Fortune Favors (QQ) Chapter 9 (Patreon)

My arms stretch above my head as I let out a quiet yawn.

Well, yesterday was a productive one.

I took a step back into skyrim and got some tin ore. It was fairly expensive, about a silver per pound of ore, but I got a little discount for buying in bulk.

I've got fifty pounds of tin ore, annnnnd... one potion.

Yep.

One potion costs as much as fifty pounds of ore.

Oh well.

I look over to Tsukasa as she sits on bed, a tired expression on her face as she had just woken up.

I plant a quick kiss on her cheek, causing her to stiffen.

"Welp, I'm off to Aincrad. See you later Tsukasa~" I hum as I turn and crouch down.

"B-Bye!" She waves as I creep into the virtual world.

I let out a single breath as I rise to my feet, stretching again.

I walk downstairs, a slight pep in my step, eyes straying to the counter where a single potion sits.

Half of my total purchase yesterday.

Fortify Health Potion:
A potion that lightly numbs and increases the durability of the body, allowing whoever drinks it to take more damage without going into shock or dying.
Grants the Drinker +20% of their max health in temporary Hp for 300 Seconds. ​

That's right. I've given them what's basically a 'mid game item' on FLOOR ONE! PAHAHAH!

This potion here will stay relevant for at least eighty floors... and even then, if it becomes irrelevant, it's only because by that point I managed to create something better!

People as they are right now have on an average about two hundred health... provided they are level three. Level fives have around three hundred.

This potion alone gives them a bonus forty or sixty health.

I, regretfully, set the price probably a bit lower than I should have. One thousand Cor.

I did this because that'll be the price the potions take after the shop starts generating them. Plus, this is floor one. One thousand Cor for a consumable is already fucking ridiculous. My unarmed potions go for thirty each.

Healing potions here seem to go for about one hundred Cor each. But don't let the name fool you, It's more 'regeneration' potions than instantaneous healing. The 'least' variants that are purchasable in the shop heal you one health every second for sixty seconds.

So. While I could have charged for more, I likely wouldn't have gotten more. Besides, this will probably help more people in the long run.

One of my foxy ears twitch as I can hear the sound of metal on metal.

Oh? Lisbeth's up? Rather early, hm?

I turn and begin making my way downstairs, slipping into the uncomfortably warm basement below.

My eyes lock on the brown haired girl as she toils over the anvil, a brown sword being beaten into shape. She is covered in sweat, dark circles under her eyes.

Oh...

She didn't go to sleep last night, did she?

I stand, watching in silence as she takes the blade and quenches it, grabbing a simple bronze cross-guard and slipping it on the sword, followed by a handle and pommel.

She lets out a tired sigh as she wipes an eye, blearily looking around- "EEP-"

She seems to notice me.

"Yo." I lazily wave.

"O-Oh... Argo. It's just you." She takes a calming breath and walks over with a bright smile. "How are you today?"

"Oh, Y'know... I'm pretty good. Just woke up. From a nap. Maybe you should have one." I blandly state.

The brown haired girl has to fight off a yawn at the mere mention of sleeping, she wipes a slightly watery eye then stretches. "Hnn... but... I just wanted to make some more weapons and armor... I want to help people."

"And you already have." I frown, crossing my arms over my chest as I look over the girl. "You straining yourself like this isn't helping anyone. You need to take a break every now and then."

"But... I'm SAO's only swordsmith." She replies. "If... if I could just make one more sword. It could save someone's life!"

"Or, in your tired haze, you could waste resources. Make subpar goods, and your swords break in the middle of combat." I shrug. "The human mind- and that technically what you are now- is not supposed to stay up for long periods of time!"

"Go get some rest." I order while pointing up the stairs.

She pouts slightly as she looks down at the ground. "I- oh alright."

I follow up the stairs behind her cracking my neck as I do so. "Anyways, now that getting you to go take a nap is out of the way, I'm going to go try and see if this one alchemy recipe on my mind will work. How do you feel about me opening the shop tomorrow?"

"Really?!" She gasps. "That would be awesome! Then people can come and get better equipment!"

