Chapter 13: The Next Stage of Alchemy

Chapter 13: The Next Stage of Alchemy

The way back to the clearing took Alisar more time than the trip to the village. Yes, he had become stronger and leveled up, but walking across fields and along the narrow forest path with a heavy bag was exhausting. The weight pulled at every step, and the road felt endless.

At last, the trees were behind him, and he stepped out onto the familiar open space. The very same clearing where he had first awakened… three days ago, in the middle of the night, when the girls had saved him. He looked around. Of course, they were long gone. Still, somewhere deep inside, a faint hope stirred — that he might meet them again someday.

He sighed, dropped the bag from his shoulder, took out the tent, and began setting it up. What should have been a simple task ended up taking over two hours.

“Damn... why is this so hard?” he muttered, fumbling with the cords.

It was his first attempt. He had never pitched a tent before and simply didn’t know how to do it. Without experience, even the simplest things became a struggle.

Once he finally finished and took a moment to look around, his gaze caught on a wide ravine not far from the clearing. Roughly thirty meters across, and at the very bottom flowed a familiar rushing river. This was the place.

He walked closer and noticed a slope — a narrow path leading safely down along the edge. A way in and out. He immediately understood: this was how the girls had carried him up after he lost consciousness. Everything now made sense.

Before leaving, he had taken only some food and two nearly empty water flasks. He knew there was a clean, running river somewhere nearby, so there was no need to carry extra weight.

He descended the slope carefully and made his way to the river. Kneeling by the water, he filled both flasks with fresh, cool water.

Returning to the camp, he arranged his supplies and checked his gear. Everything was ready. He stepped out of the tent, picked up the water and some food — and activated his skill.

The next moment, he was inside the training room.

“All right,” he said quietly. “Let’s begin.”

And, as usual, the training began.

---

One week had passed.

Or rather, one week had passed in the outside world. For Alisar, it had been nearly three — since he spent most of his time inside the training room, only stepping out to refill his food and water supplies, and to get some sleep. That alone took about seven hours a day. The rest — was training.

Health potions became his salvation. Without them, he wouldn’t have lasted even three days in such a grueling rhythm. Every four to five hours after an exhausting training session, he drank one — to recover and continue. Fortunately, the training room itself and the difficulty of the equipment didn’t increase arbitrarily. They adjusted to his current stats, maintaining the same level of challenge at each stage. Only when he invested earned points to unlock a new training level did things actually become harder.

Over this one week in real time — or nearly three weeks for him — he had completed eight levels of the training room and earned eighty million experience points. That was a huge amount. But with each new level, the experience required also increased. Gaining levels became harder, and progressing through each training phase demanded more and more from him.

Even so, the result was impressive — he had reached level 61. Only ten days had passed since he arrived in this world. Sixty-one levels in ten days — it seemed almost impossible. Even though the pace had started to slow, it was still remarkable.

As always, he spent every free attribute point to increase his mana pool. That remained his core strength, and he stuck to his strategy without hesitation.

---

Name: Alisar
Level: 61
Rank: 3

HP: 5210 + 4320
MP: 7140 + 8640

Strength: 191 + 144
Defense: 164 + 144
Speed: 166 + 144
Intellect: 246 + 288
Magic Power: 229 + 288
Magic Defense: 239 + 288

Free Attribute Points: 0

Skills: —
Special Skills:
— Training Room (Level 33)
— Alchemy (Rank 1)

Experience Points: 915,000 points

---

His stats had almost doubled. To be precise, his physical parameters — strength, defense, speed — had roughly doubled. But his magical attributes... those had increased by more than twice. Especially his mana.

Alisar looked at his travel bag. Large and heavy. It was now almost entirely filled with first-rank health potions — there had to be more than three hundred of them. He had spent every bit of spare mana on crafting them.

During that time, he came to understand something important: mana didn’t just regenerate in the real world. Even inside the training room, where time flowed differently, it recovered just the same — in proportion to the time that passed. If it normally took twelve hours for his mana to fully recover, then twelve hours spent inside the training room — by its own internal clock — would restore it completely. No restrictions. Just as it should be.

By his calculations, if he didn’t spend any mana and simply waited, he could now craft nearly ninety potions per day. Almost ninety. That was... enormous.

“With that kind of output... I could buy a house in a city,” he muttered with a dry smile. “Live in luxury. Comfort. For the rest of my life.”

He paused for a moment.

“Damn... if only it were that simple. No, it’s too dangerous. If anyone finds out about my Alchemy skill…”

His gaze fell heavily on the bag. No — hiring guards wasn’t a solution. Even if he could afford them, could anyone really be trusted in this world? Too risky. The only reliable option... was to become stronger. Much stronger.

