The Autocraft Alchemist

Richard languished in the darkness of his apartment. Morning had come sometime ago, only he had decided that he didn't feel like leaving his bed. So he laid in bed, staring into the near darkness that was made possible by the pitch black tint of the windows. Somehow the apartment had come equipped with self tinting windows. And they were set to the darkest setting.

His phone rang and Richard would have ignored it, had it not been a call he had been waiting for. He tapped the speaker option and said, "Hello." and placed the phone on the mattress.

"Sorry, I've been busy with my family," Windry said. "Problem with so many grandkids is that they all have birthdays back to back sometimes." There was a low noise in the background of several people talking at once.

"Don't worry about it," Richard said.

"And what did you want to know about Nora? I worked more in the tech side of things and I haven't interacted with her personally. There's also the fact that I've been sort of retired for 10 years. Freedom 55 baby."

"Well. I wanted to know how she does business I guess? She seems to care about me. Wanting to know if there are any problems that I'm having. Or if there is something that I need. Also wanting to know if or when I decided to leave the Crafter's Union."

"It could just be that she wants to take care of you. Well, not really you, but what you represent. And she is following the Union's creed. About being there for crafters, as well as wanting to make the world a better place."

"Don't all orgs and corps say that nowadays? About trying to make the world a better place?" It was all lip service of course.

"Usually. But who knows if they follow through or have any sort of real impact? People seem to be either too trusting or lazy to keep an eye on them."

He rolled onto his stomach. "Anyway, I guess I would like to try and trust Nora. But Chuck, or whoever, is getting in the way. They tried to give me an excuse when I went to sell some healing potions. I had just spoken with Nora and she asked for them. But the buyer that had been assigned to me said that they didn't want any. Unless I had something new to sell as well."

"Yeah. Seems like they are trying to force you to come up with new things. Seeing that as the value you provide. While Nora is more about the value that you are already providing. Or maybe even the future value."

"It's a wise person who plants a tree knowing that they will never sit in its shade, right?"

"Something like that."

Richard figured that he might as well get out of bed. But that just led to him finding his pillow again and feeling he quite liked laying down.

"So what are you going to do? Will you stay with the Crafter's Union?"

"I don't know. I might. But it really seems like it would be easier to strike out on my own than dealing with the politics."

"But then you wouldn't have the guild's protection. Or even their connections to offload your potions."

"There's that. I would need to figure it out somehow. Though the potions that I made are all unique looking enough that it wouldn't take much to tell who made them."

"You might be able to hide that with a corp of your own. But then you would need people that you can trust."

"Trusting others… strangers even would be difficult." Richard said. He picked up his phone and with the app set the tint in the windows to slowly lighten. Maybe if it felt more like day then he would feel like getting up?

"Right. So how are you going to move forward? I'll help where I can. But you're a big boy. And should figure things out for yourself."

"Thanks Grandma," Richard said and smiled. "And there is my dad's clan. While it wouldn't be as much money as the guild I wonder if they would help or have a way to move potions?"

"Clan?" Windry asked. There was something in the tone of her voice that sounded different. Which caused Richard to realize that he hadn't told her anything about it at all.

"Uh, yeah. It's news to me. I only heard about it after the ratter invasion. They seem like a tight knit group of people."

"Tight knit is fine. But most clans also had issues with rampant xenophobia. The clan might not be the best place to learn about how to work or interact with the outside world."

"Ah? It seemed like they would have worked well with others? At least that is the feeling that I got."

"It depends on who the other was. Some of the clans didn't get along. Some of them wiped each other out in order to settle past debts and grudges. Or even just for profit. Dungeons were controlled by whoever had the most power in the area. And they usually don't like letting others inside."

"But now everyone is able to enter dungeons, so it wasn't like that before?"

"Not even a little bit."

Richard finally sat up and glared at the light coming in. Whose idea was it to open the blinds? "I'm still baffled by how little information there is out there."

"I can't say that I know the reason itself. But I think that it had something to do with both the power the clans possessed. As well how much they were feared by those not part of one. Or not being a part of one of the powerful ones. Who knows what the government of the time was thinking."

"I see." The conversation had led to a number of new questions that Richard had for his father. Though would it be possible for the old man to give him an unbiased account? On one hand he had been, and still is, a member of a clan. On the other his father seemed to have opinions that not everything could have been sunshine and rainbows if the clans had stayed in power. "Well. Thanks for the information at least. I'm not sure where I'm going to go next. Maybe I'll see what Nora had in mind when she asked me to let her know if I wanted to leave. Either she'll have an idea to fix things. Or maybe even be willing to be a contact at the guild if I left or something."

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"It might not be as good as that. But one can hope," Windry said and muffled her phone. He could hear her talking with someone through her hands, though not what was being said. "Alright. More family has arrived. Let me know how things end up."

***

Since he didn't have anything pressing to do Richard figured that he might as well do some cleaning. So he finally got out of bed, went over to his computer, turned it on, and plopped into the chair. The computer chair wasn't anything fancy, just a run of the mill gaming one. And yet it had somehow managed to last him for several years already.

He found himself wandering through his game library that had gotten bigger and bigger over his funemployment. When he didn't have any money coming in he felt that it was harder to resist the sales. Why wait until you wanted to play a game and pay full price? It was better to get it on sale, even if it took several periods of unspecified time to finally play it.

There weren't any games that called to him, and he found himself just browsing up and down the list. Richard squinted as he looked around his apartment. It still wasn't any cleaner than when he had started. It took several moments, but he sighed, pushed away from his computer, and got to cleaning proper.