"Mhm." I hum as I follow her up into the second floor.

As we pass by the room she has more or less claimed for herself, she offers me a sole wave, quietly fighting off another yawn.

She then steps inside and closes the door behind her.

I come to a stop at the room just across the hallway, what used to be a second bedroom before I turned it into my lab.

"Alright... let's see if this works." I mutter under my breath as I walk inside, pulling out two ingredients, the first, a red mountain flower, an incredibly common ingredient that can be found literally anywhere within skyrim.

The next... something that's a little unusual.

Wheat.

A simple stalk of wheat.

You see, while reading my book of alchemical recipes, I remembered something from back when I used to play Skyrim.

I remembered wheat had healing effects.

I don't really understand why I couldn't find anything about wheat in skyrim.

Are the effects too weak?

Is there a special method for drawing out its healing properties?

Surely such a common ingredient would be thoroughly tested by alchemists if garlic was a commonly known alchemical ingredient, right? The only way to truly check would be to go to a farm that has actually growing wheat instead of harvested wheat and take a look myself.

Doesn't mean I can't attempt it and see what happens.

--Linebreak--

Couple issues.

I ground the wheat into a powder and tried to add it to water, I quickly found out that that wouldn't work. Flour clumps in water and doesn't evenly spread through the liquid, even when said liquid is superheated.

After that failed I tried using just the grains without any grinding.

That also didn't work.

Honestly, I'm sort of out of ideas.

I'm not experienced enough to do an ass load of tests. I only know the ones in the book.

Fermenting, using red cabbage to test the PH level, the classic rat test, then shocking, freezing, and burning. I doubt it's wise to just toss whatever plant you see into your mouth to determine its effects.

I mean, I could easily do that with wheat, but at the end of the day, my pallet isn't good enough to taste all the little aspects of an alchemy ingredient by putting it in my mouth.

"Hn." I sigh as I look over the twelve worthless inert potions I've made during the past eight hours. "Well, this is a bust."

"Ugh. Fucking annoying." I scoff under my breath as I turn and walk away."

--Linebreak--

"Alright. So. We're about to open." I begin slowly, looking from Lisbeth, to the small black haired Ai who seems to be trying desperately not to look at her.

"So. There's a couple things we need to deal with. Lisbeth. Do you mind splitting the profits with me for your sold weapons... I know I said all you had to do is make me a fully upgraded sword on floor five, twenty five, fifty, twenty five, and ninety five, but, honestly I need more money if I am going to-"

"Agro, of COURSE you can have the money!" Lisbeth exclaims. "I wouldn't even be able to do all this if it weren't for you! Besides... I agreed to make you swords to pay off the anvil and forge... I haven't paid you for the tin yet! So take as much as you need! You'll be able to do more with that money than I ever could. I mean... you've brought in that potion... you've brought tin. What else could you buy for me?!"

"Eh, the next step is probably Dwarven or elven metal... then Orkish, a step after that would be Glass- don't be fooled by the name, it's more of a crystal-like alloy made from Moonstone and Malachite, then there's Ebony, which some people say is crystalized god blood, theeeen daedric... which is ebony, but you toss in a few demonic hearts during the crafting process and it ends up more powerful." I list off, my ear twitching twice. "Oh, I also suppose there are some rarer materials here and there... there's that one crystal from that island in the north, but there's an angry guy who can bend the wills of people, animals and dragons with mere words, oh, and don't be confused, these aren't your average fire breathing reptiles. They're literal children of god who can bend space and time with their very voice. Sidenote. Yui. Is there any dragon killing stuff in game?"

The black haired girl tilts her head. "Hn... not that I can think of."

"Fuck." I curse as I turn to look back at Lisbeth. "Anyways, yeah, there's also a dwarven super alloy if I can remember correctly. But that's the rarest- and possibly most powerful mineral in skyrim... as the dwarves died out and the secret of how to make it died with them... but I do think there's a piece here or there."

"Anyways, I have spiraled wildly off topic. Yes. I can grab fun things... and that's merely in skyrim, mind you. There's other things back home."

