Shrooms
'Before I set out, I should probably deal with my equipment. All I have right now are the clothes I was wearing before being sent here, baggy trousers and a loose oversized dress shirt. They don't provide any bonus other than being comfortable but I think I saw some other clothes in a cabinet on the first floor, I should check those out,' Astur thought as she stored away the eight Blast Balls.
As she opened the cabinet, Astur found a set of clothes that are more suitable for going outside, although compared to her current clothes, pretty much anything would be better as her current wear is purely cosmetic and doesn't affect her stats or provide any bonuses.
In the cabinet is a full six-piece equipment set, consisting of a black dress shirt called Shirt of the Alchemist Pioneer. Black combat trousers that provide multiple quick inventory slots that are named Trousers of the Alchemist Pioneer. Black leather boots that go up to the knee that is named Boots of the Alchemist Pioneer. A pair of black and white fingerless cloth gloves called the Gloves of the Alchemist Pioneer. A white overcoat named Coat of the Alchemist Pioneer. And finishing the set is a white mantle called the Mantle of the Alchemist Pioneer. Together these six make up the Alchemist Pioneer Set.
[Shirt of the Alchemist Pioneer (Legendary)]
[Self Cleaning and Repair]: Will automatically clean itself after a certain amount of time and any damage sustained will be mended when out of combat.
[Growth]: Bonus stats increase after Class Advancement Quests.
[VIT]: +5
[MND]: +10
[Trousers of the Alchemist Pioneer (Legendary)]
[Self Cleaning and Repair]: Will automatically clean itself after a certain amount of time and any damage sustained will be mended when out of combat.
[Growth]: Bonus stats increase after Class Advancement Quests.
[VIT]: +10
[END] +5
[Boots of the Alchemist Pioneer (Legendary)]
[Self Cleaning and Repair]: Will automatically clean itself after a certain amount of time and any damage sustained will be mended when out of combat.
[Growth]: Bonus stats increase after Class Advancement Quests.
[END]: +5
[AGI]: +10
[Gloves of the Alchemist Pioneer (Legendary)]
[Self Cleaning and Repair]: Will automatically clean itself after a certain amount of time and any damage sustained will be mended when out of combat.
[Growth]: Bonus stats increase after Class Advancement Quests.
[STR]: +5
[MND] +10
[Coat of the Alchemist Pioneer (Legendary)]
[Self Cleaning and Repair]: Will automatically clean itself after a certain amount of time and any damage sustained will be mended when out of combat.
[Growth]: Bonus stats increase after Class Advancement Quests.
[VIT]: +5
[INT]: +10
[Mantle of the Alchemist Pioneer (Legendary)]
[Self Cleaning and Repair]: Will automatically clean itself after a certain amount of time and any damage sustained will be mended when out of combat.
[Growth]: Bonus stats increase after Class Advancement Quests.
[INT]: +5
[MND]: +10
[Alchemist Pioneer Set]
[4]
[Synthesis Reduction]: Cost of all Synthesis related skills is reduced by 50%.
[6]
[Legendary Alchemist]: All consumable items used by you are 50% more effective (Increases with Class Advancement).
[Pioneer]: Cost of learning Skills related to your Main Class is reduced by 50%.
[Description]: Special clothing usable only by Astur Kojuuin. As the foremost Alchemist in the universe (and only one), Astur is the one who pushes the boundaries of the Class and reveals the secrets of Alchemy.
Looking over her new equipment, Astur found it to be surprisingly comfortable, contrary to its somewhat formal appearance, yet when reading the description there was one thought in her mind, 'why the fuck am I the only Alchemist?'
If she tried hard enough, Astur could probably pry some answers from her Grandfather, but she doesn't want to put in the effort required of such a task and she still has to go out and grind or risk getting beat up by her relatives.
"What a pain, I really don't want to go outside, but I don't want to get beat by the others, in both the physical sense and because my gamer pride won't let that retired priest and money-obsessed dragon beat me in a game world, even if in our case its real life. I guess the last thing to check would be weapons, for everyone but me that is. In EUO there are two Classes that don't use traditional weapons, the Mechanic and the Alchemist. I didn't bother looking too deep into the Mechanic Class, but the weapon used by Alchemists are special alchemy made rings that also take up accessory slots. This is probably why a weapon wasn't included in the equipment set I received. I do have a basic recipe but I lack the materials right now. I really am regretting my choice of Class right now, if I'm not mistaken, since I'm the only Alchemist, the only way to get new recipes is to experiment and make them myself. I might be able to get some as a quest or achievement reward, and the same goes for other Class Skills I don't have a Skill Book for, but I probably shouldn't count on it too much," Astur says as she wishes she could go back in time to slap her previous self.
