There wouldn’t be any grinding happening while the Assassin still roamed free over the island. Most of the party had logged out for the evening. The only two remaining were Sarah since she couldn’t log out of the game, and Jay, since Sarah couldn’t log out of the game.

With the Demon player lurking around, Jay didn’t expect to get much sleep. Certainly, it wouldn’t be the restful kind. The party didn’t possess any trap or alarm abilities that would detect if T were in the area. The only opportunity for tracking her was his Survival skill, but that wasn’t possible while he was asleep.

Since they wouldn’t get much sleep, Jay and Sarah went on a nighttime ingredient hunt. Jay assumed she could help him detect plants that would be useful to her. Working together, they might be able to develop some new potions. Both players had powerful ways of protecting themselves or escaping should they encounter the Assassin. As they walked, they were prepared to use them.

Still, Jay didn’t want to take any chances. Both players were walking around under the effects of novice perception, stealth, and spiderwalk potions. The conglomerate of effects was perfect for navigating the jungle on high alert.

The first ingredient the siblings found to process turned out to be a tree. From Jay’s perspective, there wasn’t anything different about this tree than any other jungle tree. Sarah pointed out the different markings within the bark of this particular tree. He still didn’t see it.

As luck would have it, the part they needed was the roots. Jay finally found a use for the pickaxe from his Dungeoneering packages to break up the dirt at the bottom of the tree. Since they needed the roots intact, he had to be careful about the process.

“I feel really out of the loop,” Sarah commented as Jay delicately hacked the dirt into chunks.

“Why is that?” Jay asked, though, in truth, it wasn’t that hard to figure out. She’d been stuck inside the game for almost a week. Everything she heard from the real world had been filtered through the Tumult staff working with her doctors. Her schoolwork was getting done, but the circumstances weren’t normal.

“You and Taylor Lynn keep throwing each other looks,” Sarah pointed out. “It’s like there’s something else happening that nobody wants to tell me about. So weird. If I didn’t know you better, I’d assume you were having some kind of an affair.”

“I can’t really have an affair,” Jay laughed. “We’ve only been on three dates. It’s not official.”

“You know what I mean,” she sighed, rolling her eyes.

Having broken up a section of dirt, Jay reached in with his hands to toss aside the clumps. “I know what you mean, but you’re jumping to conclusions here. It’s not like that. Hanging out with Claire, well… I’m really starting to get over Taylor Lynn. It’s nice.”

“You sound like you really believe that,” Sarah acknowledged. “The thing is: you didn’t see yourself pining after that girl for years. Why do you think you could never keep a girlfriend?”

“I just figured everyone was thrown off by my reserved, nerdy charm,” Jay deadpanned. “You’re telling me it was the lovelorn look in my eyes the whole time?”

“I’m being serious,” Sarah said. She switched gears when Jay uncovered part of the root. “There. Grab a few pieces of it, but don’t cut too much. We don’t need to kill the tree. We’ll just take a bit and cover it back up.”

“What kind of potion is this for, anyway?” Jay asked, glad to have Sarah distracted from the conversation about his romantic life. He was totally over Taylor Lynn. He truly felt that the horrific nightmare memory was a fluke.

“Don’t laugh,” Sarah cautioned.

Jay tossed her a confused look. “I’m not going to laugh—it’s the name of a potion. They’re not exactly known for their deep humor.”

“It’s situational,” Sarah replied. “There’s an upgraded version of the stealth potion that incorporates a few other things. It combines stealth and perception boosts. Beyond that, it also increases damage by twenty percent and adds five percent to critical chance.”

Jay whistled. “Sounds like they should name that potion needs-patched. That’s an insane combination. That can’t be a novice potion. What’s the name? You’re killing me with this suspense.”

“Assassin’s Balm,” Sarah said, shaking her head.

“Really?” Jay asked sarcastically. He looked up at the sky, so the developers would know he was unimpressed if they were watching. “Assassin’s Balm? It sounds like an edgy name for a chapstick.”

