Sword Art Online - Alchemy Edition!

by The Dark Dragen

How would things change if Sword Art Online had magic in some form? Read, as this story tries to show this through alchemy, where those who are alchemists can create magical items & gear from crystals and other items. How would things change? What if there was a hidden agenda in adding this ability? This story will tell about the first month of being trapped in SAO & beyond. Harem.

1. Prologue - Announcement

Sword Art Online - Alchemy Edition.

By

Dark Dragen.

Summary: How would things change if Sword Art Online had magic in some form? Read, as this story tries to show this through alchemy, where those who are alchemists can create magical items and gear from crystals and other items. How would things change? And what if there was a hidden agenda in adding this ability?

Disclaimer: I do not in any shape or form own Sword Art Online. It's a light novel series written by Reki Kawahara and illustrated by abec, whilst A-1 Pictures produced the anime. The only thing that I own is the idea of the alchemy part of it.

Warning: As other than smut, I do not know what to expect in this story. However, if you read my other works, can you expect many dark and sexual themes, so, if you have problems with such things, please don't read. This story is not for children.

Chapter Summary: After reading the questionnaire from beta testers for the finished version of Sword Art Online, the creator, Kayaba Akihiko, alters the game a bit. Read as Kayaba goes on TV to explain the changes to Sword Art Online.

Prologue…

Announcement!

26th of April 2025:

We begin our story with Kirigaya Kazuto, or he was better known to his friends as Kirito. Kirito was a twelve-year-old boy; he had black hair and black eyes. The young boy was in his room watching a gaming interview on a steaming channel on his laptop called MMO Steam. It was the top gaming show in Japan; the show did interviews, game plays and talks about future games. Today, MMO Steam was doing an interview with Kayaba Akihiko, a development director from Argus.

Akihiko was behind in helping to create a VR system known as FullDive, which could be found in large-scale amusement park machines. These machines you would have to wear body suits and headgear to use. These were the only way to play a decent VR game, where things were realistic, almost as if it was the real world.

It put other VR gear, like from the PS5, Xbox Series X platforms along PCs, to shame. Where those systems were slow, and the graphics weren't all that good. But with FullDive, that was different. The graphics and sounds were realistic, and thanks to FullDive connecting to the brainwave of the person, the speed was like real life. That was unless companies designed the game for speed type skills, where the person would get faster, which the person would need to learn to deal with the new speed.

For the last five years, until two years ago, the only way to play these games was if a person went to one of the amusement parks that had them. There, you would need to create an account to play a game so you could play them again in the future, either at that park or another.

Two years ago, Kayaba Akihiko created the Second Generation of FullDive called NerveGear. The NerveGear was a highly advanced head set of the FullDive, where you would only need to wear a helmet to play the game.

Whilst the last FullDive could pick up the brainwaves of the person to keep the speed up whilst playing a game. This one had a high-density microwave transceiver that could access the user's brain, allowing it to send fake signals to the five senses of the user. The transceiver is not only capable of inducing fake sensory signals, like smell, taste, hearing and even pain if a person turned the ability on. But the transceiver can also block every movement command from the brain to the body.

This prevented the player from moving their body whilst wearing the NerveGear. It was to avoid injuries. The transceiver also had the capability of blocking sensory information from the body to the brain, thus, while using it, the player is completely insensitive to the physical world.

Unfortunately, the NerveGear wasn't totally safe. There was a risk to the person. The gear had the capability of destroying a person's brain by emitting high-powered microwaves, shutting down one's vital processes. Thankfully though, the NerveGear was equipped with a new generation diamond semiconductor central processor, to prevent this from happening. The only way for the gear to be deadly was if the NerveGear was damaged, or its protection was purposely turned off.

Anyway, for the last two years, the only games that the NerveGear had were single player games. That was until recently, as Kirito heard, that Akihiko had designed the first ever VRMMO (Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online) for the NerveGear. The game was called Sword Art Online.

This game was the first of its kind for NerveGear. Unlike the rest of the games for NerveGear, this one meant to have no magic in it. The only way to fight and defeat the monsters was to use swords and swords skills. There were other skills, like cooking, fishing, and blacksmithing, which you could master. These skills were basic daily life skills, so you can take time off fighting monsters and do something else or help gain items to help you in fighting the monsters - like making food, armour and new weapons that you might need.

Kazuto learned that there were a thousand people who were able to beta test the game. Although he put his name down to be one of these beta testers, he wasn't lucky enough to become one. But he had a friend who took part in the testing. He informed Kirigaya that whilst he enjoyed the game; he wished that the game had other ways to heal other than potions. As there were a few times during a boss fight that he needed a potion but found that he ran out and died.

