"It is cool… I made it."
I said doubtfully. I couldn't believe that I had created something so attractive. But the notification that came next confirmed my doubts.
[Congratulations on making your first rare item.]
[Dexterity increased by +10]
Damn nice.
I picked up the spear and swung it around to test it. Since it didn't have any class restrictions, anyone could use it.
Swing! Slash!
I swung and slashed the spear and couldn't help but feel proud. Although it was nothing like blacksmithing, alchemy was still a production class.
And I had made my first ever rare item!
Not only did it have a lot of damage for a low restriction, it even increased attack speed, was light, durable, and most importantly, it even had an option!
Items with option effects like this one, where every critical strike would deal additional dark damage, were rare in the game.
'I am sure even the people in level 40-50s would die to buy this weapon.'
"Here you go."
I handed over the spear to Jeze before I got any more greedy thoughts.
"I can't accept this, you made this. You should use it. It looks powerful too…. What are you staring at?"
I stared at Jeze at her words as I made her hold the spear forcefully.
"This was your spear, to begin with. I just made a bit of a change in it. Now it should be lighter and more powerful."
After some convincing, Jeze finally accepted the weapon and tested it out, only to be surprised.
"It looks like it would be heavy, but it isn't heavy at all and carries a lot of force behind it even without the heaviness."
She praised me, and I just chuckled at her praise.
After a while, I thought of how I needed to maintain Eclipse's durability and looked through the guide to find something related.
'There it is!'
I found out the alchemy that repaired items. This time, I drew a rectangle with a half-moon pattern in it and then placed Eclipse on it.
"Bring me some oil and cotton, if possible."
I asked Jeze. Since the people here used the oil extracted from the mushrooms, I knew they had oil here, but I wasn't sure about cotton. After a while, Jeze brought a utensil made out of clay with at least 300 ml of oil. In her left hand, she had a large bunch of cotton.
"Where did you find the cotton?"
"The Talaw village, which is just two villages next to us, is a village made inside a large garden of the Kapok trees. So people of the southern Abyss never run out of cotton."
Jeze said as she handed me over the materials, and as if suddenly remembering something, she whispered in my ear.
"I don't know about humans, but our demon races' female counterparts have something called 'menstruation'. It's very painful, you know. So we use the cotton to stop the bloo–"
"Okay, okay. It's the same with everyone. Even human females have it. No need to explain."
I cut her sentence apart, a bit embarrassed due to the foreign talk. I had never talked to a woman about this stuff; even my girlfriend at work would not open up about it, and I didn't ask much either.
But Jeze, who didn't know human customs, just spoke about it.
I took a deep breath and arranged the items inside the incantation besides Eclipse.
"I calleth upon thee, the elementals of earth. Help me fixeth mine own equipment."
I chanted, and the incantations lit up. Then, the Eclipse started floating two feet above the ground as the oil was poured on automatically. Then, a bright light shined, and the noise of metal rubbing metal rang out. After a while, the cotton flew and started polishing the blade.
After ten minutes of continuous oil dripping and polishing, it finally stopped.
My forehead was soaked in sweat, and I could feel the energy draining. Alchemy didn't come without a price. The longer the process of alchemy, the more mental strength it consumed. Sometimes it would also consume one's mana or health depending on the type of alchemy one was doing.
Whew!
I exhaled as I fell butt first onto the ground.
"Are you fine? Wait, let me help you."
The grey-skinned ogre came close to me and tore apart a piece of cloth from her waist as she wiped my forehead.
"I am… fine."
I said, my rough breath touching her face.
"Sure, Mr tough guy. Let me just wipe your sweat first."
Jeze said sarcastically as she put my head on her folded lap and started wiping my face. Looking up, I could see her cute face looking at me worriedly upside down.
There was nothing monstrous about her, even if she had a horn on her head, even when her skin was different from mine, even when her eyes were different from mine.
Jeze noticed my gaze and unconsciously stopped what she was doing, her face coming threateningly close to mine.
Our noses bumped into each other as I hurriedly tried to stand up.
Bump!
"Ouch!"
We both exclaimed as my forehead hit hers.
'Good thing her horn is on her head instead of the forehead!'
I inwardly commented as I coughed awkwardly.
"Well, let's see if it worked or not."
I said while coughing, trying to hide my embarrassment, my fatigue disappearing like it was never there.
I picked up Eclipse and checked its durability.
[Durability: 170/170]
Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I call success.
Eclipse was shining brighter than ever as its durability was recovered to the max.
'That solves the problem of taking it to a blacksmith to fix the durability for me and exposing my identity as a bonus.'
I commented with emotion as I put Eclipse back in my inventory.
Ahem!
"Just four weeks until you and I will be thrown to the Grivantula. Are you sure we have the leisure to be slacking around?"
I asked in a mock sarcasm to lift the awkwardness from a moment ago.
"Y-yeah. Let's go and get something to eat first and then rest. Then, we can go and hunt as soon as we wake up."