Chuckling, Sarah voiced her assent. “It kind of does. It only takes a few minutes to brew. Do you want to head back? I need to combine stealth and perception with a powdered version of this root.”

Jay clicked his tongue as he thought the question over. “Nah, let’s keep searching for a bit. Maybe, we can find some other ingredients to let you make new potions. This place is kind of a treasure trove.”

“Kind of like a dragon’s hoard,” Sarah suggested. “There’s abundance everywhere, as long as you don’t wake the sleeping dragon.”

“I don’t think that’s the phrase,” Jay said.

Sarah shrugged. “It works.”

The siblings continued the process of canvassing the island for magical goods. Jay was able to collect some basic items, though there was nothing new. Before they could find another notable plant, the siblings were attacked by six crocodiles.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Sarah quickly formed an impenetrable wall in front of Jay, composed of herself. He wasn’t too worried about the crocodiles. They were just experience points. Drawing his sword, he quickly joined her in cutting down the creatures.

After the first three fell, the remaining three tried to flee. Factoring in Jay’s combat movement speed boosts, he moved twice as fast as they did. This time, he didn’t have a scared NPC to protect. There wasn’t any escape for the beasts, so the pair collected six hundred experience points from the crocodiles.

The beasts dropped some meat, which Jay added to his inventory. He planned to work on the Cooking skill tonight if he could get the chance. Since they wouldn’t be sleeping much, he might as well work on some skills. The crocodiles also dropped some teeth, which joined his inventory. He was less confident about what those could be used for but figured something like jewelry was probable.

Sarah groaned. “I only need a few more groups of crocodiles to hit level thirty-three. Do you think we could hunt some more of them down?”

“Why bother?” Jay questioned. “They’ll come to us if we just keep farming herbs. Pami, the Elder, explained that Dissimu are much more active at night. During the day, we’d probably have to go hunting, though.”

“Fine,” Sarah relented. “It’s not an important level, anyway, I guess. Not like I get another ability or something.”

The siblings delved a little deeper into the forest, though they tried to remain close to the relative safety of the camp. Jay saw another of the tiny rock lizards, which ignored him completely. He took that to mean they were ranging close to the beach.

Jay stared at the creature. Something told him that these little rock lizards were babies. He activated his Analyze ability to get the measure of it.

System Message: Analyze successful! The Oscil Lizard is the designation given to spawn of the Broch Lizard that has not reached maturity. Unique to Mercura Island, these lizards have an inherent elemental affinity for earth. Despite low intelligence, they recognize allies and can naturally cast earth magic.

Jay eyed the character thoughtfully, then he stabbed it with Purple Haze. Sarah looked at him in surprise but didn’t comment on his random spurt of violence. He needed to add the creature to his Bestiary, so he activated Catalog.

The small creature had just made him a thousand dollars whenever he would be able to turn in another report. Beyond that, he wanted to see if any of the monster’s powers would be added to his Synthesization options.

Unfortunately, the abilities attached to the baby version were laughable. The defensive ability would add a grand total of five points to his health pool. The utility power would allow him to identify whether or not an object was a rock. While the power might have niche usages, he was pretty good at recognizing rocks.

“Let’s keep moving,” Jay said, shaking his head at the useless abilities. If Casey contracted with one, it would level up from training with her as Zenya had. Leveling it enough should make the creature evolve into its adult form. Hopefully, by adulthood, the monster would have practical earth magic.

After the run-in with the baby lizard, the siblings continued to farm materials. They gathered plenty of basic ingredients, finally finding another curious option. The plant looked like a small green potato but grew inside a patch of grass that masked its entire presence. They only noticed it because of Jay’s Herbalism skill highlighting it.

The roots of it were below ground and were orange leaves that grew in a small tuft. The plant was called a Cerman Tuber and looked like a reverse carrot: green body, orange leaves. The plant glowed with a dull green, so Jay simply plucked the plant by the body.

