The Autocraft Alchemist

"Your apartment still looks as sparse as it ever did," Windry said. She had marched into the kitchen, placed her hands on her hips, and gave pretty much everything a disapproving look.

"What do you mean? Richard asked. "I'm pretty sure this is the first time that you have been here."

"Yes. But you shared pictures of it in chat in the past. Always the same analog things. Books, computers, and the like. It always made me wonder why there was a distinct lack of any sort of security."

Richard looked around his apartment. While it was a little small it was still big enough for his needs. It took up one side of the apartment while further in was the living room where his computer and bookcases were. And then, since it was a bachelor suite, his bed sat in the far corner. Big windows looked out towards a building that looked the same as the one his apartment was in. All dull grey and steel. Lifeless and designed with no inspiration. His hatred for such spartan building styles resurfaced. And he shook his head to get away from the thought. "I don't see what you mean?"

"Ignoring the other problems, I mean security. There isn't anything on the windows to prevent people from peaking in. Sure there is the consumer grade tint and reflective on the outside. But that isn't enough. Anyone could be pointing a laser microphone at us or using thermal vision or other imaging tools to see what you are doing."

Richard blinked. "What do you think I have to hide here?"

Windry sighed and poked him in the ribs. It was hard enough that it felt like a punch and Richard grunted. "Everything. About yourself and your skill. If you had something in place then people wouldn't be able to see what you are doing. This is why I wanted you to move into something better equipped. You have the money for it now right?"

"Well, I do have some saved up. But again, who would even be watching me?"

Windry closed her eyes tight. "Didn't you almost get picked up by a red guild not even a month ago?"

"Yeah, but they were taken care of by the Swords."

"One branch was. But do you think that they would be as hard to deal with if they could be taken out by one assault on one base? They usually have more bases than you can shake a stick at. If anything you should be wary that someone else from the same guild could be looking for another chance at you. Ugh." She washed her face with her hands.

Richard had long learned that sometimes the best way to deal with someone was to change the subject. "Whelp. I asked you up today to help me think over some more potential recipes. I need to make another 10 or so in order to get to level 2. So depending on if they are potions that need new vials or not I probably could need only 5."

"I don't know anything about alchemy. Why don't you research what drops there are in the area and then just check everything?"

"Where would the fun in that be?" he asked and shook his head.

"Ugh. That's so you. I mean it. I don't know what I was expecting," Windry said. Then she plopped down onto a kitchen chair and took out her phone. "What are you doing? Let's get going. I haven't got all day."

Richard spent some time looking for the dungeons in the immediate area. Welf had 4, New Burl had 5. There was one sort of in between the two cities in a place called Red Hill that had 1. Rowan had a whole 11. Which made sense given that it was bigger than Welf and New Burl combined.

There was a curious thing that he noticed while he was looking up the dungeons. It seemed like everyone who wrote about them used their own manner for grading the difficulty of the monsters inside.

Richard first found a letter ranking system, going from A-Rank all the way down to I-Rank, which felt excessive. Another was Low, Mid, and High rankings. Only with each ranking also having a Low, Mid, and High rank. Low Low Rank, Low Rank, High Low Rank, and so on. While it wasn't as excessive it was worse as it was confusing.

He had also seen some that were using a letter rank, but with plus and minus added into the mix, A+ Rank, A Rank, A- Rank. While it seemed to be better than the others, it seemed like there wasn't enough of a difference between A+ and A-. And he felt that it might be a little too ambiguous and could lead to accidents. People getting in over their head after thinking that all letter rank dungeons were the same difficulty.

There was a knock at the door and before Richard could stand Windry was already opening it. She welcomed the person standing outside, signed something, and was handed a box. And when she stepped back inside there was a big grin on her face.

"What was that?" Richard asked.

"Don't worry about it. Just a little something something," she said and placed the box onto the table. She cracked it open, tossed the packing material aside, and removed 4 little black squares from it. On the back were what might have been suction cups. Windry piled them into her arms and went around the apartment sticking one to each of the windows. "There!" she said and dusted off her hands.

Richard squinted at her. "I still can't tell what they are?"

She rolled her eyes. "It's a little device to help protect your apartment. These will stop most laser microphones and some of the cheaper imaging equipment. It's not ideal. But now your apartment is much safer than it was without them." She stood there with her hands on her hips as she beamed a smile at Richard.

"I mean. Thank you. Thank you very much. But also, how much were they?"

Windy waved her hands. "Don't worry about it. I wouldn't feel safe discussing things like what you could craft without it. And it's better to be too safe than chained to a wall in a basement right?" She showed a smile that might not have reached her eyes.

Richard sighed. "I'll agree with you, since I know that you won't let me win otherwise."

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"Smart lad, now how far have you gotten?"

"Ugh, well…" He explained the problem that he was having with the ranking of the dungeons and wondered if there was a better way.

"Just number them 1 to 9 and be done with it. I don't see why you need to add specific labels to each and every thing."

"Okay, but what did they use back in the day? After the break and when they first started fighting back against the dungeons?"

"I dunno. Find an old timer and ask them." Richard squinted at her. "Yes. I'm old. But I wasn't an explorer until much much later. I was more working with getting tech back on its feet. Which wasn't really that hard considering the infrastructure was still in place. Starting again was a lot of work, don't get me wrong."

While what Windry had said wasn't helpful at all. It did remind him that he had an old timer that he could ask. And Richard sent off a message to his father asking him the same, how did they qualify the dungeons? And if there was a better way than letter ranking, plus/minus, etc.

