Tutorial Day 18

  I read the notifications, and truly considered both. While I needed ten of the Excellent Lavender Rock Pearls—I also desperately needed to climb out of debt.

  Well, did I desperately need to? Mental Fortitude interjected.

  Clearly, living in debt was something people did here—but I was yet unaware of what that might mean. I assumed that it meant Maelstrom, the leader, could essentially order you to do anything he wanted, and you might have to comply…

  But that would be pretty difficult to enforce, wouldn’t it? Like, what if I built up a massive debt and just took off into the Wilds? Sure, right now I would die, but with some purchases, and training—

  Ahhh, the problem hit me in the nose like a landslide, and I almost slapped my forehead. Claude had stopped training me at zero points. The Northern Shop wouldn’t sell me a thing on credit. Why then would I be able to stay in rooms on credit?

  The answer almost knocked me off my feet. I did move away from the shop and lower myself onto a nearby ledge as realizations that confirmed my initial thoughts gutted me. Compound interest, a particularly devious invention of ‘us humans.’ The buildings in the Northern Maelstrom District. The ones bought and made from stone and the poor quality ones made from lumber and nearby trees.

  Everything inside this District and likely the entire Tutorial Town was man made—other than the Towers, and probably a certain NPC…

  I had a feeling that if I went to the suggested location by London and the group, to train Qi and Soul—they’d gladly let me pay on Credit. Then slowly dole out knowledge at a thousand Tp a day…

  Husking credit itself was an invention of the human race… This was all a contraption of the leaders and Tribes of the city–likely to earn money and grow powerful themselves. I doubted this was how the Tutorial was meant to take place—but the first people who arrived saw an opportunity.

  Without Mental Fortitude, I might have cried, or raged. Or wallowed. However, I did have Mental Fortitude and I knew I just wanted to punch those first people in the face, but knew I shouldn’t. Like always, the revelation—now that it was made, felt old—like I was already accustomed to it.

  My breath steadied and I stood back up. Somehow, in my turmoil I’d made a decision. I was going to sell the Excellent Pearls too. I ostensibly had no idea where this Harvesting Trainer might be, and figured I’d have plenty of time to collect more. For now, goal number one should be saving up enough Tp—to get training and equipment—so I could survive outside of the City.

  This place was clearly going to act as a drain on anyone who stayed for too long, and if I could find a way to survive on my own—then I wouldn’t need groups. Especially ones that almost killed me!

  Once I sold all three Pearls, I was at just under nine thousand in Tp debt. It was time to head back to the ‘School’ and increase that debt so I could get a book on the basics of Pill Crafting.

  * * *

  I wanted to pull my hair out. These books weren’t exactly useless, but they also weren’t helpful. At least not as much as I’d hoped. I stared at my Tp total, and tried to decide if I should keep taking the gamble that eventually something would be helpful—or if I should just give up and start experimenting.

  So, far—I’d discovered what the tools inside of the Pill Cauldron were for, which I could have intuited for myself—probably within thirty minutes of experimentation. There was some subtlety to each of them that might have taken me longer, but I wasn’t sure.

  For example, the crucible burnt Herbs when alone to ash. So, you needed to supply it with fruit and mixtures of herbs to create a usable ‘stock.’ That stock could then be used with the round pill mold to create a gel-capped Pill. Or at least, the writer of that book assumed there was some way to get the Pills to form a gel-like outer layer, but had yet to succeed.

  Another book was focused on the other apparatus with the smaller, square indentations. For this application, you needed a mortar and pestle—which I didn’t own. This one used mostly powdered herbs, and actually needed to have the Fruit dried, if it was going to be used in the making of ‘tablets.’

  The metal of this tray supposedly expanded when heated, thus compressing down the powders using heat and pressure to forcibly turn the mixture into a Pill. Due to the far less likely event of the Pills burning, this seemed to be the more studied method of Pill Crafting—since I’d found five books on it, and only one on the spherical Gel-filled ones.

  I opened up Demonic Vault and found a Mortar and Pestle for a whopping ten thousand mC. Sure it was somehow Evolvable and self-repairing, but honestly—how could the thing be worth so much…

  Wait—my Overdraft! Would this Mortar and Pestle be considered an Alchemy tool or a Gathering tool? It was priced in the range of Gathering tools, like the Gardening Kit, Skinning Knife and Miner’s Pick—it even had the line about the Overdraft Enchant. So, would I get a new Sub-Skill from it?

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  What possible sub-Skill could come from a Mortar, and Pestle besides Alchemy?

  If I got an Alchemy related Skill maybe it would help guide me on the creation of Potions, or Pills. Then I could simply level it–I shook off my tangent, but failed to dispel my mood.

  Excited, but not stupid—I thought it all over one more time, not wanting to spend ten of my last twenty-five thousand mC, with no current Mana Crystals or idea of how to get them to easily refill it.

  I could of course sell other things to Demonic Vault, but that would take away from my Tutorial Points.

  And yet, I needed a Mortar and Pestle for Alchemy, regardless. So, in the end I returned to my room with my carefully taken notes from the Library, and purchased it from the Demonic Vault Shop.

