It took almost an hour to explain to Lyonel's group everything he had discussed with Roger. Four of the five had pledged themselves to Alan's cause, and they had a right and need to know what was about to happen, and it was going to be public soon enough that he didn't care if the fifth heard. That might have been a bad call, since most of that time was spent with the many questions and protests that Gaf had over giving away class stones. That just wasn't done and he had a less malleable mind than the mayor, which was ironic since he had an opal intelligence class.

That had all come after the tour of their current home, however. The boarding house they were staying in represented his first blueprint purchase from the Network. It was impressive. Each room was a good size, not too big so as to be wasteful, yet still with enough space for someone to move around in. They were bigger than some of the shacks he'd lived in while on mission. There were three floors, five rooms each on the second and third, with a communal area, a kitchen, and a dining space on the first. Jessica, the rabbit woman running the establishment, also had an apartment that could be accessed through the kitchen.

Once he had given them the details on the changes that were about to come to Elstree, Alan got down to explaining the role he had for the Corellians. True, the whole party wasn't from Corell, but Gaf was the only one who wasn't and it was just easier to think of them that way. Even if Alan managed to get a solid party from the mercenary request he sent out, this was still going to be his top group for a long time. Each of them was already opal in all of their classes, which was also unfortunate for them.

Sitting in the communal area on some wooden benches, Alan laid it all out. "So, as you know, you won't be able to take advantage of the rare stones in tier one. Since all of you have evolved to opal already, you will be unable to use quartz stones anymore." Gaf seemed the most upset, but he probably was most familiar with the restriction. All of the others looked a little bummed, but again, there was nothing to be done. Alan plowed on.

"That doesn't mean there's nothing for you to do, however. Since I was the only recruit in tier two, the dungeons there have started to leak." Gaf was again the only one who understood that comment, so Alan explained more to the rest. Not everyone had a Tamee. "If a dungeon doesn't get fully cleared occasionally, it builds up a kind of energy that eventually will leak out. When it does, it ends up spawning monsters. I ran into one on my way back that had the strongest attack I've seen yet. It was able to basically melt my left arm off with just its gaze."

Everyone's eyes went to the aforementioned limb. "I got better. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that all of the dungeons that are still active in the area are starting to release this energy, and powerful monsters are starting to appear. I'm sure Gaf can explain the concept to you guys later, but for now let's move on. I'm not sending you with the purpose of taking out these monsters, though. Instead, I want you to start raiding the dungeons. If we can get a bunch of them cleared then we won't have to worry about any leaks for a while. I don't think this will be anything you can't handle if you all work together and keep your wits about you."

Gaf eyes lit up at this and Alan asked him why. It was his opportunity to share his outside knowledge with them. "That energy you were talking about is what dungeons use to generate their rewards. Hitting an overloaded dungeon can net you really great loot."

In a rarity for Tamee, Alan heard her voice in his head when Gaf finished talking. "It is also more dangerous. That energy also tends to provide extra power to the dungeon monsters. Sometimes increasing their number or strength." She didn't usually talk to him while he was around others, they didn't want to let anyone in on the fact that he had some 'outside' help.

This was too important a warning to keep to himself however. "In addition to giving you better rewards, these dungeons will also most likely be stronger than normal. The four of you were rated near the top of everyone in your zone, and you've grown a lot since the beginning of that zone, but you still need to be careful."

Samson had his usual gloomy look, but Gerry was also looking subdued. Lyonel spoke for the group as usual. "We've learned our lesson about overconfidence. We'll be careful, but it sounds like this is important work, so we'll get it done."

Alan gave the giraffe mage a reassuring look before continuing. "I'm not gonna send you out there empty handed, though. I've got an appointment with a new dungeon tonight, but before then I plan on making you guys some potions to take with you. Samson, I thought you might want to come with and watch me for a bit.

The rabbit man was a former scribe, so Alan thought he would take well to the meticulous nature of alchemy. Also, he had privately shared with Alan that adventuring was perhaps not all he wanted in life. This would be an opportunity for Samson to try out a possible future in crafting. Gerry was a little too flighty for the time that was often required to brew potions, plus he had been more interested in the adventuring aspects of his new life.

