Cat With a Raygun

Joe felt bad about just leaving yet again rather than face uncomfortable questions. He didn't even give them an opportunity to prove they can respect when he wants to keep some things secret, so Joe decided to go back and apologize.

“I'm sorry about that. I need to get better at dealing with social situations I don't like. I will say that I have a couple of special skills that I was only able to get because of my Rank 2 Sense Manachlorians ability. One of them recently got strong enough to help me regrow my foot,” Joe told Ferelda and Thoomin.

“What is the name of that skill, if you don't mind us asking,” asked Ferelda.

“It's called Regeneration. It's similar to Mana Channeling and Stamina Growth, except that it doesn't work passively.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Thoomin.

“With those rings active you can feel the manachlorians enough to redirect them to you. If you had an open skill slot you'd unlock Meditation which is doing just that. When you do that with your hit points, that unlocks Regeneration. A high enough Regeneration lets you actively regrow lost parts, which leave a loss in your total hit points,” Joe explained. “If it didn't hurt immensely I would look into making it available for others.”

“You mean like the way you made these rings?” asked Thoomin.

“Exactly,” Joe confirmed.

“Could you make us weapons in case we need to do something before we can learn real combat spells?” Ferelda asked.

“That I can do, yes. Any specific requests?”

“We're rather ignorant of these things. Do you have any suggestions?”

Joe thought to himself for a moment. “Well, for Ferelda I can make a wand that lets her shoot out beams of fire or ice, she can adjust which one as needed. And, Thoomin, I know you're an alchemist. How are you with Chemistry?”

“I'm skilled in that as well, why do you ask?”

“Because for your weapon I'm thinking of something that launches containers filled with volatile mixtures that explode when exposed to air or when mixed together. What you make won't need to provide the damage itself, just be flashy enough to intimidate people. The launching mechanism itself will cause the primary damage.

“I can't really do anything for multiple enemies at this time, but hopefully you won't even need to use these before you're able to learn combat spells yourselves.”

Joe spent a few minutes drawing the plans for the containers Thoomin could use for different concoctions to fit in the planned launcher, including the required dimensions.

“Okay, use these plans to have containers made for your chemicals. You'll see I have two different designs, one for chemicals that react with air, and one for ones that need to mix together. Feel free to adjust as needed, so long as the maximum dimensions are kept,” he told Thoomin.

- - - - -

“Joe, be sure to add the cerebral fluid slowly, you need to ensure a proper mix,” Eleanor explained.

They were in her hut making an Elixir of Intelligence. Eleanor told Joe that it was normally just a potion that temporarily boosts the drinker's Intelligence, but the key to making an elixir which will affect a permanent change is the Imbue Alchemical Product spell.

“Normally when an Alchemist tries to imbue a boosting potion it just results in a much stronger boost. As such, no one even thinks to try for a different kind of result. My master knew better and worked with me until I had created my first elixir. It took me 10 tries. My master said it took him 14,” Eleanor had informed Joe before they began.

It was that kind of rarity in a different result that led most alchemists to stop allowing the random result available from the various imbuing spells and always pick the enhanced boost option. Joe had already made 7 batches of Enhanced Intelligence Boost potions and was working on his eighth. The base Intelligence Boost potion granted a bonus of 20 Intelligence for 5 minutes. The extra mana from having a higher Intelligence was granted immediately, which was convenient, for drinkers that actually have mana unlocked, of course.

Joe's Enhanced Intelligence Boost potions gave a bonus 500 Intelligence for 5 minutes. Eleanor already snagged two batches worth of vials for herself to help her with her Compress Time spell. Joe was nearly done with this latest batch of potions. The main problem with imbuing potions is that it doesn't take terribly long to make most of them, so there isn't a lot of extra power most people can give from their mana. Of course when the spell attains higher levels it will make stronger results even with the same mana supply.

It wasn't until the thirteenth batch that Joe finally got the desired result of an Elixir of Intelligence. By that time his Alchemy skill went up to 7 from 4 when he and Eleanor started, and his Imbue Alchemical Product spell went up to level 2. Eleanor explained that now that he could make one Elixir type, the others should be a lot easier to achieve, usually the first or second attempt, as it's more a template rather than specific to each statistic. That's why they were starting with Intelligence in the first place, as they had plenty of cerebral fluid to practice with.

