The Insider System

Chapter 36: Alchemy

Before Lake got started with Alchemy he wanted to ask a few questions about the journal Lucas had given him. "I read this like you told me to." Lake handed the journal back to Lucas. "Did you realize why I asked you to read it?"

"Yes Master, I was wondering if you had any more?"

"We used to, they belonged to a former member of the Mage guild, but most of them were stolen during the collapse of the guild."

"Do you know who took them?" Getting them back so he could read the rest of them might be something for Lake to do later.

"The Demon worshipers took most of them, but some are spread around with other people who only have a few. At this point there's no way that they'll ever be a complete set ever again."

"Were they all written by the same person?"

"Yes the person who owned them in the past was also the author, Amanda was the Mage guild leader before she ascended. Her Journals were treated as an artifact even though they didn't grant any power like artifacts do, but during the collapse people took anything they could get their hands on. The only reason we still have that one is because I had it in my office at the time."

"Were you the guild leader during the collapse?"

"Kind of, that was one of the problems the mage guild had. It was too big so no one could ever agree on who to listen to, unless there was someone strong enough to unite everyone which only happened a few times in the guilds existence. Amanda was the last true leader the Mage guild ever had because no one was ever able to replace her after she left."

While Lucas said this Lake could feel the Insider showing him Lucas had more than one reason to give him that book. He was also saying if he got strong enough maybe he could revive the mage guild and lead it to dominate the world. Lucas giving him such a weird book made more sense to Lake now that the Insider had shown him that it was a roundabout way of telling Lake how much potential people with Unique skills had. He had said Amanda ascended eventually which meant she had become a god or maybe a demigod lake wasn't too sure how it worked. He was pretty sure ascending meant when someone became a god. Lake realized he could just ask Lucas.

"Lucas, you said she ascended, is she a god?" After he asked this Lucas seemed to not want to talk about this anymore but he still answered. "Yeah she's the Dark Goddess." Lake understood now why he didn't want to talk about it. The Dark Goddess was missing after the Demon king had somehow stolen some of her divinity. lake wasn't sure what the timeline looked like but it seemed all this stuff happened pretty recently.

"Alright that's enough of that, let's start the lesson. What level is your alchemist job? I know it's at least level 1 since you unlocked two skills already."

"Level 1."

"Ok so you've brewed something before so you already know how this works."

"No Master, I've never brewed anything before."

"How'd you level up your job if you didn't brew anything?"

"Exp."

"How'd you earn the Exp?" Lake realized he had used Intangible Loot to level Alchemist up to level one but the only way to level alchemist up normally was crafting potions. So he just shrugged his shoulders and it seemed Lucas was fine not getting an answer because he moved on.

"Alright come over here I'll show you how it works for most people starting out." Lucas grabbed a cup and three powders. "So this cup has water in it. Water is a level 0 catalyst. Catalyst is what people call the stuff you put the ingredients in and it's usually a liquid. These are three random ingredients I know what they are but pretend I'm new and have no way to know what they do. Three ingredients is the minimum to make an actual potion. If you use two you get a mixture and if you use one it's an extract. Ok watch this." Lake watched as Lucas dumped the three powders into the water and stirred after a few seconds Lake saw the potion turn a dark purple.

Showing it to Lake Lucas said, "This is what happens to most people the first time they try to make a potion. It's called sludge and it's what happens when you fail to control the reaction. This still grants you a few Exp so after a few failures you can reach level 1 and unlock Distill by doing this." Lake wondered if you could make it to level 10 making nothing but sludge. It was probably possible since it gave Exp just a huge waste of time.

"Alright Let's move on to what happens once you unlock Distill. Have you tried to use Distill before?" Lake shook his head no. "Ok watch me you'll be able to see the difference right away." Lucas did the same thing he had done earlier to make the sludge but this time Lake could see that something new was happening around the same time the first one had turned to sludge Dark red smoke started to rise out of the mixture. Lake saw Lucas start to do a fanning motion with the hand that wasn't stirring. The smoke moved towards a crystal that was on a stand in the middle of the table. "This smoke that's coming out is all the stuff that made the potion unstable the first time in this case it's a poison one of the ingredients has that causes people to go blind for a few hours. There's two ways to fix this problem what I'm doing right now or to add an extra ingredient that mixes with the stuff I'm removing to make it a stable effect, if I had added this." Lucas pointed at a black powder. "I could have made this potion buff strength and cause blindness, but I'm sure you can see why no one would want that so I removed the effect using Distill. In your case I guess you could make a potion that buffed strength and caused blindness and it would be just fine for you to drink because instead of blindness your eyesight would get better."

After a while of the smoke leaving the liquid it stopped and all that was left was a light blue potion. "So that's what Distill allows you to do, remove stuff you don't want in your potion. This is a potion of strength it grants 21 strength for around 8 hours. The way this happened was this and this." Lucas pointed at a green powder and a yellow powder. "These are Level ten ingredients that have buff strength as their first effect so at level 10 they grant 10 points of strength and this ingredient." Lucas pointed at a red powder. "This is the one that made the potion have a blindness effect. Blindness is its first effect and it doesn't unlock buff strength until level 10 so it only grants 1 point to the final product."

Lake stopped him at this point and asked, "Why not just leave it out? The potion would still grant 20 points of strength and you wouldn't need to Distill it."

"Very good question So if I only added 2 ingredients there would be no potion it would be a mixture. Mixtures have less stability and that causes lots of different problems, the main two being short shelf time and weaker effects; it wouldn't be strange for a mixture of these two ingredients to only grant 10 points of strength when you would expect 20, and instead of 8 hours the effect would barely last one."

Lake was satisfied with this explanation but now had a new question. "You said this ingredient unlocked a new effect at level ten. What about these two you didn't mention what their other effects were, and you didn't remove anything other than the blindness right."

"Very good Lake, you're really paying attention. So lots of ingredients have empty effect slots, some even have empty first slots with the most famous being Whanto leaf. Whanto leaf doesn't do anything until it reaches Level ten where it gains the effect of restoring health so we use it as a third and stable ingredient in cheap health potions."

Lake thought back to when he ate Whanto leaf, and was happy to hear his description of its taste had been spot on. "Alright get over here it's your turn." Lake was surprised to hear he was about to try to brew a potion so he asked. "Am I ready?"

"What ready, get over here failing is how this works." Lake saw he had no choice so he went to where Lucas had been standing, and waited for Lucas to tell him what to do.