[SP-F01] Another Day. <<Earning a Living: Alchemist>>

[Pollux 0]

厌倦你浪潮般涨落地爱我 当作莫名靠岸惶惑地来过 再说了从未幻想过你爱我 天马行空都埋没

Spoiler LEVEL 24: HP: 480/480 | EN: 66/66 | DMG: 19 | ACC: 1 SKILLS Spoiler  | skills mod count: 3/5 STRAIGHT SWORD | RANK 5/5 [BASE: Proficiency] +7 DMG [ADDON: Ferocity] +2 DMG [ADDON: Precision] +1 ACC [ADDON: Stamina] Reduce EN of all attacks by 2. [SHIFT: TECH Specialist] For TECH Sword Arts, +4 to multipliers, +3 to EN cost. COMBAT MASTERY: DAMAGE | RANK 3/3 [BASE: Proficiency] +9 DMG | extra skills [2] FIRST AID | RANK 5/5 [BASE: Proficiency] [PA, 15 EN] Single target heal: 20% of target max HP. [MOD: Purify] [PA, 3 EN, 1 CD] Single target cleanse: Can target the user. [MOD: Energize] [PA, 10 EN] Single target restoration: +8 EN. [ADDON: Hyperactive] [PA, 5 EN, 3 CD] Single target buff: +3 Passive EN Regen for three turns. Can target the user. [MOD: Barrier] [PA, 15 EN, 2 CD] AoE buff: Reduce final damage from all sources by 15% for one turn. [ADDON: Field Medic] [PA, 15 EN, 3 CD] AoE heal: 25% of target(s) max HP. | expenditure Spoiler Total SP: 120 | Spent: 119 | Unspent: 1 SKILL: Axe (30) ADDON: Stamina (4) ADDON: Precision (2) ADDON: Ferocity (4) SHIFT: TECH Specialist (10) SKILL: Combat Mastery: Damage (13) EXTRA SKILL: First Aid (30) MOD: Purify (4) MOD: Energize (5) MOD ADDON: Hyperactive (5) MOD: Barrier (6) ADDON: Field Medic (6)   EQUIPMENT Spoiler Dull Blade DAMAGE II TIER 1 RARE STRAIGHT SWORD it's worn from use. but the swordswoman favors it anyway. it was her first blade. INVENTORY Spoiler (1) Teleport Crystal Use a post action to activate a teleport crystal. Teleports the player to the town or designated teleportation area they specify. SWORD ARTS Spoiler | ST [x12] ST-I (10 EN) | A single-target sword art. [x15] ST-II (13 EN) | A powerful single-target sword art. Only available for use when ST-I was used and successfully struck an enemy the previous turn or if ST-II had been used and had missed the previous turn. [x20] ST-B (18 EN) | A devastating single-target sword art. Can only be used if the sword art used the previous turn is not ST-B and had rolled a natural CD9+. When performing an AoE attack, use only the first roll. | AOE [x11] AOE-I (9 + [2 * targets] EN) | AOE | A sword art that strikes multiple targets at once. [x14] AOE-II (12 + [2 * targets] EN) | AOE | A powerful sword art that strikes multiple targets at once. Only available for use when AOE-I was used and successfully struck an enemy the previous turn or if AOE-II had been used and had missed all intended targets the previous turn. | TECH [x16] TECH-A (14 EN) | STUN | A single-target sword art that stuns an enemy. [x16] TECH-B (13 EN) | DELAY | A single-target sword art that, on a successful strike, applies [Delay] on the enemy. [Delay] is a debuff that reduces the enemy’s ACC by 1 for one turn.

On a crisp late autumn morning in Floor 11, swathed in thick quilted blankets in the room she occupied within the guild HQ's dormitories, Yue Hua woke to find that she had skipped two entire tiers in her sleep.

She dug herself out of her blanket cocoon, bleary and befuddled, and she tried to piece together how she might have bested an army of high value monsters, perhaps five hundred strong, in less than eight hours, then promptly forgot. It must have been a mission of quite extreme import. Perhaps one undertaken with her new friends. At the crux of it all, they spoke to Cardinal itself or some powerful intermediary, heroically demanding to wipe their own memories else the very foundations of this world be altered at the knowledge of their feats. And here in the epilogue, Yue Hua must return to the ordinary life of a Japanese salaryman, poking away at her menus and reinvesting in the assets that defined her niche.