'For now, I guess I'll just gather my things and head out…'
Having resigned herself to leaving the house, Astur finally takes her true first step in this new world as she begins to explore the forest. After stepping around 50 metres away from her house, Astur notices that she passed through some kind of invisible field, quickly coming to the conclusion that it likely surrounds her house to keep monsters away.
After leaving the safe area around her house, it doesn't take long for Astur to find her first enemy. A large cat, resting in the treetops.
[Vorpal Forest Leopard, Lv:3]
[HP]: 240/240
[ST]: 220/220
'This helps confirm my suspicion that I'm probably pretty close to where new players will start. A pretty low-level monster means this forest meant to be an area where new players will grind out their first couple of levels. I don't really want people intruding on my home too much, I wonder if I can do something to increase the strength of the monsters here. Well, I can worry about this later, right now is the Blast Ball testing.'
Bringing the Blast Ball out from her storage ring, Astur uses Draw Potential to increase the item effectiveness by another 5% and throws it at the unsuspecting leopard.
*boom*
Upon contact with the cat, the dark ball is destroyed in a small explosion, dealing 103 damage, it was even a critical hit due to the surprise attack. Having fallen from the tree branch from the explosion, the leopard falls to the ground, landing on its feet, but just as it makes contact with the ground, three more Blast Balls collide with its face, for a total of 149 damage. Combined with the damage from the first hit, the four Blast Balls are enough to kill the leopard.
"That explosion was incredibly underwhelming, not to mention it took half of the Blast Balls I had to kill a single low-level enemy. I call foul! I thought this Class was supposed to be strong but it took so many resources to kill one low-level enemy! Hell, it would have taken more if I didn't get the critical hit! It'll take forever for me to level up at this rate and since the Alchemist is a hybrid class that doubles as a Life Profession, as well as being a Hidden Class, the EXP I need to level it up is much higher than others. I really wish I could stop the me from a few hours ago…"
Since she has no idea how to dismantle and extract materials from the corpse of the leopard, Astur just puts it into her storage and decides to head back to her house as she's filled with regrets. But during her return trip, she spots something in the corner of her eye that raises her spirits, shrooms.
[Psychedelic Mushroom]
[Desc]: Consumption not recommended. Is often used as an ingredient when making poisons. Can cause feelings of euphoria when consumed, but also causes hallucinations and diarrhoea.
"This is just what I needed," Asturs mutters as she immediately takes a few dozen mushrooms into her inventory.
As she returns home, rather than dealing with the monster corpse, the first the Astur does is find her old clothes and take out one of the cigars she had in her pocket along with a bag of weed and dumps the content of both into a bowl and then grinds down her new mushrooms along with the tobacco and cannabis, mixing the three together before rolling it back up into the cigar to make a blunt. Her next action is the most natural one, getting high.
Letting out a puff of smoke, Astur's eyes look dazed as her mind is cleared of all her worries and new ideas come streaming into her head.
---
Astur ended up spending the next two days high as she ran around, gathering who knows what from the forest, writing down all sorts of crazy recipes. If there were any onlookers, they'd think she was crazy, and they'd be right, but people from the Kojuuin family typically are somewhat mad or off in the head.
It was during this time, Astur found a Blast Tree, the source of Blast Seeds, behind her house. And instead of harvesting the seeds as most people would, she made more Blast Balls to blow the tree out from the ground and broke it down to use in her Synthesis. Surprisingly, this worked, although Astur thought it would from the beginning, and she made a batch of significantly more potent Blast Balls.
It should be noted that regular Blast Balls made by normal artisans have a base damage of 20, but when Astur makes it, her finished product has a base damage of 31. But her improved Blast Ball using the entire tree instead of the seed produced a new item she called Big Blast Ball, as the name suggests, its size is larger and the base damage was improved to 60, but with her Alchemist bonuses this went up to 95. Of course, this method isn't something that can be done often since it uses chunks of an entire Blast Tree as a core ingredient, so Astur only has 40 Big Blast Balls.
But all good things must come to an end, as Astur finally comes down from her high after two days. As she regains her clarity, everything she's done over the past two days comes rushing into her head, giving her a large headache for an hour while she organises her memories and looks through the recipes she made.
"Figures most of these don't result in anything, rather, I'm amazed I even got one of these to work. How in the world did I think using an entire tree would be a good idea? What the hell am I supposed to do now once I run out of bombs? I guess I got a ton of EXP from all the Synthesis I had been doing, although half of it comes from successfully creating a new item. I won't say no to it though, I need all the EXP I can get. 4,325 EXP stored, just how should I allocate this?"