Rise of the Cheat Potion Maker #1: A Cultivation LitRPG Saga

Wolverine tapped the wheel of the rolly-rolly with a paw then jumped back, but nothing happened. Cheetara emerged next to him, tilting her head questioningly. The neighing giants grazed, fortunately bothering no one. Wolverine armed himself with his dagger just in case. It filled him with mana and incredible power. He was ready to put all of his practicing to use.

“Big Brother Woofy, what should we do about that bad person? What if he has friends?”

Wolverine turned to the kitten, eyes widened. “That’s it! His driver doesn’t have a clue what’s going on and just runs away from me.”

“What if he brings an army?” Cheetara squealed excitedly. “Will it be us taking on a hundred, maybe a thousand? With our mighty claws, we’ll sweep across the battlefield, bringing death upon anyone unlucky enough to be in our way.”

Wolverine sighed. “Why did I teach you how to read?”

The sunlight wolf sniffed the air and then fate. The bad man in bars did have backup coming, but some time after that, there would be more. His master’s fate and that of he who forms darkness were a lot more intertwined than one would realize. Master Nate, his best buddy, would have to become more than just the best potion maker of this town, but of the world.

Wolverine turned to Cheetara, his tail wagging. “Best buddy’s on the way back, but more bad guys are on the way too. They received a sign to rescue the bad guy behind bars. He’s sneakier than we thought, able to call for help under anti-mana cuffs.”

We didn’t have time to lollygag, though no matter how powerful the boss, it took an entire day for them to respawn according to the blonde-haired healer. That didn’t mean I wanted to take a chance. Atsuki did admit to being trapped there by none other than this Peace Spawner guy himself. And fuck, I didn’t even want to begin to think how impossibly strong he was.

Fingers crossed, we opened the S-ranked chest.

First, I felt an insane amount of mana enter my body, indicating improvements or changes within my cultivation. I’d check on that later. Loot was present, baby!

At first, I thought we failed because I didn’t immediately see anything resembling my vision of an ice crystal. Ronica’s excited voice blasted through my ear.

“There it is, right there! Holy Wanda’s round, firm ass, this is the most powerful ice crystal I’ve ever seen. What could you possibly do with it? Please tell me you’re not going to freeze the entire town.”

She pointed at a black gemstone the size of a baseball.

“They’re normally sky-blue with dim, cold aura,” Milia said. “This one’s… astonishing. Normally they’re just A-ranked items.”

[Supreme Brilliant Ice Crystal. Item rank: S. Item quality: Superior.]

I let out a breath of relief. “All of this work wasn’t wasted. I can’t imagine trying this again another day.”

“Don’t you dare just take one item, this is an S-ranked chest,” Ronica said, her eyes seemingly starry. “An S! If you don’t get greedy, we’ll be plagued with guilt and Nuwa’s lectures.”

“What kind of adventurers are you?” I asked.

“Not really adventurers,” Iris replied. “As everyone calls us, we’re only the hero’s party.”

Ramon winced and blushed.

“You saved our lives, seriously,” Kelvin said. “Just let us thank you.” He patted my shoulder. “You’re a strange one, but maybe all master magicians are. I hope you don’t mind us learning from you.”

“I’m not cut out for mixing weird stuff in a cauldron,” Ronica said, scratching her head. “But if you’d like a kaboom, that’s me!”

Milia laughed then elbowed me playfully. “Select your prizes. But do hurry. If the dungeon revives the fallen angel, we’re doing our marriage during battle. I’d at least die happy.”

Now it was my turn to flush. Imagine having your lover say that to you. This world, damn, it was strange. Okay, maybe I was the weird one.

“Wow, Milia, that’s so romantic!” Nuwa, of all people, cooed.

I turned to glare not at her, but Ronica.

“What?” Ronica asked.