He looked back down at the potions.

“Without them, I never would’ve lasted this long in the training room,” he admitted to himself.

He remembered: around the third day of training, just before going to bed, he had been too exhausted and forgot to drink a potion. When he woke up, every muscle in his body ached. So much that he could barely move. If he hadn’t immediately downed a health potion that morning, he would’ve spent the entire day lying in his tent, unable to do anything.

Since then, he had never once forgotten to take a potion before sleep. Especially now, with exhaustion beginning to catch up with him. Not physically — mentally. The past few days had started to wear him down.

He estimated that his food supply would last another ten days — about three days in real-world time. The rest was stored in the tent, of course. But how much more potion could he fit into the bag? It was nearly full.

At this rate, the potions would no longer fit in his bag. It was already nearly full, and he could still create so many more using his Alchemy skill.

"Alright..." he muttered. "What about second-rank potions?"

He paused for a moment.

"And when is my Alchemy skill finally going to reach the second rank?"

No sooner had he thought it than a familiar translucent system window appeared before his eyes:

> Would you like to spend 99,559 experience points to upgrade the skill Alchemy to Rank 2?
[Yes] [No]

“I should’ve thought of this earlier,” he said to himself, reading the number.

99,559 — that wasn’t much, especially compared to the millions needed to level up. But… why not an even 100,000?

He thought for a moment.

“Oh… maybe because I’ve already created around four hundred and forty-one potions. I’m not sure about the exact number, but that should be roughly how many I’ve made over these past ten days.”

He glanced at his bag, now stuffed with potions, and gave a faint smile.

“Looks like each potion gives one point of experience toward Alchemy itself. If the system didn’t allow me to spend general experience, I would’ve needed to craft one hundred thousand potions to reach the second rank naturally.”

He nodded to himself.

“Good thing the system lets you just pay the experience. That makes things easier.”

He looked at the window again and mentally confirmed his choice.

> Alchemy skill has been raised to Rank 2.

The message appeared before his eyes. Alisar immediately opened his status window and scrolled down.

“Alchemy, second rank…” he muttered softly, nodding. “Got it.”

He glanced at his remaining experience points.

“Still have 815 thousand... Hm. Maybe I should try to raise Alchemy to the third rank right away?”

As soon as he thought that, the next message appeared:

> Would you like to spend 10,000,000 experience points to upgrade the Alchemy skill to Rank 3?

“Damn...” he exhaled. “Ten million. Of course, 815 thousand doesn’t even come close. Alright. I’ll come back to that later.”

He closed the window and opened the Alchemy panel. With the new rank, he could now create second-rank potions.

Interesting — how much better were they than first-rank ones?

He scrolled through the available recipes:

> Health Potion (Rank 2):
Cost: 5000 mana
Restores: 10,000 HP

> Mana Potion (Rank 2):
Cost: 5000 mana
Restores: 2500 MP

> Experience Potion (Rank 2):
Cost: 5,000,000 mana
Grants: 10,000 EXP

“Hm...” he squinted. “The health potion is excellent. It restores ten times more HP than the first-rank one. And on top of that, it's twice as efficient in terms of mana cost. Used to be one-to-one—now it’s two-to-one. That’s powerful.”

He moved to the next recipe.

“Mana potion... not much has changed. It costs more, restores more, but the efficiency is the same — half of what was spent. Just a larger scale. Not impressive.”

Then he opened the experience potion recipe.

“Five million mana for ten thousand EXP. That’s a drop in the bucket now, but still nice. If only I had at least a million mana…”

He let out a heavy sigh. “Still not even close to a dream.”

He looked at his current mana reserve.

“Alright… enough for just one second-rank health potion.”

He activated the Alchemy skill.

With a small flash of light, the potion appeared in the air right in front of him. Alisar effortlessly caught the vial — just like he had done many times before.

“Done. My first second-rank potion,” he said quietly. “The beginning of a new stage.”

He held the second-rank potion in one hand and carefully reached into his bag with the other to take out a first-rank potion for comparison.

“Wait a second… why do they look the same? Is this really a second-rank potion?”

He frowned and looked at both vials again. By appearance alone, they were completely identical.

“Alright…” he muttered and gently placed the first-rank potion back into the bag. “I’d better not mix them up.”

He set the second-rank potion down next to the bag, apart from the others.

“Better not mix them,” he said quietly. “Otherwise, I really won’t be able to tell them apart later.”