The Second Life of Adam Cosmos

Upon logging out, he was surprised to find a few notes posted in his capsule. They were from Selene.

- Hey Adam, I've dropped by to check on you but you're inside the capsule. Oh, I also crashed in your room. Looks like you've never used it before.

Adam chuckled at this. Indeed, he has yet to use his bedroom at all. Since he spends the majority of the time in-game and the capsule provides for nearly all his biological needs, there is little reason for him to sleep in his bed. And during the instances where he wants some good old-fashioned sleep, he finds the couch much more comfortable to sleep in than his own bed.

From the looks of it, Selene has dropped by a few times already; Adam had simply been in-game for quite some time.

- I cooked some pasta. Have some when you wake up.

- Nevermind. You're still comatose so I just ate it. I ordered pizza instead. When will you wake up?

And indeed, Adam saw a pizza box in the dining room. From the looks of it, it is about a few hours old. He placed it in the microwave to reheat it before eating.

He wrote a quick note of thanks below the notes made by Selene in case he's back in-game the next time she dropped by.

While he was eating, he was leisurely checking for news as to what was happening in the Undead Regions.

"Looks like Magick Maidens held their auctions after all," muttered Adam.

With the mass auction of teleportation scrolls to the fortress, there will be an increase in player activity in the region for tasks that can help them earn contribution points to the fortress.

These tasks range from crafting items to helping the fortress with mundane tasks or hunting a certain number or types of undead.

Then, later down the line, once a certain level of contribution points has been reached, players can access the more exclusive missions that typically involve hunting a specific undead-type boss or liberating certain territories from an undead infestation.

However, Adam doesn't feel the need to join the competition at the moment as his crafting task is far more important.

He can just present the body of the Lich and the Necromancer's Hearts he collected so far at a later time, and earn very handsome contribution points for his efforts.

And when he does accept a quest to hunt the undead, with the effect of his cloak to pull the undead towards him, it will be relatively easy to hunt and store their corpses in his Spatial Ring. In this manner, he can easily complete missions that the fortress would issue regarding securing undead bodies.

Other than that, there is also the matter of the skirmish he had with Hao Wei.

"It's been about 24 hours, they should have revived by now," said Adam out loud. "I wonder how they'll react now?"

Although there is a huge level difference between Adam and the rest of the players, it's still not a good idea to purposely pick a fight with a large number of people.

Going up against a guild of Hao Wei's caliber is almost a guarantee that they will seek revenge on him just on the principle that he humiliated them in such a single-sided battle. Most likely, they will regroup and scour the entire place to search for him.

However, he is not too worried about being overwhelmed as he has insurance in the form of Vetius the Revenant. There is simply no way that even hundreds of players at the current level would stand a chance against him.

Such is Adam's confidence in Vetius' prowess that he is certain that the Lich he fought is the easier foe to deal with. For as long as he is in the workshop of Vetius, no player can pose a threat to him.

He will only be in a potentially dangerous position when venturing outside of the workshop since there will be an almost guarantee that he will encounter Hao Wei. If he has to venture out of the workshop, which he will, he just needs to make sure he is adequately prepared in case he has no other option but to fight.

But on the other hand, having another skirmish with Hao Wei is not entirely a bad thing either. After all, he unexpectedly had an easier time looting the Crystal Beasts due to the workers they brought with them. Additionally, it cannot be denied he made a decent profit from selling the gear he looted from the bodies of the Hao Wei team.

All in all, fighting and beating them had been very beneficial for Adam. With this thought in Adam's mind, he finished his meal.

And after finishing a quick smoke and coffee, he logged back in.

***

Adam is back again in Vetius' workshop.

He saw his teacher busily forging something so he decided not to disturb him; he still had an ongoing task of setting up his smithy.

The mound of pyre he processed to turn into charcoal has pleasantly cooled down. Although there is faint heat still emanating from the mounds, it is already good for the final procedure.

He broke the first mound of mud he created and checked the quality of the charcoal.

"Quality looks good," observed Adam.

Ding!

[You have successfully made charcoal.]

[Blacksmithing proficiency has increased.]

The charcoal within is of decent size it seems that the majority of the wood was successfully turned into charcoal.

He took a spade and sieve and began to sort the charcoal.

The ones of medium to big size will be used as fuel for smithing while the finer and smaller ones will be used for coke fuel.

In less than an hour, he was able to sort the charcoal.

Approximately 70% of the wood he burned can be considered good for smithing. Meanwhile, 20% is mid-quality that can be used as fuel to turn clay into bricks. While the remaining 10% can be used as material for making coke.

Adam repeated the task on the other mounds and after a few hours, he had a considerable pile for smithing, baking bricks, and coke production.

It was a dusty and dirty task, but oddly satisfying. He dug a small pit where he could store the charcoal for smithing and took the charcoal meant for baking bricks in another area. He dug a small pit for it too.

As for the coke material, he placed it in a medium-sized crucible- he intends to save the coke fuel processing for last as it would require a furnace.