“Never mind,” I said, turning back to the chest and selecting my next prize. Thank goodness we had storage rings. What caught my attention, of course, was a scroll, but also a metallic red box the size of a Rubik’s Cube, a chemistry set with better-looking potion bottles included, a sack of gold and even coins I’d never seen before, and a nice outfit that looked to be my size. I also spotted a golden hammer for Lucas. Except for Mandi, who didn’t have magic anyway, all of my apprentices would be equipped now.

Feeling a little bad, I searched more until finding some kind of tome for magical accessories. Perhaps Mandi could work with Lucas to create little trinkets and devices that would help us with the business.

“This is all I need,” I said. “You guys are free to dig in.”

Rather than go for the treasure, Milia chose to sit in my lap after I took a seat on a log.

“You really are soft-hearted,” she said.

I chuckled. “Maybe a little.”

“Lucas and Mandi will be thrilled to receive their gifts,” she said. From that gaze, I wondered if she knew about the wedding rings. Honestly, it wouldn’t be surprising if one of the townspeople accidentally let it slip. I put my arms around her waist.

“You sure you don’t want to nab anything from the S-ranked chest?” I asked.

“I’ll wait for the others,” she replied. “It felt like… forever since we had any time to ourselves.”

Ronica cheerily bragged about a scandalous magic robe to Iris. The elf woman, currently examining a shiny bow, smiled at her. She pocketed arrows.

“I feel that,” I said, “and I can’t wait to get the hell out of here and back to our home.”

“Cuddles, blueberry pie, and now this new cold storage,” Milia said. “This dungeon run was a reminder of why I love your preference of living a peaceful life over dangerous adventure.”

I nodded. No one came away from this unscathed. I couldn’t keep my eyes on everyone, but even Milia had taken quite a few hits from the overpowered fallen angel. She’d downed half of one of her health potion bottles to keep going.

“Let’s see what we’ve got for all of the trouble,” I said as I revealed my items from the storage ring.

[Item grades range from F and max out at S. Item quality types are: garbage, awful, poor, okay, average, good, very good, excellent, amazing, incredible, superior, extraordinary, and exotic.]

[Supreme Brilliant Ice Crystal. Item rank: S. Item quality: Superior. Emits extremely powerful ice mana. You may turn up to three ordinary rocks into servant ice crystals that won’t require a charge for a year.]

I examined the red box.

[Magical Master Area Building System. Item rank: S. Item quality: *Supreme Extraordinary. You may keep track of your buildings, gardens, projects, and systems through this artifact. However, to upgrade anything, you will need spirit coins and meet certain requirements. This is a direct gift from Wanda, only capable of being handled by a master magician and anyone he designates.]

My eyes widened and when I whispered the description to Milia, her eyes went wide too.

“An artifact from Wanda herself,” she said softly. “You’d better keep this a secret. Even from them.”

“Oh, they’ll see it in action,” I said. “Everyone.”

Milia pouted, but then sighed in defeat. “You have a point there. Explaining how things built themselves is going to be a challenge.”

“Most certainly,” I agreed. “But with this, we won’t have to wait forever for guys to build the cold storage.”

“You’ll need spirit coins,” Milia reminded.

“Shit, you’re right,” I said. “Do you have any idea how to get these? Other than dungeons.”

Milia giggled. “Perhaps sell certain potions for spirit coins only?”

“Which means, for the first time, I’ll be openly selling my goods to magicians,” I said. “Fuck, that’s probably going to suck. We’ll have to befriend as many as possible.”

“Perhaps they’ll always come to your defense, trade with you,” Milia said, her voice excited. “Other than the hero’s party, you’re well on your way with Mandi’s siblings and her cousins too.”

By now, the others were looking at us.

Iris pouted.

“Now I kind of want to get married,” Ronica said, which almost seemed to make her party stare at her blankly. “What? It looks fun.”

I examined the next item on our list, especially with the curiosity of what I got still strong. If all of this came from just an A-ranked dungeon, then holy shit, the S-ranked monstrosity probably contained the keys to freaking Heaven itself for all we knew. Which meant surviving it was probably next to impossible.

