"So ugly..."
I muttered at the reflection in my mirror.
A black eye devoid of light. A common feature in the previous world I was in, but a rather rare sight in this world.
Below it were thick dark circles forming due to the sleep deprivation, and a mole. I'd be admiring it if it wasn't me. The beauty standard of this world was too high.
The water drop flowed down from my drenched hair. Feeling lazy, I let my hand run through it to prevent the water from getting to my face.
'The root had turned grey...' I powerlessly dropped my eyelid.
7 days.
That was the duration I experienced an agonizing "experiment."
Who knows if it was days longer, my hair would've turned fully white.
But I felt no happiness or whatnot despite experiencing a life-turning transformation, an edgy anime fan such as myself would dream of.
'...Okay, I lied a little.'
Still, if I could, I wouldn't wanna experience that again. Although I'd probably make the same choice... Like a moth attracted by the fire.
A person like me rarely changes.
There are two kinds of people in this world: the ones who live for themselves, and the ones who live for others.
It's something more than a hero and villain.
People like me… will never find anything worth holding inside, no matter how long we live.
That's why we find meaning in someone. Finding oneself in someone's radiance—because… It's the only way a nothing can become something.
That's why... even if I risk revealing myself to worse calamity, I would take the same choice.
Yawning deeply, I quickly refreshed myself by splashing clean water in my face, effectively washing all the remaining dirt that was stuck after the shower.
Not long after, I opened my stats to see if there were changes. Not that I did some training, but such an agonizing experience is bound to cause a transformation in my body.
[Mochizuki Ren]
・(E) Strength 17 (↑ 4) ・(D) Perception 61 (↑ 38)
・(E) Agility 19 (↑ 2)・(E) Wisdom 37 (↑ 3)
・(E) Intelligence 11・(FFF) Magic -999
Passive/Active Skills -
[Hyper-Sensitive Magic Circuits] Lv.3 (↑ 2)
◦ Due to the overloaded magic circuits, inability to channel nor store mana.
◦ The shattered circuits vibrate when mana passes, sending instinctive feedback through the nerves.
+13% Agility (↑ 3%)
+26% Perception (↑ 6%)
+59% Wisdom (↑ 9%)
Enhanced sight
Sixth Sense: Danger Sight—upon activation, enables one to instinctively feel when "cause and effect" around the user is shifting toward danger.
[Pain Resistance] Lv.7
Reduces mental stress from pain signals by 35%
Unique Skill: [Blink] - Lv.1 → 2
Interpretation 1: I don't want to be here…
Advance Interpretation 5: I don't care where—just not here.
(1) Teleports the user within 3 meters after 2 seconds of channeling.
(1) If the user is harmed or loses focus, the channeling is interrupted. → channel cannot be interrupted.
(5) Most forms of restriction cannot affect the usage of Blink
Cooldown: 5s
I didn't like my new interpretation of a unique skill, but it was an inevitable thing caused by my strong emotion.
If possible, I wanted to erase the channel time of my blink at 5th-level Blink, but now that I used advance interpretation, I could only wait for Level 10.
But in contrast to that, I've hit a jackpot.
I raised my fist happily without making a sound from earning [Pain Resistance], and it hit level 7 this early? This is a case never seen before in any playthrough of mine.
In my happiness, I lost control of the demonic energy inside me, causing me to vomit a purple substance.
"Koff koff," coughing, uncomfortably, I regained control of the energy inside my body and compressed it in one spot.
I dual-tasked my thought process. [Pain Resistance] itself wasn't much of a special skill, nor did it bring special help in the game, but here was real life.
The tiniest pain could bring error to the judgment and ruin the situation. I assume that this skill would help me a lot in the future.
Sorting my head, I planned out the future while simultaneously being aware of losing control with the energy wanting to roam inside me.
First of all, I had to prevent this demonic energy from going out of control. If I had mana, I could make an autonomous program to keep it in control, but unfortunately, I didn't have one.
Therefore, I had to endure for a year.
A year to let my human body adapt to this unfamiliar energy inside.
A year to assimilate and digest.
Or I could rank up to strengthen my body's adaptability, but I didn't want to hurry and ruin my foundation.
'Then it's all decided.'
With a resolution in my mind, I headed toward the storage where the Mad Scientist permitted me to take whatever I wanted.
- - -
*click*
With a click, the dim room lightened up, revealing countless familiar yet unfamiliar items and materials.
There were swords and armor. But not only that, but here also resided nature-formed materials such as plants and ores.
However, most of these things were commonly found everywhere. Most rare items stayed in a place protected by a mana seal.
If I could use mana, I'd have a way to open the seal, but I could only stare at those rare items that would help my and the game protagonists' growth a lot with drool.