Adam chugged a stamina potion and rested for a few minutes. He was getting ready as it was now time to mold bricks that he would use for building his forge and furnace. Other than these two, he planned to build a separate reusable furnace specifically for making charcoals to make the process easier.

He started gathering mud with his bare hands. After judging that the quantity was sufficient, he poured some water to make it easier to mold to its desired shape.

The process of making bricks is as simple as it is tedious. All he needs to do is to shape the mud into bricks. Fortunately, there is a brick mold readily available that he can use so he won't need to waste time manually guesstimating each size of the brick. He decided to create 500 bricks to make sure he had an excess in case some of the bricks were not of the quality he required.

Thanks to the brick mold, producing this number of bricks would not consume as much time as it normally would. He sprinkled a mixture of wood ash on the floor where he laid the bricks to ensure it did not stick to the ground when it dried. The wet bricks were laid in a circular pattern where a small ditch surrounding it was filled with charcoal.

Normally, the process is to let the bricks dry by exposing them to heat and letting them cool. However, as he is a pyromancer, he can shorten the drying process by about 30% by using his flame ability. Specifically, it is a spell he has previously removed from his spell line-up as he thought it doesn't have much use in combat: Fire Breath.

Fire Breath is a fairly useless spell in combat at Adam's current level- he simply has better options for fighting.

However, when it comes to the process of burning or drying something as part of crafting, he is forced to acknowledge that the Fire Breath spell can shine in this aspect. He used a single skill point to learn Fire Breath again.

And without further Ado, he started setting the entire area with wet bricks on fire.

Fire Breath!

Thanks to the intensity of his flames due to Flame Augmentation and Ignition Gloves, the fire he breathed was hotter than a normal fire- as a result, the newly formed brick could be dried out faster.

He continued casting Fire Breath until the entire 500 bricks and its surrounding charcoals were burning. There is more than enough charcoal for the bricks to be exposed to heat and dry out continuously for the next several hours. At this point, all he needs to do is to wait.

But Adam decided to use the wait time to be productive; there is another task he can accomplish while the bricks dry out.

Adam stepped away from the area with bricks and began setting up his alchemy lab.

Since he has a place of his own now, can set up his lab for long-term crafting, unlike the temporary station he made in the cavern.

He asked for Vetius' permission to take some tables and chairs from the study- for which his teacher wordlessly expressed his approval by opening the wall that was concealing the room in question. Thanking his teacher for his generosity, he promptly moved some of the tables and chairs to the room Vetius allocated for him.

With the current tools he has for alchemy, he can now create nearly triple the quantity he made back at the cavern at half the time. And when his knowledge and experience in potions are taken into account, the quality of the potions is all but guaranteed.

Adam began preparing for the potions he would make. He brought out some of the ingredients he purchased from the auction earlier and began to store them in separate containers in certain measurements.

- Red Morgel Leaf x471

- Jealous Dindle x253

- Spirit Winterberry x112

- Blessed Bittercrest x63

- Decaying Ambrosia x91

He bought out all that was put up on sale for these five particular ingredients as when prepared in a certain way and mixed in a certain combination with each other, can yield several types of potions that he needs both for personal use and for selling at a high price.

Adam turned his attention towards the most abundant ingredient he had, the Red Morgel Leaf. It is the primary component of a health-replenishing solution that, when prepared by a skilled alchemist, can yield notable-grade potions.

This is a fairly common leaf that can be found deep in the forests of the Undead Regions. However, harvesting them is a bit challenging as poisonous wasps tend to nest in Red Morgel Trees. While the wasps can be taken care of by fire spells with relatively no issue, doing so would damage the leaves as the Red Morgel Tree is highly susceptible to fire- thus rendering the leaf useless for alchemical mixtures.

However, thanks to the player's efforts in exploring the region, he now has a convenient way of securing the leaf for himself. Plus, since the function of the leaf is still relatively unknown to most of the players, the price for it is fairly cheap. It is thanks to this fact that Adam was able to buy 471 leaves for himself.

First, Adam sorted the leaves in terms of maturity; from youngest leaf, matured leaf, and the ones that are nearly dried. To ensure he can create the best solution with the health-replenishing base, he needed the mature ones. Fortunately, the majority of the leaves he purchased are composed are mature.

Then, he placed the leaves in a manually operated grinder- it is one of the tools he recently bought from the auction house. It didn't take long for the leaves to become powder thanks to the tool. If Adam wants a health potion, he could just boil water and put the powder in. But instead, he set this aside and took the next ingredient: Jealous Dindle.

For the Jealous Dindle, he took the total weight of the 253 dindle he has which amounted to exactly 17,710 grams. He will need a water volume equal to it- which is 17.71 liters.

Fortunately, one of his cauldrons has a maximum capacity of 50 liters so he was able to put the dindle in the 17-liter water. Then, he fired the stove and let it boil.

He used Fire Breath to help speed up the process of heating the cauldron so it could reach its boiling point faster.

Adam intends to boil it until the dindle completely melts in the boiling water- the resulting solution is a major component for stamina potions.

After letting it boil for 1 hour, he turned off the fire and placed 1 kilogram of the powdered Red Morgel leaf. Then he started stirring it vigorously.