[Heavenly Potion Making Set. Item rank: S. Item quality: Superior. Excellent quality bottles and linked to the MMABS for more production at the cost of spirit coins. With substances packaged in this set, you may find it easier to work with exotic materials and even monster samples. It is recommended to use a magic cauldron.]

Satisfied with this pick and confirming my suspicion, I moved onto the next item. The scroll.

[New special potion listing added, Potion of the God Flame. Upon consumption, you will have full control of fire. You will also be immune to fire, magma, and even solar magic. This is a potion gifted to you by Wanda.]

Okay, Wanda was clearly rewarding me, apologizing, or sending some kind of message. Believe me, the heartless system wouldn’t state otherwise.

Returning the incredibly amazing scroll back to my storage ring, I examined the next items. A sack containing gold and weird, nearly translucent, silverish coins.

“Oh, what luck, those are spirit coins,” Milia said. “This is about fifty.”

“Fifty!?” the entire hero’s party exclaimed.

“Even nobles struggle to keep so much as ten or twenty of them in their treasures,” Iris said. “Most magicians covet them.”

“The greedy bastards,” Ronica said, pouting. “You’ve picked out a small fortune there.”

“Are all A-ranked dungeons this insane?” I asked.

“It’s hard to tell,” Ramon said. “They kill a lot of adventurers every year. Some smaller kingdoms and even the Astral Empire keep guards around, preventing just anyone from entering.”

“It’s also a tax-feast for some kingdoms. Jasmine Kingdom’s prince charges an exorbitant fee to enter just the first floor and then taxes adventurers returning with anything,” Iris said.

I checked my next reward.

[Phoenix Feather-infused Black Outfit. Item rank: S. Item quality: Incredible. An outfit with special defensive properties.]

There wasn’t much to the description there, except vagueness, but I pressed on, analyzing Lucas’s hammer and Mandi’s tome.

[Heavenly Forge Hammer. Item rank: S. Item quality: Excellent. Infused with some of Atsuki the fallen angel’s mana, it’s capable of forging tools and weapons of Superior and Extraordinary quality. With the right skilled blacksmith, he or she can infuse the tool with various manas, including dark mana.]

[Tome of Magical Item Creation. Item rank: S. Item quality: Excellent. Infused with some of Atsuki the fallen angel’s mana, the user is capable of creating magical items, tools, gadgets, and trinkets of Superior and Extraordinary quality. The user is responsible for learning how to create such tools.]

I narrowed my eyes at the book but sighed in acceptance. My potion making class didn’t give me the ability to make any potion either. I had to manually learn how to make everything through trial and error and if it wasn’t for Milia, I wouldn’t have had the ingredients for who knew how long.

Was spawning or transporting next to Milia’s forest a coincidence? We both got a good chuckle at her words from the prior night. She wasn’t expecting to be sent a husband. I wasn’t expecting to be the lucky fuck. After all, I wasn’t anything too special. A guy working multiple jobs in a mundane life of a mundane society. Yet the system claimed that these powers were dormant within me. It still left the question of, why me? Were there other earthlings here? What about other worlds? I’d have to toss this into the ‘questions for later’ bin or simply think of it as one of life’s great mysteries.

As soon as Milia got her items, which included a storage ring, we started the annoying hike back. Nope, the System didn’t want to teleport us out of the dungeon.

“I think only S-ranked dungeons have teleporters at the end of them,” Milia said.

“Seriously, the dungeon creator must have a lot of friends,” I said sarcastically. “I’m being sarcastic, in case anyone wants to know.”

The others laughed. Iris ended up complaining about the walk the most. Maybe I shouldn’t stereotype elves as being nature-loving people with endless stamina.

Fortunately for us, defeating a dungeon meant monsters no longer attacked, unless we provoked them intentionally. We were too damn worn out for that.