Alan decided that Indiana's domain would be a good place to work. It was quiet, no one would disturb them, and he could check up on the core to see if it needed anything. Gerry grumbled about walking all the way back out there, but it wasn't really a big deal for their enhanced bodies. About half an hour later, they were at the site of the two dungeons. They made their way over to the much larger dungeon entrance. When they had left earlier it was simply a small mound of stone, now it was over a meter tall and was starting to take shape. It looked like Indiana was going with a traditional cave design.

Hello there Indiana, how's it going?

Welcome back Alan, is it nighttime already? I must have gotten lost in my work, but sadly I am not done yet.

No, I came back early to do some alchemy work. I thought I'd do it here so that I could keep you company. Any chance you could clear off an area here for me to work?

That is very thoughtful of you. Give me a moment.

In a display that made Alan's own road building efforts look pitiful, Indiana was able to clear a five meter circle of grass in moments. This should give them a good space to operate in. Sitting down, Alan gestured for Samson to sit across from him.

Taking out the various tools he was going to use, Alan explained each of them. First out was the cauldron. It was a special caldron that had rubies built into it. A friend of his, Cassidy, had purchased it for him when he was gravely injured. Her name came up in Alan's mind quite a lot, but he had enough self-control to ignore it.

Seeing her gift sitting there in front of him, though, brought him back. He had first met her in a starter dungeon and they had formed some kind of deep connection in the short time they were together. He had never experienced anything like it. The second time he ran into her was in a much less happy circumstance, which was saying a lot since that first time she had briefly died. This latest experience had left her with grave soul trauma and the bond they had previously had was broken, almost beyond repair. By the time they parted ways again Alan had been able to help her some by using a talent he had gained, Soul Mending. They had parted as something more than friends, but the ambiguity left him in a strange place.

None of that mattered now, so he pushed it to the side. The second item he took out was a special stirring rod. This had been crafted to easily take in mana from the user and then release it into whatever it was mixing up. The next set of items was something special to Alan's process. Rather than using fire that had to be carefully tended, and without a permanent workspace where he could set up dedicated tools for the purpose, he used fire-enchanted stones.

He had made these himself as part of his work on enchantments, and they were able to provide heat without flames at the cost of mana and concentration. Alan gave Samson a couple to practice with while he reacquainted himself with the process. It had been a bit since he had used them for this purpose. Once he felt he had gotten the hang of it again, he took out his alchemy book.

He showed it to Samson who handled it with careful movements, understanding how valuable this was. It explained in great detail how to make a variety of potions and the basic concepts of Alchemy. This was loot from a dark elf he had killed. The evil man had apparently been learning the profession and had managed to procure a primer on the craft. Alan had checked the Network store for something like it, and had been unable to find anything that was even close to as good. There were some that claimed to offer as much, but they had very low ratings and yet still sold for several thousand gold.

While Alan got out all of his ingredients, he let Samson read over some of the theory. The first few potions he was going to make were simple healing ones. Without an actual healer in their party, Lyonel's group had relied heavily on potions to keep them healthy. They also used a lot of mana potions, but Alan didn't have a large stock of quartz crystals, one of the main ingredients for such a potion. Healing potions also used quartz powder, but it was in much smaller quantities.

In addition to the quartz stone, healing potions used a few roots and monster parts. Alan had been growing the roots at his house for a while now, so he had a bunch of those, and he was never short of monster parts. After getting Samson's attention, he explained what he was about to do. It was amusing to Alan to watch the rabbit man's face as he realized what was in all those potions he had been drinking. Alan had had a similar reaction when he brewed his first batch, but he also didn't use them nearly as much. Bonus points for having a healer class!

Before leaving Lyonel's group that morning, he had collected all of the empty potion bottles they had. Some of them had been better about holding onto their spent glassware, but in total he had enough for about sixty potions. That was more than he probably had ingredients for. He explained to Samson what he was doing with each step, and he even had the mage put his furry hands on top of his for the final infusion. For that step he had to place his hands on the rubies that were inlaid into the sides of the cauldron to pour in the last burst of mana.

