The warning was simple yet strange.
Disclaimer: While a domain quest announcement has eased legal restrictions to bring you supplies, there is no guarantee anyone will take a request for a drop. It's recommended that you bundle lower requests with a high request to increase your chances of getting a drop.
What's a domain quest? I thought. As soon as I did, I got the notification, and my heart started pounding. I didn't like being the center of attention. Now, there was a massive announcement to… God knows how many people. Worse, it finally sunk in that it was a big deal if people came here—and I thought about how dangerous it was. I now had powerful books and maps and knowledge to survive a bit—but normal people? It would be a massacre.
I had to chuckle at the absurdity of considering myself capable of living in this hellscape more than other people. But… it was true, wasn't it? The number of high-level requests I made just to the poisonous plants and trap plants would break a normal person. Lithco wasn't joking when he said that he was helping me out by putting me through hell.
But other people? They'd be defenseless.
I didn't know how that made me feel, but it felt surreal. It was hard to believe that this was only my second night in this forest. How things change.
Whatever, I thought. Let's see what I got.
I closed the announcement and read the reward options.
Hidden Mission: Confront Your Trauma
Distinction: Platinum - You showcased your knowledge in mycology by creating a mycopesticide without prompting and using identification techniques to find the Rootstrangler. Your only hesitation for confronting the reaper was whether you should make yourself a public enemy, and you aptly sacrificed an info request to make it in time. These showcase remarkable competency. That said, you used three requests for the skill, got poisoned twice, and relied too heavily on your identification skill. As a result, you passed with distinction, but you weren't "special."
Equipment Options:
Advanced Alchemy Equipment | Grade: Platinum
Summary: Unless you were just planning to feed poisonous plants and berries to animals that naturally avoid them, you'll need chemicals and equipment to create real poisons. You'll also get equipment to develop medicines, cleansing products, and other magical concoctions that you can use to survive here.
My shoulders slumped when I read the description. I had food-grade ethanol, glycerin, vinegar, jars, and water to create poisons in my backpack. So, I didn't like being treated like I was stupid.
"Whatever." I was adapting. I couldn't get bogged down by my past decisions. So I looked at the next item. It wasn't as interesting, but it was also something I desperately needed.
Enchanted Tent | Grade: Platinum
Summary: A tent with heating arrays for cooking, cooling, and atmosphere control built inside, as well as enchantments to protect it against weak Second Evolution animals. Built in beds use wind to turn cloth into a heavenly bed. The tent is small enough for your backpack but is large enough to fit four.
Yeah, that was something that I desperately needed. It could help me survive in the winter, and I had a feeling that birds were coming. There was no way they weren't present in a forest. As much as I thought things were terrible, I had a feeling that things would get much worse if I didn't prepare.
The next option made my intestines unravel.
Enchanted Gravity Pack | Grade: Platinum
Summary: Magic can't make something smaller, but it can make it weightless. You can fill this backpack with gold bars, and it will feel like you're walking with nothing on your back. It's so light, and the straps are so snug that you forget it's there.
This was one of those options that made my heart sing—but wasn't the best option. I needed lodging more than anything. My flimsy Colman tent was awesome on trips through the Rocky Mountains, but here, it would be worthless against reapers, let alone anything powerful.
That left the decision between the Enchanted Tent, which would provide me shelter, and the Advanced Alchemy Equipment, which would make poisons.
An important consideration was that poisons allowed me to kill, and killing earned me more rewards. I had six more nights before I was forced to face the world alone. That said, the drop might take forever. Putting it in soon would be better than later. God! It was so damn difficult. I still had one epic, four diamonds, ten platinum, and ten gold Free Requests, but the more I thought about my situation, the more I realized that these requests were my lifelines—and I didn't know what I needed.
I guess I can't choose it yet, anyway, I thought.
I had to bundle these requests into a massive drop unless I wanted to hike to the wall before the Black Harvest—something I doubted would be a good idea. It was a gut feeling, but it didn't matter. I didn't have the supplies or power to survive that hike.
Kline yawned, and I rubbed his ears.
I should work on my core, I thought. He can't do this alone.
"Info request. Give me advice on how to best use my free requests on building a mana core."
The following items are recommended for building a mana core.
Spend a diamond request on a mana core formation tutorial
Information request on abundant supplies of mana reservoirs
Information request on a location best suited to develop a mana core
Information Requests Remaining: 21
"Now we're getting somewhere." I opened the tutorial panel and bought core formation for a diamond request. Then I paused. I really didn't want to talk to him… but it was for the best, so I chose it.
Lithco materialized in the corner of the room, staring at me silently.
"What?" I asked as Kline growled at him.
"I'm waiting."
"For what?"
"For you to tell me how I can most please you," Lithco said dryly. "I chose this form to communicate with you better. If you don't want to learn from me, I need to switch. So? Hairdresser? Favorite teacher?"
I smiled wryly and let myself crash onto the bed. "It's not your personality. It's you. The Oracle. I can't figure out if you're actually trying to help me."
"Then allow me to make a confession," he said.
I sat up and watched him pull a chair out of thin air and sit down. Once he sat, he brushed his legs and crossed one over the other.
"I'm programmed to create gods," Lithco said, "—and gods aren't equal. Thus, I don't treat people equally."
I took a sharp breath.
"If someone is useless, I treat them as such," he said. "And if someone shows promise, I aid them accordingly. This aid comes in the form of hints or quests or suggestions."
