Tutorial Day 18

  Jacky stormed into Maelstrom’s sanctum, and he raised an eyebrow at the show of personality. He could tell she was upset and had an urge to go to her like he would have his daughter. He shook himself, recalling that she was but another of his puppets.

  “That damn newcomer, came out with us, and he has more than just Gathering Skills,” Jacky exclaimed.

  “Oh?” Maelstrom responded, checking the Northern District Leaderboard. Brodie wasn’t on it. “What Skill does he have?” Maelstrom asked.

  “Had,” Jacky responded, causing both of Maelstrom’s eyebrows to climb into his hairline. “He’s dead, dad.” Maelstrom froze. Her tone was so hurt and lost. It sounded so much like his daughter Jaqueline. He blinked off his surprise after a moment, and ignored the false emotion.

  “He died while Hunting?” Maelstrom asked, even though he already suspected the answer.

  “No father, I killed him. Now the group is upset with me–I’m just out for a walk to cool off! They don’t understand, anything!”

  Maelstrom sucked in a breath. Then sighed before standing up and going to his ‘daughter.’ When he touched her the illusion fell away and she fell to the floor as a lifeless puppet with his strings cut. This had always been the issue with his Illustrious Illusions Skill. He had pushed that Skill to great lengths, changing how he used it in multiple ways. And now, he could essentially recreate anything or anyone he’d seen, or knew. However, if he tried to change their personality too much–they’d act erratically.

  Was this due to his attempt to have her act older? He thought it had failed, since she still seemed to possess the same personality he recalled from her highschool days. Shrugging he reached down and pulled out the Monster Core he’d converted to a memory and personality device.

  Using his Illustrious Illusions he watched back the scene that occurred in the Forest. The boy had some sort of Body Enhancement Skill?

  Clearly he had something that turned him scaly, like a lizard. Still, his puppet's reaction was excessive. It wasn’t like there weren’t others here in the Tutorial that became ‘monstrous’ when using a Skill. The leader of the Hero Tribe turned into a giant Werewolf for husk sakes.

  Shaking his head, he ever so subtly adjusted the memory, making sure he didn’t tamper too deeply with it. If he left it as it was, she still could double down on doing it to protect the ragtag group she’d joined. Maybe they’d even forgive her in time.

  Deaths happened all the time in the Tutorial. This was just another casualty of war. Like his family had been…

  * * *

  A red cloud of Mana formed near the ceiling of my room, and the size of it instantly gave me pause. What was going on? The answer came to me as the shape inside the cloud began to form. It was easily the size of an outdoor fireplace. Maybe bigger…

  I rushed over to my bed, and thankfully the cloud and dense red Mana in the shape of the object followed me. As if it was mocking my moment of relief, it grew larger, going from backyard campfire to church-bell sized.

  My eyes scanned from it to the bed, and back again. This was not going to be good… I pumped Mana to my Reptilian Body on instinct as I stepped forward, getting ready to catch whatever this Pill Cauldron would be.

  The Mana resolved itself into flaky, rusting metal, like an Anime character revealing a new suit of armor. Flakes of the Red Mana ‘chipped’ off to reveal a very… lackluster shape.

  Gravity asserted itself on the object and it fell. I held my arms up, ready to catch it, but also realizing just how large and pointy some parts on the bottom were as it fell towards me. Those parts were the ‘feet’ of the object, I realized, even as I tried to position myself to not catch one of the four feet in the chest.

  My leading hand caught the center of the spherical bottom right where I hoped the balance point would be, and after the initial added momentum, I felt my flexed muscles, scaled arms, and taloned hands receive the weight—like it was simply a weighted med ball. The sounds of crashing metal on metal that accompanied my ‘catch’ made me wince, but I could only hope that I hadn’t broken it too badly.

  Smiling, I slowly climbed off my bed with my one knee and brought the Pill Cauldron with me. The bed creaked ominously under me, but thankfully didn’t break, like I had thought it might’ve. Holding the Cauldron didn’t let me get a good look at it, but I realized that I was extremely lucky that the ceiling was ten feet high.

  I then realized the next issue I was going to have. There was only one place in the room I could set it down. Well. there were multiple, but not if I wanted to use the bed, door or magical shower.

  Sorry, nightstand. I thought even as I kicked it toward the opposite corner and began lowering the Cauldron into its previously occupied place.

  The sound of wood splintering, because I didn’t control the force of my kick, made me wince, but I was kind of on a timer.

  As soon as I got the Cauldron on the floor, I deactivated Reptilian Body, or was about to when I realized I hadn’t ‘looked’ at the Skill Planet when it was activated.

