“Mr Meekhailoff, it is my distinct honour as city administrator to confer upon you today the full and potent rights of a citizen of this here great city of Narses.” A rather rotund man proclaimed with a bit too much gusto considering his horrible butchering of Sven’s last name as he handed over a bronze medallion and a rolled-up scrap of paper.
Sven didn’t complain or criticize the man, however, simply accepting the marks of citizenship with a sense of relief and satisfaction before he was then guided out of the man’s large central office to the ground floor of the city’s official administration building.
Sven didn’t bother wasting any more time wandering around the large stone structure, as the truth was he was a little bit embarrassed with himself that he hadn’t gotten his citizenship sooner.
But a certain tea house had practically drained him dry of his savings with but a single cup of tea.
Lucky for the tea house, however, that had been one damn good cup of tea, and so he guessed he couldn’t be too mad at them for charging a fair price for their product.
Plus, on the bright side of things, his sudden poverty after his night of “drinking” with Jackson had all but forced him to consolidate his new capacity to create tier 2 potions to rebuild his finances.
It was thanks to that extra forced work that he’d now reached the point where he could create an [E]-grade tier 2 potion 90~ per cent of the time he tried, and a [D]-grade potion 20% of the time.
For only two weeks of practice, that was some incredible progress, and thus even if there was a lot of lingering embarrassment within him, he was still happy overall with how everything had gone.
And now that he had citizenship, he could finally be considered eligible to purchase land.
However, his doing that would have to wait some time, as once more his supply of money had become very limited as buying citizenship was certainly not cheap.
Sven was dragged out of his thoughts about his money problems by his stomach growling at him to satiate it after he had failed to do so overnight as he’d been busy concocting potions.
He waited until he was back in his workshop before he pulled out the cornucopia and let all of the heavenly liquid flood down his throat as he let out a long sigh of happiness.
Followed quickly by his eyebrows raising as a system prompt appeared in front of him.
—
Level Up!
Your Realm has increased to the [11th Layer of the Apprentice]!
—
After nodding at the exciting prompt, Sven dismissed it with a happy thought, before he shivered as a rather painful memory resurfaced in his mind.
He had been at the 12th layer of the Novice realm when he’d taken that final leap of faith, and he distinctly remembered that he’d been rewarded with a traumatizing breakthrough.
So, Sven could only wonder, if the breakthrough to only the second realm of cultivation was bad, how much worse could the breakthrough to the next realm, [Low Core], be.
The mere thought had him second-guessing every decision he’d made in this new world. Before a second memory hit him and he almost hit himself for forgetting about something so important.
As a sort of knee-jerk reaction to this memory, he flipped over his right hand and, sure enough, an odd green symbol he distinctly recalled being etched into his flesh was there.
The Mark of Gaia he remembered the system called it.
Yet, so far as he was aware, he was the only person who could see the mark. No one in Narses had yet mentioned spotting the strange tattoo-esque marking on his palm.
This revelation mystified Sven as it reminded him that for all that he had learned since he first arrived in this world, there was still so much that he just didn’t know.
But, instead of feeling intimidated by his ignorance, Sven felt somewhat excited about it.
Back on Earth, he had done everything that one could do—learned all the life lessons you needed to know. And, while he had been no super genius polymath, he had been somewhat wise.
Yet, in this new world, there was so much he didn’t know, and he felt as though it was much more able to squeeze some last-minute life lessons into him than Earth.
Hence, the future that now lay before him felt much more exciting than he had ever imagined his retirement back on Earth could have been. Even in the best-case scenario.
A big goofy smile thus broke out on his face as Sven began daydreaming about what he should do in the future.
Unfortunately, however, his fantasizing was cut short by a knock at his door.
A familiar young lad, who he had since learned was named Tobias, then peeked his head in before saying, “Sir Alchemist, a job has come in that the guild master wants you to handle personally.”
Sven blinked twice at the boy before retorting, “The guild master wants me to do what?”
The boy took his words as an invitation to come in as he then followed up with, “The guild master told me to tell you that he recently received a request from an old friend for a [B]-grade potion.”
“Any kind of [B]-grade potion?” Sven asked, inquiringly.
“A [B]-grade health potion to be precise.” The boy clarified, making Sven instantly deflate as he’d not been able to create even a half-decent [D]-grade tier 2 potion yet, let alone a [C] or [B] grade.
“I’m sorry but I’m not sure I can help the grandmaster on this one. I’m nowhere near being able to make a [B]-grade health potion.” Sven responded honestly to the boy.