Kirigaya found this interesting. He liked a challenge in his games, so having something like only allowing to have potions to heal was interesting. At the same time, though, he could understand his friend wanting other ways to heal. Whilst he liked a challenge, he hated dying, especially when you die. In some games, when you die, you could lose EXP, levels and skill points.

Either way, when he heard that Kayaba Akihiko was going to do an interview on MMO Steam, he wanted to see it, wondering what he had to say. Kirigaya wondered if he was going to announce some sort of changes to the game. He highly doubted it, seeing how close the release date was so close, but with developers, anything is possible.

So, wanting to see what Kayaba Akihiko was going to say, Kirigaya was sitting in his room watching MMO Steam. At the moment the show was showing ads. It wasn't long before the ads finished, and the show returned.

"Welcome back viewers, MMO Steam," said a female announcer, "I'm Akari Watanabe and I'll be your host for this afternoon. Now, as my friend Akio said before the break, this afternoon we have a special guest for this afternoon, Kayaba Akihiko."

Here the audience cheered at this, as a photo of Kayaba Akihiko appeared behind Akari. Happy to see the man who created the NerveGear and the person who helped to create some of the games for it.

"Now, we know Akihiko for his creation of the NerveGear and RPGs like the single player game World of WarCraft, a remake of a game with the same name. Along with the Star Wars games based on Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: The Clone Wars." Akari informed everyone who Kayaba was and what he had done so far, "But today, he is here to talk about his newest game and the first-ever VRMMO game for NerveGear, Sword Art Online. So, please join me as we welcome Kayaba Akihiko."

She introduced Kayaba Akihiko, who entered the stage, where the audience cheered and clapped for him.

"Thank you, Akari, for having me here today." Kayaba thanked Akari.

"You're Kayaba," said Akari, "Now, before we start the interview, for those who don't know about, Sword Art Online. Allow me to explain about the game. From what I can understand, this game has you going up an enormous tower or castle which has one hundred floors. But on each floor, you must defeat the Floor Guardian to get to the next floor. But to defeat the Floor Guardian, you can only use swords and other blade-like weapons, along with skills connected to those weapons. But there's no magic, other than potions, there's no other way to heal or get buffs. Am I right so far, Kayaba?"

"Other than certain items, you are Akari." admitted Kayaba.

"Is it also true that there's no main quests, only side quests?" asked Akari.

"Sort of." admitted Kayaba, "In SAO, I have created a system that can create quests based on stories it would find on the internet. For example, the system could create a quest based on Greek mythology where you would have to go through a labyrinth and defeat a minotaur. Completing it could do nothing other than giving you a reward. But there could be a quest where when you complete it could alter the floor for everyone. It could alter any quests that were already going on, even making people fail the quests they were doing. It could also create new quests depending on how the floor is altered. It could also create a quest that could last a few floors."

"What does this mean for main quests?" asked Akari, awed and amazed by this. Even Kirigaya wondered about this. Also amazed by this, it meant that whatever this system was, it was the most advanced system out there right now.

"You see, for some floors, for the Floor Guardian to appear, you'll have to do a certain quest. So, you could call that a main quest." explained the creator of SAO, "However, you should be aware that before that quest appears, you more than likely have to do a certain side-quest or side-quests before they appear. The catch is no one knows when these quests would appear, could be hours of entering the floor or weeks before they appear. So, it was for the best to do as many side-quests as possible to search for the floors to find them. To make the Floor Guardians appear, you'll have to do hidden quests. Which means you'll have to find a person, items, or monsters to start the quest."

There were many whispers of amazement at this price of news. No one there thought they would hear about this today. They thought they would have to wait weeks, even months, after the game of coming out before they learned something like this. Kayaba didn't say what these quests were or what floors they were on, although he might not know seeing how the new system was set up.

"This is truly interesting information. We can't wait to see it in action and see what quests your new system will create." Akari said with a smile. Now, she would love nothing more but to ask more about this system, how it worked, and what plans Kayaba had for it. However, her producer told to get to the point of the interview, the announcement that Kayaba wanted to tell everyone.

"Now, I hear that you have an important announcement that you wanted to make. Could you please tell us what this is?" asked Akari.

"Of course." Kayaba said, "Whilst many of you are expecting Sword Art Online to be out this November. I'm sorry to say that the game will be on hold for at least a year, maybe two."

There were many gasps and whispers at this, and Akari had to ask, "What do you mean? What caused this delay to happen?"

