Tutorial Day 25

  Maelstrom flipped for the fifth time to the Achievement side of the Northern Leaderboard. Then flipped back.

  There’s another newcomer in the top five hundred of Tutorial Points but not Achievement Score? He scowled. This one has fifty-thousand Points… What kind of monster starts their Tutorial with fifty-thousand Tp? He considered worriedly. One that I need to leash.

  This one had the chance of making even more of a splash than the one that Jacky killed. What was his name again?

  Kai shook off that thought. It didn’t matter anymore. This simply had to be another newcomer, but why hadn’t someone brought this person to meet him…

  That was the standing directive, and if they didn’t meet him–then how could he be considered part of the Northern District? There were only two possibilities for that. This person had snuck into the District and managed to rent a room, or he was a newcomer, like Maelstrom originally thought.

  He summoned one of his puppets and placed a Core in it, before placing an Illusion of a guard upon it. Once it had a semblance of intelligence, he ordered, “Go bring me a list of people staying within the District. Then find Jacky, and tell her to come to me.”

  His puppet rushed from the room. Just to make sure of his conclusion that this was more likely a newcomer, he moved to his cabinet, and pulled out a book. To earn fifty-thousand Tp, the individual would have needed to kill five to ten thousand Monsters.

  Maelstrom had run many experiments on Achievement Points, and killing that many Monsters would have put this Ryu on that Leaderboard as well.

  If we had one anomaly, why not two? He froze as another consideration struck him. Has something happened on Earth that has vastly increased the starting capabilities of people entering the Tutorial?

  Maelstrom shook his head. Two data points did not make a trend.

  His mind returned back to the possible slaughter of ten-thousand Monster. The problem was that the slaughter of ten-thousand Monsters would net the spy who snuck in approximately five to a ten thousand Achievements. That would put them in the four hundred and forty-fifth position on the Northern District’s Leaderboard…

  The infiltrator option didn't fit for the same reason as the previous theory—the lack of Achievements. There was one last possibility, albeit this one was the rarest. A relative newcomer could have figured out one of the closely guarded secrets of the Tutorial.

  Most knew that Gathering earned you more Tutorial Points than Monster Slaying. Gatherers who had a Crafting Skill also knew that processed goods were worth even more. However, few knew that Gathered and processed Goods that had Qi, Soul or Mana infused into them through special processes were worth more still.

  Maelstrom may need to meet with the Spider or other Tribe Leaders if another unchecked person with that knowledge was present in the Tutorial. It would suggest that–

  Kai recalled that the alliances no longer existed, and swore. The Spider might be willing to talk through intermediaries still, but she owed him nothing. Not anymore. That Bridge was burned. Thus the spies in her organization.

  He currently had four and Jacky. Could he ask them to look into this Ryu?

  His door opened to admit his daughter, and he smiled at her. Had she grown?

  “My darling,” he said to her. Then saw the book in his hands, and recalled his task. “Would you be so kind as to check the District for a person named Ryu?”

  “Father, I’m trying to convince the group to go to the Spider for help, why is it always me?” She replied. At his raised eyebrow, she puffed out her cheeks and sighed. “Fine, whatever! Any place I should start?”

  “I’ve got a guard out retrieving the room lists. Could you ask our spies?”

  “If I fail to get you more spies in the Spider’s organization, it’s your fault at this point,” Jacky responded. Her tone was both vapid and playful. She let Maelstrom in on the humor when she beamed at him. She skipped out of the room to complete his task.

  Maelstrom loved his daughter. She was so obedient when compared to his son, Fong.

  * * *

  Tutorial Day 32

  Based solely on my Tutorial Points progress, I was feeling extremely good. However, those points were only earned by selling Borker Meat, Skins, and Finely Ground Herbs. Just a glance at my table and what sat atop it, showed the real spoils of my last twelve days.

  Not only had I managed to kill two to three Borkers a day, with my ambush tactic. I was able to consistently fill about four or five buckets with Herbs. Some of those Skins, Meat, and Herbs were taken as taxes by other groups too. That meant I could theoretically make more.