“Know anything about this?” Jay asked. “It looks interesting.”

“Yeah,” Sarah confirmed. “I need one of those to go with your weird new ingredients from the Elder. Hand it over.”

Jay obliged, extending the plant toward her. Sarah continued speaking as he did so, “I’m just saying be careful spending alone time with Taylor Lynn. Old habits die hard or whatever.”

“We’re back on this again?” Jay asked, moaning the whole phrase.

“You’re not a perfect person, Jay,” Sarah said. “Everyone has a weakness. Yours just happens to be a short, manipulative redhead.”

“She’s not that short,” Jay said, intentionally sidestepping the other part. “I appreciate you looking out for me, but it’ll be fine. She wants to talk to me about something, and then I’ll leave. Maybe see if Claire is free for that movie.”

Sarah slapped her hand onto his shoulder. “Look, all I’m saying is, you know, guard your heart. Don’t Jay this all up.”

“Oh, we’re doing the whole name-as-verbs thing, now?” Jay asked. “Way to take a simple conversation and Sarahify it.”

“What does that mean?” Sarah challenged.

“Oh, you know,” Jay said. Sarah did not know, which is why it led to a fifteen-minute argument all the way back to camp. Truthfully, Jay had just done it to mess with her head, which she eventually figured out through a torrent of badgering.

Back at camp, Sarah wasn’t talking to him in a definitely still-mature way, at least, to hear her explain the situation to the local trees. He happened to overhear since he was nearby when she spoke with the trees. Jay was happy to have peace and quiet from the badgering about Taylor Lynn. He was sure the cold shoulder was only his little sister trying to get back at him because she could be such a Sarah sometimes.

Glancing over at her, he saw she was back to working on her schoolwork. The textbook was an advanced organic chemistry book, and looking at the cover made Jay’s head spin. While she was burning the midnight oil, he would start testing some cooking.

Jay summoned a small cooking pan from his inventory and restarted the fire. Since Taylor Lynn wasn’t around, he had to set the fire manually, which took a bit of time. After that, he held the pan over the fire to heat it up. Over the next two minutes, the pan started to glow with heat.

Eventually, he needed a better solution that didn’t risk burning off the hair on his hand. He inspected his hand and realized that he didn’t have any knuckle hairs in-game. That was one upside, anyway.

Jay pulled out the crocodile meat with the typical shower of white sparks and tossed it onto the pan. He didn’t have any plants that he knew were proper spices. Some random fruits had been picked along their earlier journey. While the crocodile meat was searing, he squeezed the juices of one fruit over it.

After that, he sliced another one of the fruits into pieces, using a small piece of wood as a chopping board. For his knife, he used Purple Haze. He was reasonably sure Bernard would lose it if he knew Jay was using his beloved sword as a cooking tool. But Bernard wasn’t here.

Glancing at the cooking meat, Jay saw a red light emanating from around the meat. He waited for the light to turn yellow and poured the sliced fruit into the meal. Once the mixture turned green, he pulled the pan away from the fire. Finally, the meal continued to sizzle as Jay inspected his first attempt.

The meal was called “Marinated Crocodile,” and the process yielded three units of the stuff. When the meal was consumed, it would boost the Strength and Vitality statistics for a full twenty-four hours. The party definitely had another way to stack bonuses during their future grinding. Despite his success in cooking a delicious meal with added bonuses, a message caught his attention.

System Message: After deliberate review, the Synthesization ability has been found to be outside the scope of Tumultua Online’s intended design. While it cannot be removed, the system has been locked. We appreciate your continued cooperation.

Gritting his teeth, Jay hung his head. The timing of the message was random and nearly sent him into a frenzy. The moment he lowered his head marked the first time he’d looked at the ground since he and Sarah left to gather ingredients.

There were glowing red tracks.