First was dealing with the assorted stuff that needed to be either tossed away or put away. While he was in that phase of his cleaning he found the Weak Healing Potions that he had been taking to the dungeon. While 1 of the 3 had gone to making sure that Gem wasn't going to bleed out, the other 2 just sort of followed him around. Since he had leveled up there were two more inventory slots.

How did they work? When there was only one slot Richard hadn't bothered with experimenting with it at all. He pushed one of the Healing Potions into the inventory and it took up a new slot. Only when he tried to push the second one into the empty slot it didn't appear. And upon closer inspection there was now the number 2 on top of the first Healing Potion.

His fingers tingled as he tried to stop his mind from running away from him. How did it decided to stack? And could he unstack them still? Richard tried to take the stack of potions apart, but that didn't appear to do anything. And then he tried to physically remove one and put it back into place. Only again it just overlapped with the other one. So it wasn't possible to not stack potions. Which was sort of a good thing since he wouldn't be wasting slots on the same potion over and over again. Several times in mmos he had found his bags full when several items hadn't stacked properly. And it would be nice not to have that problem in real life.

Since he didn't have another Weak Healing Potion Richard couldn't see what the stack limit was. And he regretted that he had already sold all of the potions that he had made the day before. Next time he had a large number of somethings on hand he would need to see if there was a limit to the stack size.

Another question he found himself asking was how the Mana Potions would stack? Would an Imp Mana Potion and Beetle Mana Potion use the same slot? Or since they had different ingredients would they use two different slots?

Since Richard had enough inventory slots he also wanted to try and see if he could craft with them. So he ducked under the table and pulled out the Black Beetle Carapaces and Black Beetle Bulbs left over from the other day. Pulled the Healing Potions from his inventory, they came out one at a time. And then placed the carapaces and bulbs into the inventory slots.

Richard opened the recipe list and noticed that the recipe for Flash Potion was still dark. He shook his head, as in his haste he realized that he needed to create the vials first. Only as he was about to confirm the craft of the vial did he realize that there was a new toy that he could play with instead. Bulk Autocraft, which he opened instead.

He looked at the two input slots, but there wasn't any indication of what could be done with them. First he pressed a finger onto the slot, but nothing seemed to change. And then he wondered if there was a way to show the recipe list? At the moment the thought passed through his mind one did open. Though it only had the recipe for the Black Beetle Carapace.

Richard selected it with his mind and the bulk crafting window as populated with the Black Beetle Carapaces in the left inventory slot. While the output slot at the bottom, where the arrows were pointed at, had an image of the completed vial. At the bottom of the window there was a prompt asking if he wanted to start the crafting.

Richard gave his consent and there was a brief image of the carapaces sliding along the arrows. And then the vials were done. In the output slot an image of the Black Beetle Vial appeared with a 2 over top of it.

When he opened the Bulk Autocraft recipe list Richard found that the Flash Potion could be made. He had already confirmed that it was possible to craft from materials in his inventory. But what about if he had one of the materials in his hand? He swapped over to the inventory window, removed the vials, and then went back to Bulk Autocraft again. The recipe for the Flash potion was still here.

Richard tried putting the vials onto the table and found that it didn't change anything. Then stood up and took a step away from the table. It wasn't until he was 3 or so steps away that the recipe for the Flash Potion disappeared from the Bulk Autocraft list. And when he took a step forward it appeared again.

So it looked like he was able to craft with anything in his inventory, in his hand, or within a certain range of him. Maybe a meter? While he didn't have any use for such an ability at the current moment. It was something that he would need to keep in mind.

Which led to him another consideration. How close did he need to be to an item in order for it to go into his inventory? Only in the end it was rather boring, and Richard found that he needed to be touching an item. And that even if he lifted his hand so that it just broke contact, that was too much and he wasn't able to store it.

Richard laughed as he realized that he had gotten rather distracted. And he opened the Bulk Autocraft and confirmed to make the Flash Potions. Then once they had completed he instead thought about placing the potions into his inventory. As the thought happened the potions disappeared as if he had pulled it from the window. And when he checked his inventory the number 3 had appeared on top of the Flash Potion that he had there before.

Richard grabbed a beer from the fridge, poured it into a glass, and sat down at the kitchen table. It was only after a deep drink that he stopped to ponder over the implications of what he had just seen. Or done. Or seen and done.

He was able to craft with materials within a meter of him. Richard could place materials into his inventory and craft with them. And he could place completed items into his inventory. The three realizations weren't anything crazy by any means. But they were another layer to his skill that was already out of the world.

As he mulled over the new uses for his S-Rank Alchemy, Richard realized that it was fully possible to use materials that weren't his. Assuming that they were within a meter of him, and that no one noticed the material disappearing, he would then be able to hide the completed product by stuffing it into his inventory. Richard decided that he should only use such a power for good and not run around stealing materials.

Richard looked at the empty glass in his hand. The beer had disappeared at some point. Then he looked around the not even a quarter cleaned apartment and felt a little guilty for day drinking in the middle of a job. Sure he technically counted as being self employed, but it was about showing professionalism.

He knew that the situation with the guild was stressing him out. And that he was letting it affect him. There were always other options available to him. That was something that he had learned when his last job had turned sour. He had people in his life that he could count on if he needed to. And there wasn't any reason to stay in a bad place. He would still need to make a decision sometime soon. But at least for a time, there was still some time.

Richard stood, stretched his arms to the roof and leaned backwards, and groaned at how good it felt. Then he got back to work. Maybe he would take another break after getting half done?