  Leaving it running with minimal Mana input, I focused for a moment and dove into that space with the Red Mist. It took an extra second as my mind fought with me over its desire to study the Pill Cauldron. Thankfully, Mental Fortitude surpassed the unnecessary thoughts, and helped guide me ‘home.’

  What I discovered was both interesting and thought provoking. The Mana wasn’t activating the Planet, or at least I assumed it wasn’t, because the Skill wasn’t glowing like Heal or Cleanse did. Instead the Mana was acting as a vacuum in the Skill’s center, or maybe a tornado was a more accurate description?

  Essentially the Mist was being pulled back into the center of the leaking Skill Planet. The reason it might be considered a vacuum was that a minute amount of the Mist kept disappearing. With each disappearance of the Mist I kind of felt a pulse in my body. The same pulse that I believed was increasing my Stats.

  I let go of the Mana and continued to watch. As soon as the Mana cyclone dissolved, the Mist started leaking back out again from the ruptured Skill Planet. Knowing what was happening to my body, I could almost feel the scales on my body fading with the Mist’s escape.

  Two thoughts occurred to me. If the Mist was what was doing this, then would I need Mana in the future, or would I always be walking around as a lizard if I fixed this Skill Planet? Second, it hadn’t been able to collect all of the surrounding Mist. So, would this Skill be more powerful if it did?

  Or was the control in the amount of Mist I saw disappearing in the vacuum?

  “Dammit, Smegma, where the hell are you?” I complained as I opened my eyes.

  If there ever was a time that I could use the Demon’s help it would be now. Especially with the Pill Cauldron and his theoretical knowledge of how it might work. Well, I guess there was no guarantee he’d know anything about that, but—he did seem to have a rather large range of ‘useless’ knowledge on subjects even when he didn’t practice them.

  Stolen story; please report.

  I hoped he was only absent because of the time dilation here. Considering he existed in another plane of existence—that was the most likely explanation. It wasn’t like he hadn’t gone ‘missing’ for a week before.

  The Pill Cauldron looked quite a bit worse than I’d feared, as it sat canted to one side on the ground. It was rusty, certainly—in fact, there was a pile of brown flakes and sand under the object. However, the most worrisome part of the entire piece of metal was that I had absolutely no clue how it worked.

  Its spherical bottom extended up like a teardrop, into what I assumed was a chimney. At nearly the very bottom of that sphere, there was something that might have been a drawer, since it had a protrusion that might have once been a knob with a long, thin rectangular accent. I pulled it out.

  It was a drawer. A metal drawer with a flat bottom. Since it was what I thought, the next rectangle with a knob on top of it—this one slightly deeper, was likely also a drawer. I pulled it out and found a deeper drawer, but this one had a grated, rusty bottom. The thing looked like any weight would cause it to break—which left me somewhat confused as to how I would manage to use it.

  Next up from that was a furnace-style door. One with a door handle that looked like it belonged on a safe and squealed in protest as I rotated it. When I opened it, I discovered an oven-like open space inside. In that space were a few free pieces of metal. They were either broken pieces of the Cauldron, or objects that were meant to be used in the process of forging Pills.

  I reached in and pulled them out. One of them looked a lot like a crucible, which made me hopeful that I hadn’t broken the thing when I caught it. The second object was something akin to a hinged pan, that I might use to make circular cakes. The final item was the same as the last, but with more of a pill-like shape to the indentations inside. If the circular indentations were grape-like in size, then these would be cashew’s, I supposed.

  Setting those three items to the side, I continued to scan upward until I reached the chimney’s top. I took a second scan and realized that I’d missed a few additional moving pieces of metal, in my initial inspection. Near the grated drawer, there were four visible ‘gates’ They were all connected in what I had originally believed was a piece of ornamental metal. Reaching out, I attempted to move this piece, and pulled back my hand with a hiss as it cut me.

  “Son of a witch,” I complained, even as I raised my hand reflexively to my mouth. Thought better of it just in time, and didn’t suck on it. Was tetanus still a thing? Recovery made quick work of the cut, and soon it scabbed over. So, I carefully tried again. This time I slid the double-edged ring of metal up and watched as circular pieces of metal raised, revealing holes.

  Clearly, these were meant for oxygen intake. So the grated pan was for burning wood, or Crystals, I supposed. However, I was leaning toward wood, because of the second ‘catch pan.’ Either way, there was another set of the vents and moveable circular covers near the top of the chimney—which didn’t make as much sense.

