Chapter Summary: In this chapter, we see what Kirito has been doing since he parted ways with Ichika. We also see Kirito starting a quest to become an alchemist.
Chapter Thirteen…
Becoming an Alchemist - Part 1!
20th of November 2027:
It has been over a week since Kirito and eighty thousand people started this death game called Sword Art Online. For Kirito has been busy, mainly doing quests, the main one was to finish getting his Alchemy Chest, which he now had, levelling up and trying to make his skills stronger. During this time, getting what he needed to make the Alchemy Chest, he accidentally got two new skills: Two-Handed Battle Axe and Two Handed Battle Hammer. He got these skills as he was either cutting or hammering something and was attacked by a monster, and seeing that he didn't have his sword out he used either the axe or hammer to attack instead. Because of this, the system created two new skills for him.
Kirito didn't know if he would ever use these skills, but he thought it was better to have them and not need them and need them but not have them. He would work out if he wanted to level them up a bit later on when he has more slots to play with and level up the ones he needs.
It wasn't long after getting the Alchemy Chest, that he levelled up to level fifteen. But that lead to his current problem, being stuck at level fifteen.
His stats so far thanks to levelling up were as such:
Attribute Stats:
STR: 33 (+ 9)
AGI: 30
VIT: 20
INT: 40
DEX: 14
Stat Stats:
HP: 500
: 210
DEF: 100
SP: 400
: 200
: 70
The + 9 in Strength was thanks to his training at the Fighting Pit where he trained with dummies, where he gained free points there. Because of this, he didn't need to put any extra points into it and so had seventy skill points to use as he liked. With that in mind, he put the points into Agility (18,) Vitality (7) and Dexterity (12,) so that he had a good defence and got ready for the future as he levelled up as an Alchemist. The reason that he put most of his points into Intelligence (33,) was because he would need them for being an Alchemist.
One of the main ways to gain recipes to make things as an Alchemist, is to read books. The problem here is that to do so, you would need to have a certain Intelligence level to read some of the books. So to help him with this, Kirito was going to put points into Intelligence whenever he could. Only putting points into the other stats when he had to so that he could keep up in a fight. At least for now… there were a few quests and ways that give him free stat points, but most of them are after Floor 1, only a rare few were on here. The problem is Kirito didn't know if they were still on this floor or if someone else got to them already, as they were limited and had a long cooldown time before they would appear again.
Now the reason that he is stuck at being level fifteen, he was looking for an NPC that was an Alchemist. You see, once you get to level fifteen in the game, you are prevented from levelling up until you pick a class, be it Warrior or Alchemist.
However, the problem is finding an Alchemist isn't as easy as finding someone to make you a Warrior. With the Warrior Class, all you have to do is find a Warrior in one of the Fighting Pits and do a few quests for them before becoming a Warrior. Because this was the easiest class to become, there were already a lot of people who were Warriors.
To become an Alchemist was a whole different story altogether. As stated in the interview years ago, Kayaba wanted Alchemist to be a rare class and hard to get. Because of this, the first step to become an Alchemist, someone would need to gain an Alchemy Chest. Once they have one, they would have to find an NPC Alchemist. The problem with this is that this NPC is not set in one place like the Warrior. This one is random and could be anywhere on the first floor.
But once you find them, you'll have to rescue a group of NPC Alchemists from some monsters who captured them. Now, by doing this, not only would you gain the ability to become an Alchemist yourself and allow others to do so too, but as part of the rewards, you would gain some extra stats for doing so. But that's not the end of it though.
No, to make it so that people would have to work for the class, they now have to find the wandering NPC Alchemists. Normally, it would be in a settlement, village or a town/city that's on the floor. However, there would be times where you would find them in caves, open areas like forests and the like. This was to make sure that not many people could become Alchemists unless it's something that they really want to become.
For that reason, for the last few days since he became level fifteen, he had been searching for this NPC Alchemist. During this time, it was doing quests, training his One-Handed Sword skill, and learning more hunter skills. During this time, Kirito learned some new skills as a hunter. The first four skills were slot skills, Search, Harvesting, Cooking and Dagger.