Richard got a reply before he could start to dig into the types of monsters, "Just use 1 to 9. Lol." He shook his head and wondered if that was what they really used or what? Maybe it was an old person thing and the two of them were screwing with him? Number felt okay to use, but if there was something cooler wouldn't that be better?

He pushed the distractions out of his mind and started looking at the monsters that appeared. The other dungeons in Welf had Orthruses, Imps, and Ratters. From the drops the Orthruses were similar to the Cabbits. Pelts, bones, hearts, eyes, teeth, and so on. Assuming that the System was consistent then there might be another potion or two there.

The Imps looked to drop random things. Unknown coins, tiny pitchforks, sand, glass bobbles, and shells. Was the dungeon a beach? That would explain the sand and glass bobbles, maybe the coins as well. There were a limited number of body parts that also dropped. Blood, horns, wings, skin, and gems. He couldn't really see anything that screamed 'this is an alchemy material'. Maybe the sand? But then it would just be a normal potion vial? That could help him with the issue with his unique vials. Though they would probably also be diamond shaped, so maybe not.

The Ratter dungeon was again like the Cabbits in that they dropped parts of their bodies. He didn't know how he felt about that. Given that they were probably a group of beings that could be considered to be sapient. There was also something new in the lists, several bone weapons were listed as well as charms and fetishes. What they did Richard wasn't sure, but they sold for a fair bit so somebody somewhere wanted them.

Moving to the Red Hill Dungeon, it contained something called a Waheela. When Richard looked it up he found it was an indigenous cryptid bear wolf thing that had a perchance for chomping off peoples heads… The drops were pretty much what he had expected, except for the fact that it seemed to drop something called a Waheela Od. Which sort of sounded like the thing that S-Rank Alchemy just might care about. Though it might also be something that wouldn't unlock until a later level. As the dungeon rank was considered to be B- Rank, G-Rank, Lower Mid Rank, or level 4. He still wasn't sure what method of ranking that he liked the best.

The 5 dungeons in New Burl's all had different types of monsters within. Centipedes, kobolds, golems, and finally unicorns. His father had been quite pleased with the… unicorn daggers? That he had picked up from the ratters. Which reminded Richard that he needed to try and train with other weapons. No. No. One thing at a time.

Centipedes weren't anything fancy. They also dropped carapaces as well as legs, and stomachs. The kobolds must count as animals since they had similar drops as the others. While the golems seemed to only drop metals relating to the type that they were. And probably glass, since yes, there was a golem of that type. And while Richard felt that unicorns were a strange monster to see. Apparently they were dangerous enough to be a level 8 or High Rank dungeon. And not something that he would be seeing the inside of any time soon. But he could still check out the drops if he could find them in the market.

He looked to see how Windry was making out and found that she was playing a game on her phone. It had been an autobattler that was popular several years ago. And Richard was surprised to see her still playing it. But when he squinted he found out the level of her account and she must have whaled it hard in order to get that far. He considered saying something, but she was helping him for free. And had also just bought something for his apartment that was probably pretty pricey.

When he looked at the 11 dungeons that were in Rowan he found out that he had had enough. Without knowing what the Alchemy skill would have recipes for he would need to check out each and every drop. That was part of the reason he had put it off for so long. It would be long, tedious, and boring work. And wasn't something that was attractive to him in the slightest.

Richard spent a moment thinking about how he had gone from someone trying to make a living, to someone trying to make fistfuls of cash without attracting notice. And at that moment he was chasing the high of leveling up his Alchemy. Something that would surely attract notice if he released all of the new potions into the world. While he thought for a second that he could just leave it all behind. He never would forgive himself for not seeing what's over the wall in front of him. As well as the lives his skill could save if he toughed it out.

He shook his head and put the deep thoughts away. "I think that's it for today," Richard said. "I am pretty much done for the day. Though I see that you've already finished huh?"

"What? I sent you the list of all of the drops for monsters for the first 10 floors of each dungeon. What they do, I have no idea. But it's a place to start right?"

Richard checked his phone and found a message with the attachment. How had she managed to get that much done so quickly? "I suppose that you want a reward huh?"

"Oh honey," she reached over and patted his arm, "I have more money than 100 of you. So I don't need something like a reward."

"Did you want to see what kind of potions the stomachs make with the drake potion vials?"

Windry chuckled. Put her phone down. And pushed his satchel across the table to him. "Now you're talking my language."

"Alright. Just let me place an order real quick. I need to get the Cabbit Hearts while I'm thinking about it," Richard said and pulled up the Dungeon Center's order form. It would cost him a bit more than if he went and got them himself. But with the train fees and time it would be worth it in the end. Popping downtown to pick up the order at the Slime Dungeon made a lot more sense than going to Rowan.

"Are you done yet?" Windry asked. When Richard didn't respond she reached across the table and poked his hand causing him to almost drop his phone. "How about now?"

"I'm working on it. Why don't you start another run on your game?"

"Eh. I'm kind of bored of it. Not really a lot of content left."

"I can't imagine how much you whaled to get that far."

"Eh, less than you think. Now let's go already. I do need to head home after this and if you screw around any more I'll be late."

"So you'll stay no matter what to see what the potions come out as?"

"Yes. But I'll also buy out the apartment building and kick you out. Or better! I'll renovate all of the apartments to have the latest in security. But then you probably wouldn't be able to afford it. Now let's go." She smiled without really smiling and patted the satchel.

Richard laughed and got up to get the drake drops. He crafted a vial from the Blue, Green, Brown, and Gray scales and placed the vials onto the table. "Which one first?" he asked and instead of responding Windry swatted him.