  However, while I had considered buying a Bag of Holding to keep the Plants in, I hadn’t pulled the trigger yet. I had quickly discovered why London’s group had been scrounging and saving. Their Bag of Holding, the one that kept Gathered materials fresher, would cost about half of what I currently had. It would be larg enough to hold everything, but there was just no chance of me truly hiding the plants unless I found something like a Ring or a Necklace–which weren’t for sale in the North Store. It was true that I could put the most precious specimens in my Necklace, however the freezing aspect of the item was a non-starter for Gardened Herbs, and even sometimes the Skins.

  Even with the loss of some of my hard work to taxes, I had forty-two containers filled with powdered herbs. I possessed another twelve containers filled with fruit inside of my Necklace, where they’d freeze and keep ‘fresh.’

  Yet there were two items I was most proud of inside my Necklace. They were; the container with twenty perfect Rock Lavender Fruits, and the stack of twenty Perfect Borker Manes.

  Sure, I had no idea what to do with them—but I had, in theory, the appropriate number to turn in for my System Quest. Now I just needed to discover where the Gardening Trainer, and Skinning Trainer were. I pointedly avoided thinking too deeply on that, since, I knew the inevitable conclusion to my ‘path’ forward.

  Claude—that sadist was my only lead to other ‘NPC’s.’

  I shuddered. That path was… distasteful. Well other than getting more Stats in Perception and Wisdom. But I could only theoretically get four more in each before reaching the same bottleneck.

  Instead, I had another task that I believed I was finally ready to attempt. A task that I now had more than enough materials to fail at repeatedly. The experimentation with my Pill Cauldron and making a Pill.

  Maybe I can unlock a Crafting Profession through Overflow, and not worry about needing Stats from my Battlefield Healer Class.

  Right next to the Cauldron I had eight stacks of wood. Six of which were actual felled trees from nearby forests. Groups sold them to the Shop usually, and it had only taken a request to Veronique to have some of the wood sent to me. She’d charged it against my auction house credit, which was still over two thousand Tp.

  Finally, three thousand more Tp had been spent on Library books. While they were still a bit of a disappointment, I did manage to find two five hundred Tp options that had recipes contained within.

  However, my notes on said recipes were the real interesting part.

  Since I could essentially see the properties of all my F-Rank ingredients thanks to Herb Lore, I was somewhat able to assess the combination of Herbs for efficacy. Every book on Pill Crafting, insinuated that the ‘Chef’ was meant to combine ingredients to enhance the properties of the concoction. That was why I’d adjusted the Weak Detoxify Pill’s recipe.

  First, even creating shavings from the Earth Root didn’t trigger Herb Lore—which wasn’t a guarantee that the Root wasn’t an ingredient, but lent itself to that conclusion more heavily than anything else. Second, Powdered Astral Flower seemed somewhat out of place in the mixture.

  It was the last line of the properties of Astral Flower that gave me a hint as to what it was doing in this Pill recipe. It was only when you placed it beside the final line of Witch Hazel. ‘Highly Flammable’ and don’t place it in a Cauldron or Beaker that will exceed ’350 Fahrenheit.’

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  My guess was that the recipe didn’t need the Astral Flower, or the Earth Root. Instead, I believed that a straight combination of Witch Hazel and Moon Stalk would be better. Mostly because of the properties of Moon Stalk.

  The trick, by the looks of things, was going to be the temperature of my Cauldron. I definitely didn’t want to exceed three-fifty Fahrenheit, but the final line of Moon Stalk’s properties made me think it was quite possibly even better to try the ‘low and slow’ approach.—like I was trying to tenderize meat in a crock pot, or on a smoker.

