take the best ones and mate them, then grow their seeds like artificial selection. After Null makes all the available potions he could, he starts planting the seeds. Each different plant is put in a labeled area so that they do not get mixed up.
Afterwards, Null starts going out looking for more plants. He takes his shovel and starts randomly walking around. The first plant he finds that interests him looks peculiar. “Identify.”
Pink rabbit blossomA highly regarded ingredient that
temporarily increases dexterity.
Null ecstatic he found such a plant. When he goes to pick the plant, it instantly wilts in his hand.
'Aw man. I guess I need to raise my gardening proficiency to a good degree before I can pick such plants.'
Null goes to find any and all plants, even the ones that look ordinary. He mixes two plants together to see what effects they have. The majority of the time, the ingredients mixed did nothing, or actually decreased the potency of the plants, but some of the time, it could amplify a potion, even if Identify says it's just an ordinary plant.
For example, there was a plant that looked like red grass. Identify said that it was an ordinary plant, but when combined with Milky White Rose, it made a potion that increased attractiveness temporarily. Null had intentionally burned the flower, the red grass, and the papers on how to make the potion, but soon realized that that was counter productive, so he eventually found another Milky White Rose.
'Attractiveness is poison for a loner.' Null reasons.
Null would draw and paint the plants he mixed together. He would then use ink hand to write out their effects on different pages. This way, when he needs to add another material to the mixture, he would go and find the book. In this way, he compiled a huge amount of books, each with all the successes and failures of mixtures. His collection of plants slowly grew bigger.
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About a month has passed, and Null's hut is complete. It looks shabby, but Null doesn't care for aesthetics. There are different rooms. One is the alchemy room. It's filled with brewing chemicals in vials. There's even a deckle for making paper in there. The other is the blacksmith room. The other day, Null bought all the tools he thought he would need. He bought an anvil, hammers, and all sorts of tools.
There's a forge that Null built out of iron. The bloomery for purifying the metals is outside. Null loves that you can recycle weapons, as you do not have to go through the smelting process again, but he does it anyway for the experience. He has compiled a huge amount of iron ores, and coal, with some copper, and rarely silver. Null had to rely on system assist to learn how to smelt other materials besides iron, and when he learned how to smelt them, he smelted the rest of the materials without relying on system assist.
'Okay. Now that my forge is complete, and I have already smelted plenty of iron ore to okay quality, what should I forge first? Swords are common and boring. How about I make a metal staff?'
He uses the system assist and melts the iron into a long, flat sheet. He then tries to connect 2 sides of the sheet. He does identify on it to see the results.
Terrible metal staffIt's either a terrible staff or this world's
first attempt at a big metal crazy straw.
Either way it's pretty terrible.
“Ptah, is this how you get your kicks? You having a good laugh right now? I wish I could pee in your cereal.”
Null now grows wheat and other edible vegetables so he doesn't have to go back to town to buy food. It grows faster thanks to the Gardener skill. He sometimes supplements the food with rabbit or boar.
Null has been experimenting to improve the quality of his paper. His paper is now at a quality where a person level 5 and under couldn't tear it with sheer strength. Null had been constantly drawing stuff he hasn't before by writing down a list. If something is not on a list, he draws it until it looks good. It used to be when he started drawing something new, his drawings would turn out terrible. Now when he starts drawing something, the drawings aren't so bad.
He kept experimenting with the different plants to see what kind of effects they had. Mostly, they had no effect, or would just make something the opposite of what he intended, but sometimes, very rarely, there would be an effect that he would never see before. He would write his results in his book. Each time he wrote, he would use a different font. Null figures it would be beneficial anyway, because if he wrote something someone didn't like, they could never trace it back to him.
With his Identify and personal tests, he would write down anything and everything about any random object. This wasn't just limited to plants. Everything he would write down would be in a different font. He would go on the internet while not playing New Reality, and make a list of all the fonts he has used. Null no longer wrote in a book with a pen. He would put his finger on the book, and ink would come from his finger. It would then print the letters. This is the Ink Hand skill he was given when he leveled up his calligraphy to beginner level 5. This required a lot of practice and mana to get it a satisfactory level.
Occasionally, Null would go back to town to donate a copy of some of the books he wrote to the library. This is how he gained experience. Like how merchants can gain experience by traveling and trading, librarians gain experience by writing and donating books. Donating books is not the primary reason he would go back to town. The real reason was to fight the monks. Ludis was always there waiting for him. They would fight, and Null would fail to even lay a hand on him.
After fighting, he would leave town and go towards a body of water, and work on improving his Essence of Mana and Hand to Hand Combat. He would punch the water with a mana infused blow. Too early, and it would be like someone was blowing wind on the water. Too late and it the water would absorb most of the impact. If he were to time it just right, a giant shock wave would rise from the water.
After he logs out, he would then go to school, work, and the gym. On the weekends, he would go to the gym. This is how Null spent his days. He had finally achieved his dream. He is mostly alone with no one to bother him. He no longer has to hear the naive and stupid things people say. He no longer has to feel disgust from being too close to people while in the game. For the first time in a while, Null is satisfied.
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Author's Note: Null has finally achieved his dream. Will he spend the rest of his days in bliss? Is this the end of the story? Have you all just wasted your time? Let's see how long it takes for Null to fuck this up.