7 – A critical exploit
After that, I headed back into the city. As expected, I was being watched. But that wouldn’t be for long.
The sun was setting and night was falling. I kept wandering around until it finally did. When the sun faded and the moon replaced it, I ducked into a side alley and activated concealment. When I did, the gazes on me vanished.
I heard a few people gasp in surprise, but I didn’t stick around. Dumping my stats into agility, I ran out of the city and back into the fields.
Once outside, I kept my concealment on and wandered around searching for monsters. I had reduced my agility to a minimum, the abilities of an average human, and put over a hundred points into strength. Although not the highest, it would be enough to one-shot anything around here.
And it was.
I killed over a hundred balloons, red, yellow, and orange. I killed some sleeping monsters that looked like birds. In doing so, I got plenty of resources to mess around with.
I also went around picking up herbs.
After a few hours of that, I decided to take a break and sat down at a random spot on the meadows. I sighed and glanced at the sky.
The moon was still hanging high overhead, and the stars were out. None of them were those that I remembered, however.
“Freaking annoying.”
I missed Earth. Ice cream, cake, burgers, the internet… even a shower. Totally first world problems, but I couldn’t help it. For me, being super strong and having magic wasn’t as cool as having an entire world filled with games and stories at your fingertips.
I sighed and leaned back on the grass.
A cool wind blew across the grassy fields.
I was still concealed, so I didn’t have to worry about anything attacking me. Even if I did, just in case, I shifted all of my stats back to HP and defense. With that, it’d take a few hits to kill me, and even then that’d be a long-shot.
With all the grinding, I’d reached level 6. With it, my capacity increased again. 40 free points to allot.
I opened up the window like usual and pondered on what to use it on.
“…Healing would probably be a good idea.”
It’d be annoying to keep having to fight by myself, but at the same time that would mean having to take care of others. But support abilities took up greater capacity…
“Hm.”
Suddenly, I had a thought.
If synthesis used up experience and my capacity increased with level… didn’t that mean that I could drop my levels and keep increasing my capacity? Not only that, just what were the limits to synthesis? Surely, it wouldn’t just be weapons, right?
Excited, I quickly sat up and opened the synthesis menu.
Glancing at my status screen, I saw that I was only a couple hundred experience points over level 6. If I depleted them all, I’d drop a level… probably. But would that drop my stats as well? Or my capacity?
Since I had extra of both, I decided to try it out.
“A useful item…”
Since I was going all out, I might as well make something I could use as well. In the end, I decided on an elixir. Something that could bring someone back from the edge of death and restore their body to their prime… no, why stop there?
I wanted something that could rewrite the whole body. Like those immortal medicines, something that could cleanse every pore, every meridian, reforge the bones, reforge the blood, and even reforge one’s potential.
But how would that work?
I spent the whole night poring over the design document for the immortal medicine. Wrapped up in the moment, I went all out. I wrote down everything I remembered about human anatomy, about cultivation, about how magic could flow, about magic circuits…
I wrote down how energy could only be transmuted, not destroyed. How everything on a fundamental level was simply energy. The laws of physics.
Anything and everything that might be useful, I added into the elixir’s design.
When the sun rose, I had finished.
[Transcendent Elixir of Rebirth]
That was the name of the item. Something that could take someone who was blind, crippled, and a breath away from death and rocket them into the path of a hero. The strongest magic potential, the strongest physique, the highest aptitude… all of it would be obtained. Granted, it would only be ‘potential’, not immediate power. That was the compromise I had to have if I wanted it within my budget. Even then, the medicine was costly.
I stared at the button and tapped it.
[Warning: Synthesis will reduce your Level to 1. Stats will be decreased! All of your current materials will be used in the process!]
“Like I care about that! Just do it already!”
I tapped the button again.
A surge of energy erupted and my shield felt like it was melting off my arm. At the same time, I felt something being sapped away, my body becoming tangibly weaker. All of that happened for what felt like an eternity. But when it finished, there was a bottle of iridescent light floating in front of me, radiating a domineering aura.
I smiled and grabbed it before tucking it back into my inventory. I was tempted to use it… but that’d be a waste.
After checking my status screen, my smile grew wider.
My stats decreased… but my Capacity didn’t. I was still 40/60.
“Perfect.”
I stood up and started walking.
Time to grind.