  Still, the total amount needed for Powdered ingredients would also depend on how much my cooking tray could take. So, in an empty container, I mixed Powdered Witch Hazel and Moon Stalk. Using the recipe, but increasing Moon Stalk to approximately seventy grams to make up for the deficit, I began to work out the kinks of my new concoction.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have a scale yet. So instead I was using the cup method—equating five hundred grams to a cup. I placed half a cup of Witch Hazel, and about an eighth of a cup of a cup of Moon Stalk into the container and then mixed thoroughly.

  Putting the lid on confirmed that my measuring wasn’t very accurate. Still, it was the total percentage of each herb that was more important, at least according to the books I’d read.

  A good shake of the container later, I began portioning the powder into the square Pill Tray. I overfilled the small slots with the hope that when I closed the lid, the indentation on the top would pack them down. Once I had every crevasse filled, I checked the container to find that I still had about twenty grams of the Powder mixture remaining.

  Then I closed the lid and reopened the Pill Tray, doing this a few times, and wiping off the spilled powders back into the container. A few indentations required some extra pinches as well. Finally, I closed the top for the last time and moved on. It was time to start the fire and figure out how the temperature of the Cauldron might be regulated.

  Thanks to the books in the Library, and my Pickaxe, I was able to shave down the logs to create kindling, which was quickly ignited by a borrowed Enchanted Core that Veronique had lent to me for that purpose. The thing functioned similarly to a Light Stone but instead of giving off light, it produced a small flamethrower effect when I provided it with my personal Mana.

  Once the kindling in the mesh-bottomed tray was going, I put a few quartered logs on top, before glancing at the Earth Root and Aromatic Tree Toes. I didn’t think I should use them in this first batch, but I was unsure how much the Earth Root shavings had actually done for the Weak Detoxify Pill.

  Shrugging, I decided I’d toss in an Earth Root once I had the thing at the desired temperature. It wasn’t like I didn’t have enough of the things. I pushed back in the tray, and then fiddled with the air air intakes on the side—only opening them halfway for now to see what that would do.

  Pretty soon, the top of the Cauldron was emitting thick gray smoke that I worried would clog up my room. That was—until I noticed that the Cleaning Enchantment that I used for showering, was initiating periodically to clear it. There was still a heavy gray cloud near the ceiling, which made me realize that I should probably not perform this task in my room anymore.

  However, I needed a bigger Bag of Holding if I was going to be walking around with this Cauldron and my Materials. I checked the temperature of the Cauldron using my hand. It wasn’t going to be a perfect measuring device, but at least I could tell if it was ‘scalding,’ ‘hot,’ ‘uncomfortable,’ or ‘warm.’ I was aiming for the uncomfortable sensation, figuring that if I could hold my hand near the rusted metal for a small period of time before it got too hot, then it would be about two hundred degrees—my target temperature.

  The metal moved through warm, uncomfortable and even hot, before I adjusted the intakes, and opened the ones connected to the oven slightly as well, so they could vent some heat.

  Another interesting change occurred, in that the gray smoke slowly began to become less copious. At first, I believed that the fuel was just running low, but using my gloves, I pulled out the tray and found that wasn’t the case.

  Could it have been the air intake and vents ratio?

  Sure enough, fiddling with those two got the Cauldron running ‘clean.’ That, of course, totally debunked my theory of using the intakes to control heat and since the temperature at the moment was somewhere between hot and scalding—I was estimating the thing to be running at four hundred and fifty plus degrees.

  “Husk!” I complained. “Is the size of the fire controlled by the amount of fuel?”

  That could be tested I supposed, but I would need to either remove some burning wood now, or let the fire consume the fuel and start cooling down. Coals in the pan would likely maintain a temperature I wanted for this experiment.

  However, there was one final possibility. One I’d considered and dismissed. I glanced at the Earth Roots and Aromatic Tree Toes. Two reagents that Gardening or Harvesting identified for me. However, they were two reagents that couldn’t be powdered or shaved down to create a recognizable ingredient, according to Herb Lore—and yet Herb Lore had also identified them as valuable. That was the logic I’d used to assume that perhaps they might be useful added as an ingredient to be burned with the wood as fuel. Perhaps it would create an infusion that would be beneficial to the Pills cooking above it.