"As everyone know, a few months ago Sword Art Online was tested by beta testers." said Kayaba, as Akari nodded in acknowledgement, "Well, what many of you might not know, is that we give them a questionnaire to fill in. Asking them if they found any bugs we might have missed or what we could add to make it better."

Those who knew about beta testers, like Kirigaya who had beta tested a game before, knew this. As it was the only way for people like Kayaba to fix any bugs and other problems before the game came out. Or, if possible, it allowed the players to give ideas about what they would like to be added to the game. So, this made Kayaba wonder what sort of bugs or problems they found, that Kayaba had to delay the game for a long time. Or was it an idea that they wanted to add but needed time to add it?

"So I'm guessing that with this delay, there was some sort of bug to be fixed?" inquired Akari. Then asked as she thought about it, "Or did someone give you an idea you're planning to add?

"You would be right, Akari." admitted Kayaba, "You see from the questionnaires we came to realize that people wanted some sort of skill to heal other than potions or do certain magic to help in fights. Even some other skills to help in a fight, like range attacks, even elemental attacks. This got us thinking. How could we add something like this without breaking the idea of Sword Art Online too much, where the primary goal is to use swords and sword skills?"

"I'll be honest, when I heard about this idea of only using swords and other blade weapons, whilst interesting, I thought it would be difficult. And would have liked some ranged and elemental attacks." admitted Akari. "But I also knew it wouldn't be as interesting if you added magic to the game."

"That's right, which is why after months of meetings with those who helped me create SAO. We came up with an idea that'll allow us to add what people wanted, but without adding too much magic." Kayaba informed everyone.

"What is this idea?" Akari asked with interest.

"We decided to add another class." explained Kayaba, "Whilst before there would only be what we are now calling Warriors, there'll now be a new class, Alchemists. Those who not only able to use blades, but they are also able to use alchemy."

Hearing this, there were whispers of shock and confusion at this news from the audience, as many of them hadn't heard of alchemy before.

Even Kirigaya was confused, not because he didn't know what alchemy was, but he didn't know how they could add it into the game. From his research on the subject, when Kirigaya looked for games and anime. He found that alchemy was where you can create something out of something else, such as healing potions and such. There was even a myth that alchemists could turn lead into gold, and create a stone known as the Philosopher's Stone. A stone meant to give a person immortality, even turn lead into gold.

The thing was, all the games and anime that Kirigaya found. Alchemy was heavily connected to magic in some way. For anime there were two he knew of, Fullmetal Alchemist and Buso Renkin. In Buso Renkin, you needed a device called Kakugane to use their powers and defeat the evil artificial creatures known as Homunculi.

For Fullmetal Alchemist, you would need a Transmutation Circle to use their powers. Normally you would need to have an item with the Transmutation Circle on it, otherwise, you need to draw the symbols for the circle onto a surface before you could use it. But as Kirigaya thought about it, neither of these two versions of alchemy would help in a game like SAO. One was too magical, and the other was where you could only use weapons.

There were a few games that had alchemy like Skyrim and the Atelier series, where you would have to find elements and other ingredients before going to some kind of crafting table to create what you need. Whilst this would be a better idea for SAO, Kirigaya wasn't sure how they could fit it in to make it useful. As if they want to keep it realistic, they need a way where they can make potions whenever they want and not just at a crafting table where you can only find in a town, settlement, or village.

Another thing was making potions alone, whilst useful to make them themselves whenever they want, it didn't mean it would be useful. The beta testers wanted more than potions to heal and get bonus defence and attack. If they were just going to add another class like the Alchemists to make potions, what's the point of it?

As Kirigaya was wondering how this alchemy idea would work, Akari asked Kayaba after a few seconds of silence, "Do you mean something like the anime Fullmetal Alchemist?"

"No, that would be too magical for our game." Kayaba told the reporter, "No, the type of alchemists we are planning to use differs from that. What they used to call alchemists is now what we call scientists and doctors."

"I see, but if that is the case, what's the point of having the class Alchemist?" asked Akari, "Whilst it might be cheaper to make your own potions, it would just as easy, if not safer, to get your potions from the shops. What else can we expect to make us pick this class?"

"Good question Akari, and you're right, it would be easier and even safer to buy the potions and items that we need." admitted Kayaba, "But there's more to an Alchemist than meets the eye. I won't go into too much detail; however, I can tell you this, this class is for those who want a challenge. So if they want another way to heal and get other things, they'll need to work for it."

"Oh? How so?" asked Akari.