When we stepped outside, a smile emerged on my face as Beakwing ran up to me, ecstatic. After scratches and a belly rub, we thanked Milia’s lamia friend, Emiris, then took off for Kyushu. The hero’s party rode their lightning horses, following Milia and I, as we led from Beakwing’s back.

As Wolverine predicted, backup did come to reclaim Drew and soon, he and Cheetara found themselves dodging bursts of elemental magic.

They defeated seven of the twelve magicians, but even Wolverine was reaching his limits. Spirit beasts could fight much longer than magicians. He counted on this endurance to get him through the fight without too many problems; however, not only did damage taken add up, but some of the spells contained various effects.

Noticing Cheetara cornered as a magician prepared to fire, Wolverine darted in front of her, intending to shield the kitten.

Suddenly, a magical burst hit not one, but two enemy magicians. A second burst, weaker, jolted from somewhere, striking another enemy magician that had their attention on the two spirit beasts.

Harmony and Lucas fired from the rooftops. The townspeople couldn’t see them, as they were pinned down by oppressive auras and killing intents.

“Eh, I don’t know where that came from, but it’s amateur and won’t work on me,” the lead man of the enemy magician attack force said. “Now, someone get out the nets, we’ve struck gold. Drew can wait. We’re going to capture these spirit beasts and rip out their cores. We’ll have someone at the sect analyze—”

“I’m sorry, what did you say you were going to do?” came a new voice.

Wolverine’s tail wagged almost into overdrive.

“Who the hell…?”

The enemy magician leader paused, eyes wide, and he began to tremble upon noticing that all of his forces were knocked out, some of their limbs bent into awkward positions. Since they were alive, they’d have the woes of infinite pain.

A man placed his hand on his shoulder and shook his head.

“There are three things you just don’t do, man,” he said. “Threaten my wolf, threaten my cat, or attack them.”

The enemy magician snarled, furious about being treated like a joke, but when a fist smashed into his face, breaking his nose and knocking him unconscious, Wolverine howled in victory, running up to his best buddy.

What the hell. I get home tired from dungeon diving and see my wolf and kitten being attacked by magicians and well, let’s just say I questioned my idea of being non-lethal toward people. Don’t fucking dare attack my wolf, that’s all I’m saying.

I did notice Harmony and Lucas on a rooftop, giving it their all, firing magic at magicians far above their levels. Somehow they forced their limbs to move under the immense pressure. In fact, if it wasn’t for the pressure, they likely would’ve revealed their powers to the entire town. Thanks to these red robe-wearing assholes, the townspeople were certainly not ready for this conversation.

It turned out they worked for a magician Wolverine and Cheetara defeated earlier, a man named Drew. Judging by the pissed off gazes from the hero’s party, he was either a kingdom spy or stalker. I decided to let them deal with that guy and turned to my relieved apprentices.

“You and the hero’s party look like… death,” Harmony said.

“It’s a long story, but if you’re willing to join us for dinner tonight, I’d love to tell it,” I replied. “Oh, and here, you’ll probably need this to practice.”

I handed Lucas the brilliant hammer. It was amusing watching him stumble over his words to thank us, but those manners only made me glad to accept the kid as an apprentice. He still had a long way to go to catch Harmony but held plenty of promise.

“This book’s for Mandi, but honestly, if you read and find something useful out of it, I don’t blame you,” I said, handing the tome of magical item creation to the blue-haired girl. “Hand that to her when she returns.”

“She’d certainly feel more included to the magical side of being your apprentice,” Harmony said as she accepted the book. “By the way, did you read her letter yet? What did it say?”

“She probably confessed her undying love to him,” Lucas quipped.

The letter mentioned securing a farm deal, but Gaston and her mother were quite angry with her for leaving, so delivery would likely be from a third party. She wanted to return, to live at the town. Obviously, with a parent known as the Red Star, that couldn’t easily happen.