He did not cease stirring until the mixture had cooled down. It took nearly 3 hours until the concoction reached the ideal temperature.

Some of the contents evaporated but Adam considers the final volume of the concoction to be an acceptable yield.

Shortly afterward, he poured the concoction into flasks. He ended up with 43 flasks.

Ding!

[You have created a new potion! You have gained 43000 Essence.]

[Please name your potion.]

He didn't bother wasting a lot of time coming up with a name for his potion.

"Dindle Potion, " said Adam.

[Alchemy proficiency has increased.]

Dindle Potion (Notable Quality)

Description: A concoction created by an Otherworld Alchemist. Moderately stimulates health and stamina regeneration for 1 hour. Users can drink up to 1 flask of this potion every 2 hours before any side effects start to manifest.

Cooldown: 2 Hours

Drinking this potion while he is in the middle of forging would mean that fatigue, as well as potential damage- depending on the intensity of the forge, that he would otherwise accumulate would be reduced in half. Since the cooldown is 2 hours and the effect of a single potion is 1 hour, drinking this periodically would effectively double the maximum length of time he can work.

There is no way he will put a single flask of this up for sale.

There is also the fact that the first sentence of the description references that the potion was created by an Otherworlder.

This is because the two ingredients he used are traditionally created individually- one is a health-regen potion, while the other is a stamina-regen potion. No one in Pangea has managed to perfect the solution so that the two regen traits can be combined. This is why Adam is considered its creator.

In his first life, an unknown player created this potion but never made himself known. However, the formula was eventually leaked and every alchemist was able to craft the potion since then.

But ultimately, the potion is still relatively simple to create, this is why the actual grade of the potion is only at a notable rank.

When other alchemists managed to replicate the Dindle Potion, they would receive a notification that they had successfully re-created a potion that was invented by another player. However, no name would be disclosed. But once players start creating higher-grade potions, there is a chance that the player's name will be automatically added to all the descriptions as a way of giving credit to the player.

Since he knows the recipe of several potions that will be created by players in the future, being the first one to create them this time around would mean he will receive the credit for their discovery.

But even if Adam started producing elixirs in the next coming months, he is confident that other players would take quite some time before they could successfully create the elixirs he would 'invent'. And that is even if he were to release the exact procedure and formula of the potion.

In truth, even he couldn't do so yet as only a master-level Alchemist would be able to create elixirs. Not to mention, the ingredients necessary would be quite challenging to procure.

Is this unfair to their original discoverer? Perhaps. But it would be a colossal waste of opportunity if he doesn't take advantage of it.

After the Dindle Potion, Adam prepared the rest of the ingredients in preparation for crafting other potions.

However, he had to stop at the preliminary step of the alchemical preparation stage as the bricks had finally dried and the charcoal had been burnt out.

He went back to where the bricks were and started pilling them in the form of a waist-high open circular tower.

Normally, one would wait overnight before the bricks had completely cooled down before touching it. But Adam's fire resistance allowed him to immediately handle the bricks without seriously hurting himself. While he is still taking some damage due to the scorching heat emitted by the bricks, it's still within tolerable range thanks to his resistance.

For good measure, he chugged a Dindle Potion to recover whatever damage and fatigue he sustained from the task.

Due to the sheer number of bricks he made, he had to form several open tower-like formations with the bricks- with each tower being composed of about 70 bricks.

Then, he placed several heaps of charcoal inside the tower-like formations and set it on fire. This would serve as the baking of the bricks for it to fully solidify. He once again left it as he let the charcoal cook the bricks for the final process. Of course, this means yet another wait time of over half a day.

After this, Adam realized that he had used far too much charcoal than he originally anticipated. The original amount of charcoal he made, which he thought would suffice for several smithing sessions, has been depleted nearly in half just by drying and cooking the bricks. Needless to say, he needs to re-stock his supply.

Instead of making another potion, he decided to chop more wood to process a much larger batch of charcoal.

Adam prepared himself for several days of hard labor that would be a juggle between building the smithy and crafting potions.

***

While Adam was busy working, elsewhere in the Forgotten Temple, the Hao Wei guild finally respawned.

Their captain, Hao Ling, and the rest of the Hao Wei guild have just respawned and are checking their status window for their loss of level, essence, and class proficiency.

The sound of grunts, curses, and frustration can be heard from the resurrected players.

"Shit! I'm back to Apprentice rank! I just got to Intermediate a few days ago."

"I lost all my high-level equipment!"

"Dammit! I was so close to leveling up, now all my Essence is gone!"

Most of the players are relatively young, with ages ranging from 18 to early to mid-20s. But among the youthful members of the Hao-Wei guild, there is an old man who is walking towards the captain.

This man looks to be in his early 70s, and a quick look at him would show that he is a mere Level 1 among the moderately large group of players of level 70s to 80s.

However, instead of being looked down on for being a beginner, the players around him show their respect by bowing to him as he passes them by.

This man is none other than the leader of the Hao Family, Hao Jun. As he reached the Hao Wei captain, he spoke cheerfully.

"Welcome, Little Ling. What took you so long?"