Detesting The System: Sundering Fate

"Whew," I exhaled as the five-plus hours-long concocting session that consumed my life since I started experimenting with Alchemy ended. Sadly, I could not fill up all twenty test tubes with health potions as improving was more important to me than potential profits at this point in time. Still, I managed to get thirteen health potions out of today's hard work, along with a decent boost in my understanding of several herbs.

Yes, all the herbs I used today had gone into making health potions, not because that was their intended use, but because the boundless path of alchemy allowed it! From the very start, I understood that Alchemy wasn't a linear path of progression like that of the games I used to play in my past life. There wasn't just one recipe or two for a potion, pill, or medicine. Instead, most if not all herbs could be used for any purpose, provided one had the insight and experience to pull off whatever insanity their imagination concoct; most alchemy was brewed from the mind, after all.

Thus, even if most of the herbs I picked and used today would have been best suited for some other product, I still managed to use them for concocting health potions. 'In the beginner stage, it's best to gain experience and understand herbs as best I can,' was the philosophy that drove me. Trying to make several different types of alchemical products now would just confuse me whilst simultaneously losing both time and resources.

"Damn, this is more tiring than I thought..." I muttered to myself as I walked up and over to the bathroom. I took a shower as I had any other day and checked my Status, a faint and genuine smile of satisfaction appearing for the first time in a while as I took in the progress I had made from practicing Alchemy.

[Status

Name: Nathanial Keter

Level: 1

Power: D 581 (C 633)

Endurance: D 585 (C 639)

Dexterity: D 591 (C 645)

Agility: D 583 (C 632)

Magic: A 822 (A 877)

Name: Light Flameling

Level: Null → H

Effect: Light Flameling's effects become stable under the control of the user's palms. Though still weak and barely usable in combat, for auxiliary purposes, the flameling isn't completely useless.

Name: Alchemy

Level: Null → H

Effect: Practised concoctions have a success rate and potency increase of 10%. Limited to Bad Quality pills, medicines, and potions.]

'Damn, Practising Alchemy sure does wonders for my Magic Stat… The increases in my physical parameters must have come from all the fighting I did after my break too,' I thought to myself as I used a towel to wipe myself clean. With all the fighting and concocting I'd done today I was essentially a walking ball of filth, blood, and sweat.

Now feeling much better, Hestia offered to update my Status, which I gladly accepted and before going to bed — or rather, the floor where I slept — I packed up most of my potions, leaving one for Bell and another for myself, to sell tomorrow.

…

The next day, at Miach's Blue Pharmacy, I had another encounter with Naaza. Walking in after picking up another lunch from the Hostess of Fertility, just before I left to train at the Dungeon, I had her appraise my potions as a representative of Miach. At first, she calmly tested the red health potions as emotionlessly as she had conversed with me. But slowly, she must have started picking up on the fact that each potion that she picked up was marginally better than the last.

Her facial expressions slowly changing from a slight rise of the brow to an almost gaping mouth, as if what she was looking at was incomprehensible, it certainly didn't help her case when she asked, "Say, Keter… Where'd you buy these potions?"

"Buy? No, I made them myself. Yesterday was my first time practicing the art of Alchemy..."

"R-right," She looked lost even as she put down the last of my potions. Standing there for so long that Miach himself made an appearance. "Ah, Keter! Visiting my shop twice in a row? Hahaha, what have you come for today?"

"I'm… having her appraise some of my Health Potions."

"Oh? A Human Alchemist are you? Let's see..." He did exactly as Naaza did, picking up and examining my health potions from the worst to best Quality and if it wasn't clear before, my health potions were quite the ghastly artifact to all that appraised them.

"Wow, you can literally see the improvement..." Miach muttered to himself before he walked over to Naaza's side, across the counter, and pulled out a stack of papers. He picked up a pen and wrote out his appraisal for each of the potions. The appraisal was accurate to my Appraisal Skill's judgment, only more with more details and his quality calligraphy was comparable to the precision of printers back on Earth.

Looking at Miach with gratitude, I asked, "So how much is the appraisal going to cost me?"

For a second he paused before finally saying, "I'm guessing you're not contracted, are you?"

"Contracted?" I had no idea what he was talking about.

"As an Alchemist, I mean… Essentially it means you and another party disclose terms for a long time relationship." He picked up my rack of potions and pointed at them whilst saying, "You could be contracted to different people for different reasons. For instance… If you were to accept a contract with me and my familia, you'd never have to pay for an appraising fee and would have access to unlimited containers at the cost of swearing your loyalty and agreeing to share a 5% share of the profits of all the products I appraise for you."

"Mhmm… Are you serious?" I asked, not quite believing in such a good deal. 5% as a share fee sounded too good to be true, especially since it was virtually the only thing he was asking for. Worrying about my loyalty wasn't even something he should have concerned himself over as most familias both large and small had irked me with their treatment on the very first day of my descent into this world. Moreover, I'd get unlimited containers? There wasn't a reason I should refuse a deal as good as this…

"I'd be a fool to turn away a diamond in the rough!" He exclaimed, looking at me with sparkles in his eyes all the while.

So, just like that, I agreed to become contracted to his familia as a fledgling Alchemist. I received my health potions back without having to pay even a single Vali for the appraisal. But along with the rest of my unused test tubes, I left the potions with Miach in his shop to free up space in my backpack for resources I'd harvest on today's trip to the Dungeon.