The Notorious Misadventures of an Alchemist and a Phoenix, Chapter 4
Noah had fiddled with his class, messed around with his stats and pumped experience orbs into his new skills. His newfound Master tier dexterity caused a weird subtle after-effect with his hands that caused Noah to poke himself in the eye accidentally. Clutching his sore eye Noah started to rub the pained spot only to cry out in pain from the friction the speed of his hands caused. it would take a little time to adjust to his new stats.
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"Stop narrating" the small god of baked goods demanded.
Spiel, the god of stories had forgotten he was narrating Noah's story out loud. The embarrassment only crept to his neck as it turn red. He was annoyed that he was even here hanging out with these lesser gods and yet he went where the story was. And Noahs story contuined here.
The small grouping of lesser gods was doing their part-time work by discussing Noah's advancement to master. It wasn't the fact that Noah had reached Master that had them in a small titter but how fast he had done it. Noah was still a young man, just outside of being a child. Reaching Master tier in anything should take years and that was the problem. Though out the multiverse there was an uncountable amount of masters but few who were young.
Without pause, the god of baked goods called NomNom raised his voice. "The time scale is a mess. we can't have him disturbing the balance.
The other lesser gods looked at NomNom with blank faces. Interestingly, most gods were a bit thick in the mind meat.
NomNom sighed, he would have to spell it out for them letter by letter. NomNom shuffled some papers and flicked to the page with Noah's stats.
"Noah 8676A89P72 has achieved master tier in Alchemy in his twenties and become immensely rich through his actions"
The other gods just shrugged
A sneer paused on NomNom's lips "If his progression continues like this assortments suggest he will reach grand master class in less than eight years"
"So what..." a voice echoed out
NomNom head turned towards the voice so fast that a snap cracked out through the room. A small crack appeared on NomNom's neck and it healed just as fast as it appeared, he was after all a literary gingerbread man.
"8676A89P72 Has complete control over alchemy in his city and the surrounding lands. He buys all the most costly herbs at the best price, which means everyone from multiple lands only sell to him, he also hires thieves and assassins to collect other people's resources. This leaves no growth for other alchemists, which means there's no competition" NomNom explain slowly to the thick-headed gods.
The other gods just looked at each other as if to say "SO....."
Though gritted gingerbread teeth NomNom continued "8676A89P72 has become a black hole of resources, and those resources will increase his growth. All this is at Master tier. Just think what will happen when he reaches grand master and start to branch out to other classes."
Before the other gods could interrupt NomNom explained "A master or grand master level alchemist will have an insane mana pool, mana regeneration and hand action equal to the slipperiest thief. When he chooses a second class the synergy will explode his growth. He will quickly grow out of control and become equal to summoned heroes. And then he will gobble up the resources the heroes need."
This got the attention of the gods. Heros were like gambling to the gods. They used the mortal for faith and the heroes to bet with faith. If the heroes weren't getting the limelight, the people would stop praying and the gods would have to stop gambling. This was unforgivable as the gods long life had little to occupy their time with. It was all about the entertainment.
"WE GOT TO STOP HIM" a cat lady with massive paws slammed the table.
NomNom nodded his head releasing a few crumbs to roll onto the table like flakes of dandruff.
"We've got to stall for time. Allow the other cities and alchemists to catch up and counter his business" NomNom prepose
"Eight years is the estimation of when he will get to grandmaster but that isn't enough time. So I propose to increase the difficulty of his class mission so it takes longer"
Grandmaster was a time sink that would punish people who wanted to get grandmaster and allow others who weren't as good at the system to catch up. In short, it was one of the many ways to balance the system.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
"Is that allowed? Will the system allow it" asked a bear owl?
"The system is all about fairness. If we increase the class mission difficulty then the system will increase the reward"
The circle of gods voted and started to leave when an immortal intern came in with a scroll and passed it to NomNom.
The deep brown biscuit-coloured skin paled like sugar icing as he read the message "impossible" muttered NomNom
The other gods looked to see what was happening and what had changed but the only thing they could see was that Spiel the god of stories had left.
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Most people thought that all Achimsist do were slap two ingredients together to complete their craft but most people were stupid. Prep work was the sign of a good crafter and this was true even for Noah. Items had to be steeped, herbs pickled and solutions created. In his workshop, Noah's hands blurred from skilled work and increased stats as he pulled various liquids and mixed his potions. Noah had started to attack his Grand Master tier.
Class missions were there to help the user to stabilise the knowledge and stats they gained and because of this, there wasn't a fixed amount of missions per class. A warrior might need to do ten separate missions before they could reach the next tier of class but other warriors might only need to do five missions to reach a new tier.