Jeze suggested, and I suddenly had an idea.
"Yes, let's go. I want to try cooking today."
I announced as I walked out of the word, a weirdly staring Jeze following close behind me.
***
"What?"
"Let's have a feast today for the whole village. I will cook for you guys."
I confirmed my statement to Kai, who gave me the same look that Jeze had been giving me ever since I talked about cooking.
"Let the women do the cooking. Why would you cook?"
"Oh, is it like that now? Nevermind. Just bring the utensils and equipment and lay back."
I went out of Kai's house, and right in front of his house, I decided to try one of the alchemy skills.
It didn't need any kind of incantation as it used the user's mana, but it also required chanting.
"Hark to mine own hest and bendeth the earth to mine own wisheth!"
As I said the command, I pictured a clay stove used by some minority from a century ago.
The ground in front of me started getting up, and in no time, a clay stove was ready in front of my eyes.
[250 mana has been consumed.]
Well, nice.
A large chunk of my mana was consumed just like that.
'It won't be easy to use it as an offensive skill unless I have a lot of mana.'
I commented inwardly. Unless I found a way to reduce the mana consumption or had a large mana pool, it was impossible for me to use it as a damage-dealing or manoeuvring skill.
After that, I created four more such stoves, and by the time I was creating the last one, my mana had already half recovered.
'Abyss is such an amazing place.'
The mana and health regeneration speed in Abyss wasn't limited to me. It was the case for everyone due to the ample amount of mana and dark mana that Abyss was filled with.
According to this, I had created a hypothesis as to why the trees and monsters were all so strong in Abyss. Even the basic level monsters were almost 70 levels.
After that, I used [Night Alchemist's Elemental Exchange] to exchange a few skin and bones of the demonic monkey for various spices like asafoetida, black pepper, garlic powder, thyme, etc. I even brought some salt, lemon and rice.
After brainstorming for a while, I finally came up with the idea that as long as I didn't run out of materials for exchange, I could literally have anything in the world! Although it also depended on the rank of the items too.
These spices were common items, so I only failed a few exchanges while the rest were successful. Unfortunately, the failed exchanges take up the material and don't give anything in return! So it was quite heartbreaking the first time I experienced a failure.
After that, I started cooking the fish meat. A large portion was cooked into a stew, while I fried the other portion in the mushroom oil with a seasoning of just lemon, salt and pepper. On the side, I cooked a fried rice dish with fish as the main ingredient.
[You have learnt the skill (Cooking Lv1)]
[Skill upgrade: Cooking Lv1 → Cooking Lv2]
After I was done cooking, the whole of Rewan village gathered around me, and I mean it literally! Literally, everyone was drooling from the savoury fragrance of the fish dishes that they had never tasted.
When I finally served the food to everyone one by one, they couldn't even wait as they started digging in. More than half of the people started crying without realising.
"This… is the best thing I have ever tasted in my whole life."
"Is this what heaven's food tastes like, mom?"
"This is… nom nom nom… too tasty… nom nom… please don't tell me it's over already."
"I can never go back to eating simple food ever again!"
"I never knew food like this even existed!"
"What is this thing? Is it called rice? It's so good~~"
The exclamations and genuine surprise of the ogre villagers somehow warmed my heart. I felt like I had done something good, so I couldn't help but shout.
"Keep eating, everyone! I don't want a single person who hasn't eaten enough! Don't worry about the food, I'll keep cooking more."
[Affinity with Rewan village is at its max.]
And hence, started my day as a hard-working yet content chef, as I kept cooking for the whole village. Finally, after three hours of continuous cooking and feeding, everyone had eaten their fill.
"Thank you so much for making me taste such food. I will forever remember this."
"Stay blessed."
The older ogres gave me their blessings for feeding them such good food, while the younger ones thanked me and repeatedly giggled as they talked amongst themselves about which food they liked the best.
My heart felt like it would burst, and my eyes had gotten wet without realising. As far as I can remember, I was a very selfish person. I had never thought about anyone else's good before mine and my family's.
But for the first time in life today, I felt like a good person and felt extremely content with myself.
"You have already fed everyone, and you should eat too. I…also haven't eaten yet. If you want, we could eat together."
Jeze asked with tender eyes. For some reason, the look that she gave me differed a lot from before.
[Affinity with Jezebeth increased by +30.]
Woah! That's a big leap. Of course, I couldn't understand what was happening inside her heart, but I was sure it wasn't bad.
"Okay, let's go eat."
After that, Jeze and I ate our food together and totally focused on levelling up from the next day onwards.
We went a bit more inside the forest since the demonic monkeys were no longer a threat to us, and we had lost their aggro and the experience points we gained. The next layer of monsters that we met were the demonic pigs and demonic deers who were all over the levels 100 to 130.
Every day, there would be a feast in Rewan village for the next few weeks with new food added to the menu.
A week before the meeting with Grivantula, I hit level 120.
...
//DreamNote//
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