It didn’t take long to autocraft the potions that had been requested by the Sword Soul guild. Richard even remembered to place his own Burner into the Tool Slot first, and all the potions came out as Weak quality. He still wasn’t in such a financial situation that he could waste potions testing the quality level without the Burner. Plus he wanted to give his best to the guild that had saved him from the Field of Bloody whatever it was.

  While he could continue crafting with the drake scales that he had just bought. Only Richard had decided that it would be better to keep the potions off of the market. There was no telling what they would come out as. And it would be better to not ship something too wild into the markets. Not until he had more power. He would try crafting them when he returned home next.

  He had been considering what Windry said to him the other day. He would first need both personal power as well as that of powerful companions. People that he could trust to have his back. Maybe even share his secrets, or was that too much to want? But it was only then that it might be safe to start releasing new potions again.

  As he was wasting time after completing the potions Richard found that a guild group was looking for more. He had been relying on Windry to keep him company when he entered dungeons. But decided that it would be best if he grew away from only relying on her. And was considering joining the group. The party was going exploring that afternoon which just happened to line up well with his plans for the day.

  Instead of letting himself second guess if it was a good idea or not, Richard just went ahead and sent a message. Shortly after he was welcomed to the group and a time was set for 1:00pm at the Cabbit Dungeon. They would be going down to the third floor. And were okay with him coming along even though he was only level 3.

  With that out of the way Richard picked up the two crates of potions and went to drop them off at the Buying desk. “This is the order for the Sword Souls guild,” he said as his guild ID was scanned off of his phone.

  “Hrm, okay. I’ve found it. There is also a hold on $150k…” The man helping him gave Richard a bit of a side eye.

  “That’s alright. Please take it from the amount made from these potions.” He needed to make sure that he did not ‘borrow’ any more equipment in the future. Now that he knew how the Tool Slots worked he probably wouldn’t need to. But still it was a regretful mistake. At least the guild seemed to be understanding.

  In the end his total of $740,000 for the order was reduced to $590,000. The Swords were willing to pay a fair bit for the potions. His cost to make was only around 10k, so it was a profit of 27k per potion. Though he would have to come back later for the 150k being held due to the Burner… They should have found out already if the burner was okay or not. But maybe it was part of the punishment for daring to walk away with guild equipment?

  Once the payment had been sent Richard thanked the man, turned, and froze. There standing behind him was a balding older man wearing a labcoat. Stringy grey hair hung to his shoulders and his dress shirt was soaked through with sweat and he was gasping for air.

  When Richard tried to walk around him the man moved to block him. “We. Need. To. Talk.” His words came out strained and in between his breaths.

  “Um. Sorry, do I know you?”

  When the man took another step forward he was suddenly grabbed from each side by two people. They were dressed in heavy nanocarb explorer gear with helmets and even eye protection. Then they proceeded to drag him towards one of the elevators as he shouted and resisted.

  “I must apologize,” someone said from Richard’s side which caused him to start. “Jarl is rather… enthusiastic about what he does. And at times he is hard to control.” The man was smartly dressed in a brown suit and he had his greying hair styled sharply. “My name is Chuck, and I’m a member of the buyers department in the guild,” he said and held out his hand.

  Richard shook Chuck's hand and found that it was rather firm. He had likewise tried to place enough of his own strength into the handshake. But was rather worried about using too much force since the System had boosted his Strength by 20%.

  “I’m Richard. Um. Do you know what he wanted from me?”

  “It’s not something that you have to worry about right now. But in the future we would like a moment of your time. Just to talk about some of the items that you have submitted so far. Would you happen to have some time today to speak? Or perhaps tomorrow?”

  “Sorry. I just joined a guild party this afternoon. It could be later this evening or maybe tomorrow?”

  “Alright. I’ll send you a direct message and we’ll set a time then,” Chuck said. He wished Richard a good day and went into the backroom behind the buyer’s desks. Richard noticed a couple of strange stares from people as he walked out of the buying department. But paid it no mind. Being almost accosted by someone like that probably made people wonder.

  He grabbed some lunch on the way to the bus stop and headed off to the Cabbit Dungeon. There was a message from Chuck already on his phone. And on the bus ride over he set up a meeting for the next day at 1pm. It wasn’t about the Burning right?