Search was a skill that allowed a player to find doors, chests and items that you couldn't normally see because they were hidden by an invisible force. Harvesting was a skill that allowed a player to forage for food like nuts, berries, mushrooms and the like, food items that grew. Cooking and Dagger were skills and used as suspected, to cook and attack.
Although, when the young male asked Aloy why she taught him how to use a dagger when he can use a sword. She explained that as a hunter, when hunting monsters, using swords doesn't always help and would get in the way. Especially when you need to sneak attack monsters that would flee if they see you, or humanoid monsters that need to be dealt without alerting others.
Kirito had to admit that this made sense. There were a few monsters in the Beta Version that he had problems with. Where he could easily deal with them. Now though, in the full version of the game, it would seem that it allowed sneak attacks where in the beta, whilst not impossible, was hard to do. Now it would seem that they made it a bit easier.
As during training with Aloy, he learned four Passive Skills to help him with sneak attacks. The first was of course Sneak Attack, skill allowed his sneak attacks become stronger as he levelled this skill up. Next skill was Light Footed, this one had two abilities. The first was as you level up, you would leave less and less tracks, so that no one could follow you or knew that you were there. The second ability of Light Footed was to stop him making so much sound as he was sneaking about, so that he could get up close and attack the monster with ease. Unless that monster or person had skills to detect someone whilst sneaking that was.
Then there were the last two Passive Skills connected to sneaking, Night Vision and Low-Light Vision. Both of these skills were more or less the same, as in they allowed the player to see better. Although, one was when it was patch black with no light at all, the other was to allow them to see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination. Whilst Night Vision would allow you to make out outlines of people in the dark, the Low-Light Vision over time would allow you to see things as clearly as if it was daylight.
Then there were two Passive Skills that weren't connected to sneaking, Knife/Blade Maintenance and Survival Skill. These skills were to help make Kirito become a better hunter. The Knife/Blade Maintenance skill was to help him to keep his blades in a better shape, so that they would last longer before needing to be mended and allowed his blades to be sharper, meaning that his attacks would become better as he levelled the skill up.
As for the Survival Skill, that was a strange one. Over time this skill would help him to make maps better, build shelters and camps easier, and make it easier to find food and water. From what he gathered, anything connected to survival, as he did it, it would level up the skill. One such way was to use caged fireflies called Scoutflies. These flies were special glowing flies that, once you give a part of the monster you're looking for, will guide you towards the area where the monster(s) you were hunting should be. They can also be used as a light for dark caves and forests.
All honestly, Kirito thought that they were useless for him, thanks to the skills that he gained. As all they did was glow green to give light, turn red when they sense danger and blue when they sense the monster that they meant to be tracking. But Kirito also knew that whilst these fireflies were useless to him other than to help him to level up his Survival Skill a tiny bit, for those who don't use Tracking, this would be a useful item to have. It would help them in quests to search for monsters.
At first, Kirito was concerned about what skills to master with how many skills he has gained so far. Which was much more than he suspected to get this early. In the beta he only had the basics and none of these new hunter skills or passive skills. Because of the limited slots, upon hitting level twelve and having the fourth slot opened, Kirito decided to work on Tracking, Dismantle, Grappling Hook and One-Handed Sword.
To be honest, Kirito had no option with Dismantle and One-Handed Sword, they were his bread and butter skills. Without them he couldn't fight or earn money, so he had to use them. As for the Grappling Hook skill, he wanted to master it so that he could have an easier time to knock weapons out of his enemy's hands and be able to climb up its rope. As for Tracking, it was more of a performance than anything. He knew that this skill would help him find and keep track of monsters than the other skills, and in this new world of the survival of the fittest, this was important. As he would need to be strong and to do that he needed to find and defeat monsters, which Tracking would help him to do.
The problem is that with him wanting to be an Alchemist, the other skills that he learned were also important. But thanks to the changes made to the full version of Sword Art Online vs the Beta Version, it was even harder. Instead of getting loot from animals, trees and the like would automatically be collected and stored into their item storage system, they needed certain skills to manually get the loot.
