First Synthesis

"So where the hell am I now? I'm clearly in a house, but looking out the window, all I can see as a forest," Astur says to herself as she begins to explore her surroundings.

Walking the house, she quickly comes to the conclusion that it was specifically prepared for her since its shelves are full of Skill Books and other items for the Alchemist Class, there is no one else around, and she even found a letter addressed to her with the symbol of infinity sealing the envelope.

Opening the letter it reads, "To my wonderful Granddaughter, Astur Kojuuin. This house has a few things for you that are essential for your new life, such as a proof of identity so you can move around freely within the country you're currently in. The Planet you are currently on is semi-unified as all the nations on the planet, Vopal, use the same currency, Vopal Dollars, original I know, trust me, I didn't name it. This currency is mostly useless in the eyes of space-faring civilisations which use a currency called Solars. Don't worry too much about this right now since the six starting planets don't have access to the Galactic Community yet. Oh, and I bet you picked your Class thinking it would be easy and OP since my favourite game series are those alchemy games, and you're right, that Class can be rather strong, as long as you have a massive wallet to burn and are willing to go out exploring for the best ingredients. So don't think about trying to live like a shut-in here in EUO too. PS, I told the others how you coerced me into letting you choose my race, I'd imagine their upset, so be ready whenever you meet them again."

Seeing that postscript, Astur finally takes notice of her phone that has plenty of unread notifications, all indicating missed messages from the other five, mostly complaining about how she got the best racial option.

"Heh, suckers, they won't have a chance to beat me up so long I keep up in levels with them. But that means I'll actually have to do work… I don't wanna…"

Astur continues her exploration of her new house, collecting all the Skill Books along the way. After around thirty minutes, she made a full sweep of the house and obtained almost Fifty Skill Books, a handful of books about the planet Vopal, some basic Synthesis Recipes, a storage ring, and found about 2,000 Vopal Dollars, or VD.

"A shame that nearly all these Skill Books are beyond my level right now, but I can just keep them for later," Astur says, storing her money and unusable Skill Books away, "now lets see, right now I can learn, [Draw Potential], [Improved Synthesis], and [Essence Boost]. Since it doesn't cost me much to learn low levelled skills, only 2 Skill Points each, I can just learn them now."

Without much hesitation, Astur uses six Skill Points to learn three of the basic skills of the Alchemist Class.

[Draw Potential (Active)]: Increase the effect of the next item used by 5%. Cost: 40 Mana and 30 Mystic Power. Lasts until an item is used. Cooldown: 15 seconds after item use.

[Improved Synthesis (Active)]: Use during Synthesis to have a 20% chance of increasing total items produced by 1, 10% by 2, and 5% by 3. Cost: 100 Qi and 80 Mystic Power. No Cooldown.

[Essence Boost (Active)]: Use when adding ingredients to cauldron during Synthesis to increase the essence of an ingredient by 5-10%. Cost: 200 Mystic Power per ingredient. No Cooldown. Can not be used on the same individual ingredient more than once.

"As expected this Class is a ton of work and I'm starting to regret it, guess it's too late now though. I do have to admit though, I'm actually kinda excited to perform my first Synthesis. But first I should check out some of the details regarding my whereabouts and about the planet," Astur says as she begins reading the books about Vopal.

Thanks to the Scholar's Skill [Scholar's Eye of Reading], she reads through all five books about Vopal's nations, the political system, the technology, the geography, and one specifically about here current location, the Sea of Trees, a forest near a small town called Hadrow, in one of Vopal's seven nations, the Kingdom of Virpal.

Other than the Kingdom of Virpal, there's also the Republic of Lithro, the Norpal Union, the Seapal Federation, the Urpal Republic, Republic of Hinthro, and the Kalthros Empire. Tensions are apparently at an all-time high between the seven nations and are split into two sides, on whose side is the group called the Hinterlands, consisting of the Norpal Union, the Seapal Federation, the Urpal Republic, and the Kalthros Empire. The first three are considered vassal states of the Empire and seek to take control of the lands possessed by the other side.