...Her updated stat line appeared promising. Yue Hua sent a message -- sought to dispel the question mark still hanging over her head.

HUA: [Attached]
HUA: this u?

---

-> GATHERING: 239014: LD 2; Fail.

Edited December 16, 2024 by Pollux

[Pollux 0]

A shaded bubble beneath her last communication informed her it was sent. Already a stroke of luck, considered. She waited, lazing about in her bed, running a comb through the feathered end of her tail. She relished the soft, silky feel of it, then moved on to her hair, which rarely gave her trouble since she moved so little in her sleep. When she ran out of knots to untangle and the other end of the line remained silent, she resigned herself to more waking moments with the mystery.

Yue Hua drifted out into the quiet hall, eyes half squinted shut against the brightness of the morning. Her room was in the middle, not because the first or the last or any places otherwise were already occupied, but because she had wanted to be erratic when presented with the choice. Regardless, very few people were even around to question her placement. Such was the case of a fledgling guild.

---

-> GATHERING: 239077: LD 4; Fail.

Edited December 20, 2024 by Pollux

[Pollux 0]

She continued, alone and uninterrupted. She swung open the door to the pantry and she internally flipped through her limited knowledge of recipes. Their bartender NPC's duty hours ended far earlier than when Yue Hua usually woke up. Breakfast, if not bought from the shops in Taft, had to be prepared by herself. She went back and forth between closely packed shelves and the small cooking area squeezed next to the window, picking up two small sacks and a carton, pans, utensils, and a bowl. Once everything was gathered at the counter, she stared them all down with a frown.

Flour. Eggs. Sugar. Was that all...? Did she really forget what went into pancakes again?

The next half-hour Yue Hua spent consulting a cookbook from her inventory woefully labeled 'for beginners.' From the condiments row before she sat down with her finished breakfast, Yue Hua swiped a shaker of dried rosemary. Surely no one would miss it until she came back with a replacement.

---

-> GATHERING: 239084: LD 20; 1/5.

Edited December 20, 2024 by Pollux

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Yue Hua's hand trembled with the urge to grab another. The second victim: cuttings of mint held together with a string. Good for one potion, the material hung next to other herbs stored in the same way, exactly at eye level. Her long years of being a greedy virtual loot goblin in video games then the following also(?) years(??) long stint of being a greedy physical loot goblin as an aimless wanderer starved for resources in Aincrad called to her.

Yue Hua listened to the voices. She swore she was also going to replace this one later.

She almost knocked everything over when a string of bell chimes informed her of a response to her earlier messages.

SYL: Yes.
SYL: I expected a third of that amount when I cast your name in with the donation. I hope the excess is more of a help than a trouble?

Very on-topic. Very cut and dry. Yue Hua hovered at the window for a moment, but Sibyl was decisive. No typing indicators came, and Yue Hua passed her hand through the screen and dissolved it, returning first to her breakfast.

---

-> GATHERING: 239111: LD 18; 2/5.

Edited December 22, 2024 by Pollux

[Pollux 0]

She cut into the last pancake with slightly more aggression than necessary.

The crafting board.

She knew but it was only the written confirmation that brought the untidy knot of her feelings to surface. More preferred to the lighter parts of the event, the Trackers hadn't chosen to tackle it as a guild. So she hadn't minded the task at all, preferring to craft to her own preference rather than follow Hiten's schemata, until Sibyl, who had barely spoken to her since their first meeting, dropped her a message. Was she still at rock bottom? A small amount of EXP to bump her stat line up, least to the point where she might feel confident venturing out on any floor as was her custom, yes or no? Her payment to follow. Of course Yue Hua said yes.

She was -- displeased. There was a certain magic in re-experiencing this world through a fresh account, moreso with people she presumed her new friends. But she had never expressed the sentiment out loud, and their name aside, it was unfair to expect Sibyl to respect unspoken wishes.

Alone in the pantry, Yue Hua let out a loud sigh.

She finished her breakfast and washed the dishes, then decided to vent a little. She swiped a single ginger root from a basket.

---

-> GATHERING: 239138: LD 16; 3/5.