So because of this, he would need skills such as Harvesting and Dismantle, so unless this version of the game has more Skill Slots than the Beta Version, he would need to pick his skills carefully. Either that or he would need to level up all the important skills he thought he needed to survive this game to either two hundred and fifty, five hundred, seven hundred and fifty or until finally one thousand where he would master the skill, where he could safely swap the skills out.
As he knew the skills could reset to zero, if he didn't get past two hundred and fifty. Then he would have to level up to the next two hundred and fifty levels, unless he wanted to go back to the last two hundred and fifty. The only way to stop this would be getting Kales'Oh where he could bottle the skills he wanted saved. The problem is unless he found a way to create Kales'Oh, he would be limited to how many skills he could save. Because of this, Kirito knew he had to pick his skills carefully and level them up as fast as possible so he could level up the next lot that he would need.
But he shouldn't have worried about slots for his hunter's skill. Thanks to him personally learning the skills from the Hunter's Guild hunter's instead of using the system to learn them, and helping the hunters with quests, he was able to gain a new special slot called Hunter's Slot.
What makes this slot so special is that it gives him an extra four slots to use, but this slot can only hold Hunter Skills.Not only that, but the slot can give him more slots as the Hunter Skills by doing quests or making the skills within it stronger. This was a special slot that appears within the circle of the other slots, meaning that apart a player could learn say four normal skills, but thanks to this new slot, able to learn extra skills as long as they were Hunter Based.
But this special slot can't be gotten by just anyone. No, a person can only get this special slot by learning skills from the hunter's and doing quests for them.
For Kirito, he got the Hunter's Slot after doing a quest with Aloy and a group of hunters, where they were dealing with a Bear King, a unique monster. The hunter's believe that this type of bear only appears once every ten years or so if the old one isn't different beforehand. It was a huge bair, greyish brown, with weapons sticking out of it from other hunters who tried to defeat it, and purple looking growing stones coming out of the front left side of the bear.
Now although it was hard, and some of the Tians got badly hurt, and Kirito's health was at a very low level, they were able to defeat the unique monster. As the reward for defeating the Bear King, other than the Hunter's Slot, he was able to get the fur, meat and the stones from the bear.
Although, Kirito did ask why he got this slot when a handful of other Adventurers haven't got the skill slot yet. (Thanks to him having Argo inform the other players about how important hunter skills were and how you should learn the skills personally from the hunters themselves, Kirito has seen an increase of players at the Hunter's Guild. Sure it wasn't as much as he hoped, with either the player wanting to take the easy route or because they hadn't left the safety of Town of Beginning yet. But at least some people were here.)
Aloy explained that he too wouldn't have gotten the skill so soon, but would have to wait some floors. But unlike the rest of the Adventurers, not only was he the first to approach them to learn from them instead of using the system that allows them to automatically learn the skills, but he also respects and treats them fairly. Whilst the other Adventurers just treat them as tools to be used to learn the basics before leaving after learning what they needed. Because Kirito was treating them differently, the Guild Leader agreed to give him the Hunter's Slot after a quest.
Kirito felt slightly guilty at hearing this from Aloy. The truth was he too was using the Hunter's Guild as a tool, to learn things from them until he learned everything he could from them. Not only that, but Kirito learned that learning from the Hunter's Guild personally helped to level up his hunter skills faster than when he was levelling them up alone, sure not much faster, but still faster. So he knew that it would be foolish to quit helping the Hunters at the moment.
Not only that, but whilst they might be NPCs, their A.I programming was unlike anything Kirito had heard of before. Whilst they do act like NPCs, they also act like real people, with their own feelings and personality. So whilst he was treating them as tools to learn from, he couldn't help but treat them like people as well.
Either way, now that he had the Hunter's Slot, Kirito placed the skills Tracking, Stealth, Dismantle and Harvesting into the slot. For the spare four slots, he kept Grappling Hook and One-Handed Sword skills where they were and added Cooking and Dagger into the remaining two slots. The Dagger skill was there so that he could use it easier, whilst Cooking was there so he could cook food. At the moment, unless he was returning to the Hunter's Guild or the Town of Beingging, to get items, do quests or learn/train his skills, Kirito had no plans of staying there. So he would need the Cooking skill, so that he could eat decent males.
