As soon as I brushed up for the morning, I drifted into the kitchen and cooked as close to the classic bacon and eggs breakfast as possible. For the vegetarian side of things, I made hashbrowns and sliced up fruit on the side. Milia created a savory soup that I actually enjoyed a lot. The temperature outside was on the chilly side, further indicating the end of summer and the approach of autumn.
The kitten meowed every time we flirted a bit too much while cooking, but all was in good fun. We invited Chenzu in to eat with us. To my surprise, Alexander was there with him, and soon, we were all at the table filling our bellies.
“Sir Nate,” Alexander said sometime in the middle of the meal.
I looked at him.
“Do you know the kid—girl that keeps coming here for Lucas?”
“Nope,” Nate said. “She never introduced herself. I think Lucas knows, but until he stops being embarrassed enough to start asking for dating—courting advice, I’m afraid we’ll have to remain in the dark.”
“Are you perhaps looking to compete for her love?” Milia teased.
Alexander stared at her, unamused. I laughed.
“The lass doesn’t understand Lucas,” Alexander said. “She hasn’t realized that the ki—he’s far sharper than he looks. She doesn’t know he’s a half-dwarf magician, either.”
“Okay, so what are you trying to say?” I asked, curious now. Alexander wouldn’t waste our time with bratty teen relationships.
“Maybe it is just me, the merchant in me. Perhaps it is her presence and persistence that is irritating,” Alexander said. “Have you not wondered why Lucas hasn’t courted her yet?”
Milia, Chenzu, and I froze.
“I would say Harmony and Mandi have something to do with it, but I’m not sure,” Milia said. “They’re all focused on increasing their power. Even Harmony eventually let go of some lingering stars in her eyes.”
I gave her a skeptical look, but the dryad did not elaborate.
Alexander continued. “Wouldn’t a kid that age feel insulted at being rejected without actually being rejected? Ignored. And for the record, Lucas does spend time with friends he made in town. He’s with Harmony and Mandi more. He doesn’t make any effort to hide himself, but either I’m blind, or I’ve never seen that girl in town, not even once. Not passing by. She’s never with any parents. I think she’s a noble, based on how fancy she dresses… But something’s bugging me about her.” He shook his head. “I just don’t know what her goal is.”
“You know what? Instead of letting this mystery linger on, we’ll invite her to lunch,” I said. “Let’s not tell Lucas. It’d be more fun that way.”
“I’m starting to think Mandi’s right,” Chenzu said. “You are a demon.”
I chuckled.
After breakfast, I headed to the lab. During the trip to the city, we’d do some ingredient hunting, perhaps hit up a dungeon or two. I’d put my merchant’s license to use. Temporary traveling merchant! Hopefully the guild wasn’t composed of snobby assholes. The description didn’t give me hope. The certain Bunny reference only had a purpose of grating my nerves and it somewhat worked.
[Rank D Kingdom-wide Merchant License. Good luck affording to upgrade this. Aren’t nobles a stinker? See any merchant guild to upgrade and pray local lords haven’t raised prices.]
Of course, the headmaster and his brats were going to be snooping around the town, but there should be no reason for them to walk all the way up to the farm.
Except they’d no doubt do so. The shop would be open, welcoming all customers in. The teenagers normally ran the show while I collected ingredients, anyway.
Remembering yesterday, I decided to meditate first. Milia was currently working in her office. Cheetara and Wolverine were in the spiritual room. Well, I instructed Wolverine to meditate there. He’d proceed with his upgrade today. The kitten followed him.
Speaking of upgrading, I decided to save my point for now until carefully debating my options.
I sat in a good corner of the lab, being careful not to allow my aura to expand just in case the trio of annoying were around. Perhaps I’d have to tell them off. Perhaps there was no reason for me to ever interact with them except as a shop owner.
[System advice. Sometimes you should just accept your victories.]
No, System, I thought. I’m not a fighter. But if I do fight, I want to do more than just win. I’ll shatter their will, their desires to ever fuck with me again.
I ended up meditating normally, but also on the Dao of Creation. To my surprise, I felt myself at the peak of the second layer or rank and at any time, I’d break through into the third. I tried to push for it, but my body resisted.
I simply wasn’t ready. Not yet. But I’d make sure the miniature bottleneck wouldn’t last.