"So you are helping me?"
"Within strict parameters."
"And that's not a lie?"
"It's not. And rest assured, if I lied here and you found out years or decades later I was lying, you'd never trust me again. I would not do that."
My chest knotted, and my intestines felt like a tight seatbelt. I was uncomfortable—but inextricably relieved.
"So are you… like a person to me?" I asked. "Like consistent?"
"I believe you're asking if I might abandon you, yes?" Lithco asked bruskly. "If I will suddenly decide that there is another candidate that's better, and thus throw you away as a statistical deficiency?"
I sat there for a moment, suspended in my thoughts, holding my breath until I suddenly remembered to breathe. "Yes…" I whispered finally.
"No," Lithco said immediately.
I looked into his eyes and saw no falsehoods.
"The aid you get may increase, but it will never lessen," he said. "If I fail you, you'll lose trust in The Guide and abandon The Path. You don't need to trust me—but you can trust the logic."
I smiled ruefully. Lithco would never be a human—but it did make me feel better knowing he was consistent. "Then let me hate you," I said. "It's fine."
Lithco chuckled breathlessly. "Humans. Always masking masochism with emotions."
"Rude," I said.
He turned to me and gave me a slight smile, noting that he was being playful.
I chuckled. "Fucker."
"So? You want to talk core formation?"
"Yeah."
"Then let's cover the basics," Lithco said. "Your core's one part battery, one part engine. It stores immense magical power that you can use in spells—which's what Kline is emulating naturally. It's a reserve, and once it runs out, you break down. I believe you've seen that."
I looked at Kline, who was watching Lithco intently. He did understand.
"I have," I said.
"Beyond that," Lithco said. "The core acts as a generator, sucking mana from your environment to use for spells. In short, there are internal and external usages of magic. Are you still with me?"
I nodded. "Yeah."
"Here comes the hard part," Lithco said, "—building a core. Repeat after me. Pyriná trápeza."
I tried it a few times until I said it. "Pyriná trápeza."
"Now repeat it."
I did, and soon, my chest started to heat up. I felt a small sliver of energy in the darkness calling out to me. I felt like I could almost reach out and touch it.
"That is your seed," Lithco said in the void. "You must turn it. Take control and try."
Despite being an abstract request, I imagined myself melding with the energy in my chest. It made me feel whole and warm. Once I was inside, it gave me control, and I began to spin it. As soon as I did, my arms and legs and chest and groin and neck and spine and head exploded in pain, making me scream and snap out of the void, trying to nurse what felt like a million paper cuts.
"What is this?" I yelled, turning to my side. To my horror, Kline was also howling in pain and rolling over.
"That damage is caused by your mana channels being clogged by disgusting build up from your world's unclean environment," Lithco said. "Your body is trying to accept mana, but it's clogged up, making the veins swell like balloons."
"Why didn't you tell me?" I screamed. It was getting really old for making me think he cared, only to pull shit like this.
"If you don't appreciate the full extent of the problem, you will not do everything you can to fix it."
I groaned and turned back and forth. It was easing up but slowly. "So how? How do I do that?"
"You need to create a cleansing elixir. Normally, I'd recommend that you use a diamond request to cleanse your body, but you do not have a choice now."
"Great."
"That said," Lithco said sharply, "picking up" my foraging bag. "You're in a forest ripe with ingredients year round. The things that grow here are coveted on the outside. A 'minor' cleansing elixir here would sell for a fortune out there. So if you can demonstrate basic alchemy in the next few days, you can establish a strong core."
"Okay," I said.
After a few more exchanges, Lithco left, and I waited another hour for my meat to finish cooking. Kline then walked up to a second array to shut down the fire, and I let it dry as I went to sleep. I needed it to be my best on the morrow—and I needed as much rest as I could get.
The next morning, I woke up around five and got ready. Then I set out before morning's light, silently declaring that I was going to use my epic request to get the best left boot I could buy.
It was an eventful trip to the alchemy station. The reiga's blood brought two investigators. I thought we were done for, but Kline used a mixture of active camouflage, wind blades, and sharp bite to dispatch them. To my surprise, the entire event took ten minutes.
Eating soul meat was powerful.
I supposed it did make sense. We were told that all the beasts here were over Level 125, and soul force gave us power. Since levels didn't inherently give us power—they only gave us spells and resources for building power—it would make sense that gods got their power through magic and soul force. So, perhaps we got power through eating the meat.
I decided to test it. I walked over to a massive rock, squatted down, put my fingertips under a jagged section, and lifted it like a power clean.
The small boulder uprooted so quickly that I fell backward. The rock continued, doing a full flip before touching down like a flipped turtle.
I chuckled in amazement. Rich people gotta be jacked.
It was kinda messed up that people could just eat someone else's hard work and get powerful. That said, I knew that soul force didn't equate to power. The poison out here would kill people with ten times our strength, and spells and experience would separate one person from the next. But still. It was weird.
Then again, with the alchemy class, I should be able to create medicines for Kline as well. Wasn't it the same thing? If that were the case, I'd gladly trade cleansing elixirs for soul meat. We were a team.
Either way, flipping that rock taught me something: I wouldn't be weak and defenseless for long.
That's what I was thinking about when I said, "Come on, Kline, let's go," and continued forward. It was time to learn alchemy and get stronger.