"We've talked about this," the goddess said, "Intent is a big part of magic. It makes sense that all you had to do was focus on the ability and just will it to work."

Lukas shook his head, "I guess you're right. It just feels like I should have some basic understanding of how to use the ability, but I don't. But I guess in hindsight I can see it. My inventory works similarly, I just think about it and will it to pop up and it does."

Lukas and the goddess were sitting across from one another on the grass in the garden. They'd been teaching Lukas to retract his aura for when he leaves the little cave, and now he'd just learned how to use the racial ability Stranger in a Strange Land. It was an ability that allowed him to obfuscate certain aspects about himself to avoid detection. As it turned out, all he had to do was want the ability to work and it did.

The ability itself was a bit limited in what it could do, which made sense. If it was too good then Lukas could use the ability to become a shapeshifter. As for what it could do, it could hide the fact that he was an outworlder, make it harder to get a feel for his general power level, alter what race his aura felt like, and a few other minor things. He wasn't exactly sure how the race thing worked, not having met anyone from another race or even felt the aura of someone of another race. But as he was messing around with the ability, the goddess had looked at him strangely, telling him that he'd felt like an elf for a split second.

The goddess could naturally see right through the ability like a pane of glass, since she was a god and so much more powerful than him. It was a fact that led to the discovery that anyone of a sufficiently high rank would be able to see past the ability or at least not have the ability cloud his true identity as well. It was a slightly concerning revelation, but the goddess had assured him that in an area with a low ambient magic, like the forest, there shouldn't be anything powerful enough to out him.

"I've been meaning to ask this," Lukas said on the topic, "I thought magic was a broad field of study like physical science, but you and even some of the books I've read refer to the energy as just magic. What's up with that?"

"It's true. Magic is indeed a field of study, one of the largest you'll find, but at your current level of understanding, just saying 'magic' makes more sense to you than anything else."

"Okay," Lukas said, understanding, "So when you say ambient magic, what is it that you mean exactly?"

The goddess rested her chin in her hand, thinking for a moment, considering how to dumb down the topic for him, "You could say it's the general level of magical energies or mana in an area."

"Mana? But I thought mana was just raw magic potential that helps shape and form abilities and whatnot."

"It is, but there are also other types of mana besides the kind that resides within a person. That mana is potential mana, while I guess you could say the ambient magic is fixed-state mana. It can still change, but that's over a long period of time. I guess this is a good time to talk about affinities and attuned mana. They're both forms of mana that hold certain properties; the mana you have is unattuned and affinityless."

Lukas nodded, "I read somewhere that alchemists generally want to stay away from gaining an affinity or attunement."

"That's right. When you add affinities and attunements to the mana used in alchemy, you get some funky results. There are some things that require them, but they're niche. Do you know why you need to avoid gaining them?" Lukas shook his head, and the goddess explained, "Affinites and attunements can 'color' your creations, making them potentially dangerous for others to use. That doesn't sound like a bad thing for poisons, but if you join a team or something, none of them will be able to use your potions. Having an affinity means that you'll no longer be able to make a decent amount of alchemical products. There is the upside that your own potions would work better for you and others who have a similar affinity, but at that point you're giving up more than you're gaining."

"So in general avoid affinities and attunements?"

"Pretty much. At least for now, that is. Once you're a lot stronger and know what you're doing, you can start looking into them. At that point, it'd be up to you to weigh the pros and cons."

"Okay. Is there anything else or are you ready to throw me out by the scruff of my neck?"

"Tempting," the goddess smiled slyly, "But yeah, we covered just about everything that needs to be covered. You can retract your aura to sneak up on beasts and monsters and use that racial ability of yours, so we're good. All that's left is for you to pack some stuff and scram."

"Hang on, pack stuff?" Lukas asked, confused. It wasn't like he'd brought anything with him but his shitty sword and tattered wolfskin cloak, both of which were in his inventory.

"You think I'd let you go frolic in the forest, leaving behind the stuff here? You've got a lot to learn and there are a lot of books in that library. It would be a huge waste if you didn't take any with you. Then there's the cauldron and mortar and pestle. Not to mention all the ingredients growing in here," she said[,] gesturing to the garden around them, "These are all copper-ranked materials, they're useless to me."

Lukas just stared at the goddess for a moment, surprised by her generosity, "That's—" he began.