I wanted to make more water spirit potions, hand as many as possible to Milia and the apprentices, but I simply didn’t have the ingredients on me. One potion required a good bit. Fortunately, the water dungeon wasn’t far.
Also, a potion this powerful and easy to make worried me. There had to be a catch that I was too distracted to notice. After rereading its description, I realized that it was only hyper effective on me. The others needed to reach Saint first.
I checked the MMABS, specifically the Structures option. The observing orb simply made no sense to be there when I had the lookout tower. That could only mean there was an upgrade that’d make its ludicrous price worth it. Something brokenly overpowered.
The tower was only limited to the area around. What if the orb could… No, I doubted the dungeon gave me a spy satellite. Why would I want this?
[Current options. Buildings. Tools. Garden. Forges. Equipment and Devices. Farm. Shop. Structures.]
I selected Buildings just so I could remotivate myself.
[Buildings. Currently unlocked:
1. F-ranked Shed. Price: 15 spirit coins.
2. F-ranked Special Lookout Tower. Price: 400 spirit coins.
3. F-ranked Spiritual Room. Price: 1,500 spirit coins.
4. E-ranked Wine Cellar. Price: 10,000 spirit coins.
5. F-ranked Magic Lab. Price: 150,000 spirit coins.
6. F-ranked Mana Tower. Price: 100,000,000 spirit coins.
7. E-ranked Mana Forge. Price: 300,000 spirit coins, B-ranked shop.]
I was so close. Only forty thousand spirit coins left. As much as I wanted to push for the last of them, I knew massive gains came with risky large events. Whether it was fighting the goddamn overpowered Lord Ruler, his crazy daughter, or liberating a city. I had to hand it to the system for making me work for these small fortunes. I wasn’t sure if the deadly quest barriers were a dick move or not.
Remembering something, I quickly checked the Farmer option, ready to cheese the entirety of this thing. After all, I was pretty sure the system didn’t originally intend to reward me with heavenly spirit coins until much later. But the stakes and the opponents were leagues beyond me, giving it no choice. Unfortunately, a new update soured my mood.
[Farm. Currently unlocked:
1. Basic Enclosed Cow Pasture. Price: 2 spirit coins.
2. Basic Fowl Home. Price: 2 spirit coins.
3. F-ranked Feed and Hay Barn and Pig Housing. Price: 3 spirit coins.
4. F-ranked Stable. Price: 3 spirit coins.
5. D-ranked Advanced Farm Containing Everything Needed. Price: 650,000 spirit coins.
6. F-ranked Mana Barn. Price: 700,000 spirit coins.
7. Heavenly Mana Farm. Price: 250,000,000 spirit coins.
8. Gaia’s Farm. Price: 7 heavenly spirit coins, B-ranked shop, Heavenly Mana Farm.
9. Animal Evolution Array. Price: System error.]
Now it carried a B-ranked shop and heavenly mana farm requirement. Sure, that made sense, but being able to skip everything else, going straight to Gaia’s farm would’ve generated the type of entertainment that even the heavens may appreciate.
Then again, the size of Gaia’s farm could be dimension-breaking. The animal evolution array being unlocked afterward meant thriving at a level of overpowered capable of threatening the world. I think.
The system’s classifications of some buildings or options still bugged me. Like an F-ranked spiritual room having a triple A item rank.
I slapped the thought away, having questioned the system enough. Any more would probably drive me crazy.
“Let me stop stalling,” I said, remembering a certain quest I hadn’t actually completed. The quest log had all the details.
[First, remember, a blighted potion is dangerous. It is the act of taking a potion and adding negative effects. That may be putting it mildly, so do not take it as if it is the opposite of your ability to inject Flavors, also known as boosts. You could still add Flavors to blighted potions as well.]
[Quest. Follow the instructions to create your first blighted potion. Instructions added to your menu.]
[You’ve unlocked the ability to add fire-element explosive blight to your potions. Throw at your opponent and watch the kaboom! However, it will only poison if consumed, not explode. The poison will burn the target from the inside out. If you prefer not to witness something gruesome, don’t feed it to anyone.]
It was time to create my first blighted potion and pray that it didn’t explode in my face. Instead of using an existing potion as a base, I went with a blank canvas. Purified water, a few herbs, and tiny bit of skeleton king bone dust for a little… texture.