“The guild master knows that already. But, he has been impressed with your rate of progress. He’d thus like to give you this challenge as a way to motivate you to even greater success.”
“You are, after all, apparently one of the guild’s greatest talents in a generation.” The boy said, in a voice that half-revealed that the kid found repeating such a degree of praise to be hard work.
Sven stood baffled by the guild master’s apparent words before he asked, “What’s the reward?”
At this question, the boy shrugged before replying, “I don’t know. I just know a job from the guildmaster himself is one that you’d be crazy to turn down.”
Sven sighed in response, before nodding his head and saying, “Alright. I’ll take the job. But, I don’t know how long it’ll take me to succeed so I can’t say when I’ll have the potion ready.”
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The boy nodded in understanding before he said, “I’ll be sure to inform the guildmaster.” Then, he briskly walked over to the door and walked out of Sven’s workshop. Leaving Sven stood alone.
Once more he sighed as the weight of the task he had just been given dawned on him.
The only silver lining of getting this job, apart from the potential reward he’d be given, was that he would be given all the resources he needed by the guild so his progression would be cost-free.
Which was a bonus considering the currently miserable state of his finances.
With a new job suddenly in his sights, Sven moved over to his small pile of notes that he’d made in the last few weeks and began to try and extrapolate from them how he might make the potion.
As, while he had been able to achieve it once or twice with tier 1 potions, making a [B] quality item was far from easy and it required well above average ingredients, skill, and luck.
At least, for a relative newcomer to any tier of potion-making. Alchemists who’d been in a tier for a very long time, like the guild master, could probably pump them out without any need for luck.
But, as someone who had only become a tier 2 alchemist a few weeks ago, Sven doubted he’d get a tier 2 potion made that was of [C] quality for another few weeks of work, let alone [B] grade.
So, recognizing this reality, he set himself a reasonable, but still definitely arbitrary, deadline of the beginning of the new year to make himself his very first [B]-grade tier 2 potion.
And, he decided, if he failed to meet the deadline, he’d just inform the guild master he couldn’t do it as he didn’t want to waste the man’s or the client’s time with lackluster alchemy.
With all of that decided, and his mind now set on completing this most important of tasks, Sven’s reaction to a new blue system prompt appearing in his vision was to just smile knowingly.
He had been somewhat expecting it after all.
—
Quest Gained!
Quest Name: Great Expectations!
Rank: [Profound]
Objectives: [Create a B-grade Basic Health Potion (0/1)
Reward: ???
—
Winona’s whole body was coated in blood as she stumbled back into the shadowy privacy of what could loosely be called her new home.
The instant the half-rotten wooden door closed behind her, Winona fell to her knees, then folded over and collapsed, face first, into the pile of dirty rags she called a bed.
She let out a pained groan as she rolled onto her back and, in between heavy breaths, she read all the system prompts that she’d received after her latest fight.
The desert root she’d sold a few weeks ago had been the last of her stashed away spirit herbs, and so she had needed to once more brave the desert and fight with a spirit beast to restock.
Unfortunately, with each spirit beast she defeated, the quantity of loot had been decreasing. Making her life just that little bit more difficult than before.
The drop-off had been so large at first that she had feared she wouldn’t even get any loot today, a result that had it happened would’ve at last broken her spirit to succeed.
For no one could truly be that unlucky? Could they? She didn’t let her mind linger on that thought for long, not wanting to tempt the Heavens too much.
After she’d read over all of the prompts, she selected yes to claim her loot and once more she had a large desert root shoot in her possession. This one being even higher quality than the last.
If she were to guess, the guild would probably buy it for 50 bronzes, or around 500 coppers, if the seller were anyone else, but, of course, she was Winona Argyle, disgraced former disciple.
Hence, unless she just happened to run into that old man again, she’d probably get a pittance. If a single coin at all.
For there was every chance that a senior alchemist might just “confiscate” her root if they so fit as there was very little that she could do to stop them.
As, while alchemy and physical prowess didn’t always go hand in hand, it was common knowledge that the tiers of alchemy generally tracked the realms of cultivation.
So, a tier 1 alchemist was likely in the [Novice] realm, a tier 2 alchemist in the [Apprentice] realm, a tier 3 in the [Low Core] realm, and so on. This wasn’t always the case, but it was standard.
And, while some mythical geniuses could bridge the divide between realms and in some cases emerge victorious, if the last 5 years taught Winona anything, she was far from being good at cultivation - let alone being a genius.
Her grip tightened around the coarse root at that thought.
