The Notorious Misadventures of an Alchemist and a Phoenix, Chapter 9

Noah's new class took advantage of his inflated wisdom and intelligence from his Alchemist stats. One of the mage class beginner missions was to fire ten thousand mana missiles and thanks to Noah's vast mana pool he could spew the skill out without worrying about his mana management.

A light blue mana sphere consolidated in front of Noah taking form as it pulled the energy out of Noah to complete the form of a mana missile. It was one of the first spells mages received from the class but this one spell caused Noah to almost skip in delight. The sad thing about Alchemist was that they didn't have any attack spells. Yes, they could change the very matter with potions, elixirs and concoctions and Given enough time Alchemist could turn battles around with ginormous fire and destroy battle formations with a nice spray of itching powder but defending themselves at a moment's notice was not in their repertoire.

A grin akin to a villain spread across Noah's mouth. A shambling zombie passed a tree only to stumble when the mana missile hit it in the chest. Two seconds to charge the skill and two seconds cooldown, four seconds in all. It was too long to use in a normal battle but fine for a half-rotten limping corpse. The spell mana missile was considered weak and yet in Noah's hands, it cracked bone and tore flesh. As the zombie collapsed to the floor Noah removed the head with a blast from his mana missile, all together it had taken sixteen seconds to destroy a zombie with the simple plan of walking back slowly while hitting the zombie.

"Not bad, but it could be better" muttered Noah as he bent over and collected the small experience orb drop. Noah walked away from the zombie without collecting anything from the rotting corpse. He was an alchemist and he could find a couple of uses for an undead body but he didn't bother dissecting the cadaver because ultimately people were funny about having human remains in their potions.

Instead, Noah checked his class. For the first beginner-tier mission, Noah would have to fire ten thousand mana missiles and use the skill meditation for a combined length of a week.

Mana missile wasn't a problem, by his calculations he could complete the mission in about a day. And so, a training montage of Noah pushing his limits and wiping out zombie after zombie while sitting on a log and firing off mana missile after mana missile.

After the ninth zombie fell, Noah had enough experience orbs to upgrade one of his skills. Each skill could hold three upgrades, anything from a slight decrease in the percentage of cooldown to modifying the skill into something new and powerful. But that was unlikely as the rare and powerful effects were surrounded by mundane and weak upgrades. For every good upgrade, there were hundreds of poor ones. You would need to be incredibly lucky.......or have access to luck.

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Noah popped a cork causing the phoenix to nudge him as he tried to get a taste of what Noah had, he ignored the phoenix and downed his luck potion. quickly, Noah used the orbs and a new effect was added to the mana missile.

Shrapnel shot, when a mana missile hits a target it will explode with mana shrapnel.

It wasn't what Noah was looking for but it wasn't bad, if anyone else was to obtain this upgrade they would be excited about their future. Noah knew there were better upgrades out there. His alchemy skills, for example, Extract had the upgrade called complete extract, allowing Noah to completely take all the components from ingredients without any waste.

However, for Noah, this new upgrade to mana missile would do until he rerolled the skill and tried for a better one. But until he filled all three skill slots he wouldn't reroll.

The speed at which Noah defeated zombies increased by threefold. Zombies were crowed hunters and squashed them selfs together. Since the beginning of the hunt Noah had been crushing only lone zombies but now his mana missile was tearing through multiple zombies at once.

The phoenix would draw the zombies in with his loud mouth and Noah would crack their heads open at a distance.

The second upgrade was crap, with a measly amount of decrease in cooldown for the skill, five per cent. That would most definitely get rerolled.

It was just then that a new zombie appeared and puked a stream of poison at Noah from a distance.

Thanks to Noah's toxic resistance he wasn't hurt. This was the main reason that Noah came to the poisoned plains, he wasn't going to get hurt, even if he got bitten the poisonous bite and the poison in the air would heal him. And yet no one liked getting puked on. Unless that was your fetish.

Noah solved the puking zombie problem by caving its head in. Collecting experience orbs, spending experience orbs, rerolling upgrades and then repeating was Noah's job.

Five per cent increase in power, reroll. Able to change the colour of mana missile, flashy but useless, reroll. Transparent mana missile, unique but still a reroll.......maybe.

Only when Noah was tackled by a particular quiet zombie did the cycle of killing for experience orbs break and a new cycle of zombies dog piling Noah. This was terrible as the zombies smelt like rotting feet and all of them were trying to share their smell by crawling all over Noah. Each zombie tried their best at bitting and clawing but with so many piling on each other and puking over everyone, it became rare for a hit to land.

Noah was safe as a house made from stinky zombie flesh could be, but it didn't change that he couldn't move from the weight of the pile of undead flesh. Noah was bitterly scared for his life as all this was new to him and yet as time passed and the stupid phoenix didn't come to Noah's rescue, he realised he wasn't in any danger. Yes, now and again a zombie would manage to sink their poisonous teeth into an arm or leg but with the leather, he was wearing and the toxic resistance it was less than nothing. The small mercy was the crow mask he wore protected his mouth and nose from the puking poison that dripped between the rotting corpses. Noah shuddered at the thought of that liquid meeting his lips.

The phoenix watched the whole event and even though he could clean up the mess of tangled bodies with a single flamethrower, all his tiny bird brain thought was "This is the biggest and messiest orgy he had ever seen"