Well, at least if it exploded with the blank canvas, the only thing I’d have to worry about was a little water and some glass shards. No big deal, right? Note to self: get a pair of safety glasses. There was a reason why they were worn in work in work environments such as construction.
I took a deep breath and applied the blight to the blank potion of nothing. Or technically herb water. Bonemeal herb water.
At first, nothing happened. I was about to assume a failure when the prompt that I wanted appeared into view.
[You have created a blighted potion!]
[Quest completed. Reward: Oh, you want a reward? How about another quest.]
[Quest: Create a complex blighted potion. Reward: **Exotic Chest**.]
You really are a dick, System, I thought.
[Potion of Steam Blast. Type: blight. Item grade: A. Item quality: Superior. Effect: toss the potion and watch a large area get coated in a hot steam explosion. It’s not fatal, but they sure will be smelling quite… herby afterward. It is very difficult for targets to see through this steam. You probably won’t be better off, which is why the grade will lose 3 points.]
Okay, a steam bomb. Not something I wanted, but this was a start. Everyone’s first items were underwhelming. It was kind of a miracle the system gave me an A for it.
I just needed to be careful of wasting the skeleton king’s dust on blighted potions. Oh screw it, who was I kidding? I had to try it again.
The second combination resulted in the following ingredients: skeleton king’s dust, a leftover Rowbear’s ear that sat in my storage ring perfectly preserved, and more purified water from the fountain.
This ended up exploding.
All in all, I concluded that using random combinations was a terrible idea. The risk of injury not only to myself but to everyone else felt too great.
The sound of the teenagers entering and chatting amongst each other filled the front part of the shop. Opal’s loud and whiny comment about almost drowning in the bath the prior night mixed into the conversation.
I put away my chemistry set and headed out to greet them.
“Bright, cheery, and ready to work, I see,” I said to them, before stopping to do a doubletake of Mandi. The wings on her back were tiny. She somehow figured out how to increase and decrease the size to only a few inches.
She grinned, eyes filled with pride. I caught Opal before the pixie could crash into my face, seemingly blinded by her inventor excitement.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” I said, nodding appreciatively. “Keep it up.”
“The magic beam—”
“Lasers,” I interrupted Harmony.
She pouted. “Lasers,” she said, rolling her eyes, “are bit dangerous. Mandi still has to practice some more.”
“That’s something we’ll get done today, but before that, how are your siblings?” I asked the redhead. “Not that I’m trying to destroy the mood.”
“You most certainly destroyed the mood,” Harmony said.
Lucas snickered.
I briefly glared at them. “Smartassery aside,” I continued.
“They’re… fine, but Howie said all of their mana channels are burned out. I… They’re crippled.”
I pulled up the description for Heaven’s Tears, smiling.
[Heaven’s Tears. Item grade: SSS. Item quality: Extraordinary. Effect: Rapidly heals and also repairs damaged mana channels within the body.]
“I have just the thing to fix them, assuming Mama Red Star is willing to increase her sponsorship of this town,” I said.
“You… do? But it’s impossible,” Mandi said. “There isn’t a cure for pathways, at least not known to the public.”
“There is, but I’m the only one who knows it,” I said. I was also the only one who could make it. “Not that I’d release it. Magicians aren’t exactly worthy of regaining their powers after losing them, if you know what I mean. But for your siblings, I’m making an exception. If you approve, of course.”
Milia had a warm smile on her face from behind the counter. She was the first Mandi looked at, receiving the confirming nod, before turning to everyone else. The dryad was everyone’s mentor.
Again, when people asked me where I learned to fight, I’d tell them my wife taught me with a straight face.
“Please help them,” Mandi said.
“Alright, everyone, a trip into town,” I said. “But be careful. Don’t attract the attention of a nosey headmaster and his brats.”
Wolverine barked in agreement.
“Wouldn’t they recognize Beakwing?” Harmony asked.
“They didn’t see him,” Milia said. “Not that we’re riding him into town. We’ve got morning training to do, so everyone’s walking.”
Cheetara hopped onto my shoulders, prompting a laugh out of me.
“Cheetara disagrees,” I said. The kitten meowed, nestling her head against my cheek. I glanced at Alexander and Mazu, the thought of the mysterious girl coming to mind. What was he trying to tell me?