But Kirito did wonder why Kayaba Akihiko would create the Hunter's Slot for? Was it a way to say sorry to the players for sticking them in this Death Game, or was there another reason for all this? Not only that, but were there other slots like the Hunter's Slot out there?
It didn't seem as if Kayaba cared about sticking people in this game, but the young teen couldn't think of another reason as to why these slots were added. It would make things easier for the players if they were able to get them - this was something he would have to inform Argo about this so that she could tell others about it. Maybe she could even find out if there were other slots out there too. Would be useful to have, so that he could use more skills.
EIther way, today after doing his Sword Training back at Town of Beginning, Kirito decided to search for the NPC Alchemist he was looking for, along with trying to finish Aiko's Vengeance Quest, where he had to kill a monster called Behemoth.
Whilst the quest window for Aiko's Vengeance Quest said he still needed levelling up, Kirito wanted to gain information on the monster. As gaining any information on the monster would help him in the future to defeat the monster.
So, for the last few days, between quests for the Hunter's Guild, he and Aloy had been searching three of the known lairs that the Behemoth used. So far, Kirito wasn't able to find the monster. Although, it wasn't all bad news, he was able to gain potions, some armour, weapons and more importantly some decent ingredients. So Kirito was more than happy to keep on looking for this monster in his spare time.
As for finding the NPC Alchemist, that was taking longer than Kirito would have liked. It was bad enough that the NPC location was randomly generated, but thanks to Argo information, Kirito learned that the floor was half the size bigger than it was in the Beta Version. This whilst making it a bit easier to find new hunting spots to level up with more monsters in the game, it also made it harder to find randomly generated NPCs like the Alchemist he was looking for.
Right now, Kirito was south of the Town of Beginning, on the boulders of the floor where mountains blocked people from leaving the game zone. From the information he gained from the townspeople, Behemoth once had a lair in the mountains once. Kirito wasn't sure if the monster would be here or not, but if it wasn't it would still be a win for the young teen as he would gain free items from it.
However, the beast was in fact here, and he realized why there was a warning about needing to level up was on the Quest Window. There wasn't just one Behemoth to fight, but three, this made Kirito remember what Aiko talked about killing the Behemoth and its kin. But because the mission was only to defeat the Behemoth that killed Aiko's husband and grandad, and doing quests and fighting monsters to get stronger, he forgot about the kin part that Aiko talked about.
Out of the three Behemoths, there was one huge one and two smaller ones, well if you could call them smaller. The first Behemoth, the huge one, was at least four times bigger than Kirito. It was a purple, canine-esque creature with two bull-like horns and flowing mane. Along down its back, it had spikes coming out of its back with fur on it. Its body and front legs were absurdly muscular, though its hind legs are less so. The Behemoth's head is vaguely canine with a pair of sharp horns and piercing blue eyes. The Behemoth had a long muscular tail that had a spiked barb-like end.
This Behemoth had one of its horns cut in half, and had a huge scar across its right eye and its eye was white, Kirito suspected it made the monster blind. In fact, there were a few scars on its body, there was also a sword sticking out of its back. It would seem as if this monster was in a lot of battles in the past and came out winning.
The other two Behemoths were smaller than the huge one, they were at least two times bigger than Kirito. Whilst they look like the other Behemoth, other than the broken horn and scars, their skin was greyish blue.
These three Behemoths were outside a cave entrance, patrolling the area. Their cursors were dark crimson, meaning that they were the most dangerous of monsters on this floor. Don't get Kirito wrong, he knew all too well that game creators would sometimes put in an impossible monster to defeat at the early levels, so that the player would be forced to level up and come back to defeat the monster later. But the swordsman had hoped that after learning that this game had become a Death Game, this wouldn't happen. But here are the monsters to show that they have added these sorts of monsters.
At least it wasn't all bad news though At least he was able to gather their levels and the name of the huge Behemoth. Whilst the smaller Behemoths didn't have a name and were level twenty-five, the huge one was called Deadeye and it was at level forty. Kirito would like to learn what skills these monster had, but with the levels that they were at, it would be suicide to even think about it.
At least with how the quest was worded, he would only have to defeat the named Behemoth, as he was the only one that killed Aiko's husband and grandfather. Meaning that once he got strong enough, he would only have to part Deadeye from the other Behemoths to defeat it. But that would take a while sadly.