Who cared if she didn’t have the talent of some legendary figures, she refused to accept that this scavenger’s life would be hers for the rest of her time in Empyria.
She wouldn’t and couldn’t allow that to be the case.
A blazing inferno of determination instantly roaring to life within her chest, Winona pushed herself back up and into a cross-legged position.
And, for the first time in months, she zoned out the pain and started to cultivate. Hoping that she had finally met whatever arbitrary threshold the heavens had set for her advancement.
The grin on Sven’s face couldn’t have been any warmer as he casually chatted with his old boss in front of the ideally situated, decently sized, plot of land that he’d bought.
“So, you became a big shot alchemist, eh?” The tall muscle-bound man said, impressed, with a great big smirk.
“You could say that,” Sven replied casually as a building crew that he wasn’t quite familiar with did their best to filter past him and the hunk of a man beside him to get onto the plot of land.
“You know, if you’d told me you were a magician the first time we met, you could’ve saved me lots of hours of self-reflection, old man.” The man followed up with a small chuckle.
Sven smiled knowingly in response as while the man may have had a point, the truth was that he’d not known what he was back then. Let alone that being a magician might give him benefits.
He wouldn’t say that aloud though as he didn’t want his true origin to come under any scrutiny as he didn’t have any explanation for where he came from that would satisfy a rational person.
Hence, when he did respond, he did so with a deflection, “I don’t know. I think you were in need of some self-reflection. If anything, you should be thanking me for my half-deception.”
The other man scoffed at his words before nodding.
A brief silence formed between them until the burly foreman asked, “You know, construction is an extremely risky industry, do you think we could come to a health potion securing deal?”
Sven’s left eyebrow raised as he thought over the proposition before replying, “I don’t know. What kind of deal are you thinking?”
The other man grinned as he answered, “A mutually beneficial arrangement. In return for giving us a few discounted health potions now and again, I give you a discount on the building cost?”
Sven thought over the man’s words, and the more he did so the more he found the deal one that he could very much take advantage of.
As, currently, he wasn’t the one paying for any of the ingredients for his health potions as he was technically working toward the job the guild master had given him.
And, while there was always a demand for health potions, in his quest to make a [B]-grade potion, Sven had well and truly begun pumping them out at an absurd rate.
He now no longer even semi-regularly failed to make [E]-grade Basic Health Potions, and he had doubled his rate of success in making [D]-grade potions.
As a result, he had quite a large stockpile of health potions built up. So if he could unload them by giving them to the builders guild for a very generous discount on his new house…
“That sounds acceptable. Though, it better be a pretty big discount. My potions typically sell for at least a couple silver, especially the [D]-grade ones.” Sven thus replied.
“Oh that it will be!” The builders' guild master bellowed with a hearty chuckle, “I’ll even throw in a free basement for your very own private lab on top of a 50% discount, how does that sound?”
“It sounds like you’ve got yourself a deal,” Sven replied with a satisfied smile.
They then shook hands on the deal and the rest of their conversation came to an abrupt end as he needed to get back to the Alchemist guild to continue working on his health potions.
Plus, the construction of his house had only just begun today, so it would take a few weeks at the very minimum for his home to be built. Especially if now he was also getting a private lab built.
Thus, other than continuing to reminisce as he had done for the last few hours, Sven had no real reason to stick around his plot of land as there wasn’t exactly much to see just yet.
He did, however, make sure to look at his neighbours’ homes as he had bought land in one of the city’s more middle-class districts so there were some very nice-ish-looking buildings to see.
From the looks of the people that he saw, most of the people who lived in this area were a part of the educated class of workers within the city, meaning they often worked as scribes and the like.
Such jobs paid rather well as Sven had come to learn that reading and writing were very much not universal skills among Narses’ populace, and so being literate was held up as a very valuable trait.
Learning of the city’s literacy problems had made Sven wonder about its education system which, unsurprisingly, turned out to be pretty much non-existent.
There was very little effort, outside of maintaining the city library, put into the nurturing of genius within Narses’ population as most of the city’s money was being spent elsewhere.
Where exactly Sven didn’t know, but it certainly wasn’t in education or infrastructure, that was for sure. As, still, even in the nicer area of the city he was in, he could always damn smell open sewage.
Due to near-constant exposure, he had become partly used to the smell, but that didn’t mean he’d come to accept it as perfectly fine.
If he ever found himself in a position of influence in the city, he would see to it that this city built a functioning sewer so he didn’t have to wade through a fog of shit every time he went for a walk.
Oh, how he could dream...
