When the potions wore off and his attributes fell back to their normal level, Lucas braced for the worst, but surprisingly, he felt mostly fine, at least initially. There was no obscene soreness like there had been last time. There certainly should have been, too, given that he'd managed to bend Heisenburgle's fancy flaming sword during that final showdown. Even with the momentum of his jump and the hardness of the ice troll's skull, that could only have happened with a truly unfathomable amount of torque.

The gnome was quite upset about that and alternated between complaining about it and peppering Lucas with questions about his performance as he stripped out of his torn armor and applied a healing salve to his ragged wound.

What did that level of strength feel like? What effects did his speed have on friction? Did he think it would be possible to increase the effects in future trials, or did he plan to focus on duration over intensity?

Lucas started off almost as excited as Heisenburgle and answered his questions as completely as he could as the two of them geeked out over alchemy. He even listened to the gnome's suggestions regarding some alternative ingredients he might consider. However, as the minutes passed, that became more and more difficult. Eventually, it seemed like he couldn't get more than five or ten words out as what he'd done slowly caught up with him.

He'd exerted himself to a superhuman degree, and now that it was over and his body was playing catch up, he realized he'd completely exhausted himself. He checked his status but didn't see anything too concerning. Heisenburgle offered him a Potion of Greater Wakefulness, as he'd done before, but Lucas declined.

Status:

Slightly injured (-5 to physical tasks. Recovery augmented by Salve of Moderate Mending and Healing Draught of Disease Resistance. Less than 48 hours to full recovery.)

Completely exhausted (-10 to all actions.)

He decided to take a nap instead, and he was out well before the guards came back with their menagerie of butchered troll parts. Lucas didn't wake up until they'd returned to Black Gate. Even then, after hours of rest, all he wanted to do was go back to sleep in his own bed. All of that changed when he entered the main hall and smelled the kitchens. Then, he became ravenous, and his body demanded that he refuel it after all he'd put it through.

Since Skylara had burned down his whole life Lucas had tried to eat healthy and exercise as he sought to grow stronger. That afternoon, though, he ate whatever they had available, devouring three bowls of soup, half a dozen sandwiches, and an entire tray of desserts. He felt a little embarrassed for being so gluttonous, and that only intensified as various guards and maids looked at him and exchanged whispers, but he didn't stop.

He didn't find out until after he went to bed and woke up again later that day that they hadn't been whispering about his eating habits. They'd been talking about the troll. Even though only a handful of guards had seen what he'd done, there was no way to stop the rumors, and that night, after the gnome had swept the room with his dust, he and Heisenburgle spent most of their time talking about the fight and its consequences instead of alchemy.

"As successful as your experiment was, there's no way it will stay a secret from the Prince for long," Heisenburgle assured him. "What is it you expect me to tell him exactly when he asks."

"Tell him I have a death wish, and I'm acting on my grief in unconventional ways," Lucas answered with a shrug. "It's the truth."

"It's part of the truth, at least," the gnome agreed. "Don't you think he's smart enough to… to figure out who it is all these preparations are for?"

"Oh? Do you want to talk about—" Lucas shot back with a cocky grin.

"Ssshhhhhh!" the gnome interrupted. "Do not say her name. I have enough problems deciding what to do with you without further complications."

Lucas let the point go and suggested that he tell the Prince that Lucas was working on potions with military applications, but the truth was he had no interest in giving up those recipes to the man. The gnome had been right the first time. This project hinged on killing a single target. Once her mighty carcass lay dead at his feet, he'd put it back on the shelf and focus on other things.

For now, his quest for revenge required more than just potions that made him unbelievably strong. He needed them to last longer. He needed other things to grant him important edges, like fire resistance and dragon poison. He also needed a stronger sword.

While Heisenburgle was happy to let the conversation drift into metallurgy from time to time, today, he cut Lucas off every time he tried to transition a complaint about the gnomish firesword into a conversation about how he needed a stronger weapon.

"A stronger weapon? For testing? Pha!" Heisenburgle snorted whenever the conversation came up. "I will not enable your crazy plans, Lucas!"

He just shrugged at that. He had other things he could work on for now. Still, he knew that the gnome would come around eventually. He had to because he still asked probing questions about Lucas' talent, and once that night, after staring wistfully at the mirrors he used to gather starlight, he even asked, "What did it feel like? To meet with them? The gods, I mean."

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Lucas left out the angels in this version of the story, too, but he told him about the elven palace and the way that Thrzealwick had leafed through his soul like an open book before changing it. Really, he tried to give the gnome as many details as possible about his own god while giving him as little information as possible about Lucas' new capabilities.

Telling him some things was unavoidable. The last thing he wanted to do was give away all of his secrets, like his latest achievement progress. Not only had he completed one, he'd unlocked a new one, and both of them were intriguing.

Divine Potential: 20/30 Increase all of your attributes and level to an average of 30+. The reward for this will vary based on which attributes are prioritized.