I was about to dismiss the letter, since other people’s family matters were definitely not my strong suit, when the last line caught my attention. She not only didn’t want to get married, but Gaston treated her like a second-class citizen, a trophy, and dirt at the same time. He humiliated her often by abusing his privilege as a son of the empire to bed other women. With this being an open secret, Mandi lost even her fake social friends. She wanted a fresh start at Kyushu. This was why her big sister, Rose, opposed the marriage.

I handed the letter to Milia. She read over it.

“Harmony, is it possible to get someone to prepare Mandi a home?” Milia asked, then passed the blue-haired girl the letter. Harmony grimaced after finishing it.

“What a disgusting… We will definitely have a home ready for her. By today, in fact,” Harmony said, her eyes filled with determination.

“Good,” I said. “Tomorrow, we’ll take a trip to Wingston, check things out.”

She wasn’t in any immediate danger, so going now while exhausted wouldn’t help anyone.

“This will hopefully be a quick trip,” I said as I picked up Wolverine. Cheetara was currently on my shoulder. “Ready to go home, buddy?”

Wolverine licked my cheek and barked once, his tail wagging. “Lucas, Harmony, see you at dinner tonight.”

“Yes, Sir Nate,” Lucas said.

“Can’t wait to hear what happened,” Harmony said.

That night, we all laughed over some dinner and at the hero’s expense. You bet your ass I was going to tell my apprentices almost every detail, excluding me getting my ass handed to me a few times by the fallen angel.

After dropping them off, Milia and I curled up together in bed, relaxing, and recharging for tomorrow. We were going to put the red cube to use along with the ice crystal we worked so hard for. Mandi’s job could be helping out with the farm, although I was sure the other apprentices wouldn’t mind lending a hand, whether they knew it or not.

I kissed my fiancée.

“By the way, I just received an earth message from my family,” Milia said. “They’ll be here a month before spring.”

A month before our wedding, huh?

“What’s your family like?” I asked, curious.

“I have three sisters and a mother,” Milia said. “Just be careful around them.” She was smiling playfully, but I figured there would be more to that phrase.

I checked my stat page as Milia drifted off to sleep while in my arms. The ridiculous progress shouldn’t have surprised me.

Nate

Class: Potion Maker. Secondary class: **Divine Master Magician**.

Magician rank: 3rd realm of the Lesser Dragon.

Class rank: Special Rookie Potion Maker.

Ability: Can make up to SSS and Divine-grade potions.

Power: Crushing Strong.

Defense: Emboldened Steel.

A man in a black cloak watched the town from a large hill a mile away. He turned, only to freeze at the sight of a female-shaped beacon of light so powerful, it made even a being such as him tingle.

“That’s a dangerous game you’re playing,” she said.

The man grinned. “Perhaps. But I’d like to know, goddess, are you entertained?”

A musical, but humorless, chuckle rang through the air before she answered. “We may be bound by the deity pact to not interfere directly, but one of these days, you will end up facing your descendant.”

The man laughed. “You really don’t understand anything, do you, goddess?” His voice wasn’t addressing her by title, but by being now. “This is why humanity is violent. Because the gods that made them wage war. Children imitate their parents.”

“Watch your tone,” the goddess said, her voice dark and commanding.

“Or what?” the man asked. “I’m only leaving, after all.”

“Why are you doing this?” the goddess asked. “Why did you ask me to bring him here?”

“It’s simple,” the man replied. “If someone from this world couldn’t change it, no matter what, violently or nonviolently, what if someone from a different world could? I asked you to bring a strange hero.” The man chuckled. “And you actually did.”

“Strange he is,” the goddess said. “Strange he is. Now, about your other descendant.”

The man shrugged. “Let him keep the world afraid of him. That man’s going places, even if it means commanding darkness itself.”

“I hope someone puts him down,” the goddess barked. “Uh, being near you just angers me.”

The man sighed as she vanished.

“You’re too naïve, goddess. Too pure. Thankfully that pact prevents old beings like us from touching this world.”