I spent the rest of who knows how long researching as much as I could and what I found interesting in the book.

Repairing the book gave me access to a lot of interesting knowledge, like how to make better use of the nodes, or enclosing them in a jar.

I also learned how to make wands out of wood from the greatwood tree, which I still didn't get, as well as gold caps and some foci to cast magic, one that allows me to cast fire, one that allows me to cast lightning, and one that allows me to break blocks with a green laser.

I also learned how to stabilize a node, or energize it to take advantage of its energy for some other things.

On the alchemy side I learned how to make nitor, alumentum, magic tallow and thaumium, as well as some alchemical duplication.

I was looking forward to making some nitor, but it required glowstone dust, which I couldn't get on a consistent basis.

A quick check of the nei told me I could make it by burning blaze powder in a witches furnace, that brought up another problem, blaze powder, but I discovered I can also get it from a plant called ash pearl, so my goal was to make some mutandis and use it on the grass until I got the plant I needed.

First I made some horned breath by burning oak saplings in a witch's furnace, then I put the cauldron on the ground, put a fire under it and filled it with water, mandrake root, horned breath and a egg later I had some mutandis, I repeated the process a few times until I ran out of eggs and then went up to the surface to mutate more plants.

Half a stack later and I had gotten a pearl of ash, I went back down to my house and threw the blaze powder into the witch's furnace along with some gunpowder, a few seconds later I had a jar of pestilence of misfortune and 2 glowstone dusts, which I could now easily duplicate with a thaumaturgy cauldron, torches and carrots.

With the glowstone dust I could now make nitor, it was a strange object, it seemed to be consuming the energy in the air to keep itself working, it produced a little heat, but not enough to burn me, I could move it with my hand, and it didn't seem to have weight, if I pushed it somewhere it just floated there, an eternal flame.

With some stone and charcoal I made myself some alumentum as well, it never hurts to have a couple of grenades on hand.

Now that I had a variety of materials, I was eager to explore the outside a bit, maybe find a better place to build a base, but it would do me good to have a little more security.

I went back to the surface and kept using the mutandis until I got a greatwood tree sprout, I gave it bone meal and collected the magic wood, with it I made a wand body, and with 2 gold ingots from the treasure bags I made myself 2 gold caps, and made myself a better wand, this one had a storage capacity of 50 vis, which should be enough to use for at least a while the wand foci.

I couldn't make wand foci yet, but I knew how to get the crystals in this world, I just had to look for a fire and air node and there should be vis crystals nearby.

With the magic wood I crafted 33 thaumium ingots and upgraded all my equipment to thaumium.

I made a few leather backpacks and put all my items inside, as well as my bed and all the workstations, it was time to travel a bit, explore the world.

I got on my broom and started flying in the opposite direction of the old man's mountain, I wasn't going to get lost, I had a map after all.

I flew through the sky for 1 day, on the way I went from a lush forest to a few scattered trees, there were huge mountains in the distance, bigger than the old man's mountain, but that was not what interested me the most, it was a special zombie, it had a name, the protected devourer.

As I remembered from the game the mobs with names were champions, they had special abilities and when they died they released a treasure bag, it was worth killing it, it could contain useful things, and luckily it simply had a runic shield, if it had other effects like strength or regeneration it would have been difficult, but the runic shield could be broken with arrows from the broom and then shoot the bastard.

When he died he dropped me a common treasure bag, not to be confused with the loot bags, inside I found 6 dark gems, 7 crushed dark gem and 7 gold coins.

That was great, now I had access to the evilcraft, and with that came several extremely useful items, among them the blood infuser and the blood chest, but that would be later, for now I continued advancing, until it became daylight, then I went down to the ground and spent 3 dark gems to make me a dark apple and a syringe.