Edited December 22, 2024 by Pollux

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She didn't want to mope over what any other player might have called a blessing the entire day. Yue Hua took a moment to calm down, which outwardly consisted of staring intensely down at the ginger root in her hand as though it were a talisman. Some cures needed not to be mixed into tinctures. Sending back replies dressed in her desired mood also helped.

HUA: t3? r u even asking?
HUA: ofc it's a huge help :triumph: :triumph:
HUA: i owe u 24 small faovrs
HUA: or 5 medium
HUA: or 2 big
HUA: :thumbsup:
HUA: on that note is there anything that i might be able to do for you today? genuinely asking. you did accidentally give me a lot of free time.

She exhaled another long sigh, visualizing the gloom expelled. She decided not to wait around for a response. Thusly the Trackers Alliance's pantry was saved from further ransacking. The fields just outside their guild territory were not... if only an unlucky roll hadn't blinded her senses to the wealth of materials therein.

---

-> GATHERING: 239165: LD 11; Fail.

Edited December 23, 2024 by Pollux

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Well and truly blinded.

She had intended to simply pick whatever she found along the way but a strange competitive instinct -- against the game, maybe -- flared up in her when this approach yielded her nothing.

Yue Hua trudged around in circles, her eyes trained on the ground. Less than a month into her stay, she had more or less identified the places where materials were most likely to spawn. She checked all of them, combed through spots of overgrown grass, picked unlabeled leaves and flowers, and recited the instructions she had spoken to Dexter during his lessons back to herself. All to no avail. Yue Hua gave up, her head tilting back to stare despondently at the blue sky.

"I'll be back with an LD consumable," she said to nobody at all, "And the [Detect] skill. Just you wait."

She made her way to the base of the hill and settled down. At the chime of a distant bell, Taft reopened before her.

---

-> GATHERING: 239194: LD 1; Fail.

Edited December 26, 2024 by Pollux

[Pollux 0]

Yue Hua's mood was quick to improve. Slipping between pocket realities, she felt herself swept up in the same childlike amazement she had when the Trackers first discovered the location and decided to build there. A secret place accessible by items only they could hold or a specific sequence of steps known only to them -- or anyone curious enough to investigate, as was what defined their guild's shared characteristic. More than everyday magic, Yue Hua thought she had never felt more a part of a whole.

She resurfaced beneath the shadow of Taft's cathedral. The reflection of the hill laid beneath her feet.

Sibyl still hadn't responded, so Yue Hua internally sifted through her personal to-do list. Outside the main building of the guild hall, she had erected a duple of her alchemy store in the Town of Beginnings, where she had done all her crafting in the early days after losing her levels. She could christen it today with its first craft, activating it as her primary workshop.

---

-> GATHERING: 239353: LD 11; Fail.

Edited January 12 by Pollux

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She weighed her decision, but even without making a conclusive statement in her mind, her meandering stroll took her to the teleport plaza. The transfer required a visit to Evangeline in the Town of Beginnings.

...And a completely necessary shopping trip at the city's east wing.

Yue Hua wrote up orders for the supplies that were running low in the pantry and sent notice to the guild's group chat, then liberated her wallet of three non-alchemy materials at the artisan shop with the cute cat in exchange for a small glass bottle that reminded her of the sea. She held the trinket above her head as she walked, one eye shut and comparing the blue of the water to the blue of the sky.

A beautiful color.

Fingers curled around the bottle, she imagined the bottomless depths contained.

 

 

Still an entire day was ahead of her when Yue Hua poked her head into Evangeline's workshop.

"Hello, Alchemist Evangeline," she greeted. "I have made considerable progress with my alchemy and I would like to show you the product of my learnings. Might I assist you on your own crafts today?"

---

-> GATHERING: 239722: LD 13; Fail.

Edited January 12 by Pollux

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Less and less players visited these tutorial NPCs the more time passed within the game. Yue Hua once imagined it quite the lonely existence, but Evangeline looked perfectly content crafting every day in the solitude of her little workshop. And she wasn't even alone, per se -- the random alchemy novices were a bonus. Potions of assorted colors, scents, and sizes lined the shelves behind the brewing table, and an open book daringly placed beside a pot containing a mysterious bubbling mixture listed down alchemy orders placed by other NPCs.