Over the next day Eleanor taught Joe how to make Vitality Boost potions with blood, Agility Boost potions with adrenaline, and Wisdom Boost potions with aqueous and vitreous humors from inside eyes. As she said, it was quite easy to make the Elixir versions of those. Of course, each batch resulted in only a single elixir, but if he made either regular or enhanced boosts he could get three from each batch.

Joe decided to give Eleanor the Elixir of Intelligence. Joe's elixirs provided a permanent bonus of 100 points to their statistic. Eleanor could really use that bonus. As it would nearly double her current Intelligence. The other three elixirs, Agility, Vitality, and Wisdom, would all go to Kleo for her birthday in 4 days. Since Scouts primarily use Agility and Wisdom, getting over 100 in each of those would be a huge benefit to start her off, plus the Vitality would help her with her chosen profession of Farmer as well as give her more Stamina to start to use the sniper launcher Joe had made for her.

After that was done Joe spent the rest of the day making more Elixirs of Intelligence for Melanie, Kerras, and Tess, as well as regular Enhanced Boost potions of differing types to pass on to Otto to sell in the next sales trip. As he was walking home after vising Otto he saw a notification in his HUD.

Ferric Rustkeeper has joined the party.

Ferric: Joe, this new upgrade is really interesting. I wonder what the benefits of the party are besides communication? We'll have to experiment. First, since we're two months overdue, I want you to spend time over the next couple of days taking everyone eligible down to the cavern to finish their upgrades, though.

Joe: Two months? Wow, I guess you're right. I just left Otto's, I can go back and take care of him right now.

Between the remainder of the evening and the first half of the next day Joe got everyone their upgrade to v3 of the Guidebook. He also gave passed out the Elixirs of Intelligence to their intended recipients. All of the alchemy he had done had raised his skill another 2 points to 9. After that he got to work on the weapons for Ferelda and Thoomin.

Since he already knew what he wanted to make and had already made similar items for each of them, it only took 1 day to make both weapons. A Wand of Elemental Beams, and a Bottle Launcher. In exchange for the weapons Joe merely asked Thoomin to write down the recipes for the explosives he would be using in the Bottle Launcher. Joe also stopped by Davis's shop to pick up the payment for the previous sale of a magisteel ingot while he was in that area.

Before he had left to Trenos, Joe had sent Ferric with a group off to fight swamplings and alligators in the swamps. The new party interface provided them with a lot of benefits, including the ability to keep track of each other's resource pools. Not only that, but when Tess cast Creature Status on an alligator, everyone could see its health, not just her.

The next day Joe spent a lot of time practicing with spells and got several to enhancement levels.

Elemental Shield (Level 10). This spell reduces the damage from elemental effects hitting the caster while active. The reduction is a one-for-one reduction of damage for every point of the caster's Intelligence multiplied by the spell's level.

This may be cast on as many as 5 additional creatures, with the spell's costs being paid for each target protected by the spell.

10% of the damage prevented by the shield is converted to mana to add to the caster's resource pool, up to the maximum limit.

Mana cost: 25 mana per minute the shield is maintained

Boost Strength (Level 5). This spell triples the caster's Strength score for 20 seconds per spell level.

Stamina cost: 75 stamina

Impair Senses (Level 5). The spell takes away the vision or hearing from a creature. The target has a chance to resist the spell based on the difference between the target's Wisdom and the caster's Intelligence. One creature can be targeted per spell level. The same creature(s) can be targeted again to remove the other sensory input.

Mana cost: 50 mana per minute

Joe decided he would use the next day to make another farming staff like the one he made for Ferrite, and then yet another one to allow Tyrik to cast the spells using his own stamina, rather than enhance the spells like Ferrite's and Kleo's do. Joe also found himself running low on empowered copper, so he made a few more crates and a lot more ingots of copper to fill them, gaining two levels in Smelting in the process. After filling four channeling crates with copper ingots Joe was running low on copper ore, so he decided that after sticking around for Kleo's birthday the next day he would then figure out where to get a direct line on copper ore.