The apple had a very sweet smell, almost captivating, but I knew what I was doing, so I simply ignored it, and continued flying through the plains, a while later I met an animal, a kind of wolf with lizard skin, it looked like a giant iguana, when I approached it began to growl, but when I took out the darkened apple all its attention was captivated, as if it was the most beautiful thing in the world, I threw it to him and he swallowed it all in one bite, I stayed watching him for a few seconds, while he fell to the ground dead, and from his corpse a black hole was formed, a disturbance in space, something that should not exist, and the world itself rejected, in seconds it began to close again, so I quickly threw him a blank book, and just before it closed it transformed into "origins of darkness".

I spent the rest of the trip looking through the book, until I was stopped by a shout.

"hey, you can't fly over the city! It's under the protection of the green mountain sect, if you don't want to offend us I recommend you stop, I know you're not a member, I advise you not to look for trouble here."

A guy in a green robe was flying on a sword in front of me, he caught me completely off guard, I didn't even realize there was a city around here, I had to be more careful when flying, I couldn't just get lost in a book, luckily I didn't run into a dragon or anything like that, that would have been ugly.

"sorry, I got distracted by my book and didn't notice, I'll get down on the ground now."

"don't think it will be that easy, you've already offended us, now you'll have to pay a fine."

"Well, what's the price."

"If you give me that nice armor you have I'll let you go in peace."

"I don't think so my friend, if you're going to extort someone for petty things at least control your greed, or someday you'll end up dead."

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"who do you think you are to talk to a member of green mountain like that in their territory, I was trying to be nice to you, but now I'm going to beat you up and take everything you hav..."

*BOOOM*

I didn't even let the idiot finish talk and threw an alumentum in his face, the explosion was much stronger than I expected, quite a bit more in fact, and it seemed to have caught the idiot off guard, as he went flying in a fireball towards the city, I didn't see the state of his body, but he fell to the ground like a brick and didn't get back up, the alumentum seemed pretty strong, either that or I caught him completely off guard and he didn't have time to use or activate defenses.

Whatever the case may be, I had already drawn undue attention, now it was time to wait for the problems, if the idiot could talk to me with so much confidence it was sure that there was someone more powerful in the city that gave him that confidence, I did not believe that he could run away even with the broom.

And trouble didn't take long to appear, in the form of an old man who appeared from behind some buildings.

"What the hell is going on here?"

I went down to the ground and put my broom away, a city was an important place for me, I could discover a lot of information in it, or buy some of the few materials I can't make by myself.

"I assume you are the authority around here, that guy tried to extort me as soon as I got to the city, he told me I had to pay a fine for flying and I agreed, but his greed blinded him and he wanted my armor, when I refused, he tried to attack me, I just defended myself."

"whether that is true or not, you have attacked a member of the green mountain in his own territory, you will have to come with me, we will interrogate you and the inner disciple when he wakes up, then we will decide what to do with you, don't cause any more trouble or I will have to knock you unconscious."

I followed the old man through the city in silence, he walked fast and it cost me a little to keep up with him, but as I followed him I was also looking around, the city was quite large, and as I advanced from the outer area the average wealth was increasing, the houses looked more manicured and nicer, and the people looked healthier, well fed and wore more complex or better quality clothes.

There seemed to be a lot of disparity in wealth and class of life, and the further into the center of town the better the conditions.

After a while of walking we were more or less in the central area of the city, the old man took me to a 2 floor building made of wood, once inside he took me through some corridors and then we entered a room, it didn't have much furniture, it seemed more practical than striking.

We sat in silence one on each side of a small floor table, there were no benches in the room, just some cushions to sit on.

We were silent for a moment until another person entered the room, he had a box with him, he left it on the table and left.

The old man opened the box and took out of it a white hexagonal crystal, he handed it to me and when I held it in my inventory I could read -truth crystal-.

- "well, let's start with your name."

"you can call me Steve."

No one knows me anyway, I might as well do the legendary builder some honor.

The crystal in my hand didn't react in any way, that was interesting.

"Well, tell me exactly what happened."

...

"and that's what happened."