The Corellian still didn't officially have aura reading, but Alan was now sure it wouldn't be long. As Alan had sent the mana in his pool through his hands and into the gems on the cauldron, he had described the experience exactly as he felt it. With the physical contact at the point of transferral, Samson was finally able to see what Alan was describing. It wasn't a crystal clear picture, more like looking through a thin layer of fog, but he was sure that what he was seeing was real.

The good news was that you didn't actually need aura reading to perform alchemy. Technically you didn't even need a class. There were special tools that those who didn't have their own mana pool could use to gather the energy from their surroundings. It wasn't terribly efficient, and they'd never be able to craft anything but basic potions, but it was a lucrative profession for a serf nevertheless.

After Alan had made two batches of healing potions, enough for ten medium quality potions, he offered Samson a chance to do it. The mana infusion portion was actually the part that the mage excelled at. Where he struggled was in ingredient preparation. Alan had needed him to redo several of them, and had to toss out a fair number of improperly handled monster parts. In the end, the rabbit man cooked up a batch of three weak potions. For a first try it wasn't bad, and he even got official notice of gaining the skill.

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Alan sent him back to study the book while he took out another set of ingredients. This time he was going to make the more potent regeneration potion. This potion was the reason he had learned alchemy in the first place. After losing his hand in a dungeon, Cassidy had brewed him a few doses, and then taught him how to make more. This was a case where one potion wasn't enough to get the job done. It was also during that time that he had created his first new healing spell, Minor Regeneration. It basically did the same thing as the potion, but it only cost mana.

If Lyonel's party was going to be challenging these more dangerous dungeons, he wanted to make sure they had something in case of serious injury. Cuts, stab wounds, broken bones, those were all easy to fix. But having a finger or even a whole limb cut off, or an organ completely destroyed, those were beyond even the most powerful of simple healing potions. You couldn't simply heal what was no longer there, that was why they needed the regeneration potions.

Samson watched him brew the first batch, but Alan told him that he would need to get his skill level a lot higher before he could attempt it. After creating ten of the stronger regeneration potions, Alan was pretty much tapped out for ingredients. Ingredients for a healing potion anyway. There were some other, lower level potions, that he did have ingredients for, thanks to the other loot he had found in the dark elf's necklace.

Since Samson had some time to study the book and to do some real practice, Alan had him get to work on making batches of these minor potions. They did things like slightly boost stats temporarily, make you partially resistant to certain mana types, and of course there was the sleeping potion that Alan himself had learned with. He didn't have a ton of these ingredients, and everything took some quartz powder, but it gave Samson enough to work with for a couple of hours.

Alan took that time to get his own reading done, not with the alchemy book, but his newly acquired information packets. He started with the spell scrolls. This was going to be of immediate need and benefit for the villagers as they gained classes. He was saving the dragon pamphlet as a treat for all his hard work.

As someone who had managed to become a Green Beret, a Doctor, and a pseudo-astronaut by the time he was in his early thirties, it was safe to say Alan was a quick study. After reading through the information the first time, he was pretty sure he got the concept of inscribing. There wasn't much to it, trickle mana into the stylus, let the mana and ink flow onto the parchment. The most difficult part was going to be determining the actual inscription.

In his wooden storage ring, Alan had a text that explained how to cast all six of the basic spells. This was written in a special language mages used to convey magical knowledge. The nice thing about the text was it could be used over and over. If he could have simply given it to the villagers to read it would have solved all their problems. Unfortunately, that text required understanding. It taught you how to cast the spells if you could comprehend what it was saying and what it meant. The people of Elstree most likely had little to no knowledge of the things it would discuss.

Spell scrolls, on the other hand, simply imparted the knowledge after reading. The trick was that you had to know how to write out the spell in the same magical language, but this time in a different way. It was probably easier to write a spell in scroll form compared to text form, but Alan had no practice with doing either, and no examples to look at. After reading through the pertinent sections of the pamphlet again, he got a better idea of how it should work, but he still needed a guide to show him how.

Alan spent the hundred gold to purchase an example of a light bolt scroll. He used fire bolt more these days, but he had started his newest career as a light spinner. After about five minutes of studying, Alan was ready to make his first attempt at making his own scroll. For this initial try, Alan simply copied the purchased scroll exactly. As he did so he felt several places that didn't feel right, but he tried to keep fidelity with the original.