She held up a hand, forestalling what he was going to say, "I know, I'm the greatest, most amazing, and magnanimous master ever."

Scoffing, Lukas rolled his eyes, "You're high if you think you're my master or whatever. And just so you know, you'll have to smite me before I'd ever call you master."

The goddess shook her head ruefully, "So much heresy, so much blasphemy, and absolutely no gratitude! What would the other gods say if they knew? Scandalous!"

Unable to handle the goddess, Lukas stood, dusting off his pants, "If you're going to continue being ridiculous, then I'll just start looting and leave."

"You say that as if this is just some dusty old barn and not the greatest alchemy cave you'll ever see."

Lukas shrugged, and started harvesting flowers and material en masse, truly looking to find the stacking limit of his inventory, "We'll see. Either way, I'm stuffing my inventory full and I have 56 slots, most of which are empty, so I hope you don't need anything that's lying around."

"Wait, what!?" the goddess said, using some of her power to float up off the ground and onto her feet.

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"I'm just saying that if it's not bolted down, I'm taking it," Lukas said unashamedly.

"You can't do that." she protested.

Lukas stopped what he was doing and faced the goddess, turning her ridiculousness back on her, "Why not? Don't you want your dear disciple to leave as prepared as can be? What if something happened to me because you said I couldn't take something that would've helped? And do you really need any of it anyway? What's a goddess going to do with a bunch of copper-rank materials?"

The goddess glowered at him, crushing him with her aura far more than she had during the aura training they'd been doing not so long ago. Lukas just smiled, as the aura began bearing down on him, so powerful that it was like taking a power washer to a ball of mud. Yet he stood completely unaffected in the face of the goddess' power. Lukas knew that it was just a drop in the proverbial bucket and that she wasn't actually trying to hurt him, just seeing if his resistance had any limit. It seemingly did not.

The goddess just shook her head, "Such a weirdo."

"Rude," he said, continuing to clean out the garden.

Lukas was true to his word, taking whatever he could and being completely unrepentant about it. As far as he was concerned, it was payment for having to put up with the goddess's shenanigans, though he felt like he could've pushed for more, she really was a lot to handle.

Starting in the garden, Lukas cleaned most of it out, taking everything there, even the flowers and other herbs and plants he hadn't used yet. That alone filled up most of his inventory, and to Lukas' delight there didn't seem to be any kind of stacking limit, giving him enough ingredients for thousands of one type of potion and poison. Once he was finished, the place looked like a swarm of locusts had swept through, leaving the garden beds barren and overturned in places. He did leave a few things behind, allowing more flowers to regrow in the spots he'd left empty. He didn't know if he'd ever come back, but he still wouldn't miss out on a chance to secure literally thousands of potions' worth of ingredients.

Next up, Lukas visited the lab. There were a lot of tools and equipment, none of which Lukas really used. All he grabbed there was the cauldron, mortar and pestle, and potion bottles. Lukas spent an inordinate amount of time just pulling armfuls of empty bottles out of cabinets. Once he was done, the little number at the bottom of the box that held the bottle in his inventory just showed 999+. The process had taken hours, and Lukas had recruited the goddess's reluctant help in shoveling the empty vials out of the cabinets.

After the lab was the library, which Lukas was concerned about. He wanted everything in there, all the alchemy knowledge too important to leave behind. It was here that Lukas was really forced to look at what was in his inventory and take a look at what he did and didn't need. There were several spots taken up by stones, wood, meat, and the horrible attempt at a waterskin, most of which he promptly dumped on the floor, receiving a flat look from the goddess in return. Thoroughly ignoring her, Lukas got back to the problem at hand.

He pulled several books off the shelf, putting them all into his inventory. Unfortunately, they didn't stack. Lukas guessed that since they were all different books, they couldn't be stacked together. It made sense—trying to pull out a specific book from a giant stack that only appeared in his inventory as an icon of a book in a box with a little number would be impossible. Like this, Lukas would at most be able to take about two dozen books out of hundreds. He needed a different solution and already had an idea— it was a stupid one, but it was an idea.

Placing the books back on the bookshelf, Lukas instead attempted to store the bookcase itself. It took him a moment to figure out how to do it, but eventually the whole thing vanished, leaving an empty space where it had been. This had earned him raised eyebrows from the goddess, who continued to watch on, complaining like a five-year-old forced to do something they didn't want to.

