Chapter 45 Alchemy and Dungeon exploration
“Are you fucking serious!?” I couldn’t help but yell out as I noticed I could purchase skills again. The only way that would be possible is if I hit twenty-five again, which I wasn’t, or unlocked more skills to purchase. This time, I knew why. Apparently, growing the alchemy herbs wasn’t enough to unlock the alchemy skills, but I also had to make a potion with them.
I had never made potions, it was sort of a spur-of-the-moment thing I did on a fluke with no hopes of getting a higher quality potion than poor. If I knew that beforehand… I could have unlocked these skills months ago.
New!
Distillate- Creating potions removes some of the negative effects while concentrating the potion, making it 20% stronger.
Bulk batch- Creating potions has a chance to make additional potions, the amount and bonus increases by the number of potions you’re creating at once, up to a guaranteed ten extra at fifty potions.
Potion seller- Your potions are too strong for mortals to consume. Applying created potions to dirt will make a perfect growth medium for herbs that require that potion.
Well… I think I knew which one was the best for me, there really wasn’t much of a choice. It was almost always better to sell my herbs… But if I planned on growing harder and harder to grow herbs, it made sense to make a potion with them now to permanently make a better growing area for them. I choose potion seller.
Honestly, I didn’t understand the name at first, but… It would allow me to make potions I could sell because they would be unique to me. No one would drink them, but perhaps alchemists and farmers would buy them if they planned to grow the herbs themselves. I needed to prepare the special rainbow grass, light shade, and wizard’s beard potions for growing those herbs in the future.
…
“Are you sure about this? You’re a few months away from giving birth.” We loaded up as I asked Silk again if she wanted to stay behind. “No… I need this. I’m so much stronger than when the goblins attacked the village, I know I can kill him… And I think, if I don’t do this, if I stick back just because I’m pregnant, I’ll hurt my future growth.”
I gulped as I nodded. I didn’t like it, but it was always better to have someone as strong as her in your party. We were significantly stronger than when the goblins attacked last time, Silk might be the biggest shift as she started heading into the forest to gain experience ever since her close call. She not only bought four skills tied to fighting, but her stats were dramatically better, and her level was higher than the first time she fought the goblin king.
She wanted revenge for the feeling he made her feel the first time. We could remake the golem, but the more goblin cores we could get our hands on, the better it would be. It hadn’t really been done before, at least I hadn’t heard of the method I used to make the golem, but it was a combination of my magic animation specialization, Delilah’s blacksmithing, and the mayor’s bankroll to make the golem to protect the village.
The golem was one of the reasons we weren’t wiped out by the bandits. I wanted to get the second golem created before anything bad happens. Sarah cut off my thinking as she spoke. “To be fair, this is only a goblin dungeon; unless something goes tragically wrong, we’ll be fine.” She was telling the truth. Silk was strong enough now that she might be able to clear the dungeon's final boss by herself. Tems and Sarah weren’t much farther behind her either.
The dungeons were designed to help a solo adventurer gain some levels before they looked for a party to clear the dungeon or move to a harder dungeon. A level one adventurer could fight against one, or even two goblins easily enough, and by doing so, they’d grow slowly by doing so but it was much safer than other methods to level. Even a non-combat class could kill a goblin.
Most combat classes didn’t take the slow route; everyone wanted to get strong fast, which is why the casualties were so high. I killed one of the goblins that rushed passed trying to get to Cherry, as she was the most beautiful of my wives to them. Elves were like goblin catnip, and our group of beautiful women made them much easier to kill.
This was the secondary area of the forest, the trees were not only thicker, but there weren’t singular goblins anymore, it was larger and larger packs of them. There were hundreds, if not thousands of goblins, but most times only a dozen or so, a few hundred at most, broke free from the dungeon at once. Our close proximity was also another reason for how often the dungeon broke, and limited it from becoming worse.
If we were further away, when the dungeon did finally break, it wouldn’t just be a small amount, but an amount that could overwhelm a village. The territory to the south of our country was hundreds of miles of clustered dungeons, constantly fighting. It made it far less safe on the border, but it also meant that we didn’t have to worry about invasions from this direction, as an army would have to travel through a dozen dungeons at a minimum to make it to us.
The dungeons effectively cancelled out the other dungeons; very rarely would you see a different dungeon monster in a dungeon, but it wasn’t impossible. Dungeons just rather kept to themselves, very rarely did a dungeon go berserk and start destroying other nearby dungeons or settlements, but it did happen occasionally.
That was why the dungeons by each other were the easiest way to deal with them; if the normal dungeons sensed one about to go berserk, they’d actively work together to destroy it. It made these dungeon clusters the perfect stopgap for berserk dungeons and invading armies. If an army really wanted to invade, they’d have to send in specialist teams to wipe out dungeons before trying to send an army through, but by then, the country would know what they were doing because of the way the dungeons reacted and have time to mobilize their own army to counter them.
Our border to the north was open, but it led to a desert, which meant there was a minimum population north, but it wasn’t worth invading, because there was so little of value. Sarah brought us forward, as she had the most experience in the adventurer job; she had bonuses tied to being inside them, which let her make and lead groups more easily.
She whispered. “We’re getting close.” We moved forward and could make out the sounds of fighting, and I saw footprints in the snow. I leaned around a tree as I spied on what was happening to see a team of adventurers fighting their way through waves of goblins right before the dungeon boss. I recognized them from the village, but this was my first time seeing them fight, as they weren’t there when the bandits attacked. It put into perspective how little I knew about the villagers as they easily cleaved their way through.