"Let me start by telling you how you can become a basic Alchemist." explained Kayaba, "When you start the game, the very first mission to become an Alchemist is to build what we call an Alchemy Chest. These chests are the most important items for those who want to become an Alchemist. These chests will not be your storage for your alchemy ingredients and crafting table too. So that you can create potions whenever you want, as long as you have the ingredients in your inventory and chest. Now, once you have created your Alchemy Chest, it'll be up to you to find recipes for what you want to make."

"Whilst it sounds simple enough to become an Alchemist, it's still easier and safer to buy the potions." said Akari, "So, what items and skills would make it for someone to pick this class?"

"I won't go into detail so as not to spoil the fun for the players to learn, but there are a few things that an Alchemist can create that normal people won't be able to." explained Kayaba.

"Can you give us an example?" asked Akari, wanting to learn more about this Alchemist Class, to give her audience and viewers a reason to be excited about this class. As of right now, there was none.

"Hmm, I can give you two examples." Kayaba said with a smile, "The first is that unlike normal blacksmiths, an Alchemist is able to create ranged weapons, something you wouldn't normally find in the game. The other thing that the Alchemist can create are certain items that they can only use. I won't say more, as it'll spoil the fun of learning first-hand what they are." Kayaba told the host, seeing how he could see she was going to ask what they were. "I should explain that these things won't be easy to get. As I said, if people want to get these things, then they need to work for it. This game is meant mainly for blades and skills connected to the blades. So, if people want something more, then they'll need to work for it. If these people want these items and other items that we're thinking of putting into the game for alchemists, they'll need to work for it by finding and doing hidden quests. Whilst basic blueprints for the potions are easy to find and get, you only have to read a book or learn them from the NPC Alchemists that I'll be putting around the towns and a few villages. However, for the more advanced plans, the only way to get them is to do these hidden quests to get them."

"I have to say, now hearing about these range weapons that the Alchemists can only make, they seem more useful." admitted Akari, Kayaba also thought that the sound of alchemists had gotten better than when he first heard of them. He was wondering now what else this class could do. "Before we go on, I have a question, though. With these hidden quests to get the advanced blueprints, can't the NPC Alchemists give them to the players?"

"I might have a few like that, so that after the players have done a few things, the NPC could do this. But if I did, it would only be a few." Kayaba informed Akari, "Remember, I don't want those who want to be alchemists to have an easy time. For that reason, there'll be random items and NPCs around each floor to start off the hidden quests. However, don't think that these items/NPCs will be there for long, as every so often the items would be transported elsewhere whilst the NPCs will move to another floor or move to somewhere else so that they can't be found so easily."

"Wow, that would make being an Alchemist challenging if the quest to get advanced blueprints and gear keeps moving about." the MMO said in awe and amazement, "Two last questions about being an Alchemist. The first is about ranged weapons. If they got ammo, how would players be able to get them? The second question, seeing how being an alchemist is going to be so challenging. Would Alchemist Quests get better rewards than normal quests or is getting the blueprints enough of a reward?"

"Hmm, let's start with the ammo question first," said Kayaba, "before I tell you how to get the ammo, let me tell you about how to get the weapons. Like with alchemists needing to work for their skills and gear, players who want weapons from alchemists need to work for them. They just can't buy them from the Alchemists. They need to do two quests. Once even one player who plays as an Alchemist gets a blueprint to make these weapons, NPC Alchemists will begin to show up on different floors.

"Once they appear, you'll have to find them and get a quest to gain the skill to use those weapons. You do this by finding a wandering alchemist with that weapon and have them train you in that skill. Once you get the skill, the Alchemist will send you on a quest to find parts to create the weapon and once you find those parts, you'll need to find a player Alchemist who has got the plans for the weapons and have them build it for you. Now, if you have a player in your party that is an Alchemist with the blueprint for that weapon, it'll be easy enough for you to get the new weapon, otherwise you need to find an Alchemist with the blueprint."

"I see but can't a party member who's an Alchemist give their friends the skill to learn to use a weapon and give them a quest to get the parts for the weapon?" asked Akari.

"To keep things fair in the game, no, only NPCs can give these sorts of quests." explained Kayaba.

Akari nodded at this before she said, "So, about the ammo."

"There are a few ways to do so. But only after one of the Alchemist Players finds a ranged weapon that needs ammo." admitted Kayaba, "The first is the simplest, if you have an Alchemy Chest, you can create your own ammo. However, if your Alchemy Skill is low because you decided being an Alchemist is too difficult, you can create basic ammo.

"But if your Alchemy Skill is low, you can get ammo from the other two ways. You can either find a higher-level Alchemist Player to create ammo for you, although you might need to get ingredients for the ammo if the Alchemist doesn't have the ingredients on them. The last way is to find one of many Wandering Sells Alchemists that'll be wandering the floors. They'll sell you ammo and other non-quest alchemy items. You can't buy them at normal stores."