It's as if Mad Scientist were saying, "Take everything if you can. Oh, you can't, can you?"
Sighing helplessly, I took every material and ingredient I could, and even then, the storage was still overflowing with stuff.
After satisfying myself, I headed toward the equipment zone, where I found a wooden sword.
[Criticaphosis]
A wooden sword designed to last long and change shape according to the user's preference.
In pursuit of durability, the wooden sword lost most of its function to deal damage.
However, its creator considers this wooden sword as one of their masterpiece.
Nodding at the system interface, I headed toward the alchemy room without a thought.
Rather, most of my thoughts were focused on keeping the demonic energy in control.
While on my way, multiple demons brushed aside me as they rushed somewhere, ranting "attack" or whatever gibberish, but I ignored them.
- - -
In the alchemy room, I placed down the ingredients and my hand on the table, recalling my past memories.
Alchemy existed in Chronofall like most role-playing games.
Simply speaking, you combine multiple ingredients to create a pill or potion.
But Alchemy was an easy-to-learn, hard-to-master occupation. While it's just mixing stuff at core, it involves many factors such as: ingredient ratios, catalysts, heat control, star signs, luck, etc…
Even if you did everything perfectly, if the god of alchemy hated it, the ingredients would explode. There's a way to achieve a 100% completion rate, but humanity's advancement hasn't gone that far yet.
"The best is to treat alchemy like cooking," I muttered to myself.
With half an excitement and fear that it'd fail so terribly that it would kill me, I heated the cauldron half-filled with water.
I was making potions this time.
Feeling the heat from a distance with the help of my perception, I took ingredients with precision and swiftness and threw them, causing the boiling water inside the cauldron to splash.
[Grass That Grows Everywhere]
[Blue Spider Lily]
[Wooden Apple]
If an alchemist were looking at my rash action, they'd tell me to calm down to prevent me from ruining perfectly good ingredients, but I'd say to…
"Hold my beer" - underaged brat.
From halfway, the cauldron started shaking violently as the heat intensified. This is a bad sign that the ingredients inside are a second away from exploding.
What did I do to prevent my alchemy from failing?
I took the wooden sword in my hand and smacked the cauldron, causing it to violently shake, rotate, then…
*BOOM*
The ingredients inside exploded, and a black smoke rose from the cauldron. In one instance, a terrible stench spread everywhere in the room.
"Ah, this smell…" I darkened my face.
"It's a failure. I was milliseconds too early from 'parrying' it…"
I cursed the demonic energy inside me. If it wasn't for this damned thing inside me numbing my thoughts, I'd have succeeded in making it.
[Grade 0 Perfected Ancient Stamina Potions]
In this world, anything ancient had amazing potency due to its high demand.
Ancient Health Potions could restore half your body and keep you alive.
Ancient Mana Potions could store mana inside beyond your capacity, turning you into a mage god for a certain duration.
Ancient Stamina Potions were the same. It could restore not only your fatigue, but also a portion of your mental fatigue and numb you to stress.
Perfected Ancient Stamina Potions were an improvement created by gamers to almost nullify the side effects and enhance the benefits.
Just... creating it was really hard. It required you to throw the exact portions of ingredients with precision, and the movement of water was equally important.
Finally, it required you to 'parry' the effects brought by the failure to make use of the sudden rise of heat generated by the explosion to complete the potions.
Just from one potion, it required you to be adept at two veteran techniques [Nuke Parry] & [Water Dances], the latter being a joke name by the inventor despite its difficulty to replicate.
"Good thing, I've bought many spares so I don't have to return to the storage room." Lightly slapping my cheeks, I restarted, ignoring the terrible stench spreading everywhere.
No matter how terrible it is, my previous life's room was much worse.
[Failure]
[Failure]
[Failure]
[Success!!]
"Finally!" I swiftly poured the lava-hot green liquids into the vial to store the stamina potions and placed it where it doesn't touch the table to cool it down.
"That's enough to restore my one week of sleep deprivation! Let's make more," with a hope presented in front, that what I worked on in the game worked here too, my eyes regained light.
With ingredients in hand, ready to throw them in the heated cauldron, a sudden sunlight poured over the roof.
"Hm?" I placed my finger in the tiny sunlight curiously
It was at that moment…
*BOOM*
A huge explosion occurred from above, causing the debris to fall over, bizarrely avoiding me and my surroundings.
"Return my students, demons!!"
From above, a petite figure jumped down holding a magic staff that was bigger than her.
Her oversized wizard hat piqued as she moved her head, attentively checking her surroundings. But she found no one but me and the terrible stench.
'Welcome, Headmaster. You're a week late,' I inwardly said, not surprised at her sudden appearance.