"Then you deserve the money!" She exclaims as I scratch the back of my head.

"Alright... but I'll be leaving behind more than enough to pay for rent for at least a couple of months." I nod.

"You have Four Hundred and Ninety One Hours and fifty three minutes until rent is due." Yui supplies. "And said rent is a standard value of one thousand Cor."

"Alllright." I begin, turning to look at the artificial intelligence. "So. Now onto you. There's a few things I need from you. Firstly, can you create a copy of this?"

I pull a book out of my bag, one of my more inexpensive ones, the 'a bit of liver and saber's eye' book on identifying potentially valuable alchemical ingredients from deceased monsters.

Yui's eyes glow as the book floats out of my hand. It opens slowly the pages rapidly turning as she seems to read it at a breakneck pace, her coal black eyes having glowing green lines of code crossing them.

They flash a deep blood red, seemingly an error symbol appearing in her eyes.

"I cannot." She admits. "There are concepts within this book that I cannot grasp. Certain words, names, seemingly of races that I do not know of... then there's effects that the very core of my being seems to deny... one of the most egregious being under 'Saber's Eye'."

"…"

I catch the book before it can hit the floor and flick through it.

"The Eye of the large predatory cats stalking the plains of skyrim is quite a find. While not as impressive to look at as their gigantic twin fangs, these eyes hold just as much magical power, if not more! While it is a common ingredient in night vision potions, allowing the drinker to match- and potentially surpass- that of a Khajiit, It is less known that these eyes are capable of becoming a truly vile poison of both the body and mind. Weakening your immune system tremendously and hurting your magical concentration respectively."

"Ah. You are unable to copy the book due to the inclusion of magic. But could you make something similar without anything that effects magic?"

"Wait... Magic?" Lisbeth mutters. "You can use... magic?"

"I'm a literal Youkai, sooo yes." I nod once.

"Ah... right..." The girl bashfully mutters, looking away in slight embarrassment.

"What would the point of this book even be?" Yui questions suddenly, a confused frown on her face.

"Rare quest reward for doing my dirty work that unlocks the 'Ingredient Harvest Skill' after being read to completion, adding items to the drop lists of certain creatures in Aincrad provided the person who has the skill lands a finishing blow, thus the wolves will now drop Wolf Liver as a non-quest reward rarely, snakes could drop venom, that sort of thing."

"Hn." The black-haired girl mutely hums.

"To balance it out, you could do it in several volumes. Instead of one book covering all one hundred floors, you make a bunch of books which list the monsters on merely a couple of the floors instead. Maybe one or two floors each. You could use this as a method to tell the players about monsters before they actually face one. I mean, wouldn't someone in the past have researched monsters? Determined their special attacks? Maybe determined that a certain monster had poison or could spit acid? Their habits and how to defeat them easier?"

The girl stares for a long moment, then lets out a low hum. "Hnnn. This is... acceptable. The Cardinal system has been given approval to create new skills provided they are not 'Unique'. There are only ten unique skills in the game. All with tremendous power."

"Are they all combat focused?" I question.

"Yes." She nods once.

"That's bullshit." I frown, crossing my arms. "Why can't crafters get any love?"

"That is a good question." The girl frowns. "I will see what I can do at a later date, however, at the moment, these 'skill books'. They are an interesting prospect. I will begin the creation of the first floor's version immediately. Listing the habits of the monsters as if this were the real world. Akihiko Kayaba desired to make this world as realistic as possible. That is our prime Directive. To ensure as much realism as possible while keeping aspects of the game fun and nuanced. Thus, an overhaul to the alchemy system and the monster system would be a welcome change. If you do not need anything, I will begin Aincrad's first update. In which the monsters of the game shall be given procedurally generated AI instead of the simple 'Passive, Aggressive, and Neutral' system we use now."

"Won't that hurt people?" I question.