After completing the scroll, he knew that he had been less successful than Samson was with his latest dexterity boosting potion. The rabbit man had produced two weak potions that would boost your dexterity by two points. Alan's scroll, on the other hand, was only good for toilet paper, and that meant it was truly worthless since once everyone had a class, they wouldn't need bathrooms anymore.

This failure had been expected, however. Part of what he had gotten from reading the material was that inscribing, like so much in the Network, was an art and not a science. Every individual had their own unique soul, aura, and energy. They were very similar to each other, such that most people spoke like they were interchangeable, but they weren't really. This meant that while a particular spell might end up working exactly the same, every person's actual spell form for it was slightly different.

Here's the part where it got weird. That meant that the spell Alan had inscribed was the spell form someone out there used to make a perfectly functional light bolt. If Alan tried to cast the spell using that exact form, though, his spell wouldn't work. He had his own slightly different method. If he hadn't known the spell to begin with, however, he could have read the scroll to learn how. Now for where it really started to bend your spoon. If a third party had watched the creator of the scroll cast the spell, and a person who had learned the spell from their scroll, the forms would have still been different.

There were probably a ton of information packets out there trying to explain why this happened, but Alan had learned that sometimes you just had to say, 'that's the way it is'. It might be surprising to hear someone with a scientific mind accept that, but anyone who has existed in the world has run into things that just worked, even though there didn't seem to be any reason why. On Earth people would joke it was magic, but here where magic was real? At a certain point if the smartest people couldn't figure it out, you just accept it and move on. Gravity exists, everyone knows it, you can calculate it, and some very smart people have thought an awful lot about it. But ask why does gravity exist, and why is it related to mass? As Alan's high school physics teacher would say, 'Because' (the man wasn't the best teacher, but he made the class fun).

So, Alan knew going in that he would be unable to copy the spell exactly, for the simple reason that he didn't cast the spell that way. Having gone through the motions, though, and seeing where the issues were, it only took him two more attempts to translate his method of casting the spell into something he could inscribe on the scroll. After that he made two more exactly like it and Alan now had three functional light bolt scrolls.

About this time, Samson was running out of the ingredients he'd been given, so they decided to take a break. Checking the sky, Alan was able to tell that it was midafternoon. Time to see how Indiana was doing.

How's the lair going?

Fairly well, I got distracted a couple of times by what you guys were doing up there. I don't have the energy to replicate the potions or scrolls, but the process was fascinating.

Alan hadn't even considered how Indiana might benefit from seeing them practice their skills. Perhaps this would help the core later on when it tried to create runes on other items. Alan made a note to do his enchanting around Indiana as much as possible from then on.

After that initial conversation, Alan and Indiana discussed the state of the lair. The rooms themselves were fully created, but it was still working on filling them with the decor. The apple trees in the second room had turned out to be the biggest issue. If Indiana just tried to put an apple tree on the stone floor it ended up with a tree shaped hunk of wood instead.

It didn't really matter for their purposes if it was a real tree or a wooden lookalike, but Indiana had pride in its work. Alan liked to think it inherited the trait from him. This led to the core experimenting with how to make a real tree. In the end, all it took was adding some soil to the room. Indiana hollowed out some of the stone floor and replaced it with dirt, and even included a small pool of water. It was regrowing the trees now, and it was looking promising.

It was still going to be at least a couple of hours before the dungeon was ready since Indiana hadn't done anything with the creatures yet, and the boss floor was mostly empty still. After relaying that news to Samson, they decided to take the product of their work and return to the village. On the way, the rabbit mage filled him in on the new building at the edge of town. It was built near the boarding house, and that turned out to be on purpose.

It was a shop. Not just any old shop, but one that catered to adventurers. Roger had invested some of the town funds into the blueprint and had it built straight away. It was much larger than any of the stores Alan had been in so far, and it would carry almost anything a dungeon diver could want.