===
A week passed without much change. I killed monsters in the day and gathered any herbs I might find, sold items in the afternoon, and then went back to grinding out levels in earnest at night.
Sadly, it seemed that either the system had caught on to my exploits or that it just took more levels than usual to increase my capacity. After continually resetting to level 1 every night after reaching level 6 in the day and making various elixirs, some to increase stats, others to heal, my capacity had capped out at 255.
That left me with 235 capacity to mess around with. I had a lot of ideas to play with, but now it was time to head back into town.
It’d been a while before I had a good meal, so I decided to head to town and buy something tasty to eat.
Since I didn’t know where to go, I headed back to the inn’s tavern. The waitress from when I was with Mein before saw me as I entered and her eyes widened. Surprisingly, she didn’t seem upset or look at me with contempt. Instead, there was… concern? Pity?
Either way, she quickly made her way towards me. “Dear customer, if you’ll follow me I’ll lead you to a seat.”
The waitress led me to a table in the corner of the diner. A lot of eyes followed me as I walked, but I ignored them.
She placed a menu down in front of me and then said, “I heard what happened. Mister Hero, you-“
“I trust your judgment, so give me what you think is the tastiest thing here and something sweet to drink. Non-alcoholic of course.”
I cut the waitress off before she could get going on a rant.
She froze and then patted her chest. “You can count on me!” With that, she headed off, leaving me alone.
People stared at me, but I ignored them. I opened my status, specifically my IDE and began working on my next upgrades.
I had 235 capacity to spare… with that I could probably make something big.
“Let’s see…”
What would be most useful to me?
…Hm. Could I make Avalon?
…Nope. That cost over a million capacity points. Figured.
Rho Aias? …Nope. 500k.
Aegis? …Still nope. 800k.
I guess high end defensive equipment with a mythological backing was impossible for now.
…Actually, would that even be possible in the first place? A million capacity would be… 100,000 levels? This world was capped, wasn’t it? How the hell…?
Ah, whatever. I’d work that out later.
Hm… then how about a shield that drew all damage to me? Kind of like ‘guard’ from FF? And then something that mitigated the damage taken… maybe something that stopped instant kills too?
[Guard Shield – 100 capacity]
100 capacity. That was it? I thought it might be more… but I’d take it.
That left 125 points.
Hm… I might as well grab a few more magic spells while I had the chance. One for each classical element. Maybe some off the wall spells too…
“Here you are, dear customer.” The waitress’s voice stirred me out of my thoughts. “Citra Juice and our best usagi stew. I’m afraid there isn’t much better, but…”
I smiled. “It’s fine. Here.” I placed two silver coins on the table.
The waitress’s eyes grew wide again. “Dear customer… no, Sir Hero, I-“
“Take it and leave me be. I’m busy.”
The waitress stared at me and then nodded. “Then… thank you, sir. And… I’m cheering for you.”
Leaving those words behind, the waitress left in a hurry. I think there was a blush on her face too, but I ignored it.
I took a sip of the juice. Sweet and citrusy, like its name. It reminded me of a mix between orange juice and lemonade. Orangeade? But sweeter.
After that, I set about working on updating my abilities again, eating and drinking between thoughts.
While I was doing that, another person walked over to me. No, not just one person, but a group of three. Some rough looking guys, probably rogue adventurers.
“Oh, Mister Shield Hero. We’ll be your companions.”
I glanced up at them for a moment and then scoffed. “You weaklings? Please. I don’t need cannon fodder.”
“Wha-! Hey, you bastard! We’re doing you a favor by-“
“-By getting lost as quickly as you can, right? It’d be a shame for me to have to toss you guys out when you’re disturbing the other patrons.”
“You-“
I sighed and then activated the latest of my new spells, Fear. “Leave.”
The man talking to me blanched, instantly paling and staggered backwards. His buddies did as well, scrambling to get out of the way. “W-We’ll be back-“
“Don’t make me repeat myself.”
My words were the last straw. The three ran off, almost pissing their pants.
The waitress who served me was in the way and she had to step out of the way to avoid them.
She walked over to me and bowed her head. “I apologize, Sir Hero, but-“
I sighed again. “It’s not a problem.” I glanced at my bowl and cup. I’d lost my appetite now, but the juice was too good to pass up. I grabbed it and downed it before standing up.
“Thanks for the meal. Have a good day.”
With those words said, I left the tavern.