Noah's grand master tier asked for three missions. The system seemed to think that Noah's understanding of his alchemy class was good enough for Noah to only need three missions.
Noah's hands paused. He looked over his shoulder expecting something. Brushing his hands on his leather apron Noah walked over to a wooden cabinet and unlocked the massive iron lock.
A soft click from the lock made Noah wince. A soft sigh escape his lips when everything seemed fine.
"Everything is nice and clean and rea-"
A new rule of the universe that Noah had just heard from his friend popped into his mind.
"God damn Murphy's Law" cursed Noah as he was forceable pushed aside by the phoenix.
The cabinet he had unlocked held Noah's more expensive elixirs and potion ingredients but it also held massive amounts of hooch, moonshine and alcohol.
And the phoenix knew it too. With the massive lock removed, there was nothing to stand in the phoenix's way, except Noah who was quickly shoved aside. This was the problem with specializing in a single class, you could be bullied because of your stats being uneven. Noah being powerless to stop the mad phoenix from grabbing any number of bottles from the cabinet and chugging every bottle stayed away and waited.
Noah made a note on paper to restock his moonlight moonshine as he witnessed the phoenix down a whole bottle within seconds. That stuff was expensive and hard to make. As an Alchemist he was able to make the stuff but it was never the same as getting a person who had the class of brewer. It was fortunate that he didn't need the liquid at this point.
Noah's face twisted as he helplessly watched the bulging eyes and drooling mouth of his insane phoenix overindulge booze and destroy his collection.
Noah made another note "I guess I'm not making any infusion mana drops today"
It was only when the cabinet was empty of bottles did the phoenix stop his mad dash to consume as much alcohol as there was. With a belly considerably bigger the phoenix wobbled like a duck over to a table leg and lie down. With one wing supporting his head and the other grabbing the tablecloth to wipe his beak the phoenix continued what he was saying before he went mad.
"Everything is nice and clean and ready for your highness to inspect"
Noah wanted to kick the little thief but knew better as the strength of his kicks would be nothing but kitten kisses to the legendary bird. Noah in the past had thought about poisoning the bird but that too was no good as the phoenix was part of the legendary species of creatures and immune to poisons and debuffs.
Sometimes you just had to take a loss. Noah begrudgingly pushed away the empty bottles to gain access to a small metal safe that was stashed in the corner of the cabinet. This was where Noah kept some of his more dangerous stuff.
The metal safe opened to reveal many small vials of liquids. The phoenix twitched as he was ready to push Noah out of the way and go on another bender but controlled himself. The phoenix had once grabbed a vial from that safe before he instantly regretted it when the liquid he drank caused hair to grow on his eyeballs. Everyone has had the pain of having a single hair in their eye, now imagine that your eyes had nothing but hairs in them and every time you blinked or rubbed them the hair would mat together causing small dreadlocks.
"The dreaded eye dreadlocks" The phoenix shuddered.
The phoenix didn't realise that this liquid wasn't meant to be drunk but rubbed on the scalp. It was a big seller for Noah and at the time it was the first time Noah realised that despite not having enough stats to physically control the phoenix he could control him by other means.
Noah pulled out a tiny vial of grey-clouded substance that could be air or liquid or both.
Back to his table, Noah poured five drops of misty liquid into a much larger silver and ruby decanter. Noah would have to wait for half a minute but then it would be done.
Noah looked at his missions
GrandMaster Missions
1. SUBMIT THREE NEW MASTER-TIER RECIPES
2. SUBMIT A NEW DESIGN FOR A TOOL USED IN ALCHEMY
3. INCREASE THE UNDERSTANDING OF ALCHEMY TO NEW HEIGHTS.
The three new master-tier recipes for his Grand Master tier were right at this moment being completed. The three master-tier potions were permanent stat increase recipes. Usually, each stat increase potion would take years to stabilise however, that was where the grey mist liquid came in. It sped up the Elixir by five years per drop.
The second part was just as easy. Noah introduced his infinite flask of lesser potions
For the third part of his grandmaster quest, Noah registered blueprints for his condensing liquid machine. Some items could absorb potions and produce whole new effects and with added pressure, items could absorb more. This machine was placed at the bottom of a deep lake or ocean to add to the force and the overall effect.
It was easy because Noah had already done the work
The only way the gods could know was to watch Noah's history, and why would they do that?
A new message popped up letting Noah know not only his stat-increasing potions were ready but also that he had completed his mission.
The multiverse had a new Grand Master which was cause for the gods and particularly the god of stories to take notice.