New System, Who Dis?

Tutorial Day 36

Claude never explained the last thing he said. Not that he didn't try—but the System was strangely effective at blocking anything it didn't want me to know. It was disturbing to me that it was somehow able to tell what I already knew and filter information the way it did. Was it truly all powerful?

I guess I had kind of seen that it was. To distract myself, I redoubled my focus on training. Claude was still a bastard when it came to that. He didn't change his methods or strategy as far as his request for me to go get a bucket of water to clean the Dojo.

Which was why I became surprised when I finally managed to return with the first bucket from a well out back, and Claude stated, "Congratulations, you've graduated."

My eyes narrowed and I slowly put the bucket down, before collapsing to the floor after it as I released my Qi and Soul Pools. Breathing heavily, I asked, "What do you mean?"

"Well, you've finished the first task that I set for all newbies, and you are now able to take the next step in your training—cleaning the Dojo," Claude answered simply. He inferred another question from my continued stare. "That means that you only have to pay about a thousand Tp a day for Room and Board if you wish to stay here—however, I cannot teach you more until you are able to fetch a bucket of water and fully clean the Dojo, including your room—and the surrounding grounds."

"Huh?" I asked, still very unsure of what Claude was trying to tell me.

"This is where most students make a choice. Either live here, and train until you can learn more, or go out there—" Claude pointed at the wall behind him, which was nearest a Town wall, if my memory served. "—and learn on your own before coming back when you're ready."

"Will I learn faster from staying here?" I asked, looking for some type of incentive.

"That depends on you," Claude helpfully said.

"So, I'd be paying you about thirty thousand Points a month?" I responded, comparing it to my ten thousand a month at the Academy.

"Per one of your average Moon cycles on Earth, yes. However, you cannot store things here, or do other activities…" Claude answered pleadingly.

"What? You're charging me three times what I pay at the Alchemy Academy, and I can't store stuff in my own room? So, in essence, I'd have to keep a room elsewhere if I wanted to work on Crafting?" I complained.

Claude just smiled, giving me my answer. I ran the numbers in my head—forty thousand Points a month? That was astronomical. Feasible, though. A quick check of my current funds told me I could spend two to three months right now without further Crafting and selling my creations.

Still, I felt like this was a bad deal. I liked the idea of staying with Claude and training, but surely not storing things here was negotiable. Blinking, I smirked as an idea struck me. "Ahh, and what is my discount for the Healing and Cleansing?"

"What discount? You've chosen to do that by yourself, student…"

"Ahh, I feared for your life at first, and have since seen how often you would hurt yourself without my help. So, no, I don't think I did that out of the goodness of my heart…" I answered and held out my hand, praying that the System would somehow allow me to charge Claude for my treatments.

Claude looked at the hand and then to my face. "You're bluffing…"

I extended my arm further toward him.

"Fine. Fine. What do you want?" Claude asked, sweat starting to form on his brow.

"I want to be able to store things and Craft here. Or a discount of twenty thousand Tp a month?"

"That's outrageous. If you're discovered to be storing things here, my other students could tell Maelstrom."

"What does he have to do with this?" I asked, truly confused by the turn in conversation.

Claude tapped his chin and shook his head. "Nevermind. I guess I could take a risk and allow you to store and Craft things here. Only if you agree to not tell anyone else…"

"Okay…" I answered skeptically and tried desperately to figure out what was going on. Still, I had won that negotiation—hadn't I?

Still, thirty thousand a 'month' was quite a bit, and there were a few more things I should probably check on before I made any decisions. "Can I go check on some things outside and make a decision later? Or can I sleep elsewhere and come here to train on off days?"

Claude oscillated his hand back and forth. "Yes to both. However, if you choose to stay elsewhere you miss out on the discount."

"Discount?" I cried.

"That's correct. You'll be back to paying a hundred Points an hour," said Claude.