  ****

  By the time that Richard arrived at the dungeon it was already time to meet with the others. Like what he discovered before, there weren’t any proper parties. And just random groups of people who partied when they wanted or needed something. The Cabbit Dungeon was probably a popular choice since the prices of the drops were the highest of the dungeons that he had gone into.

  “There he is,” A slim man with messy hair that hung down almost to his eyes said. He came forward and shook Richard’s hand. “I’m Brock, we’ve been talking about the dungeon.” He turned to the others. “This is Richard, a new guild member. I spoke with Angel and she vouched for him.”

  They all stepped forward, said hello, and shook hands. Aside from Brock there was Mumford, a shorter man with buzzed blonde hair. He was wearing the rented armor that Richard had used so often, but also sported a pair of spiked heavy gauntlets. Tina had her strawberry hair done up in a long ponytail, was wearing light armor, and holding a spear. And the last was Gem, she was rather soft spoken, her straight black hair was short with red roots just starting to show. She was carrying a shield and a mace dangled from her hip.

  “I’m the leader this time around, more due to the fact that I wanted to go down to the third floor,” Brock said. “We’ve all joined similar parties at one point in time or another. So we sort of know each other already.”

  They had a brief discussion over how they would fight together. Brock was ranged, Mumford would flank with Tina, while Gem would tank. It seemed like a melee heavy party but Brock said that it should be fine. As that most crafters, unless they could make a ranged weapon themselves, fought in close combat. Melee weapons were prevalent in the markets. And even Richard found that it was easier to deal with a monster in his face when he had something heavy to fight back with.

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  The first floor Richard finally had a taste of what it was like to just walk to the second floor. As usually he got out of the way of descending parties and went hunting on his own. The path down was uneventful and they saw no Cabbits. Once they got to the second floor Mumford and Tina spread out and checked the area around the entrance for monsters.

  Richard had noticed a trend, in how the second floor of the dungeons that he had been in all looked like the first. Just with little changes. It was the same with the Cabbit Dungeon. The second floor was also a brown grass plains biome. But the sun seemed to be a little lower on the horizon and there were more shadows present.

  “Did you want me to do the same?” Richard asked Brock and motioned to the two flankers taking point.

  “Don’t worry about it for now. Just try to fill in where you can. Once we have a handle on how you move we’ll make suggestions or plans around your skill level.”

  Like that they started clearing the second floor as they moved towards the stairs for the third. The Cabbits would appear in pairs. Depending on who was closest when a Cabbit appeared would change how the party reacted to the monsters. If it was near Gem she would belt out a shout and draw their attention to herself. She was able to do so even if the Cabbit was already attacking someone else. Which led Richard to wonder if she had some sort of taunt skill.

  If the Cabbits appeared near Mumford or Tina they would engage with one, while the second Cabbit would either be taunted by Gem or fought off by the other flanker. It took a few times seeing it before Richard felt comfortable stepping forward to fight with one of the Cabbits.

  Like with the Beetle Dungeon they were tougher, his first try led with the Cabbit being stunned by his overhead blow. Which gave him enough time to repeat the attack before it could gather its wits. Only it required a third hit before he could finish it off.

  Richard found that his damage was lacking compared to the others. Mumford and Tina only needed one good hit to defeat a Cabbit. While Gem was a little whirlwind and used multiple hits. While they were light she was still faster at dispatching the Cabbits than the two dps.

  They crossed over a small stream and their path opened up into a small clearing where the grass had been pressed down. “Large Cabbit,” Tina said as she craned her next. Then she was the first one to take a position. The others all spread out with Brock in the center.

  “They are just like the smaller ones,” Brock said as the grass near the edge of the opening rustled and shook. “Just they hit like a car and come with 3 smaller Cabbits.”

  A second later a Cabbit about the size of a large dog came barreling out of the grass followed by 2 smaller ones. Gem was on point and yelled out as soon as they appeared, “Come on you bastards!” Richard was somewhat taken aback at the gap. She was so quiet when they met before, and yet in combat it was like she was someone else.