  However, when you paired it with the chimney cover—and then looked back inside the oven—I thought I had an answer. There were small holes in the bottom of the oven, and I figured that—depending on what wood you were burning and how much oxygen you were supplying, you could essentially make something akin to a ‘smoker’ on Earth.

  Why a Pill Crafting apparatus would need that function, confused me greatly. Yet, it wasn’t like it was the only question I had. It was likely time to go down to the Library—but first, I probably should parcel out the gathered Herbs from today, and maybe sell a few.

  That, of course, meant that I needed to try my hand at the Rock Lavender Pearl Fruit. I gathered the two buckets and then looked for my bedside table to place them upon it—only to find it broken in the corner where I’d kicked it. I grimaced, having forgotten in my excitement, that I’d done that.

  There wasn’t another raised surface, so I put the plants in the corner with the Fused Saplings, and then collected the plants I’d gathered from the tops of both buckets. The Red Middlemist looked like it was shriveling a bit, so I went to get some water for it before even starting on the plants.

  Using my finger, I wet the soil until it felt damp, and then did the same for the Mana Apple.

  Finally, I was ready to try my hand at what I was beginning to think of as a Tutorial Quest. Maybe today, with Qi, I’d manage to get the Lavender Pearl at Perfect Quality.

  An hour later, I wanted to pull my hair out.

  Qi didn’t help the process at all. In fact, it just made me feel jumpy and hopped-up on too much caffeine as I tried to do the mundane task. Only when I activated Reptilian Body, did I notice a difference. It truly felt like I had such delicate control of my scaled and taloned hands, that if I wanted to, I could’ve used said talons for the task.

  However, even with that extra-fine motor control, I wasn’t aware of where to make my cut. I wasn’t able to imbue the Tools with Qi, or extra Stats. I felt like I was some sort of idiot as I floundered around with the concepts of how I’d managed the Juicy Rock Pearl. I’d cut the stem quickly and at a forty-five degree angle, taking inspiration from the Borker Manes.

  I moved the tiny scissors into place, after clearing away the petals and all other plant structures that might get in my way. Thanks to my increased Stats, the cut was made faster than ever before, and my hand caught the Pearl, in my gray-scaled palm. I released my Qi and Mana as I stared at what felt like my real first success inside the Tutorial.

  Smiling, and feeling flush I got ready to do it again—only to realize, I couldn’t. I had about half of my Mana left, but was missing about thirty points of my Qi. Was its presence important? Or had Reptilian Body carried me to the finish line?

  Might as well give it a try without my Qi.

  Shit! Then what the husk was my Qi doing?

  I activated my Qi, while I fed the dregs of my Mana into Reptilian Body and tried to figure out the difference. When I found it, I smiled and released the Skill as well as my forced emotional state.

  “It’s the husking Scissors!” I exclaimed to myself, celebrating my discovery alone in my room.

  My Qi was coating the Scissors ever so slightly. I wondered if I could make the act more efficient in the future, since the Qi in my muscles wasn’t exactly beneficial for this particular task—but put that thought to the side.

  Dinner was likely still being served downstairs—and I’d need more Qi for later, which seemed to either regenerate faster after eating—or primarily only come from food. The Milk Porridge and the meal last night and this morning certainly seemed to top me up for the excursion.

  …The same excursion that nearly got me killed.

  I shivered, but chose to fully deal with the feelings towards Jacky and the group later.

  Still, I wasn’t just comfortable leaving the safety of my room. So before I did, I put on my blue Herbalist Robe, and even pulled the hood up. While I thought Jacky had made a mistake–I also wasn’t willing to take a risk this close to nearly dying. Plus, even if it was just word of my survival getting back to the group, well I didn’t like that thought–but still wasn’t ready to deal with it.

  Surely I needed to confront the asshats, right?

  I used the excuse of needing to leave my room to shelf that thought. Later!

  After eating I moved to the North Tower, needing to sell some of my Herbs and the non-Perfect Rock Pearl, so I wouldn’t be increasing my debt unreasonably.

  However, when I opened my stat screen to check on said debt I was left with weak legs, and literally floored, as I collapsed out of my seat.

  My debt had husking grown! I recalled my chat with Smegma on compounding interest and felt my face fall into my hands. This was going to be a huge problem if it was growing at one percent a day.

  Then again, maybe it was a monthly one percent.

  I held desperately to that hope, even as my brain pointed out the absurdity of it.

  Thank you all so much for reading. Thank you all so much for the reviews and support. This is a very great way to start my honeymoon.

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