  They both also highly resembled fuel. Could they somehow control temperature? It seemed unlikely, at least when I used the conventional understanding of how fire worked… The truth was, however, that the System often turned such things on their head. Since the Advent—a great deal of those Earthly laws, and rules were broken by Mana, Skills and other ‘magical’ System husk-ery.

  So, maybe this would be one of them too—adding fuel to somehow cooldown the fire?

  Pulling out the fire box, I added about a full Earth Root worth of shavings, and pushed it back in. Then, I waited. The smoke started to come out of the chimney again, so I adjusted down the intake and vents until it wasn’t. This required me to close the intake holes almost entirely and throw the vents wide open.

  Slowly, the temperature moved from scalding to hot, before settling somewhere near warm. It might be a bit too high still, but somehow the combination of wood and Root in the drawer was allowing me to almost close the intake grates, and open wide the vents.

  Should I add a bit more Earth Root, to try and further reduce the temperature, or try my first batch of pills with what I’ve got? I asked myself.

  Since my whole process was based on ‘best guess-work’, I opened the Cauldron and placed the Pill Tray inside. Once the tray entered the oven, the chimney began smoking again, but this time it was a pure white smoke. I double checked and didn’t find the Pill Tray afire, which was a relief, but still...

  I blinked—what in the hell? I opened the fire tray next and discovered that the Earth Root was now burning with a green flame that acted erratically. I adjusted the vents back and forth, but other than increasing or decreasing the plume of white smoke—nothing was happening.

  However, it was as I touched the fire tray for a second time that I felt something. Like with my Armor. A black hole appeared in my Mental Universe. My hand, currently protected by the leather of my glove, couldn’t stay on the tray for long, or I’d be burned.

  Still, could I connect a synapse to it and feed Mana to an Enchant without touching it?

  When I raised my hand, my awareness of the node vanished with it. In frustration, I shouted, “Come on, think!”

  If this Cauldron had a function that worked off of Mana, maybe that was where the temperature control would be. That was the only possible reason it would have an Enchantment, right?

  Quickly, I came up with a plan, and started my Energize along a path in the general direction of where I’d felt the node appear last time. Then, as the spaceship neared its destination, I touched the Cauldron at the very bottom, below the fire tray and even the ash collector.

  The node popped up and I connected it using my Soul Synapse. My hands were forced off the Cauldron shortly after, but the Synapse remained. Slightly stretched and strained, but present.

  Excited, I mentally commanded Mana to supply the Cauldron.

  The rusted metal began to glow blue in a pattern that I could only compare to electrical wiring. After about ten points of Mana, new lines stopped appearing and the Cauldron was fully illuminated. There was indeed a temperature display just above the oven-like doors. Right now it read: ‘three hundred and two.’

  How could I lower that?

  There were no obvious controls that popped up, and the Cauldron was no longer sucking Mana in, like it had with the first ten drops. I made a lap around the Cauldron.

  Nothing.

  I tried touching various lines and moving my fingers up and down.

  Nothing.

  Maybe I could adjust the intake—the covers I’d been moving by hand, twitched slightly more closed. Had it responded to my intention? I tried again and they closed a fraction more.

  With one eyebrow raised, I focused on the white smoke and made it clear that my intention was to remove it. What occurred then wasn’t what I had expected. The lid of the chimney floated up and closed the top—blue lines suddenly adding themselves to it as well, when it touched the tower.

  Five drops of Mana were pulled from my Mental Universe, and I swallowed as I felt something begin stirring inside the Cauldron. The vents on the top opened wide and a hot breeze began to spill from them like a geyser. It moved the air in the room, causing me to begin to sweat, even as I stood up and looked inside one of the vents.

  Inside the ‘oven’ portion of the Cauldron, there was an intense vortex spinning. As I watched, the intake vents closed further and the vortex of white smoke took on a tinge of green.

  The temperature decreased, dropping through the upper two hundreds to down under two fifty before settling at two hundred and twenty five Fahrenheit. That was when the green tinged smoke caught fire—and I lost another ten points of Mana.