"Understandable." said Akari, who could see Kayaba's and his team's reasoning for that. From the very start, Kayaba told them that if they Alchemy items and gear, they would need to work for it, and it wouldn't be given to them easily as sword skills. But the more she thought about it, the more she came to agree with it. There had to be a price for having some sort of power, so if by doing more quests and other things to get such power, so be it. It would show who really wanted it and those who didn't.

"So, about the rewards for the Alchemist. Are you going to give them some better rewards for the extra hard work?" asked Akari, "I know that getting the extra items and gear should be rewarded enough. But with all the extra work that they would have to do, I feel like they should have a bit more of an extra reward or something."

"I can't say much, as we're still figuring things out." Kayaba informed her, "But, we're thinking that with the standard rewards from getting they could get a few extra things in certain rewards. To help with upgrading items like their Alchemy Chest."

"Upgrading their Alchemy Chest?" Akari asked in shock.

"You'll have to play the game when it comes out to find out." Kayaba said with a smirk, "But there are plans for a hidden quest where an alchemist can get a wagon reward. It would allow the player to have a portable lab so that they can do more. But that's still something in the planning stages, so I don't know if we'll be able to add it or not."

"I see. I hope you can add it into the game, as I could see alchemists with wagons helping their teammate getting around the floors easier." Akari said in awe. As Kirigaya was watching this, he too hoped the wagons could get into the game, as he liked the idea of getting around the land in one instead of walking about all the time. "So, tell me Kayaba, is there anything else you can tell us about any other changes you are making or more about this alchemy ability?"

"Do you know the skills that the characters can learn and master during their time in SAO?" asked Kayaba.

"You mean fishing, cooking and blacksmithing, skills like that?" asked Akari, "Yeah, I love games where you have secondary skills like that, whereas if you level them up, you can do more and better stuff."

"Well, learning and mastering these skills are where Alchemist can truly shine." Kayaba informed her, "Whilst other players get stats and skills every few levels of levelling up their skills, an Alchemist gets theirs a few levels later."

"That doesn't seem like something that would make them shine." commented Akari.

"That's only to balance things out, to balance it for their true skill." explained Kayaba, "With Warriors, when they level up skills like blacksmith, cooking or mining, they can create, cook, or mine for better things. The only time things are different when making or cooking something is if their ingredients have something special within them. But with Alchemist, as long as their Alchemy Skill is high enough, they can gain a skill called Synthesize. With Synthesize, an Alchemist can add stats and bonuses to their food and armour, depending on their skills like cooking and blacksmith. Although, with food and potions, those stats and bonuses are temporary, whilst armour and outfits only last as long as you wear them."

"I have to admit, the more I hear about being an Alchemist, the more I can see how some people might want to become one. Even with all the hard work needed they would need to do." Akari said thoughtfully, "Now, I have a few more questions I would like to ask before I let the audience have their turn, if that's okay with you."

"That's fine with me." said Kayaba.

"So, my question is this: what is stopping a Warrior Class from levelling all their basic skills up first, before levelling up their alchemy abilities?" asked Akari.

"That's something we're working on," Kayaba informed her, "we only have been working on this Alchemist Class for a short time and so we haven't figured everything out yet. Because we know that most people like to level up before doing certain missions, or events, there is an idea of them doing a Class Quest for a certain level so that they can only get either Warrior or Alchemist Skills from that point and not both. We're hoping to figure that out in the next few weeks."

"My next question is about the armour, weapons, and clothes." Akari informed the director, "Whilst I like the idea of gaining extra stats and skills, I'm worried. I know that if you are able to get, say, a dragon scale, you can get some sort of fire ability. Could you tell us what an alchemist can do with an item to make it better?"

"To make things easier, let's go with the basic blacksmith." the director began to explain, "As long as a blacksmith is at a high level and depending on the game, having a blueprint, they can create weapons and armour with bonus thanks to the loot they might have, things like dragon scale, minotaur horn or other magical items. Normally, depending on the game, they can only do a few things or many things. In SAO, depending on the blacksmith's level, they can only do up to about four bonuses. And the higher their level, the more powerful the bonus can be."

"So, what about alchemists? What can they do to change things?" asked Akari.

"At the moment, the idea is that they can create one of many runes, one is what I'm calling right now, Weapon Runes." explained the director of the Sword Art Online, "These Weapon Runes are made from monster loot, certain metal and some magical items that we'll be planning to add into the game. The plan is to allow them to add about two or three skills to the runes. With these runes, they can be added to the weapons and armour to make them more powerful, allowing them extra skill other than what the armour already had."

