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Chapter 189- New Profession
🕑 Added 2025-01-15 01:23:49 +0000 UTCEver since Arthur had come to England, he'd had way too much free time and very little to do with it. Joining the Guild of Fringe Walkers didn't really change that. Unless things took a drastic change for the worse, Arthur was allowed to choose which hours he wanted to work or if he wanted to work at all, more freedom than he'd ever had at a job before.
Of course, no work meant no contribution points, which meant that he wasn't paid anything, but Arthur wasn't in a rush. He had enough money for now and the invasion points would still be there when he was ready to confront them. Besides, the Guild of Fringe Walkers wasn't cleared for delving on Earth yet- the post-system world hadn't gotten rid of bureaucracy, unfortunately. It could take anything from three days to two weeks before they were allowed to battle in the isolated invasion dimensions like everyone else, which he was interested in doing but not as much as before now that he'd found out about the possibility of going to the source instead.
Instead, he'd decided to work on a skill that had been a long time in coming. Alchemy. If he was being accurate, it was the first piece of magic he'd worked with, even before his flashy skills when he made the poor decision of creating his first monster core elixir. Albeit his success had been caused by luck and the quality of the ingredients he was using more than any skill on his part. All he'd done was mix things together and hope for the best.
Things had changed significantly since then. Now he had the Poisoned Alchemy (Rare) that he'd inherited from Mira as well as his trusty Ikea bowl. Getting it back after his abrupt teleport to England from the middle of the ocean had been a far easier task than Arthur had expected. All he'd had to do was take a System oath that the bowl actually belonged to him before paying an express galactic shipping company twenty thousand credits and the bowl had been teleported into his hands in less than ten seconds. He'd been so impressed he'd gone on to tip the company a whopping fifty credits. No matter how amazed Arthur was he'd learned to be conservative with his spending.
Arthur pulled his trusty bowl from his storage ring. The question marks in its description he'd been unsure of before had finally been revealed to him.
Trusty Ikea bowl (Pseudo Soul Bound) (Rank: N/A)- A stainless steel bowl created with exquisite craftsmanship, this item has been infused with mystic energies and become the cauldron of many powerful elixirs. It has merged with residual components of every ingredient that has been placed within it and fundamentally evolved beyond its base earthly origins after bonding with Originator Arthur Ward's blood.
Effect 1- All elixirs and potions created within the bowl will have their potency enhanced by 20%
Effect 2- The bowl is far larger than it appears
Effect 3- The item's owner [Arthur Ward] can substitute a single from any recipe with the equivalent volume of his blood once per day as long as the rarities of the ingredients match the rarity of [Arthur Ward's] blood.
Upgrade conditions to True Soulbound status: Create three legendary elixirs or Create one Mythical elixir
The bowl had grown from a simple tool he used as a good luck charm to an item that matched most epic items. If its tertiary effect wasn't limited to only his blood, Arthur would put its value above many legendary items he'd seen selling in the System store. His blood currently ranked at epic which meant he could use it as a stand-in in many elixir recipes that were easy enough to create but simultaneously impossible because of how rare some of the ingredients were. If Arthur could get this alchemy thing down, it would make him a very, very rich man.
That was merely an add-on, considering Arthur had experienced first-hand how useful potions could be in his fight against the Draconic Liverthion. Unfortunately, as Arthur had feared, enhancement potions below the rare tier simply didn't work on him anymore, the weak liquids unable to affect him with how high his Draconic Vitality had gotten lately. Even rare elixirs were affected by this, only working at a fifty percent reduced rate or sometimes not at all. Investing in Draconic Vitality was a double-edged sword in that it made him less vulnerable to everything, be it damage or positive medication. There were downsides to everything in life and this was the one Arthur had to face on his journey to becoming a juggernaut on the battlefield.
Since gaining the poisoned Alchemy skill from Mira's Will, this was Arthur's first attempt at creating anything. If he was strict with himself, then today would mark his first attempt at alchemy ever. His monster core elixirs hardly counted with how simple they were. Arthur had chosen to make one of the enhancement elixirs the recipe he was at least a little familiar with because of Mira's memories that came with her inheritance.