I shrugged. Technically, I wasn't really wanting to stay at the Alchemy Academy. It would be better to only have one room. Still, I didn't understand why it would matter to Claude if I was living elsewhere. "Why does it matter to you where I sleep? Surely I can have two rooms?"

Claude gave me a serious look, then responded, "Because I can't wake you up at all hours to give you special training, to have you fetch my beer, or do any of the things that would be required for the cleaning of my Dojo."

Licking my teeth, I considered once again if I had won anything with my earlier negotiations. It was sounding more and more like I shouldn't stay at the Dojo. Still, a quick look around at his sparkling clean Dojo made me even more confused. I studied Claude with a serious look, trying to figure out if he was joking. He remained as unreadable as a statue, so I prodded, "What are you talking about? This has a self-cleaning feature."

Claude just winked at me. I wasn't sure what that meant, but I was starting to piece together that our earlier conversation and our current one seemed to be connected in some way.

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Did this mean that the self-cleaning feature was more than what I thought it was? It was very tough to tell. I couldn't quite understand what Claude was getting at. It was frustrating, to say the least.

The room I'd seen with the bathroom and sleeping mat wasn't a stellar accommodation when compared to the bed at the Academy. My eyes tracked to the uncomfortable Armor, realizing I'd need to be in this suit multiple hours every day.

"I'll make this decision later," I said, even as I decided.

Claude looked at me and responded, "Alright, I'll give you till the end of the day tomorrow, to make your decision. After that, it's fifteen hundred Tp a day."

I shook my head and looked around one last time. Was I really willing to trade the convenience of the Alchemy Academy for this?

At the moment, I couldn't even lift my arms, thanks to the Armor. I didn't particularly want to live like this. But something, perhaps my gut, was telling me that this was the only decision if I wanted to one day get out of here.

* * *

Veronique held up the Rejuvenation Pill and made a jerking gesture toward me with the proffered Pill.

"Where exactly did you get this?" she asked.

My eyebrows raised. "I made it," I responded.

She shook her head. "No, you can't have made this. No one can make repeatable Peak E-Rank Pills…"

I held both my hands up again and responded, "I can."

"Now, I have to ask you how you made them," Veronique said pointedly.

We were currently in Veronique's luxurious rooms on the second floor. However, I had noticed that there were two guards outside her door, a sight I hadn't seen the last time she'd brought me here. I considered telling her the truth, but dismissed the idea instantly. I hadn't even told my family the whole truth until I trusted them. Why would I tell this woman?

"It's one of my Skills. I think it's rude to ask exactly what that is," I said, placing a bit of pointed emphasis on those words. At least, that's what I had learned when Fong had brought me to Tutorial Town. Even Maelstrom hadn't asked for specifics—

"I don't give a shit what is rude or not," Veronique said. Her tone clearly reminded me that we were not equals. I wasn't in a situation where I had any power.

But that wasn't entirely true, was it? I leaned forward on her very comfortable couch and placed both my hands in front of me before interlacing my fingers.

"So what you're telling me is you don't want more Pills like this in the future?" I asked. Veronique's face twisted into a sour expression. She looked at her door and then back at me.

"You do realize that I could just kill you and look through your things for the recipe?"

I smiled broadly, then pointed to my head. "Oh, that's interesting. So, you think you can read my mind after death? You must have a very interesting Skill, then."

With a great deal of difficulty, I managed to stay in control of my facial features—hoping to not show the woman how nervous I truly was.

Veronique studied me. Slowly, I canted my head to the side as I regarded Veronique seriously over my steepled fingers. It was a forced response on my part, something I saw on TV when powerful people negotiated. I couldn't tell if it worked or not.

She looked again at the door, sighed, and then moved to sit down. She opened a case, and I saw a velvet cushion inside. She placed the Rejuvenation Pill on the cushion and closed the lid.

"It was worth a try," Veronique said. Her voice changed immediately from somewhat angry and threatening to dejected. "You know, you're new and you haven't been here long enough to truly know how things work. I figured I might get away with it," she finished.