  The large pulls on my Mana Pool caused my sweating to increase and those last ten points dropped my pool under half. Considering that I had planned to go with a low and slow cooking process, and it hadn’t even been five minutes, the ordeal made me concerned.

  What would happen if I ran out of Mana?

  The green flaming smoke cast fun patterns through the vent openings, causing my ceiling to flicker and glow with color. I watched on, intensely interested. The heat in the room continued to climb even as a fragrance started to permeate the hot dry air.

  It smelled like cinnamon rolls. There was simply no other way to describe the sweet, buttery-caramel aroma. Why I could smell yeast and cinnamon, I wasn’t sure—but boy did it make my dry mouth water.

  A few points of Mana were pulled down into the conduit over the next twenty minutes, before something changed. The green lights on my ceiling disappeared, and the smell of Cinnamon rolls did as well.

  A quick check inside the fire tray showed that the Earth Root and a great deal of the logs were now ash or hot coals.

  Did that mean I should add more? Was this simply the beginning of the ‘slow’ part of the low-and-slow method I was attempting? Or that the process was finished?

  In the end, I trusted my nose. Usually when a smell like that vanishes in the kitchen—your food is on the verge of overcooking, right? Honestly I wasn’t a chef, but I went with my gut.

  Using the pair of tongs that slotted into the Pill Trays and Crucible, I pulled out the hot metal Tray from the oven. I could detect a lingering scent of the sweet, caramelized cinnamon, which I thought boded well.

  With no other option, I placed the Tray on the floor and let it cooldown. This was more guesswork. I just couldn’t be sure if I should try to fling open the closed lid and dump the Pills out or not. I figured they had a better chance staying hard and whole if I let them cool naturally—and that’s what I decided to do.

  While I let that process work, I examined the Cauldron. Like the Frying Pan, Pickaxe, Skinning Knife and Gardening Gear, it looked heaps better after its first trial run. Still covered in rust in large spots, but every vent, drawer and door was now pockmarked and a dull metallic in appearance instead of brown.

  Instead of just staring at it or the Pill Tray, I moved to my dresser and ground another portion of Finely Powdered Witch Hazel, before grabbing my second plate of breakfast from my bed.

  Only when I was finished eating did I start to get impatient. How long was I supposed to wait?

  A quick tap of my ungloved fingers on the Pill Tray told me that it was still hot to the touch, but not too hot that I couldn’t dump it out while wearing my gloves. I wrestled with my internal greed… and the desire to see my loot.

  I dumped the pills out.

  Twenty-five Pills were contained within, and while I tried to dump them all into a container, a good portion missed and clattered onto my floor. Still, not a single one of them fell apart. Hurriedly, I collected the ones off the stone floor and placed them inside the container with the others.

  The Pills were a mild green in color, with a few sparse patches of darker green, where it seemed to me like the Powder came close to burning. I sniffed at the container and enjoyed the sweet cinnamon roll aroma one more time—if a muted version.

  My hands rushed to close the lid in the hope that the container would identify what I’d made. It didn’t, of course—which made me slightly annoyed. Still, if I took them to the Northern Shop it might do it.

  I guess that means I’ll need to actually put pants on… I mentally grumped, beginning to get myself fully kitted out in my Pumah Check-less gear for the trip to the Shop.

  * * *

  Disappointedly, the shop didn’t offer a description for the item, only a name. Even if I searched the name in the Buy section, I only found two items that might give me a good idea of what my creation did.

  So, then, was the Soldier portion added because my version of the pill replenished the lost blood and tissue that Detoxify destroyed?

  That certainly seemed better than taking the Detoxify Pill and basically destroying pints of blood and muscle tissue. It was a level of synergy that—had I needed to take such a Pill—I could really appreciate. Who wanted their cough medicine to also make them anemic?

  For now, I didn’t sell the twenty-five Pills. Mostly because I wanted to see if Veronique would take them.