Upon seeing how powerful these monsters were, Kirito had every intention of leaving the area to find the NPC Alchemist to get the quest to find the others. But it would seem as if fate had other ideas.
Just as he was about to leave, he saw a group of Kobolds coming close to the area. They were guarding six mediaeval prison caravans, being pulled by Buffamoos. Inside each caravan was between four to six alchemists, chained and wearing rags.
Kirito couldn't believe it. He thought he had to find the NPC Alchemist, before he got the chance to rescue these alchemists. But here he was, where he could rescue them early. Was it like with Aiko, where the quest was different, in her case she set up the quest and he went to accept it? That he didn't need to find the NPC he was looking to become an Alchemist?
Before he could think much about this though, the Behemoths noticed the Kobolds and attacked. With Deadeye, purple lightning went up its bone spikes before connecting to its horns where the monster shot a bolt of purple lightning that hit the Kobolds and the caravans, knocking them onto their side. When this happened, a quest window opened.
Emergency Quest:
Save As Many Alchemists As Possible!
Save at least five Alchemists.
Reward(s):
Class Change Possible.
?
?
This was a quest where Kirito didn't have an option to accept the quest or not, it was one of the rare quests where you were forced to take. Even if you don't want to. Not that Kirito minded seeing how this was what he wanted in the first place.
Any other time, Kirito would love to watch the Kobolds and the Buffamoo fight the Behemoths, so he could learn more on how the Behemoths fight. But he had to save these Alchemists before they were killed, so that he could begin to learn to become one. Who knows when the next time he could get this opportunity.
So racing towards the caravans, Kirito killed any Kobolds that got in his way and dodged any debris that was being thrown about in the fight. By the time he got to the caravans, a huge rock like debris crashed into one of the caravans, killing four of the alchemists. Knowing that he didn't have the time to worry about their deaths, as he would be killed if he stayed there, Kirito went to save the others.
The problem was that Kirito had to deal with the attacks from the Kobolds and the Behemoths. Sure, the odd few Kobolds would spawn in every now and then, but the fight between the Kobolds and the Behemoths made rescuing the alchemists even harder. As the attacks would hit the Alchemists which would either kill them or injure them. In the end of this quest, out of the thirty alchemists that could be saved, Kirito was only able to save fifteen of them.
Once they were clear and safe, one of the alchemists, a male about five foot tall with long golden-blond hair which was tied in a braid that hangs down to his shoulders. His bangs were parted in the middle so that they frame his face on either side as they fall and, in the centre of the parting, he left a single strand of hair sticking up like an antenna. He also had golden eyes, where he had a horizontal battle scar just above his right eye. The thing that stood out the most was his right arm, it had an automail arm, where you could see a blue glowing gem caged in his right shoulder, and a black wristband on his left hand.
"Thank you for saving us, my name is Edward Elric and I'm the leading alchemist here." Edward introduced himself, "Did my brother, Alphonse, find you and ask you to find us?"
"I'm sorry, but I haven't seen him." Kirito told the NPC. But this did confirm something for the young man, he could have started off the quest by finding this brother first. At least this proves that you don't have to find all the Quest Givers to start the quest. But that doesn't mean you can forget about them either, as it is very possible that the quest won't start until you meet the Quest Giver first. He would have to be careful with this.
"Ah I see, I hope he is okay." said the leader. "Anyway, Adventurer, would you mind escorting us to the Town of Beginning? We would like to get some stuff before we move on by ourselves."
Seeing how the Quest Window hadn't appeared to say that he completed the quest yet, he knew that he still had some work to do. So with a smile he said, "Sure, I was going there myself anyway." It was true, he wanted to see Zangetsu and Yoruichi and have some training with them for a bit.
"Thank you young Adventurer." Edward thanked the young Adventurer. And with that Kirito and the fifteen alchemists started to walk toward the Town of Beginning.
o0OoO0o
It took a few hours before Kirito and the alchemists arrived at the Town of Beginning. It took them this long as they were attacked by Kobolds, not only that but Kirito talked to Edward. He asked how he and the other alchemists got caught. Edward explained how they were ambushed by the Kobolds and had an alchemist wristband put on them to stop them from using their powers. For what reasons they didn't know, but they were able to help Alphonse escape to get help before they were moved to who knows where.
