Norman was in a bit of a pickle. With Savant’s help, he had managed to come up with a viable rub-on perfume recipe. After a few exchanges, he also had the materials and equipment needed to start manufacturing prototypes. The only problem was that, well, there was nobody available to actually produce the products. Rowboat was busy doing deliveries and making candles, Shimri had all his working time occupied by dye making, and the children were on packaging duty. He could do it himself, of course, but the scents were too overstimulating to be near for too long.
“I suppose there’s nothing to do but go looking for another employee.” Norman slapped his knees in determination. Shimri was a great find, so he was sure that there would be many more talented people in the town of Swaan. Ones overlooked by the merchant world because of their origins.
[THAT IS NOT GOING TO WORK.]
“Why not? It’s a simple enough recipe. Shimri learned the dye-making process within a few days.” Savant was many things, but he was never wrong. It was both convenient and annoying to have a know-it-all in his brain, but Savant stayed quiet for the most part. If he spoke up, then there was sure to be a major problem.
[DUE TO THE THREAT OF ILLEGALLY MANUFACTURED DRUGS, ONLY NOBLES ARE ALLOWED TO PERFORM ALCHEMY IN THE EMPIRE.]
“That complicates things.” Why didn’t Savant tell him this before he spent so much mana and money on getting the supplies? Unless he adopted another orphan, there was absolutely no way to get an alchemist on board. Even then, he wouldn’t allow his children to work with fumes and fires. He would either have to deal with the migraines and do it himself or give up. Neither option sounded good.
[THERE IS ONE WAY.]
“Really? Are you able to get rid of my migraines?” Now THAT would be magic!
[NO. YOU ARE STUCK WITH THOSE. SORRY.]
[YOU CAN CREATE A NOBLE EMPLOYEE WITH THE LIFE SWAP SKILL.]
“That doesn’t make any sense. I can kill people by saving people, which is such a useless skill that I completely forgot about it until now.” Norman had to admit that he often forgot about his skills. He hadn’t opened his status in ages, as there was simply no need to. He was a merchant, not a hero or mage.
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[I CAN TRANSFORM IT FOR YOU IF YOU SACRIFICE ONE OF YOUR SKILLS.]
“Huh. So you can do more things. Is any skill okay?” Norman scanned through his list of skills. He wouldn’t mind sacrificing one of them for the chance of making [LIFE SWAP] actually useful. “Can I sacrifice the cooking skill?”
[COOKING (LVL 2) SACRIFICED]
[TRANSFORM LIFE SWAP (LVL 1)?]
“Yes.” Norman felt all the surface level knowledge he had about cooking disappear from his mind. It was a strange sensation. It was like knowing you forgot something, but not knowing what you forgot. He understood the concept of cooking, but things like recipes, how long to boil pasta, and what spices go with one another were completely lost.
[AFFINITY SKILL — LIFE SWAP (LVL 1) → UNIQUE SKILL — BENEFACTOR]
That sure was different. He could create a perfect clone of himself, or mix his DNA with another being and make a half-clone of himself. The obvious option was to create a clone of himself, but that had its problems. If the clone inherited everything from him, that probably included the migraines. If he could only create one a year, and they only lived for 6 months, he would have the same problem in 6 months' time. Not to mention that having a mindless version of himself would be really freaky.
The second option was a lot better, but it also had a massive problem. He would need another person to sacrifice a large chunk of their HP just so his company could have an alchemist. Norman couldn’t think of a single person who would be crazy enough to do that. He understood the sexually mature part, but the sapient and sentient part was needlessly annoying. He was sure that some tree somewhere wouldn’t mind losing 10 HP for the cause.
[I COUNT, YOU KNOW.]
“You do?” He did, didn’t he? He was both sentient and an adult, whatever adulthood meant for parasites like him. Wouldn’t a being with half of his DNA be a really freaky half-parasite, half-human being? Norman wasn’t sure if he wanted a monstrosity like that in his home.
[I AM NOT ACTUALLY IN YOUR BRAIN, I WOULD NOT FIT IN THERE. I AM NOT A BUG ATTACHED TO YOUR BRAIN STEM.]
“Then what ARE you?” Norman hadn’t really thought about it before. He had assumed that Savant was a freaky little alien who lived inside his skull. If he wasn’t that, then what in the world was the being that read his thoughts 24/7?
[YOU’VE MET ME, YOU KNOW? WHEN YOU SLEEP?]
“You’re Frank? Huh. It makes sense when I think about it.” Norman felt a bit stupid at not getting the connection sooner, but that wasn’t important right now. The man in his dreams was undoubtedly human-looking, and the resulting organism probably wouldn’t be too freaky looking.
“Alright. If you are willing, I would like to make an alchemist with you.”