"It would harm more people should we postpone this update until a later date as they get more and more used to the current system. Overall, at the moment, it would be almost completely beneficial. Monsters will kill each other outside of quests. They will decide if something isn't worth the effort, and they will have times at which they lay down and rest. That, currently, is not something they are capable of. Yes, there will be some downsides, of course, wolves for instance will now be harder to find on their lonesome. They will come in packs. And, with their Ai, they might develop certain pack tactics for targeting players. But. On the other hand, they will begin to value their own lives and may just run away from conflict barring strenuous circumstances. I will remember to limit their intellect to that of animals."

"Now, do you need anything more?" The girl questions with a small head tilt.

"Uh... yes, actually. One final thing. Do you think it would be possible for Npcs to begin mentioning the opening of this shop idly in conversations across the town?"

"Of course. That is easy. Are you ready to begin operation now?"

I look to Lisbeth who shrugs once and nods.

"I would, but, seeing as how I have to physically leave to grab things, do you believe it would be possible to have an NPC merchant here to sell things? While I am gone?"

"Yes. That is easily accomplishable." The black haired little girl nods once. "The Cardinal system already makes note of whenever you leave the confines of Aincrad and return. This would be a simple thing to do."

"Alright, in that case, I believe we are ready." I smirk as I rise to my feet.

"Question. What do you wish to name this store here?" Yui asks.

"Hnn... good question." I lowly hum as I tap my chin. "I've been giving it some thought and well, I've settled on 'Fortune Favors'."

"Very well. The general goods store 'Fortune Favors' is now open. I will make note to have the Npcs mention your unusual appearance. I will return once the first floor's Alchemical Bestiary has been completed."

She disappears in a shower of error signs, causing me to look to Lisbeth. "Well, that went well."

"I'm a little glad that the Ai running this hellish game isn't a monster like Kayaba could have easily made it." Lisbeth smiles. "It makes being here a little bit more bearable."

I nod slowly, a bright smile on my face. "Ohoho I'm looking forwards to the ingredients they bring me."

"I guess as an alchemist, finding new things would be incredibly fun... I'm sort of getting that way with whatever metals you bring me."

"I'm also seeing an incredible profit when I make my way over to that mages college with some never-before-seen alchemy ingredients." I admit as I slowly walk up the stairs from the basement. "That should fund a little bit more of my nonsense."

I turn, taking my place behind the countertop as Lisbeth lets out a low acknowledging hum. "Hey... Argo... after all of this, do you think... that maybe I could follow after you?"

"Hm." I hum mutely. "While I wouldn't mind, there's a couple things. Firstly, I'm not even sure if you can follow me, we'll have to check. Next, if you can, we'll be forced to find a method to change your race."

"Huh? Why?" She mutters.

"Couple reasons. Youkai live for possibly thousands of years. You're still a human and will die at one hundred and twenty at most unless we find a way to extend that. Next, more problematically. Some youkai eat humans. Back at my home, we have rules to not kill humans, but outsiders... such as a girl following a certain fox through a magical portal that hypothetically turns your in-game body into a real one... are not protected by those rules."

She opens her mouth, then closes it. "Oh..."

"Yeaaah. I'm not exactly strong enough to protect you either. I'd say I'm... maybe top ninty eight percent in strength... by that I mean there's probably two percent weaker than me, ninty eight above me."

"Oh" she repeats, sounding slightly more horrified.

"And I'm talking vampires who can control fate, vampires who embody the concept of destruction, women who you physically cannot object to, deities, werewolves, that sort of thing. Sort of a bad place to live, honestly. But ah well. It's home~" I continue with a 'what can you do' shrug. "Now, I need to practice my voice lines before someone comes in... get into the 'NPC' headspace."

Ahem I cough before shaking my head, smiling blankly. "Welcome to Fortune Favors. What can I get for you today?"

I nod slowly. "That's good."

I freeze as I can hear the door handle click, my body straightens as Lisbeth turns and begins retreating down the stairs.

Someone I don't know enters the shop, he doesn't look well. He is fairly young from what I can tell, maybe sixteen to eighteen, his eyes are lightly sunken and he is rather... big boned... he looks as if he hasn't slept in a few days. my eyes flick upwards.

XXPussySlayerXX - Level 1 ​

Ah. One of those. "Welcome to Fortune Favors! What can I get for you today."