  The ‘Mortar and Pestle’ was a large stone that had a slight depression hollowed into it, and a second, coarser rock. If I didn’t know what had happened with my Pick, Knife and Gardening tools, I would be puking up blood, or at least chewing through my lip at the discovery.

  As it was, I found it hard to look at the thing, but started organizing the dried and sectioned herbs that I’d recovered from my room by entering into ten thousand Tp of debt. All of the properties of the Herbs that weren’t disassembled were listed in a book I'd read. Well, at least what the writer had believed they did was written in the book.

  The item I had the most of was Witch Hazel Flowers, and according to my notes, it could ‘disinfect wounds and treat upset stomachs.’

  Okay, so the books are somewhat useless, I recalled.

  Either way, grinding the older, dried Witch Hazel Flowers would be a good task for my new Mortar and Pestle and begin the process of restoring it to a more peak condition. A quick count told me just how many of the things I had, and I smiled. If nearly a thousand flowers wouldn’t repair this Mortar and Pestle, I supposed I would start on the next largest pile of dried herbs—the Moon Stalks.

  Five minutes in, I discovered that it was better to fill the entire bowl of the Mortar, rather than trying for one Flower at a time.

  Twenty minutes in, I realized that I could make a fine powder from the Flowers, but that using Qi to coat the Pestle and Mortar would turn the powder fine like powdered sugar. What that meant for Pill Crafting, I couldn’t say—but I figured it was a discovery and wrote it in my book.

  After two hours in, I had only managed to powder about two hundred of the flowers. Of those two hundred I had only managed to produce about four cups of the finely ground powder that my Qi could produce—simply because my Qi was bottomed out after four cups. I knew thanks to Claude that it refilled faster when digesting food–so I figured I’d let it fill up over night, or get more from breakfast tomorrow.

  I also had run into another issue. Right this moment I was using the crucible as a vessel to store the non-fine powder, but it was getting full—and I had no other equipment in my room to make use of, as containers. Well other than some broken pieces of my bedside table. One such piece was currently sporting a mound of four cups of what looked like green and purple powdered sugar.

  Only when I was forced to stop by the lack of containers did I stop to think.

  Why haven't I gotten a Skill from the work? A quick check in my Mental Universe did show some white fog coalescing into an area, but not quite staying long enough to form a Planet.

  Shrugging, I decided to make a quick trip to one of the classrooms and see if I could borrow some storage containers.

  I realized I should try putting it into my Necklace of Holding, and did so with a portion of the pile in the Mortar. When I removed it back out, I discovered that condensation formed on the powder due to the cold and then warmer temperatures. The minute amount of liquid turned it into a paste that likely would need drying.

  Hurriedly, I separated it from the rest of the Powder, and set what I could salvage from it onto a piece of my broken bedside table.

  Then I stood up and decided to go with my first thought. Pulling my hood back up, I headed toward a classroom. It was nearing midnight and I was partially shocked that I wasn’t the only one visiting classrooms. The same girl that had moved me from her spot nearly a week ago, was still fiddling with a Crystal flame that was heating a beaker and evaporating the liquid inside, while trapping the gas in a tub of some sort.

  Her setup looked extreme, and I figured any distraction would be unwelcome—so, I kept my staring to a few seconds and then turned around and left for another of the classrooms. I wondered how odd I looked wearing the hood and standing out from of a classroom door.

  The next one I visited was unused, and I sighed in relief. At least, I wouldn’t be skulking around anymore.

  Once there, I moved to the drawers that were filled with ingredients. Opening the first one, I discovered that the containers were all full. Six drawers later I realized I hadn’t seen any empty containers, even on that first day.

  “If you need a container they’re in the closet,” the girl from earlier called from the doorway.

  I turned and saw a flash of her red hair, as she spun and left.

  Well, that was certainly strange—and helpful. I rushed over to the closet, and moved to pick up a container only to groan as a message popped up.

  “Well, at least this is going to let me go into debt if I want…” I muttered angrily.

  Sighing, I decided to go with the Fill option first. Looking at the size of the container I could easily fill it with about a quarter of the Witch Hazel Flower Powder I’d ground. Or half fill it with the four cups of the finer stuff…

  I took a second container, and then marched back up the stairs to my room. Once there I filled the first of the two with the regular Powdered Witch Hazel.

  As soon as I closed the lid words began to scribble atop the top of the box.

  Interesting. Too bad it didn’t give a use for the herb…

  I looked at the four cups on the splintered piece of wood. At least it could tell me what it was, and it wasn’t like I couldn’t make more.

  I made note of the difference, and then with a large yawn, I decided I’d put them in a drawer at breakfast.

  Honeymoon is absolutely amazing. Went and played 2 hours of beach volleyball yesterday. (Something i used to be very good at, but with injuries haven't gotten to play in a while.)

  Then we went and hiked up Coco Crater mountain. It was intense. I made it halfway, but was proud to do so. The wife made it all the way to the top, and back.

  This morning we did an hour and a half of pickleball which was also amazing.

  So far for food. We've done Cheesecake factory for a light lunch yesterday, and Pho Saigon for dinner.

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