The Kingdom of Virpal, the Republic of Lithro, and the Republic of Hinthro make up what is commonly referred to as the Prosperous Lands. The reason for the conflict between the two sides is mostly a matter of resources. The Hinterland nations are called such for a reason, their geography isn't able to properly sustain themselves compared to the Prosperous trio whose lands are considerably better for agriculture with plenty of natural resources.

The technology level is naturally similar to Earth as Vopal has the potential to become a space-faring civilisation should it manage to solve its planetary problems.

"These are probably the factions that players will join to push the Main Story forward, should be a matter of helping one side achieve dominance."

*DING*

[War of the Land (Main Scenario Quest)]

[Description]: Join one of the Factions and assist one side to achieve dominance, bringing Vopal closer to true unification.

[Progress]: Hinterlands: 45% Prosperous Lands: 45% Unaffiliated: 10%

[Personal Contribution]: 0%

[Rewards]: +200 Chosen Faction Intimacy Points, +500 Chosen Faction Points, 10,000 VD, 50,000 EXP.

[Bonus]: Has the highest Personal Contribution - Random Class Appropriate Epic Skill Book, Random Class Appropriate Epic Equipment or Accessory, 20 Free Stat Points, 30 Free Skill Points, 30,000 EXP.

[Penalty]: -200 Opposing Faction Intimacy Points, Fine based on Personal Contribution.

"Well ain't that convenient, I suppose the trigger is learning about the tensions between the two sides. Wait, the description doesn't mention that I have to choose the Hinterlands or the Prosperous Lands, and the progress shows an option for those unaffiliated with either side. I wonder if it's possible to raise a third party to power, I should look into when I get the chance, sounds like fun. But for now, none of this is of any concern since I need to focus on getting stronger… But I really don't want to go out. I guess I can just do my first Synthesis for now since I've got some basic recipes and the required ingredients."

Moving over to the corner of the house that serves as her workshop, Astur pulls out the recipe for one of the basic damaging tools of the Alchemist Class, the Blast Ball.

"Let's see, I need two Blast Seeds and one ingredient with the property of paper," Astur says as she checks over the ingredients that came with the house and uses her Trait Identification Skill on them.

"So even the same ingredient has different traits, some are more clear to the naked eye like size, but things like quality and other traits like innate destructiveness need the Trait Identification Skills to see. Naturally, I'll pick the Blast Seeds that have the highest quality and best traits. But next is the ingredient with the property of paper, this could be anything from regular old paper to an ancient scroll. For now, I can just use the highest quality paper I can find."

"Now that I have all the ingredients assembled, next is to… fill the cauldron with alchemical supplements. Gramps provided enough of something called Supplement G to give me a couple of rounds of synthesis, but I have the recipes to make more and different kinds as well, so I should do that in the future. It's a good thing the Blast Ball uses Supplement G, although he probably planned this. Whatever, I wanna see how this works."

Following the steps that were embedded in her mind upon arrival, Astur fills the cauldron up with Supplement G and turns on the heat. With the preparations finished, she starts the synthesis process and uses Essence Boost on the three ingredients before placing them into the cauldron. The whole process takes three hours, requiring her to concentrate on the process without brakes, or the entire process will be ruined and she'll have to start from scratch.

As the process is finally coming to an end, Astur uses her Improved Synthesis and manages to hit both the 20% and 10% chances, granting an additional 3 finished products, giving Astur a total of 8 Blast Balls.

With the process finally over, Astur picks up one of the Blast Balls and looks it over. It has the appearance of a dark brown sphere with an uncountable amount of wrinkles on the surface.

"This isn't as weird to touch as I thought it would be. And from the looks of it, I gained some EXP as well even if it was only 30 EXP. Well, I've got some bombs, the natural thing to do next is to channel my inner explosion obsessed loli, just ignore that part where I look nothing like a loli."