The Latest Game Is Too Amazing

It’s been ten days since the PK misunderstanding. I completed several quests, and before I knew it, I reached level 11. As usual, I’ve been playing solo. Occasionally, I see Havoc and the others, but then I feel so guilty that my chest throbs in pain, so just about the only interaction I have with them is giving them a small nod.

That aside, I’ve acquired quite a few more skills, but now I have an entirely different problem.

First, the enemies’ HP became high enough to withstand my attacks. Even though Mana Bolt gets more powerful as my Intelligence stat increases, it doesn’t deal enough damage to take them down in one hit when the monsters are the same level as me or higher. My new skills are strong, but the MP cost is high and the recasting delay is long, so I can’t cast them in rapid succession, which means I’ve been taking more hits.

Because of that, another problem revealed itself: the potions’ HP recovery. No matter how fragile Magicians are, they’ll get at least a little stronger when they level up. With my max HP higher, I can withstand getting hit one or two times, but the amount of HP that needs healing is also getting bigger, so lowest level potions can’t keep up anymore. Currently, I’m using low level potions, but it won’t be long until those don’t heal enough either.

Also, mana potions aren’t available in Maeldia. As I mentioned before, my skills’ MP cost increases as they become stronger. Even though MP recovers automatically, the recovery rate is really slow, so continuously using skills exhausts my MP. In addition, Magicians have higher MP than HP, so it takes a long time to fully recover. If I’m attacked while it’s recovering, all I can do is hit the monster with my staff.

Isn’t there a way to recover MP other than autorecovery? …Actually, there are two ways.

The first is the MP absorption skill, Mana Steal. As the name implies, it’s a skill that allows you to steal MP from others and absorb it to recover your own. But for certain reasons, I can’t acquire it.

This is because there are conditions that must be met before a skill can be acquired. First, you need skill points in order to obtain a skill. You gain a skill point every time you level up, and you can spend it to obtain a skill or upgrade one. By the way, upgrading means you can increase the effects of a skill you’ve already obtained, such as increasing the power, range, or area of effect or shortening the casting time and recasting delay. It increases the MP cost, though. For example, I upgraded Mana Bolt to level 3. …Lately, I’ve been kind of regretting that. Maybe I should have allocated those skill points to a stronger skill. Though, upgrading it has allowed me to keep using it up until now.

Back on topic. You need skill points to acquire skills, but there’s another prerequisite.

The second condition has to do with branching skill paths. This is obvious if you look at the skill window while you’re acquiring skills, but skills are structured like a tree, with the starter skills like Mana Bolt at the top tier. The lower tier skills are stronger and more convenient, but the system doesn’t let you acquire lower tier skills until you obtain the skills on the tier above it. In other words, if skills A and B are on the upper tier and skill C is on the lower tier, you would need to obtain both A and B to acquire C. Due to this system and the limited amount of skill points, you can’t get every skill, so to acquire the skills you want – in my case, that’s long-range, high-damage skills – you’ll inevitably need to follow the set skill path. Mana Steal’s location on the tree is far from that path, so I’d need a lot of skill points to acquire it and I’d have to give up on the skills I want.

Because of this, recovering MP with skills is impossible.

The other way is enchantments. Enchantments are special effects you can give to weapons and armor by adding specific materials to them while they’re being crafted. For example, you can give them boosts to attack speed or resistance to elemental attacks. And among those effects, there’s one that allows you to recover a percentage of your attack’s damage as HP or MP when you deal damage to an enemy. Considering that the Magician’s high damage has been its selling point from the start, this method would be perfect for me. Though, the problem is that those materials are apparently very rare items, so most of them aren’t in circulation.

Due to these issues, the only way I can recover MP at this point is with things like mana potions. However, there are no mana potions in Maeldia.

Therefore, I need to change locations. I’m deciding my next destination right now.

The capital of Castal Kingdom, Mouct, apparently has more shops than Maeldia, and it’s also ideal for upgrading my equipment.

I’ll prepare for the journey right away. I wasted about a week travelling to Maeldia, but hopefully it’ll be closer this time.

“Ahh… At last, it’s complete!” a middle-aged man says in delight. Beside him is a funnel and a mortar and pestle with bottles full of black liquid scattered around, the smell of chemicals filling the room.

This man, Izrael, who belongs to the Royal Magical Research Institute of Castal Kingdom, takes no notice of such minor details as he admires the bottle of medicine in his hand as if it’s a rare jewel.

It began with a certain letter. A letter from a former student who lives in Maeldia. They rarely exchange letters, which led him to worry about what could have possibly happened, but he could not have predicted its contents.

A new type of medicine – the elixir, a mysterious miracle remedy that possesses the effects of both potions and mana potions. There was no mention of the formula, but the ingredients and the harvesting locations in Maeldia’s vicinity were recorded in detail. It seems that his son heard about it from an adventurer at the tool shop he manages, so he inquired about whether this medicine actually exists. Even the ingredients and harvesting locations for the highest level potion and mana potion, which should have been lost to time, were included in the letter as well.

