After Bailey had given him the head-up, Isaac had hurried to et them all at a speed barely low enough for people to still recognize him and not take him to be an intruder.
He scared the hell out of everyone he t regardless, given that so kind of ergency had clearly occurred. Most Hunters didn’t carry their cellphones on their person due to the danger of them getting wrecked. The rapid movents and direction changes modern combat required could easily shake loose vital components that had not been designed to stay in place in the face of such forces, electrical magic could fry it, many liquids could short circuit them, and so on, and so forth. In other words, the [System’s] battlefields were not safe places for people to be carrying mobile devices, which was why Isaac kept his in his extradinsional storage space most of the ti.
It also ant that the people gearing up to go Dungeon diving or training had no idea what was going on at the mont. After all, the info packet had dropped a re two minutes ago and that kind of information took ti to be discovered by most people.
Professor Bailey, on the other hand, had dozens of direct subordinates and hundreds of people who supported his work in so way. There was always soone on the internet, researching sothing, so the ssage had been picked up almost imdiately, then instantly passed on to Bailey, who’d then called in everyone here.
Back ho, though, things were probably getting truly insane. Professor Chandler was probably chasing grad students all over the campus to get him the ingredients, and Isaac suspected he’d even be working on so improvents as early as the second batch. After all, the recipes he’d given out had been the most basic ones available, sothing any reasonably skilled [Alchemist] should be able to improve with ease. But at the end of the day, that was the entire point. He didn’t want to give out completed answers, he wanted to show people the correct starting points to reduce the amount of ti wasted up front.
“So, soone released a bunch of potion recipes online?” he asked, his tone one of curious reservation, as though he wasn’t entirely sure what to believe.
“Yep.” Patrick comnted a computer screen sitting on a table in the corner. He was currently sitting in front of an open portal that led to a Hunting Ground, making sure nothing got out while soone else was inside.
The whole assembly was in a new ‘building’ that Bailey had commissioned just before leaving to Korea. It wasn’t anything complicated, just a heavily reinforced concrete tunnel with multiple blast doors that would help prevent anything from getting out.
The fact that it had been so simple ant that it could be built quickly, further aided by the fact that Karl had helped. Sure, the building inspectors had a little sothing-sothing to say about magic being used to construct buildings, but there was nothing they could say about how the hole the building was put in was dug.
“Hi there, is this thing on?” a wild-haired Professor Chandler appeared on the videocall besides Patrick, his expression sowhere between a toddler on the world’s greatest sugar rush and an addict who’d just gotten their hands on sothing even better than their normal stuff, all in all not sothing that inspired confidence in his ability to make god use of this information. Still, his [Skills] could compensate for a lot of that, and he was an excellent [Alchemist].
But the part of the professor’s video that stood out the most was how shaky it was, and how the buildings and trees kept blurring past in the background. Clearly, he was running to the university at full tilt, desperate to get started as soon as possible.
anwhile, on Patrick’s screen, the portal suddenly collapsed, leaving behind only Raul and a few monsters that were torn apart in a wave of magic a split second later.
“So, Patrick told a bit about what’s going on, do I have this correct: soone posted a bunch of potion recipes that are years ahead of what anyone should have been able to develop since the ergence of the [System]?” he asked.
“Yeah, I think so.” Isaac answered.
“Hm, sort of.” Amy corrected “There’s also a bunch of wild accusations about various people becoming what can only be described as ‘supervillains’.”
She’d managed to keep a straight face as she said that for the most part, but her amusent at the idea of a Real-Life supervillain was apparent. Sure, the idea of comic book level ‘incidents’ becoming commonplace was utterly terrifying, but co on, real supervillains? It just sounded plain daft, no matter how serious it actually was.
“But that isn’t what we’re going to talk about.” Bailey stated flatly “I know we’ve helped with stuff like that in the past, but we should leave that to the professionals for now while we focus on our job, which is figuring out how all those potions work.”
“Actually, I have an idea about that. More specifically, where they ca from.” Patrick said “I think it might be so kind of Illuminati-style organization.”
Isaac just gaped at him … and so did everyone else. Patrick was the most straight-laced, down to Earth person on the team, and now he was suggesting sothing like this?
“Look, I know how this sounds, but think about it for a second, please. Who has the kinds of resources to pull sothing like this off? And then tell , which one of those people would release that information like this?