Anyway, as they got to the Town of Beginning, other than Edward, the rest of the alchemists left. With the two of them standing in the streets, Edward said, "Thank you, young Adventurer. Can I ask you, do you have planned from here? Do you have plans to become an alchemist?"
Kirito was shocked that the Quest Window saying he has completed the quest hasn't popped up yet. Is there something else he had to do before it pops up? Did he have to say if he was going to be an alchemist or not before it came up? So that they can give him the right reward. So the answer that he was about to give didn't matter to him, as his plans were to become an alchemist.
"I do," Kirito admitted with a smile, "in fact, I was looking for someone who was an alchemist to train me to become one."
"In that case, please follow me." said the lead alchemist.
And with that, wanting to see where this goes Kirito followed the alchemist. The man led him to a tailor where he asked the young adventurer to wait for a moment. Seeing how Kirito needed to do this, Kirito waited for Edward. It was half an hour before the man came out again. He was now wearing black trousers and a sleeveless black shirt, whilst he was holding a black jacket with silver lining along the edges in one hand and a bag in another.
"As part of your reward, I've gotten you the starter Alchemist Clothing," explained Edward, "if you have problems with the clothing, you can get it fixed here."
Kirito smiled at this. As he got some free clothing for the Alchemist Class. This was something new, in the Beta, he would have to pay for them. He was grateful for this change. But as he got the clothing, the Quest Window showing he had finished the quest had still yet to appear. Before Kirito could figure out what was going on, Edward asked, "Do you mind following me to one more stop?"
Wanting to see the end of this quest and become an alchemist, Kirito said simply, "Sure."
And with that Edward led the young man to a weapon shop, where once again Kirito waited outside, before the man came out with a sword and another bag that he gave to him. This was a starter Alchemist Dagger.
After giving the dagger to Kirito, Edwar said, "Anyway, I would like to thank you again for saving us. For now I have to leave and get this Anti-Alchemist Wristband off me and the others. This should take a day or two. So, if you really want to become an alchemist, you can meet me at Horunka Village in a few days where I'll have someone who'll teach you the basics of becoming an alchemist."
"Thank you, I'll be there in a few days." Kirito told the alchemist master, as the two parted ways. As this happened the Quest Window finally opened. But it wasn't the only window to open either.
Emergency Quest - Complete:
Save As Many Alchemists As Possible!
Save at least five Alchemists.
Reward(s):
Class Change Possible.
Alchemist Clothing
Alchemist Dagger
The next window was another quest window:
Class Change Quest:
To Become an Alchemist!
Go to Horunka Village to become an Alchemist.
Reward(s):
Class Change.
The final window was a System Announcement:
System Announcement!
Congratulations, the Alchemist Class has now been found and players are now able to become an Alchemist.
Tians Alchemists can now be found wandering around the first floor and among the upper floors.
You'll need to find one on Floor 1 to become an Alchemist.
New Effects:
New Alchemist Quests added.
Tians Alchemists will now randomly appear in Towns/Villages/Settlements.
New Weapons/Armour/Items can appear and be created.
New Effects for Monsters:
From now on, monsters outside the Town of Beginning Area will now be stronger.
Around the Town of Beginning Area, Exp from monsters will be more, but only for those without a Class.
You'll gain no Exp from monsters in the Town of Beginning Area if you have a class.
With this System Announcement, Kirito knew that players who wanted to become alchemists would be looking for them now. But he also knew that players would be worried with the new effects on the monsters. Those with Classes would now be unable to fight monsters in the area of the Town of Beginning to get easy Exp. That they would have to move out of the area to get stronger.
It seems as if Kayaba planned this to force the players to move out of the Town of Beginning area once they become a Warrior or Alchemist, so that they wouldn't take the easy route to level up. Sure it would be slower, with monsters having lower Exp than the stronger ones, but it would be safer. But it would seem that Kayaba didn't want this to happen and so prevented this by doing this. Sure, it was a good idea, as it allowed the players to see the world of the game instead of being stuck within the beginning area, but many wouldn't like this though. Either way, in the long run, this would help players to become stronger, if they want or not.