Of course, Izrael had never heard of elixirs. He’s heard of myths of legendary medicines such as the panacea and the elixir of life, but those are only fictional. He was in the middle of conducting research into creating such a medicine. Of course, he hadn’t expected to be able to create a medicine as miraculous as that, he was only trying to create a medicine that had at least some of its effects.

It would have been easy to dismiss it as impossible, but it was hard to imagine his student lying to him, and he didn’t recall ever experimenting with mixing those particular ingredients together. His research only used the potions’ ingredients as a basis to increase their effects, so it never crossed his mind to use ingredients that were completely different from potion ingredients.

“I’ll give it a try, then,” he thought. Thankfully, none of the ingredients were things that could only be obtained in Maeldia. They could even be found near the capital, so it was possible to have them delivered quickly. If this was a lie, then surely, he would soon find out. Initially, he only intended for it to be an interesting diversion from his research and wasn’t really expecting much from it. He knew from the toils of his research that it couldn’t possibly be that easy to create a new medicine.

I’ve done it.

He made an attempt at mixing the lowest level elixir that would be his starting point by experimenting with following the same method as each of the potions and mana potions. When he tried a formula similar to that of the mid-level potion, he was able to make it easily. It was so shocking that he had no memory of what happened afterwards, and in his astonishment, he woke up the next day thinking that it was a dream. But after finding the finished product in front of him and realizing that it was real, he jumped for joy in a way that he hadn’t since he was a child.

After that, he spent every day in the lab. Since it seemed that the elixirs mid-level and above can’t be made using normal potion-making methods, he thoroughly experimented with ingredient selection and mixing ratios, and today, he finally managed to perfect the mid-level elixir. In spite of himself, he ended up shouting in joy, though that could only be inevitable. After all, he had reached a dead end in his research, having lost sight of his end goal and even the road leading to it, and the existence of the elixir opened up a new path for him.

However, now that he has successfully created it and calmed down somewhat, the problem of how to handle the huge discovery of the elixir crosses his mind. Perhaps the fact that his student was also facing this problem was why he consulted Izrael, a researcher at the Magical Research Institute. If someone as greedy as the head of the research institute found out about this, there’s a high chance he would claim it as his own achievement. Izrael is hesitant to claim this achievement as his own, since he couldn’t have done it without the adventurer who taught them the ingredients.

Why did that adventurer only know the ingredients in the first place? A quest asking him to harvest the ingredients…? That can’t be it. There would be no need for the person who made the request to hide the existence of the elixir and the highest-level potion. And even if they were keeping it a secret, they wouldn’t bother telling a mere adventurer about the elixir.

Did he discover the elixir’s existence by deciphering some ancient ruins or relics…? The possibility of that is also low. If that was the case, the adventurer would surely have doubts about whether the information was true. Even if he was investigating whether it was true or not, would he verify that with a boy from the local tool shop? And yet, he even taught him the harvesting locations. In that case, the adventurer must have known that it was possible to make elixirs.

The adventurer only thinks of this knowledge as something to teach to a boy from the local tool shop. In other words, the new medicine that would be an achievement comparable to the research Izrael risked his career on is something the adventurer considers trivial knowledge. In other words, he’s either an absolute moron who has no idea of its value, or he’s a sage who possesses knowledge beyond imagination.

Izrael considered the possibility that he’s from a country with advanced potion-making techniques, but it would only be natural for others to spread rumors of such advanced techniques, and yet, he hadn’t heard any such rumors. That would mean that it’s knowledge that he obtained as an individual.

But why would such a learned man only teach the elixir’s ingredients and their harvesting locations? One so knowledgeable would surely know the formula. And why is he working as an adventurer? One after another, these questions arise.

He doesn’t have enough information. First, he’ll ask his student to tell him more about the adventurer, and if possible, arrange for Izrael to meet him – or would it be better to ask in person? He can’t be disrespectful when meeting a sage. He should go to meet him in person.

He wants to meet him. If this much knowledge doesn’t feel valuable to him, exactly how much knowledge does this sage possess? He wants to know. He wants to grasp the depths of that knowledge.

And he has to let him know all that’s been accomplished thanks to him. The elixir is a huge accomplishment for both the craft and the military. Now that the monster threat is growing and orcs are threatening the northern region, they’re considering sending in the troops. What if they had elixirs? There would be no more need to transport potions and mana potions separately, which would completely change all standards of military logistics.

There would be no point in talking to the director. He would have to go higher up, the highest authority in the country, his majesty the king. His majesty would understand the value of a sage and silence the greedy gadflies of the royal court who always keep an eye out for their own interests, and he would invite the sage to the research institute. Right now, even a single man of outstanding talent would be indispensable.

The unknown sage, Chaos… What kind of person could he be? Izrael contemplates the sage that he has not yet seen.