“A governnt wouldn’t say a peep about a discovery like this until they were ready to make a massive profit off it, and then actually get sothing for it, at least if they didn’t conquer the world first.
“A corporation, assuming they even had the resources to create sothing like this in a few short months, they wouldn’t give it away, they’d sell it.
“And a scientist would be crowing it from the rooftops if they created sothing like this.”
“No, they’d make sure they got credit for it, then send it too all the important scientific magazines, and thencrow it from the rooftops while waiting for their Nobel Prize nomination.” Chandler corrected.
“Maybe.” Patrick said “What I’m trying to say is, there isn’t anyone who’d publish this via infodump. Even charitable organizations would make sure people knew where it was coming from, for future funding, if nothing else. But soone had to have paid for all this research, aning so kind of organization has to have been involved, except they don’t want to show themselves, or anyone to so much as put a na to them. Obviously, the chances of this being the historical Illuminati is near zero, but so kind of hidden organization had to have been behind this.”
“It could always have been a whistleblower in a regular company, a company that is now scrambling and wasn’t able to claim credit yet.” Amy suggested, which Isaac found even weirder than Patrick blaming the Illuminati for sothing.
“A whistleblower? One who not only had access to the recipes, but also knew enough to post a ‘plots that might fuck up the world’ list?” Patrick said “I’m reading through this list right now, and if even half this stuff is real, then we’ve got a serious problem on our hands, and by us, I an the whole human race.”
Isaac sighed internally, getting caught up in a discussion about the Illuminati of all things was pretty much the exact opposite of what he was trying to do here.
“All of that is assuming that the recipes are even real. What if soone just tossed together a bunch of random ingredients, gave the whole thing an interesting na is now laughing themselves silly at all our reactions?”
“Oh, it’s very real, have you even looked at that?” Chandler grumped, outraged “I can tell at a glance how useful these are going to be!”
… and there it was.
“Thing is, dicines like that need to be tested, and that takes ti. To have them this soon … soone’s gotta have cut corners at so point.” Amy said, suddenly onboard the Illuminati train of thought “What if it was an organization out of the public eye, doing crazy shit for the benefit of humanity, even if they blackened their very souls so badly no one would ever appreciate their efforts?”
“Ok, if we’re going with crazy theories, here’s mine.” Raul said “Hear out: Reverse-Isekai. What if soone from another world, one that always worked like this, fell through a portal or sothing, ended up on Earth, and has been trying to get their feet under them all this ti? They sent out those warnings a day after initialization because they realized what was about to happen, what could go wrong, and now, they’ve finally managed to adapt their potion recipes to this world and figure what dangers this world holds so they could tell us about it.”
“That’s … disturbingly possible.” Isaac replied laly. It was nowhere near the truth, but it matched it in the absurdity departnt.
“Well, these potions certainly require so very weird ingredients.” Bailey said, once again bringing the situation back down to Earth, running his finger down a printed copy of the list “Illegal, frowned upon, veryillegal, I have no idea what this is, I do know what that is but no one sells it, common enough, common enough, common enough but not so common that any will remain once people read this, … what the heck, none of this makes any sense.”
“Hey, so where are we with the recipes?” a new voice echoed from the computer. It was Professor Bishop, though his video was off and the sound of footsteps in the background indicated he was running sowhere while the phone was in his pocket.
“Working on them.” Bailey said “What are you doing?”
“Chasing TAs and grad students all over the city to collect ingredients. David, do you need anything?” he asked, addressing Professor Chandler by his first na.
“There are so coca leaves in the Pedology departnt, building A, ground floor, take a right at the entrance, furthest door on the right, in the -70 °C freezer, pine box in the back left corner. If soone could retrieve it for , that would be great.” Chandler rattled off.
“Wow, you sure knew where the drugs were.” Bishop comnted dryly after passing that along, prompting Chandler to shoot a truly caustic look at the cara which Bishop didn’t even see, given that his phone was still in his pocket.
“[Know Thy Inventory], nitwit.” Chandler said, his voice a low growl.
“The real question is whether a few random plant samples that are, from the sounds of it, ancient will be enough.” Bailey asked.
“We should be able to get so from the university’s hospital, right? They do still use that stuff for so dical procedures?” Amy suggested.
“Maybe. I’ve already sent in a request, but when you’re not right there, breathing down their neck, they tend to drag their feet.” Chandler grumbled.