"That seemed a bit overpowered though," Akari pointed out to Kayaba, "players could use high levelled items for low levelled items. Couldn't a low-level player be able to get an overpowered item?"

"That's what we're worried about too," admitted Kayaba, "that's what we'll be working on in the next year or two. Although, when we talked about this a week ago when it came up, there was an idea of how to deal with this. And that is the weapons become level based, so that each weapon has a limit amount or runes that they can have. Not only that, but each player would need to be at a certain level to use them, depending on the item that's created."

"So, how can you upgrade your armour and weapons? Is it EXP based or something else?" asked Akari.

"That hasn't been decided yet," admitted Kayaba, "but, it's been two options either EXP as you said or the other way we're thinking of is to have the players find materials and if their skills are high enough upgrade it themselves or if they don't have the skill level, have another blacksmith to do so. And after every few levels, until a certain level, the weapon or armour can gain another slot for another rune. This could help with those who find or get rare and unique items and instead of getting rid of the old ones, they could level them up unless they get better items with higher stats or better skills."

"That is a useful skill to have, and it should be able to help many people deal with monsters once such materials start appearing." admitted Akari, then putting her right hand to her ear, she then said, "We're almost out of time, so how about a few questions from our audience?"

"I'm happy to answer a few questions," said Kayaba, "but I should warn you that there might not be some questions that I can't answer. Either I don't want to spoil the fun, or I'm just not allowed to say anything."

"I understand." said Akari.

Then, for about the next ten minutes, Kirigaya watched as the audience asked Kayaba about Sword Art Online and about what to expect from it.

One of the questions that caught Kirigaya's interest was about PKing. The person who asked about this was worried about the PKers ruining the game, seeing how they would kill whoever they want for no reason other than its fun to them.

Kayaba sighed at this and admitted that at the moment there wasn't much he could do about this, as it was part of the game, a world where the player can do what they want. It was like other MMORPGs. There'll be many who'll kill others for the fun of it. However, if PKers appeared in the game, people will see them as such. As once they kill so many people, a red diamond would appear above their heads.

However, they were looking into adding good vs evil quests. To try to limit the PKing. Where the evil side would try to kill the good side, whilst the good side would try to protect those who the evil side was targeting. Both sides would have a few missions based on their side, too. With this, they were hoping PKing would be limited.

However, with working on the new class and altering certain things because of alchemists, along with other things they needed to work on, they didn't know if the roles would be ready to go before the launch or not. But, if they were unable to put this idea in before launch, they would try to do so in one of the future updates.

Kayaba admitted it was one idea he wanted to see in the game, as it would allow the players to have more of an option to what they can do during their time in Sword Art Online, instead of worrying about getting to the top of Aincrad.

Kirigaya was interested in this. There weren't many VR games where you could become evil and most of the time, he would play as the hero. But if Sword Art Online gave the players a chance to become an evildoer, he thought he would investigate it and see what it was like to play an evil character before starting again as the good guy.

There was another interesting question that someone asked: would they have a reason to go back to the previous floors? As with most games with previous floor systems or towns that you can return to, unless you had friends there or needed a trader, they had no reason to go back.

So, they wanted to know if Kayaba and his team would give them a reason to return to previous floors. This was something that even Kirigaya wanted to know, as he found it boring going back to previous levels with nothing to do. He preferred to push forward.

Kayaba smiled at this, said he was glad that they asked this question, as he wasn't going to say anything, as he liked people to find things out for themselves. But on this one, he was worried that people might have missed because they didn't explore previous floors after exploring some of the higher floors and would only find them by luck. So, he told them that yes, they could return to the previous floors. He informed the host and the audience there are two ways for people to find more things on previous floors.

The first way was to keep climbing the tower/castle. As you climb it, there'll be some hidden dungeons opening on the previous floors to be found. But Kayaba warned them that with some of these dungeons, you might be limited to how far you could get through one, that you can only go further in the dungeon the more you climb the tower/castle.

The other way was if someone did a quest that could alter the floor. In that case, if they return to these floors at a later date, there might be new dungeons and areas that would appear.

Then, there was a question about these quests about changing the floors. Someone asked if an Alchemist Quest could alter the game somehow? Kayaba admitted they had a few plans in the works for such things. The man explained that when someone completes a quest for a certain weapon, that weapon would appear on certain monsters, be it lower or higher floors.