That being said, the recipe in his head was very different from the one that Mira had fed him on the day they'd finally decided to work together. He distinctly remembered those potions being classed as class C drugs by the System and only now was he learning that they were not meant to be imbibed as a replacement for actual potions. Sure, they were far more potent, but they were counted as illegal drugs for a reason. Take them too often and one day you'd just wake up paralyzed or worse, you wouldn't wake up at all. Damn that sly woman for feeding me them like they were normal potions.
He'd decided to go with a strength enhancement elixir to start off with because it was his lowest physical stat on the off chance that it would end up actually working for him. He wasn't expecting much, but Arthur didn't want to fail straight away.
Unfortunately, that was exactly what happened, and it occurred before he even got to the alchemical side of things. He'd failed to prepare his ingredients properly. The four-tailed watercress leaf had to be carefully handled, the leaf's stem meticulously removed without tearing the leaf's fragile body. Being too heavy-handed, Arthur almost tore the thing in half when he first tried it. His second attempt went far better and within five minutes, he had the six primary ingredients prepared and ready before him; the four-tailed watercress leaf, the pulp from a red mango, a Darkroot Acorn, Gardling seeds, a tablespoon of pure ethanol and finally 300ml of water infused with a thousand ether.
He'd bought everything besides the water and the ethanol from the System store. Whilst the other ingredients were starting to appear naturally on Earth as the ambient ether levels rose, there were no supply chains established to get the items onto the market. It made him wonder how Mira had sourced all her ingredients without access to the System store. Had she won them all from the tutorial or was the Harvester's agent the one to supply them? That was a disturbing thought, helping your prey train and grow strong before slaughtering them.
Whatever the case, Arthur had spent 3,000 credits getting five sets of ingredients from the store. It would have been 3,500 if he hadn't made the infused water himself. Considering the strength enhancers sold for a thousand credits a piece, the profit margins were incredibly small. Especially when you factor in the time and energy used in creating every potion, and the fact that most beginner alchemists had a twenty percent success rate. Being an alchemist- at least in the beginner levels- was not a lucrative trade.
Of course, Arthur could buy the ingredients for far cheaper, but all the sellers offering those prices were massive corporations that required you to enter year-long contracts at the minimum where they'd supply you ingredients on a monthly or weekly basis depending on how much you were willing to spend. Arthur suspected such contracts were meant for established alchemy shops, not something a beginner like him would need any time soon.
He'd bought an entry-level primer on Alchemy from the System but had chosen not to read it yet. For his first foray into alchemy, he wanted to go in with no preconceived notions and with only the knowledge he'd gained from Mira's skill to establish a baseline of sorts. Arthur had the recipe in his mind, so clear it was as if he'd concocted the potion himself in the past. He nevertheless went over everything one final time. For some reason, this first attempt of his had become so much more significant than it really was in his mind. It took him a second to realise why that was.
The answer came to him almost immediately and his face flushed in embarrassment. He'd become accustomed to success in alchemy with his many monster core elixirs. In fact, he'd never failed, a nigh impossible feat when you looked at the rarity of some of his creations. From there, it wasn't hard to come to the conclusion that he took an odd sense of pride in his work. If he failed now, it would tell him in no uncertain terms that everything special about him, all his success in the field came entirely from his titles and blood and not his own skill. Which was one thousand percent true- all his skill in the field amounted to the novel ways he'd managed to make himself bleed- but emotions didn't run on logic. Still, acknowledging his emotions, misguided though they may be, helped him centre himself. Taking a deep breath, Arthur could find no reason to delay any longer.
Arthur began with the first step. In his inherited memories, Arthur could say that Mira had reached a point where she'd work with all ingredients simultaneously. She truly was a prodigy in the field of alchemy and it was no mistake that the Harvester's agent had targeted her specifically. Earth had lost a future powerhouse the day Frankenstein had set his covetous gaze on Mira.