  The Large Cabbit paused its steps and then charged towards her. While Mumford and Tina went after a smaller one each. From what Brock had said there should have been a third one. So Richard stayed back and placed himself between Brock and the edge of the clearing. That way he could keep an eye out for any other threats.

  Brock had positioned himself so that he had a clean like of fire towards the large Cabbit. And after a quick aria a ball of water shot out of his hand. It impacted the large Cabbit with a resounding thud and it staggered backwards. Gem took the moment to hammer a continuous stream of attacks onto its head and face.

  Mumford had defeated the one he was fighting and moved to punch the large Cabbit in the back while Tina was just finishing off hers. That was when Richard heard a rustle at the edge of the clearing. And he stepped forward to run interference.

  The small Cabbit bolted out of the grass and Richard just managed to bring his club up to block in time. The Cabbit bounced off but the impact was enough to unbalance him. And he hadn’t recovered when the Cabbit charged again. While he still managed to block, the second attack caused Richard to fall onto his backside.

  With the human out of the way the Cabbit was no longer impeded from Brock. And it charged into a jump just as Richard managed to get to his feet. There was an option of trying to attack a flying target, which if he missed meant that Brock would take a hit.

  Richard decided instead to just body block, and trusted that his armor would be enough to prevent any injury. The Cabbit’s head impacted with his back and Richard felt like his lungs forgot how to breathe and went down on one knee gasping.

  There was a bark then from Gem and the small Cabbit focused on her instead and was stabbed through by Tina before it took a few steps.

  “Are you okay?” Brock said and clapped Richard on the back. “Just take your time and try to take small breaths. Good block by the way.”

  Brock and the others went over any damage that they took. Which was only Richard. Then they each went over their weapons and armor to make sure that there would be no issues continuing.

  “Alright. We’ll take a break here and check out the drops,” Brock said. He came to Richard’s side and helped him through his weapon checks and made sure that he was feeling alright after taking the hit that he had. He would probably be sore in the morning. But the pain was already fading.

  ***

  “Did the order of potions arrive?” Bearing asked. They had been having more and more people coming back injured from fighting. Healing Potions were important consumables that every party needed to be supplied with.

  While it would be better to have a healer in the party. Such skills were few and far between, and often healing Skill Books were snapped up before they hit the market. The Sword Soul guild was large enough that even if they grabbed every skill book they could get their hands on it still wouldn’t be enough to have a healer in every party.

  There never were enough. Which meant that his clinic always needed to be staffed. If not someone with a healing skill at least one that would allow them to determine the best way to apply potions to an injured person.

  “Right here, Boss,” Janica said as she pointed to a cart. There were a couple more boxes on it than Bearing had expected.

  “There are two more?” he asked and walked over. He would never turn away more potions.

  “Yah, the Crafter’s Union delivered those new potions you wanted.”

  “Already?” He rushed to the boxes and searched for the Soul Purifying Potion. “All 20 of them. This is great.” There hadn’t been another issue with a curse so far. But it was only a matter of time. They had been having daily skirmishes with the ratters. There was a nest somewhere, or worse, a dungeon breaking.

  He looked around the gym sized room. People were milling everywhere, chatting about the raid about to take place. “Team leads!” Bearing yelled. “Come here and take one of these per party. We’ll keep the rest here in order to make sure that we still have some on hand at all times.” Each of the leads stopped what they were doing and stepped forward.

  “We are primarily a delving team,” Emily said. Do we still need these potions.” She reached for one only her hand paused before she picked one up.

  “What’s the matter? Bearing asked.

  “Ah? Nothing.” She took a potion in hand and turned it around. “Soul Purifying is it?”

  “Right. Take one anyways. That way if you are called into the field you are ready for the worst case.” He looked at the leaders of the field parties who had stepped forward. “They work against curses. At least the one we had on hand did. So if someone gets a wound that won’t stay healed, reopens, and turns black try one of these. It should get rid of the curse and then the healing will stick. Just don’t do it if you want to stay hidden at night.”

  Emily played with a potion a moment before she stepped away from the crates.

  Aaron was next to take a potion. “Great! It takes so much off of my mind having these. We would have lost Kim if we hadn’t,” he said. There was a clamor as the rest of the leads stepped forward to grab one of the new life saving potions.