Once they arrived back in town, Samson led him inside the store. The first thing he noticed was how empty it was. Apparently Roger was either a seer, or his eyes had been bigger than the town's capabilities. There was an empty section for swords and daggers, and another for maces and clubs. He also spotted an empty section that would be perfect for suits of armor, and a rack that would hold footwear, if there were any. Another area would hold clothes and robes, and that did have a few shirts and pants available. There were plenty of bins to hold ingredients as well, and this was the least empty section. A quick glance showed that it was exclusively the items that people had been bringing in for bounties.

With a group of adventurers in town, it made sense to have a store where they could buy and sell goods. It was probably a totally normal thing everywhere else. The problem was that Elstree didn't have the number of adventurers, or the industry, to back such a thing. If there were enough people exploring dungeons and bringing back loot that the store could buy to then sell later for a profit, then this would work well. Or, if there were enough craft people in the area who created the goods that adventurers would want, that could allow it to function too.

While neither of those things was currently true, Alan appreciated that Roger had gotten this taken care of. The first circumstance, a large number of adventurers, was about to come to pass. Those people would be getting loot from Indiana and they would most likely appreciate some place to offload some of the items they received that weren't quite what they were looking for.

The issue of crafters was hopefully going to change soon as well. Alan actually had a plan that he was still holding close to his vest that would most likely help a lot with that. It wasn't quite time to implement it, however. In the meantime, he was already working on developing a few professions. Alan himself could craft potions, and he could now make some spell scrolls as well. If Samson decided he did like alchemy then he could set himself up as another potion maker.

Smith, the village's blacksmith, had long been focused on making items for the growth of the settlement. Nails, brackets, hammers, saws, that kind of thing. Currently, construction was winding down and he spent more time on tools for the expanding farm industry. He hadn't tried to make any weapons or armor so far because there had been no demand for them. Alan would have to see if the man was able to make any decent arms. There were some clothing makers in town, but since the villagers were already their customers, they wouldn't really need to do anything different.

All in all, Alan was feeling like things were moving in a positive direction. He would check in with Roger to see how the load he'd left the mayor with was going, but other than that he was ready to check out the new dungeon as soon as Indiana was done. Lyonel and his group were planning to come watch while Alan went through it, and maybe take a run themselves, but afterwards they were going to head out to tier two and start clearing dungeons.

Alan had drawn them an incredibly rough map of the area. He tried to indicate the location of the dungeons he knew about, and which ones he had gone through himself, but detailed drawing was not his strong suit. Samson on the other hand, planned on trying to create a much better version. As a scribe his skills had a lot of overlap with a cartographer. If the map was good enough, he could probably end up selling it in the store to villagers when they worked up to a level where they were ready to take on a tougher challenge. As part of Alan's crude map, he had included a warning circle around where his house was. He didn't really want them going there and messing with anything, and he'd also let Lyonel know that Alan had a wolf ally who was guarding the area. They promised to keep a wide berth so as not to run into any conflicts.

Before leaving the shop, Alan checked in with the proprietor, a friendly golemoid named Brud. He had the bulky body that Alan had learned to recognize, but unlike the Bodarians, his body was bright yellow. He gave the man his three light bolt scrolls for free, but he made a deal going forward where Alan would supply scrolls for ten gold, and Brud could sell them for fifteen. It wasn't a huge markup, but it would pay Alan for the cost of materials, plus generate some income for the store. Once it had enough money coming in, Brud could use that to buy hard to find items from the Network to sell.

As serfs, most villagers didn't have access to the store. Even after they got classes, it still wouldn't be something everyone had. Alan had gained his access as the owner of the village, and Roger because he was the mayor. Brud, as the owner of this store, could eventually acquire what's called a merchants array, and that would come with his own access. If he leveled it up it would even enable him to get discounts. Tamee had been filling him in about it while he wandered the store. This was something she was very familiar with.

Waving goodbye to Brud, and splitting off from Samson after exiting the store, Alan headed for town hall. It had been several hours so Roger should have made some progress. He trusted the man, but he also wanted to see if there was any way Alan could help him out. The future of mankind may have depended on him (that was actually only a slight exaggeration), but Alan had to admit that he was enjoying himself. As long as they could get a handle on the dungeon leaks, this really seemed like it could work.

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