“Ok, but it’s still weird that a mana potion would require stuff like this. Now, I’m no chemist, but even I know none of that makes sense. Sugar, white tea, whatever that is, and, oh yeah, cocaine, a bunch of other wild plants and random chemicals? That ain’t chemistry.” Bishop wondered.
“That is because this is Alchemy!” Chandler snapped, Bishops earlier needling combined with the stress of the situation clearly having seriously annoyed him “This isn’t chemistry, where everything can be discovered based on the strong force, weak force and electromagnetic force, all combined into ss that’s thankfully mostly understood.
“No, this is Alchemy, which is basically old school witchcraft where the idea and purpose behind sothing is more important than even its chemical properties. Trying to use Chemistry to explain this stuff … Victor, what you’re doing is the equivalent of using a pocket calculator to do psychology. It just doesn’t work.
… Dolt.”
“And you’ve sohow figured out how that worked in five minutes?” Bishop asked, voice extrely skeptical.
“Anyway, do we tell people about how we’re working on this?” Isaac asked loudly, interrupting the bickering.
“We already said we’re working on it.” Bailey said “Just a quick post, but it seems to have gotten so positive tracktion.”
It said a lot about their reputation that an official statent that basically amounted to ‘fellas, we know fuck all, but we’re working on changing that’ was actually taken at face value and believed, rather than being thought of as the aningless statents of an organization desperately trying to appear in control.
“About that, mind if I send so more information along to so of the people I know in the governnt and law enforcent? I know we haven’t really talked about it, but so of the other information here is super disturbing and if it’s real, they need to deal with it.” Isaac asked “If we can confirm part of it is true, it should add a little sense of urgency.”
“Sure.” Bailey nodded, prompting Isaac to imdiately pull out his phone and snap off a few short ssages. The other ssages, the ones he couldn’t get caught sending, had been sent off automatically, though, having been uploaded alongside the main information packet.
They continued on like that for a good long while, as Professor Chandler reached his laboratory and they all watched him bang around it.
Yoo-jin poked his head in at so point, asking if they knew what was going on, but he had to leave to calm down so of the louder Guildmbers. Apparently, they were slightly panicking at this shift in their world. The last one had brought monsters, what fresh hell would this one create?
Professor Kim also sent Bailey a text, asking if he needed to borrow so of her facilities, but he’d just thanked her and declined. Having Chandler take care of things was just far easier and simpler.
And then, finally, the potion was done. To Isaac’s eyes, this had taken far too long, but then again, this was the Professor’s first ta making this stuff.
“So, how do we test that?” Bailey asked.
“Like this.” Chandler shrugged and chugged the gently glowing blue liquid as if it had been a shot.
Weird, strangled sounds ca from both Bailey and Amy, as they saw the old man break just about every laboratory safety standard in existence.
“What?” he shrugged with mock innocence “I’m fine, that’s what [Skills] are for. So, this potion gives the drinker 50 points of mana over ten seconds but for thirty-five minutes afterwards, your Mana Regeneration Stat acts as if it’s 5 points lover.”
“So basically, you lose a little more mana than you gain over ti, but it gives you an imdiate burst of power?” Isaac asked “That sounds incredibly useful in a pinch.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Raul said thoughtfully “I’d guess there’s a cooldown on drinking one, or maybe the side effects worsen if you drink multiple ones in quick succession.”
“Perhaps the effects grow weaker with repeated consumption?” Isaac suggested, then proceeded to rattle off a bunch of examples from literature, though he was fully aware of the fact that Raul’s guesses about compounding side effects and reduced efficacy had been right on the money.
That then turned into watching a man who was nearly seventy down dubious concoction after dubious concoction, making everyone act incredibly concerned after each one. He was going to be fine, Isaac knew, but everyone else acting like it wasn’t was starting to wear on him. Still, soon enough, there should be the usual ‘well, this isn’t how things are normally done, but due to extraordinary circumstances, we’ll allow you to drink those potions’ announcent, and then they could get back to other stuff while the mad scientist nearly blew up the lab every other day.
“So, we’re going to be here for the remainder of the planned stay, but once we get ho, we’ll all work together on figuring out how all of those potions work. But David, wait until I’m there to fix you if things go wrong.” Bailey insisted, getting a grumbled, mocking ‘Sir, yes, Sir’ in response. With that, the call ca to an end, and the three of them went out for sothing to eat and to make up so more fantastical theories on where that ssage could have co from.
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