Maximum Alchemical Potential 1: 35/35 increase an attribute to 35, the maximum for any single mortal attribute. Your attribute maximum has been increased to 36. To achieve Maximum Alchemical Potential 2, increase any two attributes to 35+.

The new achievement offered no explanation, which was as exciting as it was frustrating. He didn't have to know what divine potential meant to know that he wanted it, but unless he did some major leveling, he'd have to get his ability scores to an average of 34 to make it happen.

Is that even possible? He wondered. He supposed that if he spent all his points on soul, intelligence, and appearance, he could get it within a couple levels, but that seemed like a huge investment for an uncertain reward.

For now, the second one interested him more. On its own, it gave him nothing, but it basically opened the door to superhuman potential. Lucas knew from his experiments thus far that one point at the top end of the scale was worth a hell of a lot more than one at the bottom. Having a strength of 36 might make him 10% stronger than a strength of 35, and when he considered how strong 35 had been, that was crazy.

For now, he didn't get too distracted by all of this or the fact that he'd gotten no experience from killing the ice troll. This whole setup is so strange. He thought as he listened to Heisenburgle brag about something or another. Who ever heard of a game where you only get experience from one profession, and killing grants you nothing at all?

His mind flashed briefly to Mister Twee, and Lucas carefully amended that statement to usually before returning to the conversation he was supposed to be having. While it had largely devolved into Heisenburgle explaining alchemical toxicity to him incorrectly, there were some bright sides to their talk this evening. The big one was that it definitely showed the gnome's building interest in topics like talents and the divine. He was trying to be cagey about it, but even so, Lucas didn't push his luck.

Unfortunately, it came at the cost of making Heisenburgle much more interested and concerned about his experiments. Up until now, the gnome had largely given him free rein, but now that it was obvious to everyone what the goal of his projects was, the gnome took that away. Worse, he forbade Lucas from further modifying and upgrading his potions into the longer-lasting flasks that he wanted to make.

"Only until I see how the Prince reacts to the news of your news concoctions," he promised.

Even so, Lucas chaffed at that level of supervision. I guess I only have myself to blame, he told himself, but even if he didn't like it, he still didn't get into a shouting match with Heisenburgle as he usually would have. Instead, he took it in stride. Lucas had other things he could work on for the time being, and he had no plans to see just how much he could maximize his attributes again any time soon.

He needed the gnome, after all. For him to have any real chance of doing this, he needed Heisenburgle on his team, both as a co-conspirator and as an engineer.

So, instead of trying to convince the gnome it was worth throwing in with him, Lucas continued to work on his various projects as his fatigue abated in the days that followed. He tried to get permission to lead an expedition to the Greenwood because he wanted to experiment with distilling certain poisonous anti-dragon reagents, but Heisenburgle forbade it. "Jubilanthric! You know I'd never be able to defend that!" the gnome cursed.

So, Lucas set about working on another project he'd had on his mind for a while: fireworks. Dwarven fire powder existed in this world. He'd even been told they had guns, after a fashion, though they used them more like small, handheld cannons.

Heisenburgle's library didn't have an exact recipe, though he did have several books that hypothesized the ingredients, and none of them were at all close to what he wanted, which was gunpowder. Lucas hadn't paid attention in many of his classes, but chemistry was the exception to that rule, so he knew that it was made from charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter. He just didn't know the ratios in which they were mixed. For that matter, he didn't know what saltpeter was called in this world since it didn't exist anywhere that he could find.

Vitriolic Earth (refined): Poison 1(iritating), air aligned, strong catalyst (alters the alignment of the highest attribute in the current mixture.)

Charcoal (ground): Poison -3 (purifying). Reduces the poison of other ingredients in the mixture by half. Weak earth aligned, strong catalyst.

Sulfur (very pure): Poison 3, agility 1 (twitchy), strength 1(inflamed), endurance -1(sickly). Strongly fire aligned.

Lucas spent days reading through reagent-heavy tomes, looking for what turned out to be vitriolic earth. He'd seen that here and there on his adventures, so he knew it wasn't too uncommon. What he didn't know was how much of which ingredient to mix together, and there, his alchemy skills offered him little assistance since they were listed only as compatible on his display, without any guidance on the ratio.

In these experiments, at least, Heisenburgle didn't try to bar when Lucas explained that he was looking into elemental compatibility issues. The gnome was very benevolent when allowing him to make what he thought would be nothing but clumsy mistakes.

For a while, he was right about that much, too. Whenever Lucas ended up with an amalgamation that combusted prematurely while he was mixing it or something that filled the lab with smoke rather than producing a single spark of flame, Heisenburgle would chortle with glee.

"You're mixing earth, air, and fire together!" the gnome exclaimed as if that meant anything. "Of course, you're going to get dangerous, unpredictable results. What else did you expect?"

Lucas smiled tightly at those comments but did not react. This was about more than gunpowder, or even more than fireworks now, and he was getting close to something big.

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