Arthur would follow the recipe to the T and take things slowly. He poured the water into his trusty bowl and placed the leaf and mango pulp inside. Ether-infused water had the unique property of not mixing with other substances which was why it was such an integral component in all alchemy, where every reaction had to be actively engaged and carefully monitored.
He poured 300 ether into Poisoned Alchemy, the exact amount the recipe said he should work with. The energy that came out of the skill was... different. It wasn't tied to any particular affinity as usually happened when ether travelled through his skills, though there was a tinge of poison to it.
Arthur wondered what would happen if he used this changed ether to fuel one of his other spells. Now that's an experiment for the future. It wouldn't be anything revolutionary considering how many alchemists were around with similar skill sets, but he was interested in what would happen.
From the little Arthur knew of alchemy, there were two key aspects to it: extraction and refinement. Refinement, however, wasn't something that would be used in lower-ranked elixir creation, it was a skill exclusive to master alchemists. Right now, Arthur had to extract the essence of the watercress leaf and mix it with the vitality inherent to the red mango, all the while ensuring he didn't take anything extra from the ingredients.. That was a perfect way to ruin the efficiency of his creations.
As far as first attempts went, Arthur felt like he'd done pretty damn well. He hadn't managed to maintain 100% purity, but he did get pretty close at 93%. He didn't let the fact that strength enhancement elixirs were easy to make even compared to other entry-level potions dampen his spirits at all. Sadly, things weren't smooth sailing from there. Every subsequent ingredient added to the mix made it exponentially more difficult to maintain the precarious equilibrium he was trying to cultivate and he had a new appreciation for just how talented Mira had been.
Prodigy didn't even begin to describe it.
What Arthur lacked in skill, however, he more than made up for with the sheer quantity of his stats. Now that he'd fixed his soul, he could actually bring his significant willpower to bear. Magic had never been so easy to use. It was like he'd been working with oversized mits all this time and finally taken them off. The acorn gave him the most trouble; it was particularly resistant to his extraction efforts and he was only able to get 70% of what he potentially could have out of it as well as a whole lot of impurities and unwanted chaff.
When Arthur was ready, he used a specialised sieve to collect all the solids in his mixing bowl and place it on a paper towel besides him. The ether-infused water now contained all the components needed to create a strength-enhancement elixir. All he had to do was complete it. Now would be a perfect time to add some of his blood if he wasn't running a baseline test. Unfortunately, he'd already promised himself he'd refrain from experimenting for now.
"Merge."
Arthur flushed when he realised he'd said the word out loud and was glad that no one was around to see him. The elixir, however, seemed to respond positively to Arthur's orders and glowed brightly, the normally non-reactive treated water mixing freely with all the extracted ingredients. Forty seconds later the elixir was done. He quickly poured the now red liquid into a glass vial.
Elixir of Strength Enhancement (Common)
[Quality: Poor]
(Efficiency 61%) 50.5% +10.25% from bowl enchantment
The first creation of alchemist Arthur Ward. Whilst the ingredients going into it were great, an inadequate technique has led to the creation of an imperfect product
Effect: Raises strength by 6% for 1 hour 23 minutes.
Arthur grinned. Now he just had to see if he could sell it.
Book two's launch has gone far better than I ever hoped for. Honestly, the support from my readers has blown me away. Thank you everyone for all the help. It means the world to me.
Standardised AN ahead.
Etherious: Powers Price has gone live. As a self published author doing everything myself, my novels success lies entirely on my shoulders. As such, the first day of a books launch is by far the most important time that determines how well my book will do.
The first book did incredibly well, far better than I could have expected or even hoped for. I only hope that the same happens for my second release. The better my novel does, the higher the likelihood that I can get an audiobook released.
A rating or review goes a long way, especially on Goodreads, on my first book or the second. Thank you everyone for your continued support. It means the world to me.
Link for 1st book: Here
Link for 2nd book: Here