With that first success, Lukas moved on to the next bookshelf. Even if he couldn't stack the bookshelves, he'd rather have a few bookshelves taking up slots than a bunch of single books. A single bookshelf could hold close to a hundred books, so it would be more efficient to store them that way. Thankfully, he didn't have to stop at one, because as the second bookcase disappeared into his inventory, a little 2 appeared at the bottom right of the bookshelf icon. Pleased with himself, Lukas began collecting bookcases like it was nobody's business, even taking the fancy ladders that allowed one to reach the highest shelves.

With the library cleaned out, Lukas and the goddess looked over the barren room. Looking at the goddess, clearly proud of himself, Lukas only got a disapproving look and a shake of the head in return. Unfazed by the goddess's feelings on the looting, Lukas moved on to the bedroom. Naturally, he swiped the bed and wardrobe that still held multiple changes of clothes. He would've taken the shower if he could, but considering it was part of the cave, he was forced to leave it.

With all that done, the only thing left was the central room. At this point, Lukas only had a few inventory slots left and wanted to keep some open in case he came across anything useful in the future. He did, however, snag the lavish plush chair and massive desk, which Lukas assumed pushed the size limit on his inventory. There were a few other things in the room that caught his eye, but he had no idea what they did.

"So what does it do?" Lukas asked.

"What do you mean? You have a skill that identifies things, right?"

"Well yeah," Lukas shrugged, "But the information isn't always helpful. What does it do?"

"I still don't understand," the goddess said, shaking her head in confusion, "It's a phosisifer, it phosisifizes."

Lukas continued going around the entire cave, checking to see if he'd missed anything important, going through a mental checklist in his head. He had all the alchemy equipment he needed: the flasks with distilled water, the Caydum Powder, his cauldron, the mortar and pestle, and more bottles than he thought he'd ever use. He had all the alchemy ingredients he could dream of, knowing he wouldn't run out anytime soon. He had all the books from the library, the bed, the wardrobe, the chair, and the desk. He wanted to take the glowstones as well—he'd told the goddess he'd take whatever wasn't bolted down, after all. But the glowstones sure as hell weren't bolted into the walls. Unfortunately for Lukas, something stronger than bolts held them in place, and he was forced to leave them behind, much to the goddess's amusement.

All throughout his looting spree, Lukas and the goddess talked, bantering like children. Lukas didn't mind, though; it was fun, and as the cave grew emptier and the time to leave drew nearer, he realized he might actually miss talking to the annoying deity.

Before long, Lukas and the goddess stood before the large double doors that would take him out of the cave.

"Before you go," the goddess began, "there is one last matter to attend to. I did promise it after all."

Lukas had been looking over the room, seeing if there was anything else he wanted to swipe, but turned to look at the goddess, "Oh?"

"Your second class," she said, "I told you I could provide an artifact similar to the tome to absorb so that you could gain one. You said you wanted to get a pure combat class, right?"

"That's right," Lukas nodded.

"Do you have a preference for what kind of class you'd like? I have a number of options available: from light warrior up to heavy warrior, archer, rogue, mage, paladin, cleric—pretty much anything you can think of, I probably have it."

"Mmm, archery sounds like a pretty good match for something like combat alchemy, but I've never even shot a bow before and am probably terrible at it anyway."

"That's fine," she said, "They are a good match, and while the artifact is a bow that you can use after taking on the knowledge, I don't have a quiver of arrows."

"What about a rogue? They're usually quick and fast, right? I'd be able to flit around during a fight, getting in quick attacks to land poison."

The goddess smiled, pleased with Lukas' train of thought, "I was hoping you'd pick a rogue. And you're right, they are quick and able to land poison better than the others. If you progress in the right way, you might even develop into an assassin-type class, especially with the relic I have for it."

"Let's go with that one then."

Grinning, the goddess waved her hand, and a dagger so black it seemed like a hole in reality appeared in her hand. Wasting no time, Lukas immediately identified the wicked, looking object.

[Dagger of the Rogue of Darkness (Unique)] - An artifact produced by a Rogue of Darkness detailing their path to power. Absorbing the knowledge left in the dagger allows one to gain basic knowledge sufficient enough to gain a class. Note that this effect is one-time use and its effects cannot be undone. Note that the dagger is not consumed during this process.

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