Yue Hua was briefly put on hold as Evangeline lowered trays of vials into a crate to be delivered. Then the brown-haired woman received her, cheerful and hospitable as ever. Yue Hua had met her twice and Evangeline only remembered the second time. Sharing one of her original recipes was as good as helping, Yue Hua was told, and a dialogue box, slightly modified from the original profession quest, asked her if she was certain about deconstructing her current workshop.

"I can't say you would be interested in my, er, less useful brews." These quests never took vanity crafts. "Well, it's autumn. I'll share one of my warm teas."

---

-> GATHERING: 240121: LD 7; Fail.

Edited January 13 by Pollux

[Pollux 0]

Whichever Yue Hua chose, Evangeline was eager to be the one receiving knowledge this time around. Unfortunately, she was not so eager as to let her new peer dip her hands into her precious stock of ingredients. She ran a business on top of her passion for the craft, and each type of herb and root in her possession was measured and had its purpose charted by the gram. Little wiggle room there was for another person's experiments.

Or: quest parameters, but they made sense.

Cardinal ran a tight ship with its narrative.

"Believe me, I understand," Yue Hua said with an easy shrug. She wouldn't lend her own materials to just anyone she spoke with either.

Evangeline's face lit up with a grin. Grasping both of Yue Hua's painted hands, she cheerfully ushered the player out the door. She stopped just short of the threshold and bid her to come back within the day.

---

-> GATHERING: 240151: LD 11; Fail.

Edited January 13 by Pollux

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"And I thought I'd graduated from that work _ months ago, Alchemist Evangeline," Yue Hua teased. But she went easily.

 

 

Outside, she reviewed her task. She instinctively turned back towards the teleport plaza before she even finalized her plan. Floor 1 was the second to the last floor she liked to gather in, second only to the floors that had near to zero alchemy materials, because in line with its reputation as the 'safest' floor, its outer zones were frequented by droves of lower leveled and non combat focused players, what available gathering nodes likely already picked through a dozen times over before mid-morning. And she disliked traveling through flat plains.

It was fortunate coincidence that most of the mixtures she had adapted from her knowledge in reality used ingredients sourced from the mountains. Yue Hua tabbed over to her list of materials as she fell in line before the active teleport gate, and taking a highlighter to the ones she was running the lowest on, decided --

One floor up.

---

-> GATHERING: 240157: LD 13; Fail.

Edited January 17 by Pollux

[Pollux 0]

Urbus was blanketed in a deeper autumnal chill. Warm drinks were offered at every market stall and residents on the road carried firewood on their backs. Yue Hua hiked up her white coat to cover her bare shoulders.

She passed the only gate out of the city, distractedly waving to the guards, who nodded at her once then returned their steady gazes to the road and the rest of the people passing along it. Yue Hua rechecked her equipment. She had her old sword at her hip and a basket hanging from her arm. Inside it, she'd laid a folded cloth, a pair of gloves, and a foraging knife. She had also transferred a shovel and a pair of garden shears into her battle-ready inventory, which she didn't need at all for the materials in her list, but wanted quick and easy access to if she were ever to stumble upon a rare find that needed more prying.

Crossing the bridge to the connecting mountain, Yue Hua shut her eyes. She slid them open after a brief moment, their nacreous color lit with a supernatural glow as she scoured through her immediate surroundings with more clarity.

---

-> GATHERING: 240220: LD 9; Fail.

Edited January 23 by Pollux

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No dice. She continued.

Yue Hua trekked for what felt like hours, taking breaks along the way to drink water and rest her strained eyes. Down the mountain. Off the wider trail. Up another. Across a shaky wooden bridge atop a rushing river, which few players dared to cross because one misstep or one unlucky day with the bridge's structure would send one tumbling down the waterfall at the end of the rapids. The steep and forested incline beyond was one of her favorite gathering spots overall because it was almost entirely her domain.

Today, it didn't seem as inclined to serve her. Yue Hua took one glance around, then switched off her focus and sank into the grass beside the river for another break. The sun close to its peak had warmed the ground, siphoned dew off the leaves, and as she wiggled her coat off her shoulders and leaned back on her palms, she shut her aching eyes against its light.

A gentle chime bounced through her senses. Her basket still held nothing but tools.

Yue Hua pictured all the annoyances of the day piling up one on top of the other.

---

-> GATHERING: 240387: LD 1; Fail.

Edited January 23 by Pollux