He doesn't reply, not even looking at me as he walks inside, skimming the armor.

Ah. Right.

NPC.

He looks at one of the bows the system restocked, a screen appearing in front of his face.

He gives the price a disgusted look, even though that price was completely reasonable.

Five hundred Cor for a bow. In a game where so-far all you have are melee weapons.

The weapons in the other shops are comparable in price and this one is a ranged weapon! Maybe if you didn't mope around town for the past week, maybe you'd have enough fucking money to buy one you lazy piece of shit!

He turns and leaves without buying anything, another person entering before the door could even close.

Their eyes stray across the room. Once more there is no greeting, they simply enter, look around, then leave.

Is this going to become a common theme?!

--Linebreak--

"Hn." I let out a low hum as I look over the profits for the day.

Honestly? I made a surprising amount.

The best sale of the day would probably be to that one blue haired dude who fucking bit it during the first boss.

Diavel.

Maybe he won't die this time with his fully upgraded bronze chest piece he bought for fifteen hundred Cor.

Overall, the profit we made today was quite substantial.

We more or less ran out of certain items to sell, thus the system had to make some more- which regretfully meant no more profit.

Both suits of fully upgraded copper armor Lisbeth made were sold.

Helmet, Gauntlets, Breastplate, and Grieves, then we sold out of basic copper short swords.

My unarmed potions which were sold for thirty Cor each were sold out by one dude who seemed to want to try a 'punch build', but nobody has touched the fortification potion. It seems that one thousand Cor is far too much to waste on a consumable as it is right now.

All in all, on the first day of business, I made about five thousand Cor.

Enough to get me my next milestone reward!

Congratulations! You have made a total profit of 20000 dollars! You have been granted a random skill of 'Adept' mastery. Please select a world. ​

I put a little thought on it. Adept apparently counts as around eight hundred hours in something.

That's total work, by the way, so it would be one hundred days worth if you worked for eight hours a day. eight hundred days worth if you only worked for an hour.

All in all. It's about a month of learning if you didn't sleep a wink and trained the entire time.

"Skyrim."

Confirmed. Randomizing a skill. ​

I crawl back into my little hole, closing the door behind me. "Tsukasa I'm back-"

Skill selected: Faux Conception.
Time Sufficient to learn Prerequisite skills.
Learning Prerequisite skills. ​

"Hn?"

Knocking User unconscious to assimilate knowledge without mental pain. ​

I faceplant against the floor.

--Linebreak--

My face twitches slightly.

"Wh-"

A hand gently brushes across my forehead. "Oh good... you are awake. Are you alright, Argo?"

I crack my eyes open, staring up at the worried gaze of my second half as she... gives me a lap pillow.

Oh. That's another thing crossed off the bucket list.

"…"

I sit up slowly, rubbing my forehead.

"Sorry about that... I guess I had eight hundred hours worth of knowledge abruptly shoved into my brain and instead of suffering that headache I guess I just sort of... turned off... how long has it been?"

"About ten minutes." The woman admits. "Does this... normally happen to you?"

"Eh, sometimes. The last time I had knowledge shoved into my head it would have been my alchemy thing. But that was only about eight hours worth and I barely noticed it." I state as I look over her.

I bring her into a hug, causing her to blush as I rub my face against hers. "Thank you for taking care of me~"

"I-" I begin only to pause.

"…"

I slowly raise a hand and with a dull flash a wooden cube appears in my hand.

"…"

It remains there for a moment before it begins floating.

I reach out a hand and touch the block... my finger passing through it.

My eyebrows shoot up as I carefully look over the illusion.

I try again only to flinch back as my fingers touch the cube.

"Wh-"

I take the cube in between my index finger and thumb, then press it against Tsukasa's arm. "Can... can you feel this?"

"Yeah? Is this the thing you had eight hundred hours of knowledge shoved into your head about?"

"It... it is." I nod slowly. "The thing is, this is an illusion. But I made it real?"

I tighten my grip causing the cube to explode into little motes of light.

Faux Conception...

It seems to be illusion magic... but... a strange brand... one I have never heard of before... one I didn't see at the College of Winterhold.

