The Great Thief

Garona pushed open the warehouse door nearby. Lu Li just stared at the number of herbs that were stored there.

Lu Li still felt like he had been screwed, but he had no choice but to accept his fate.

In fact, Garona didn’t completely screw him over. Lu Li had never heard of any teachers providing their students with a lab and a mountain of materials for free. This was likely just sheer luck as the NPCs couldn’t understand the importance that the players placed on the competitions.

Garona soon left Lu Li to settle into his new place, but she seemed apologetic when she left, so she also left a book on poisons.

Venomous Tome (Special): Poison production success rate increased by 20%. There is a certain probability bonus EXP is awarded for successful production. There is also a certain probability that successful production can result in doubling of the poison. This item exclusively belongs to Lu Li.

This was a valuable item that immediately took effect when placed into Lu Li’s backpack. Lu Li’s original resentments had now suddenly vanished.

Instead of blaming someone else, it was better for him to resolve the problem quickly.

He rushed to the warehouse and picked several low-grade herbs. After filling his backpack, he returned back to the testing bench.

Although Garona’s poison system didn’t require any formulas, nor were there any special requirements to start with low level herbs, Lu Li reasoned that since this was still part of a game, it would follow the common principles when it came to levelling.

The first step was for him to get familiar with the equipment. Although the tower was in ruins, the equipment here was very advanced.

There was no doubt that if you had a friend who was a good tinkerer (like the best gnome engineer), you wouldn’t have to worry about lacking in experimental equipment.

Lu Li took off his cloak and everything weighing him down. He washed his face with a hose in the lab’s washing room; the cool water felt quite refreshing.

There were so many things that had happened today that it was inevitable he would feel overwhelmed.

After he had completed his preparations, Lu Li took a deep breath before pulling out a bundle of Dragon Claw Grass and throwing it into the grinder. This was his first attempt at being at Poison Brewer.

Alchemy was a complicated science, but the practical steps to accomplishing it were not. You just had to prepare the various things needed according to the formula and follow the necessary steps. The reason why Engineering was difficult was because it had many manual operations.

Right now, this poison making process was even more complex.

It was all done by hand, and Lu Li didn’t know what the formulas were. While waiting for the grinding to finish, he scrambled around looking for an article on poison making.

There were no formulas provided, but there was some explanation about the herbs.

The most important thing was to note the compatibilities between the different properties of each herb. For example, the Dragon Claw Grass couldn’t be mixed with the Nine Knot Lotus. Although both were poisonous grasses, they neutralized each other.

Just having the Dragon Claw Grass isn’t enough. What else are you going to put in?”

“Poinsettia?”

Poinsettia was a very toxic flower which had a poisonous body. Eating its stems and leaves were usually lethal, and the white juice in its stems and leaves was particularly toxic.

“Just try it, since there is so much material here for you anyway.”

Lu Li snorted, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to steal these herbs and sell them, nor could he put these in his own guild warehouse. Fortunately, since there was an abundance of materials, it wouldn’t matter too much if he wasted a little here.

But soon, Lu Li found himself taking it for granted.

After grinding the Dragon Claw Grass, only the pulp was left. The Poinsettia, when ground, would produce a significant amount of liquid. However, as soon as these two things were mixed, there was a reaction that just resulted in some liquid that remained.

Lu Li took a dagger and applied this solution onto his dagger.

There were some special modes in the game, where you could actually test the amount of damage on your own body. When an Alchemist tested healing effects or HP-increasing effects, they would often hurt themselves or a friend before taking the medicine to see its effect. When he cut himself, it did a little bit of damage. He didn’t expect this low-level herb to deal much damage, but the damage was reduced quite quickly. The effect dissipated very quickly and was not nearly-enduring enough. This meant that it wasn’t sticky enough.

Nevertheless, since there was some damage, this meant that he was heading in the right direction. As long as he could solve the issue of the poison’s viscosity, he would obtain some EXP.

Lu Li rummaged through some more information. Although Garona didn’t personally teach Lu Li, she used mechanical dogs to send relevant information. Lu Li could always find what he needed through these materials. His teacher wasn’t really hands-on in instructing him.

He rummaged through the paper for a while and finally found something reliable.

The Snake Orchid was a plant grown in the Snake Valley. It had no medicinal properties and wasn’t toxic, but there were some alchemy recipes that always required it. Lu Li had previously been confused about it, but he had never considered the reason for it. After all, it was a just a game and few alchemists would spend time thinking about why the herbs in the recipe should matter.

Now, Lu Li had found a reasonable explanation in this herbs book.

This herb was a good neutralizer that could dilute the herbs that were reacting with one another without damaging their medicinal properties. In addition, it was a plant that didn’t absorb much liquid, nor did it produce any moisture after grinding. It could be used to absorb some of the excess liquid from the Dragon Claw Grass and Poinsettia.

Lu Li’s seemed to be quite lucky. When the System prompted that he had made a new poison and asked him to name it, he knew that he had been successful.

Unnamed Poison: 5 additional damage to the target for 2 minutes.

He had to admit that this was very weak, but Lu Li wasn’t disappointed. These were two of the lowest level herbs available, but it still gave a lot of EXP – 12 points.

This was absolutely impossible in ordinary alchemy. Lu Li remembered when he was farming with his first recipe that two or three bottles of a healing potion would only give him a little bit of EXP.

The process of feeling your way through the whole recipe was the reason for this excessive EXP award.

“Just call it Damage 1…”

Lu Li casually decided a name for this poison. He decided that his naming scheme would be its main effect following by a serial number. Any other effects would also be listed.

Garona, on the other hand, had named the poison she used to deal with Belgrave as the Vengeance Poison.

Lu Li tried to make a new poison with three herbs according the proportions that he had studied, but the results were frustrating. Not a single point of EXP was given. In alchemy, as long as the item was not completely useless, there was some EXP awarded.

This meant that Lu Li had to constantly discover new formulas to gain EXP.