Kayaba also told them that they had plans for one of the kind hidden quests, where after finishing one of these quests, not only would the Alchemist get some decent rewards, but it would be the start of the floors to change. Depending on the quest, the floors will start seeing either new monsters or people upgrading the town with Alchemist upgrades. But right now, it was still on the planning board, as they had a lot to deal with right now. So, like with the good vs evil idea, if they can't get it into the game by launch, they would try to do so in one of the future updates.

This was the last thing that caught Kirigaya's interest. He hoped that these ideas would end up in the game, as it would make things interesting. But he understood that with the new class and everything that was coming with it, they might not be able to add everything that they wanted to into the game before launch. So he couldn't wait for the updates to see these new things in the game.

It wasn't long before the interview ended, and before Akari bid Kayaba goodbye, she asked the man if there was anything else they should know about.

Kayaba revealed that on the day that with the extra time before the game would come out, they were planning to get another ninety thousand copies ready to sell. So instead of ten thousand copies as they planned, they should be able to sell one hundred thousand copies. And depending on how the launch day goes, and the first few months went, he was planning to put more on sale in the following months to come.

When asked why only a hundred thousand copies were going to be on sale, Kayaba revealed something interesting. When the game was going to be sold, they were selling a new version of the NerveGear to go with it. The reason for the new headsets was because of a new system they added to it, and Sword Art Online was the testing game for it. They were going to call the new system the Training System.

Kayaba informed everyone that since the creation of the NerveGear, with it being able to connect to the person's brain, he wanted to use it as a training tool. So since its creation, he had been trying to create this new system, one he hoped he could add into the new NerveGear in the next year or two.

It was a two-point system. The first one was that any abilities that they had in the real world could be transferred into the game. So, if someone had some kind of sword or martial arts ability in real life, they would be able to use it fully in the game. As for the second point of the system, it was Kayaba hoping that could help to teach people through VR if they can't go to college or are unable to go to a school or college for whatever reason.

Now this, like everyone else who was watching the show, caught Kirigaya's interest. He knew some kendo from his childhood, before he gave it up to play video games more often, so if this was true, he could use this skill in the game along with any other skills he had.

This got him thinking, what if he took up kendo once more, to get better at it? Would he be able to do better in the game? What if he learned some other skills before the game came out, like cooking? Would it help him become better at cooking in the game, too?

As Kirigaya thought about it more, he got to thinking, if he started up kendo again, would it not help him get fit, but would it make him stronger in the game too? This was something that Kirigaya had been thinking about for some time now, to get fit and stronger. But he had been putting it off, seeing how he had no real reason to push him in doing so. Although now, he had a reason.

When Akari asked Kayaba why they needed a new NerveGear to do this, the man explained there was a reason for this. And that was because the interface for people to transfer skills into and out of the game wasn't fully developed just yet. They had a prototype, but there were still some bugs to work out. But with this extra time that they give themselves, Kayaba hoped to get things sorted in that time period.

In fact, this is another reason that they were selling limited copies of the game. At first, they wanted to make sure that their servers could handle so many people playing the game. This was a new sort of game, with a lot of information going through their servers. So, they wanted to make sure there would be no bugs or crashes with so many people before adding more people to the game.

Whilst they can do most of the testing beforehand, that would be in a controlled environment. Where things wouldn't really show the true effect of thousands upon thousands of people playing the game. No, the actual test would be after the game goes out, when tens of thousands of people would be playing the game at the same time. That would be the actual test to see if this new system worked on not. It would help that with the extra copies, they could test it from other countries to see how the system would fare with people playing the game from other countries.

Akari then asked Kayaba why he was going to test this new system in a game, and not within schools or collage? Kayaba admitted that he could have done it. He said it was partly down to the cost of things. Within the game world, if it didn't work, he could remove the program and they wouldn't lose much money because of it. However, if he tested it in schools or collage, if the system didn't work, they could lose more money than in the game. As people wouldn't want to buy or test the system, but with the game, if it didn't work, people would still buy the game even if the system didn't work.

This led to two other questions. The first was the cost of the new NerveGear asking what would happen if people couldn't afford the new headset. The other was seeing how they were going to be test subjects. What if there were people unwilling to be one? What would happen then?

Kayaba informed them that they could still play the game with the old NerveGear. They just wouldn't feel the full effects of the game and would be unable to use the Training System. But if they wanted to buy the new headset, he explained that if people traded their old headset with the new one, they could get the new NerveGear for half the price. Not only that, but Argus was planning to set out a competition a few months beforehand, where a handful of people would win the new NerveGear for free and they would be allowed into the next set of beta testing. This got people's interest and couldn't wait for this competition, as they hoped that they could be the lucky winners.

