The Golden Experience Point [Part 1]

Chapter 40: "The Secrets of Alchemy"

After spending a bunch of XP getting all the [Enhance Follower] skills and [Space Magic]-related skills, Rare no longer earned any XP from the enemies around the great forest. However, she could still earn XP indirectly via the unenhanced ant squads to grind groups of goblins. It wasn't a huge amount, but between that and the farm, it wasn't too bad for daily XP income.

Either way, she wasn't fighting anything herself anyway. She had long since stopped worrying about the loss in XP due to being "overleveled," as it were. That being the case, it might be a good time to start trying to break a new skill. Rare sunk into thought while watching her XP go up by itself. There was only one skill that piqued her interest from the start that she seriously wanted to look into.

That skill was [Alchemy].

You'd think this would be the skill tree for the kind of alchemy popularized in modern fiction, but even on social media, you could only find discussion about the [Refine] skill unlocked from [Pharmacy] and [Formulate]. Of course, players could be hiding information the same way Rare was doing with [Subordinate], but that still meant that you couldn't discover new skills the usual way.

The reason why [Alchemy] caught Rare's eye was the fact that "homunculus" was one of the races that could be chosen during character creation. Homunculi were the fabled artificial lifeforms produced via alchemy. It was natural to believe that there was a connection here in this game as well.

In the closed beta, homunculi had the appearance of smaller humans, and their stats were around the level of humans but with higher INT. That meant that they had more overall stats than humans did, despite not requiring any additional XP to choose. There was a huge demerit that justified this, though: while they could live normally in cities in the human countries, once they were discovered to be homunculi, the town NPCs would treat them like monsters and try to kill or capture them. Because of this setting, it seemed reasonable to think of them as "artificial lifeforms," as creations of mad alchemist using forbidden knowledge.

Rare wanted to know if she could crack open the [Alchemy] skill and find a way to produce homunculi.

For now, let's learn [Formulate]. If that didn't unlock anything, then she'd have no choice but to pick up [Pharmacy] as well[1]. In any event, all the XP she had was basically leftover anyway, so it was fine to pick up any cheap non-offensive magic spells. Stuff like [Wind Magic]'s [Dessicate] and [Fire Magic]'s [Heat] felt like they could be connected to [Alchemy] in some manner.

Starting with [Pharmacy], she also had to learn [Refine], [Dessicate], [Heat], [Wash], [Conduct], [Freeze], and [Demolish] before she unlocked the [Alchemy] skill in the [Alchemy] tree. It took way too much effort just to get the [Alchemy] tree's namesake skill.

Immediately after learning [Alchemy], she also unlocked the [Philosopher's Egg] and [Athanor] skills. Since they just appeared right away, that meant whatever the prerequisites were, Rare had already fulfilled them. She had no idea what skills those were, though. But then...

"...Isn't this... the name of a tool?"

Checking the help text, both skills read "Requires [Magnum Opus] to cast. Increases the effect of [Alchemy]." Even if that was the name of prerequisite skill, this description was just utterly unhelpful.

"Well, if I complain too hard at this point, that's just inviting trouble on myself..."

Shaking off her misgivings, she learned [Philosopher's Egg] and [Athanor]. That caused another skill to appear.

"...And there it is. [Magnum Opus]."

If she could perfect the use of [Magnum Opus], then, according to general fantasy lore, she would be able to craft the ultimate alchemical tool: the Philosopher's Stone. She wasn't sure if it was possible to get all the way there, but since she had come this far, she went ahead and spent the large value of 100 XP to learn the skill.

"Interesting... So the primary external factors like environment and conditions can be influenced by supplementing it with magical catalysts, it seems. All I need are the materials. In addition, in order to cast [Philosopher's Egg], [Athanor], and [Magnum Opus] one after the other, I also need an enormous amount of MP. Well, not that that's a problem for me now."[2]

Rare had thought she might need a homunculus's "Traditional" ingredients, but, as might be expected of a game, the requirements only included various monster parts and mystical metals instead. Unfortunately, some of them were unknown to her. She would probably learn more about these materials once she encountered them for the first time in the game. The only ingredients she needed more information about were [Monster Heart] and [Soul].

She had never seen a [Soul] in item form, but she wondered if this was the soul that was stolen from a corpse during [Bind Soul].

"If that's really the case, then it would imply that even artificial life can't be produced from absolutely nothing."

Since she had the skills, Rare was now overcome with an inherent desire to use them. Only one of them could be used right now, though. Although, unlike with the homunculus, this one there was only the name itself that she didn't know.

"I wonder if this makes something. I think it's probably in the same category as a homunculus, though, some kind of blasphemous artificial lifeform. But all it requires are a bunch of different metals... As for weird materials, there's this [Knight's Grudge]... What is that? Since I can see details for it, that means I've encountered it before."

If it was something to do with knights, or more having to do with grudges, then Rare knew of one place that fit the bill: the knight order's cemetery.

"I wonder if something dropped back in that cemetery. Damn, there was so much stuff lying around, but all I remember seeing were pieces of armor and shields and swords and stuff. Was there really some kind of special item there?"

<Shall we simply gather everything we can find there? Any item could be what you need, and if it turns out that none are, then that still proves normal armor or bones are not required.>

Sugaru friend-chatted Rare in response to her talking to herself. Because of this, recently Rare had gotten into the habit of talking aloud to herself more often.

"Yeah, let's do that. Sorry, can you have some of the patrolling ants do that?"

<It shall be done.>

"Also, metals. All that's written here is [Refined Metal Ore], I don't know if I can just use anything, but... For now, I want the best metal we can get from our ore deposits. Sugaru, have someone bring that to me as well."

<Yes, Boss.>

The deposits in the great forest were originally excavated by the NPCs in the city, but now they were under Rare's control, and her forces were managing it. She didn't know whether there had been a technological problem or they were just afraid of delving too far into monster territory, but the humans had only done some shallow open-pit mining.

However, with the entire great forest as her base, and with an endless supply of ants to mine, Rare didn't need to be so restrained. In addition, the engineer ants could melt rock and minerals with acid, but any materials that were a higher rank than the ants themselves couldn't be melted. Making use of that, they expanded all the tunnels and just collected all the leftover iron and silver ore, as well as all the unknown magical metal ores, which made mining super efficient. Currently, the central area of the great forest was where they refined metals using acid and coke made from coal, and Remy was in charge of that.

"Ahh, that's right, I need to have Remy learn more non-combat magic spells. As with [Alchemy], new skills could become unlocked in [Blacksmith], [Clothcraft], and [Leathercraft]."

Shortly after that, infantry ants brought the items as requested.

Remember to note that chapter 6 was updated because information in this chapter made me realize some stuff was mistranslated.

TL note:

[1]: This seems to be a mistake. In chapter 6, the author put that [Formulate] could only be unlocked with the [Pharmacy] skill, but here she learns it first before learning [Pharmacy].

[2]: I believe she's talking about the skill to create homunculi, but it's never explicitly laid out what she's talking about here, so I'm not sure.