The crystal didn't light up during my whole explanation, even though I told a few little lies here and there, but I actually told the story well, I didn't have to lie.

"And what is your reason for coming to town?"

"I was planning to do some business, maybe get some information about the area."

"Business you say?"

"I'm kind of a .... Alchemist, I was planning to sell this, if anyone was interested."

I made as if to place my hand in a bag under the table and pulled out some nitor, I picked it up and showed it to the old man, who looked a little tense when he saw the fire, he practically jumped off the floor, but when he saw that I didn't do anything he relaxed again.

"What's the meaning of this!"

"you asked me what kind of business, I was planning to sell this, it's a creation of mine, I call it nitor, the eternal flame, it burns infinitely without the need for fuel, it produces quite a lot of light and a small amount of heat, enough to boil water if you put it under a cauldron and it has no weight so it can be placed anywhere and it will just float there."

The old man gaped for a moment, then sat back down quietly and held out his hand, I passed him the nitor and watched as he spent the next 10 minutes analyzing it.

His face went from stoic to amazed to shocked the longer he spent looking at the nitor.

"Wait here!"

he yelled at me, and ran off with the nitor in it's hand.

He seemed to have completely forgotten that I was supposed to be a criminal, and left me alone in the room for about 3 hours, by the time he returned it was getting dark.

"well, hm, I have discussed your product with a friend, he says he is very interested in buying this ^nitor^ you are talking about , how much would you be interested in selling it for?"

....

"aren't I supposed to be a criminal? What about the guy I knocked down?"

"ah that, don't worry about it, he'll be fine, and a little insidious self-defense shouldn't be a big deal, we can just let it go without further ado."

The old man was clearly making an exception for me, I had a feeling they were going to kill me as soon as they finished interrogating me, I already had the spectral key ready, but it seems I'm more valuable alive than dead.

"mhh, I was looking to get some of these."

I put my hand back under the table and pulled out one of the water vis crystals I had.

"water spirit crystals? We can get you some, how many do you want for your nitor?"

"well... it's a unique item, extremely expensive to make, only I can make it, and I'm sure it can be very useful, so the question would be, how much are you willing to pay?"

I was completely lying, it was neither expensive to make nor did I have any idea how useful it could be, but I wanted to see how much the old man was willing to stretch himself.

...

"I'm willing to offer you 90 water crystals for it."

"hm, and would it be possible for you to give me 15 crystals of each type instead?"

"it would be possible to arrange something, but someone of your capabilities should keep in mind that some types of crystals are harder to get than others, either because of their rarity or difficulty to obtain."

"what do you propose then?"

"I can get you 20 earth, 5 ordo, 7 air, 20 water, 3 perditio, and 10 fire."

I stood silently looking at him, with a completely serious face, to see if I could get him to offer anything else, I really had no idea how much the nitor was worth to the old man, nor how much the crystals he was offering me were worth, but I had to act like I was in control.

A few seconds later and the old man hadn't reacted at all.

"we have a deal, how much nitor do you want?"

"you have more?"

Shit

"a couple or 3, like I said, they are extremely expensive to make, I spent all my resources on them before I came to town."

It literally costs me 2 coals and 6 torches to make 2 nitor, not counting the glowstone dust.

"I want as many as you have, I'll offer you the same price we agreed on for each one."

"fine, I have 3."

"I'll tell someone to bring you the crystals later, do you have somewhere to stay? We could lend you an invitation if you like, it would be nothing for such a distinguished guest."

"since you are so kind I will accept your offer, but I may go for a walk during the night, I hope it won't be a problem."

"of course not, you are totally free to do what you want, someone will bring you the crystals as soon as we get them, but it might take a couple of days, if it's not a bother."

"not at all, I will give you the rest of nitor when you deliver the crystals to me, and then I will continue on my journey."

After negotiating with the old man, he took me to a room and said he would let me to rest for the night, as soon as he left I instantly entered my spectral dimension, I had never entered before, and it was very strange.