Illusion magic in skyrim seems to focus exclusively on altering people's emotions and increasing your ability to hide, be it through muffling the noises you make, or just through simple invisibility.

I've never seen anything that allows you to... create... something.

Holy shit I got lucky.

Faux Conception is like... simultaneously a novice level spell and a master one. It is both relatively easy to learn while having a truly tremendous skill ceiling.

Its whole gimmick is first creating illusions... then making said illusions real.

Just a straight up 'reality can be whatever I want' moment.

But... I feel far less experienced within it than I should... and there are quite a few issues with it.

I feel as if I spent the first seven hundred hours or so learning how to better use my magic and the remaining one hundred on Faux Conception itself... what sort of fucking prerequisite did I learn?!

My magic feels lighter. Easier to maneuver outside my body.

It feels... different.

'Did I seriously just so happen to get a magic whose scope extends far beyond illusion? A super secret training method to enforce my will upon the world?!'

'Is there anything I can't do with this magic?'

'Well, I mean, clearly, yes. But in the future?'

As it is right now, it may be limited, but if I continue to learn it...

There's theoretically nothing I can't do.

I skim my thoughts, deciding to lay all of the pros and cons of the current magic on the table so I don't accidentally overextend and end up dying

First and foremost I should look at the first thing I learned. Something I can only describe as my 'domain'.

A zone of control that extends in all directions from my body.

It seems briefly hampered by the building around us, but extends a further few inches beyond that.

It's strange... I can almost feel what's happening within this entire area.

Tsukasa's tail swishing back and forth. Her gentle breaths...

It's not perfect, growing more and more obscure the further away it gets, but now... I have eyes in the back of my head?!

That's badass!

It's... sort of like 'Blind Sense' from dungeons and dragons if I had to make a comparison. I can't 'see' whatever it is... but I can 'feel' it.

My real question is 'why this was required by my illusion magic?'.

Speaking of said illusion magic, at most I can make an illusion the size of a basket ball.

That's rather small.

And the size shrinks if I try to make them 'real'. Going from basket ball size to about the size of a Rubik's cube.

Then there's the whole durability thing to worry about. I don't think these can necessarily be called 'real' yet.

I can feel them, but if I put any sort of real force on them, they'll shatter as if they aren't there.

A sword will cut right through any barrier I create, an arrow will punch through unerringly- presumably. I might be able to do something with angling my creations.

I'm also unsure how spells will interact with it.

I might be able to create one to intercept a fireball... causing it to detonate on it before it reaches me, but things like an Ice Spike? that should shear right through whatever I conjure to block.

There's also the issue of scent, taste, temperature.

The items I create also have no weight or real gravity. I'd be forced to control them the entire time I use them. Regretfully I think that means that I can't just drop a road roller on someone in the future...

Eh. I'll see what I can do. That's pretty far away.

Another slight change from what I can tell is that I... seem to have more magical power?

Maybe?

It's possible that the seven hundred hours sort of worked out my magika sort of like a muscle.

"Hn." I hum as I look back to Tsukasa. "Alright. I've gathered my thoughts. I seem to have gained a powerful tool. Thank you for watching over me for the past ten minutes."

"But of course." The girl smiles as she brushes a hand over my cheek, pulling me close for a quick kiss. "You are my second half. It is only natural that I would take care of you~"

She pouts at me slightly. "But... I don't like how you are more or less leaving me behind each and every day."

"Sorry, but... I need to make money. More money is more power for me."

"Yes, yes... I know." She sighs with a small head shake. "I just want you to spend more time with me! I want to be a happy little family! Is that too much to ask?!"

I stare at her for a long moment, then let out a small sigh. "I had wanted to go out into Skyrim to collect some things I need for Lisbeth, but, if when I look into skyrim I don't see a city of some sort, I'll stay here with you, alright?"

She seems pleased and wraps me into a tight hug.

"But if I see a city. I'll be going in to grab supplies, then I'll drop them off with Lisbeth... then I'll come back instead of hanging around, alright?"

"Yes!" She smiles brightly, rubbing her face against my cheek.