I leaned back in my chair and un-steepled my fingers, holding back a sigh. Well, that had worked, but I was surprised it had. I really didn't think I had that sort of power. Clearly, this Pill was something of value beyond what I had originally thought.

"You know, you're not going to make a lot of friends if you act like that," I responded. Veronique looked at me with a large smile on her face, then looked around her very spacious rooms.

"Do you think I need friends?" she asked.

I considered her question probably longer than it deserved. "Yes. A gilded cage is still a cage, Veronique. Isn't it better to be working with multiple people to get out of here?" I asked.

She just shook her head. "This is exactly why I thought that tactic might have worked. You're still naive and think there's a way out of here. If there was, don't you think we would have found it already?"

There wasn't a really good response to what she had just said. So, I simply looked at her, blinking. She shook her head again.

"See? It should have worked. You should be terrified of anyone who's been here longer than you. But for some reason, you have some sort of business savvy that I didn't expect. Regardless, we should probably start talking about what these could sell for."

My eyebrows rose again, but the blinking didn't stop.

"What these will sell for?" I asked, motioning at the box that contained the Pill. "I assume you mean the Pills, and that you think I can make more?"

"Okay, okay. Enough posturing from both of us. You stop trying to raise the value and I won't gouge you too hard. Deal?"

I nodded, and she clapped her hands.

"Good. Let's cut to the chase," Veronique said as she pulled out her journal. "I know you can either make or find more because you aren't trying to sell me information. Now, I think early on, we sell these at auction. We could easily start them at about ten thousand Tutorial Points and limit supply. People will be willing to pay that, thanks to their known properties."

That, of course, led me to ask, "What properties did your agent discover?"

Even with the Demonic Vault Shop and Pill Flasks, I wasn't sure what the Pill did. I recalled the name the Flask had given them, of course.

Which, of course, also led me back to something Veronique had said earlier. "Also, why did you call it Peak E-Rank instead of high earlier?"

Veronique crossed her arms in front of her chest and then gave me a serious look. "Do you not know the definitions of Pill ranks yet? High E-Rank is what the System calls many items that don't have a level beside them, but even if the item doesn't have a depicted level, there are still differences," she answered.

My vacant stare must have given her some clue as to what that definition meant to me. Absolutely nothing.

"So," she continued, "look, as far as System rankings go, a High E-Rank can be achieved in one of two ways. Create a product using E-Rank Material, which will provide the end product with better results than the same Pill of F-Rank. Or…" she said leadingly.

"Craft a Pill using a specific Method that enhances the ingredients' properties," I whispered.

"I'm believing you more and more when you claim you Crafted this. We don't get to sell a lot of Crafted Pills—since most Alchemist's, myself included—" She motioned at her extremely extravagant-looking, but very dusty Pill Cauldron. "—prefer to make Potions, since there seems to be a greater margin built in for mistakes…"

"That does make sense," I responded, then motioned toward the bottom floor below us. "Every book I found in the library seemed to claim that Pill-making was essentially burning money."

Veronique laughed. "That is—or maybe was—my thought on it as well. It's the claim that everybody told me, but I wanted to disprove."

Still chuckling good naturedly, she waved her hand a bit more violently at her Cauldron. To my surprise, a wind picked up and blew the dust off the rounded edges. Just how strong was Veronique to make such a thing happen with a casual gesture?

I swallowed nervously even as she said, "So, are we agreeable on the ten to fifteen thousand Points starting price and keeping this as a limited resource for now?"

I scratched my nose, considering her words. Part of me did want to keep this a limited resource. It wasn't hard to make, which would leave fewer things on my plate. This would then lead me to being able to do more within the Tutorial. Such as training with Claude, or Gathering and experimenting with Herbs. However, she still hadn't quite responded to my earlier question about what the properties of my Rejuvenation Pill were.

So, before I made a complete decision, I asked, "We kind of got lost there. What are the properties of this Pill?"