Potions and Pastures

Alchemy is so fun!

So I've been making all sorts of things to earn XP.

"Still, I can see why Penpen stopped at Beginner-level alchemy…"

Right. There are all kinds of potions in alchemy.

Like, an unnecessarily wide variety. Recovery Potions, Plant Nutrients, Fertilizer, and the like are all covered at the Beginner level.

In fact, pretty much every combat-useful potion is available at Beginner.

Intermediate-level potions, on the other hand, use somewhat rare ingredients while being… extremely questionable in their usefulness.

A breath-sweetening potion. Makes your breath smell like vanilla for two hours. A massive sneeze potion. One single, colossal sneeze. An extreme forgetfulness potion. You do eventually remember things on your own, though.

… What the heck is this useless potion series?

You'd think the sneeze potion or the forgetfulness potion could be useful if applied cleverly, but you need to drink a whole bottle for the effect to kick in. Good luck getting an enemy to chug one mid-combat.

"They're only classified as Intermediate because of the ingredient rarity and crafting difficulty. Zero practical use… Maybe they're meant for guild delivery events?"

"What kind of event would even require delivering potions like these, yo?"

"No clue. Absolutely no clue."

Well, they don't seem to expire, so I'll just toss them in the Home storage.

"It's kinda like, common herbs got researched to death and turned into useful potions, but when they fumbled around with the hard-to-get stuff, all they got were wacky potions?"

"… Well sure, but when you put it that way, who even verified that rare ingredients make effective potions in the first place, yo?"

"Maybe Advanced-level is where the good stuff starts. Like, the Advanced recipes were probably created by people skilled enough to predict effects and applications based on ingredient properties. Probably."

I sure hope so.

All I have is the Intermediate recipe book Penpen handed down to me, so I wouldn't know.

"Lemme see the Intermediate recipe book, yo… Ooh. Huh. It really is all weird potions, yo."

"Right? Oh, there's a potion that removes slime from fish."

"Vinegar or salt water, yo? If it actually works for cooking, give it to Penpen, yo."

Well, let me just go through and make everything I have ingredients for that I haven't tried yet.

Apparently you get a first-time crafting bonus to XP for each new recipe.

… What's this? Oh, incense. Nice-smelling incense. Huh. And this one's foul-smelling incense… It attracts Fly-type monsters? Huh, things like that exist too. Could be useful depending on the situation. The ingredients are almost identical, though…? And the nice-smelling one is banana-scented.

"Oh, my alchemy level went up… Yeah, the potions are all weird, but those first-time bonuses are pretty sweet."

"Which one's the nice-smelling incense, yo?"

"Crap. I made them look the same."

They only differ by one ingredient, so they look almost identical.

Fifty-fifty chance… actually, I can just sniff them. sniff sniff… blegh! That's the stinky one. Ugh.

"… Alright, I've made one of everything I could."

"Sho tired～"

"Good work, Miitei-chan."

"Oh, all done? Let's head to Penpen's, yo!"

Yeah, good stopping point. Let's take a break and swing by Penpen's place.

I'm curious about the ranch, too!

 

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I switched control to Tria-chan and headed to Penpen's ranch with Miitei-chan tagging along.

Walking would take a while, but Fast Travel gets us there in an instant.

Penpen's new Home already had wooden fences and a stable set up on the land.

And there in the ranch was Penpen, energetically brushing a cow!!

"It's a white cow with black spots! I've only ever seen those in games and anime!!"

"Penpen, we came to visit, yo! How's the ranch going, yo?"

"Oh, Tria-shi, Alto-shi. Welcome! It's not mealtime yet, though?"

"Tria hit a good stopping point with alchemy, so we came to hang, yo. Anything we can help with, yo?"

"Killing the trash mobs around here, maybe? No matter how many we take out, they just keep respawning."

Apparently Gin-chan's been killing them endlessly on Auto Mode. She's earning XP from it, but Penpen wants to give her a break.

"Can't you do something with your crafting skills? Like a monster repellent?"

"That'd stress out cow-kun, y'see. Since, well, cow-kun's a monster too."

Oh, the cow's a monster?

"It was fine when it was just the stable and fence, but once I brought cow-kun over, the raids started outta nowhere. Oh, and if you switch off VR display, there's a Tower Defense minigame for protecting the ranch!"

"Huh. That sounds kinda fun on its own."

"With Gin-chan as my only unit, the first cow-kun got wiped out, so I've only played it once. Oh, this cow's the second-gen, by the way."

I see, so there's a risk of losing the cow if you fail. Plus stable repair costs and everything.

"So that's why I'm training up Gin-chan right now."

"If it's Tower Defense, can't you add more units? Like, Penpen could build something?"

"I'd love to develop some automated attack machines… but the cow and stable were bought on loan…!"

"More debt, huh. Classic."

"I'll pay extra for meals, so put it toward your payments, yo!"

"Thanks a bunch! I'll put my heart into cooking with what's left of the first-gen cow!"

If it's just fighting off whatever comes attacking, we should be able to pitch in too.