Either way, knowing that Edward wouldn't be in Horunka Village, Kirito knew that he had no option but to wait. Even if he wanted to become an alchemist at once. But with the other alchemists, he would have no idea where to find them and that could be even longer. And with the monster becoming stronger, it would be dangerous to wander around aimlessly. So it was for the best to go to the one place he knew where an alchemist would be rather than searching for one.
For now, he would work on his skills and get them stronger, seeing how he couldn't level up right now. But before that, he wanted to see Zangetsu and Yoruichi to get some training in. Sure skills were important in the gaming world, but with this is a V.R World where your body movements were also important. So, keeping your body fit and trained was essential too.
But before he could make a move to visit Zangetsu and Yoruichi, someone wearing a hood robe rushed by and grabbed the bag with the dagger in it. Because he hadn't stored it and got ownership rights for the weapon yet, there was very little he could do about it. So, not wanting to lose this new weapon, he chased after the hood robe person.
The chase lasted for a short while, and Kirito found himself with a dead end alleyway and no one about. But he knew that he chased the thief down here, so he had to wonder what the hell happened. He knew that the thief couldn't have escaped or run up the walls, which meant that there was a hidden entrance somewhere and the thief used that to disappear. But the question became, where was this hidden entrance?
As Kirito looked around the alleyway, he suddenly spotted something, a diamond shape with a circle within it. It was covered in dust, if he wasn't running his hand over things, he could have easily missed it. Thanks to this, Kirito gained a new passive skill, Investigation. This skill allowed Kirito to see things much clearer, see things like hidden symbols, doorways, switches and things like that. Unlike the skill, Search, which allows you to see things that are hidden by invisible forces, Investigation would allow him to see things that could be found but were hard to see, hidden by dust or other stuff. Both skills were important in this sort of game, even if most people don't see it that way.
Anyway, upon seeing the diamond shape with a circle within it, he dusted it off more and found that within the circle there was a bird with its wings open. Above the bird's head was what looked like a moon. This reminded Kirito of the symbols that you could find in games that have thief guilds in them. Realizing this might be the case, he looked for a symbol with a diagonal arrow that pointed to the top left. This would reveal where the hidden door to the entrance would be.
He was able to find it against a wall. Looking for a catch or a switch that would open the door, Kirito was able to find a loss break which he pushed to open a hidden door. Upon seeing the door open and steps going down, Kirito went down the steps to find the person who stole his new dagger.
To Be Continued!
Author's Note - PLEASE READ TO THE END: Here ends another chapter of Sword Art Online - Alchemy Edition and the start of the new arc: Becoming an Alchemist. In the upcoming chapters, we'll be seeing Kirito becoming an alchemist and learning some new skills along the way.
As you know I'm planning to change things in this story, like how much time they are in this world and the like. Another thing I'm going to change is the system. As you have seen in this chapter, I give an extra slot to the players. This is to make things more realistic, so that they can use the skills that they learn instead of giving them up to use others. However, to get them they need to do quests, be friendly towards the NPCs and the like to earn them. So if you got any ideas for slots, please let me know, and what skills you would put into these slots.
There's going to be more changes in the story as I write it, mainly making it more sci-fi/fantasy. But if you have any ideas as to what I could add, please let me know and if I like the ideas I'll add them to the story.
I would like your help. I want some ideas on how to let Kirito find out that Kayaba Akihiko is Heathcliff. Sure, Kirito guesses this with a few hints, him being able to defend him during the duel, being much faster than he should be, that it would be boring to watch other people playing and never being going into the yellow, but as the video that I watch recently, that's a bit lame. And to be honest, it's true…
So, if possible, I would like to have a few clues added into the story, bits here and there that by themselves means nothing at the time, but later they come together and Kirito guesses the truth that way. So, if you have any ideas, I would like your help on this please.
Finally, a question for you all, out of the Warrior and Alchemist Class that I have added to SAO storyline, what class would you think Vassago Cassals, A.K.A PoH, would become and why? I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this.