As for the Training System, if people didn't want to be part of the testing, they didn't have to. All they had to do was during the character creation, they could turn the system off and play the game normally. But Kayaba informed them that if they want to use the Training System, they'll have to start a new character. So, he suggested that they start off by trying the system first and if that isn't for them, they could start a new character later on.

If they keep the system on, they'll get to do some quests to learn some of the basic skills, like cooking, blacksmith, jewellery making. Here, instead of learning the skill in a few moments, they would spend a week or two learning the skill the normal way.

By actually doing the training by hand instead of a system command, as if they were becoming a blacksmith, they would actually have to go through the training that blacksmith did in the mediaeval times. Sure, to actually master them fully, they would need to continue it in the real world, but once people learn the basics from the quests, you can use the blacksmith's skill in one of two ways. The first is the gaming way, like you would do so in normal games or the other way, by doing so manually, and learn to master the blacksmith skills within the game instead of outside of the game. During the level up on certain skills, there would be some quests to help to improve the person's real-life skills.

Kayaba explained that unless they do the job properly, they miss out on certain information to help them. Not only that, but they would fail their quest and not get rewards that would help them in their skills in the game. Things like stat points and items.

Kayaba admitted that some of these skills might not be of any use in this day and age, like blacksmithing, but he wanted to know if the system was going to work the way he wanted it to. So, he wanted to test the system with basic skills before doing anything more advanced.

With Akari being informed by her bosses that they overrun the question time, she thanked Kayaba for coming in. She also thanked the viewers for watching before ending the show.

With the show ending, Kirigaya thought about what he learned from the show. He had to admit if they were able to get the new system working, and players could use their real-life skills in the game, it would be great, if people like him who could do kendo could use their skills in the game, it might help them better bet the game.

Thinking about this, Kirigaya was beginning to think of ways he could use this new information about Sword Art Online. He was thinking about training for it. He liked the best in his games, so if this new system allowed him to use skills that he already had to make things easier for himself, he would have to start training, learn new skills that could help him in the game. But the question was, other than kendo, what real life skills could he learn that could help him in a fight?

With this in mind, Kirigaya spent the rest of the day thinking about this, wondering what skill he should learn that could help him beat the Sword Art Online. Little did the young boy realize at the time, but once he came up with the skill, he would want to learn to beat a normal game, they would, in fact, help him in saving his life one day.

To be Continued!

Author's Note: Here ends the first part of the new version of my Sword Art Online - Alchemy Edition story. I hope you enjoy the edits that I made for this. As you can see, I added and altered a lot of the information to the story, something I hope you like the changes. I'm going to try and add more information in this story, what happens during the first month and add more information as to what happens. I'll be using Sword Art Online: Progressive to add more information. But I would like help with ideas for what else I could add to the story. I would also like to read fanfic with this sort of this, to help with coming up with ideas. I hope you can help me out here.

I'll be working on the next chapter right after this. The first part would be Kirito's training, him getting back into kendo and a few other things. For this, I would like to hear your thoughts, what training should he have to help with the game? The next part I'll be writing about him going to the Beta Testing, so I would also like your thoughts on this too. Hope you can help me.

Tell me, should I add Tozawa Misumi - Mito from the movie Sword Art Online Progressive: Aria of a Starless Night into this story? As she seems to be an interesting character and would like your thoughts should I add her, if so, I would make her a Warrior Class.

Asking about characters,, are there any characters from the manga, movie or games that you would like to see in the story? If so, please let me know who they are and what class you would want them to be, and I'll see if I can add them or not.

Now when I have been thinking about the two classes and which characters would be which class, I came up with this:

Warrior Class:

Tsuboi Ryoutarou - Klein.

Yuuki Asuna - Asuna (Was thinking of making her an Alchemist, but decided to do otherwise, but if you can give me a decent enough of a reason to make her as an Alchemist, I'll think about it.)

Alchemist Class:

Kirigaya Kazuto - Kirito. (As the MC of this story, it didn't feel right not to make him one. :P)

Andrew Gilbert Mills - Agil. (Being a blacksmith in the anime, it makes sense that he would be an Alchemist.)

Hosaka Carina Tomo - Argo. (With being an informant, being an Alchemist makes some sense to me to have her one.)

Shinozaki Rika - Lisbeth. (Like Agil, being a blacksmith in the anime, it makes sense that he would be an Alchemist.)

Undecided Class - please let me know what class you think they should be in:

Ayano Keiko -Silica

Sachi (Thinking about keeping her alive, maybe as an Alchemist, but I would like your thoughts. Should I keep her alive and if so, should I make her as an alchemist? Also, I would like to know what should her real name should be?)