A Certain Middle-aged Man’s VRMMO Activity Log

Chapter 40



In the mean time, I have successfully completed a new arrowhead and, imitating a whip that was sold in NPC stores, a new whip.

And now Im holed up in the Compounding Lab.

Im there to make Uncommon Potions and a quality above, Rare Potions, and also for one other goal. That goal is a thick oil.

Previously while excavating in the mine, I managed to get my hands on some Exploding Ore, but the way most people handle it by stuffing it in a bag and throwing, is a feat of strength that my STR would find impossible to do.

From then up til now I havent explained it, but in this game the stats that you can see are only HP and MP.

Even so, not knowing at all what stats I have, theres no way I want to try it out.

Actually I tried the Exploding Ore in a bag thing once, and I could lift if, but throwing it was out of the question, so in a way I did try it out.

To the bitter end, the STR that I can display definitely doesnt exceed the typical.

Despite that, the destructive power of the explosion from the Exploding Ore is very attractive.

Whatever you say, slamming a portion as large as a fist into the ground near a Rock Ant, which previously gave me a hard time, has the power to send it blasting off in an instant.

The chance to blow yourself up with it as extremely high; if you dont throw it far enough, youll take collateral damage.

Truly a textbook high-risk high-return item.

And so I thought about it; if I mix finely ground Exploding Oil into sticky, very flame-resistant oil, I can put that into a bottle.

Then, to use it, smash the bottle to make the Exploding Ore explode -> the oil will burst into flame. It will be the greatest oi cough cough.

If I get any more excited than this itll be bad.

With the Exploding Oil dug out, now I need a sticky oil with the characteristics of being

Hard to ignite but quick to burst into flame once it catches fire; if I can compound it, the item will be as good as done.

An item that flashily bursts into flame isnt something that originally suits my style, but if I run into several dungeon monsters that are locked together with Link, Im thinking that a throw-able item that blows them all up would make it a quick and decisive item.

I fully expect it to become one of my trump cards.

Now then, the critical point is the oil but Ive decided that Ill have to reproduce what they call B-Heavy Oil in real-life. Ive decided that its impossible to use the oil the NPCs sell as is, which will catch fire with just a little heat and trigger the Exploding Ore; I can use it as a base, but it wont be anything more than a carrier fluid1since Id have to put additional effort in to purify it to get heavy oil.

Are? Isnt this a pretty unreasonable demand ?

But Ive already got on the boat; giving up is not an option.

For that reason I gather together all sorts of ores, medicinal plants, and other things with adhesive properties that can be used as raw materials; I can only try

Anyway, because of Alchemy I have Compounding to use.

30 minutes at it and theres numerous failed works, or as you can call it, a mountain of trash appeared.

Well, I do have the compatibility data as a result.

First off, the combinations with ores resulted in complete annihilation of materials after all.

I had thought the chance would be low, but at least it looks like the Exploding Ore really will still retain its abilities, at the moment.

Next are the medicinal plants; these were more or less hits. Sloth Grass2is especially promising.

If eaten youll become slow, so its quite the dangerous poisonous plant, but that slow-inflicting poisonous quality, when mixed with oil, produces a moderate stickiness.

The thing I need to do for the stickiness is that, though its there, it isnt quite sticky enough, but there is a glue-imitation material that exists in this world.

Or like, I dont have any hopes other than this.

Mixing the glue-imitation into the oil as well increases the stickiness.

At this point, I need to adjust the ignition resistance of the oil with both Sloth Grass and the glue-imitation.

From here its quite the painful road; I have to beat out the proper compounding ratio.

For the unscientific me to face a mountain of test-tube like bottles, repeatedly compounding, my form probably looks way too funny.

Compound > experiment > analyze while repeating it I dont know how many times, after 1 hour passed I manage to come out with 3 different compounding ratio candidates. I have a headache; doing work

I dont normally do makes the part of my brain that I dont normally use hurt.

But just a little more I gather myself with this feeling to switch to the final test.

Now I should be checking which oil is most suitable with its stickiness and ignition resistance, but in actuality, after I broke the Exploding Ore into small fragments and put them into the bottles with the oil,

I lightly threw a bottle at the ground, and when it broke it didnt explode or catch fire; a failure.

The Exploding Ore was broken into small pieces by carefully whittling away at it.

I lightly crack parts that wont explode by finely stabbing them.

The shape of the bottle Im using is a flask with round bottom; I pour enough oil in to just fill the round part, then add in the finely broken fragments of Exploding Ore and swirl lightly to mix.

The 3 types of exploding oil are finished with this; would they be Explosion Potions?

If it classifies as a potion anyway.

Alright, now its experiment time.

Ive come to the Field next to the town just to try actually using it.

The point that I had gotten used to being wary of is currently not registering in Thiefs .

Since Ive been using it while in town, Thief Skill that doesnt involve stealing has somehow gone up naa.

Going back to the subject, first off I lightly toss Candidate As oil bottle.

I didnt slam it to the ground; it was a light toss, like one thats accompanied with a [poi-!] sound effect.

And then Crash! when it shattered flames didnt happen, its a failure.

I had taken a few steps away from the small area the Exploding Ore oil had spread to after striking it because of explosions and flames; the oil soon disappeared.

Ignite in a moment and disappeared in a moment; these were also prerequisites.

The reason is simple; for the line of fire, keeping the time the field of vision is clouded short is necessary.

Continuing is Candidate Bs oil; the throwing method is the same.

When it shattered on the ground with a Crash! sound, KABOOOM! Was the large sound that followed immediately after;

The me who hadnt taken my distance was also mixed in and blown away.

Its got power and a half when I hit the ground, I dazedly thought that this one is also a failure.

Just to try it once, I try putting the bottle on the ground, getting far away, and using the bow and arrow to break through the bottle.

When I did that, the fires engulfed an area of several meters.

This is way too dangerous to be a hand-thrown item.

Lastly, I pull out Candidate Cs oil. If this fails, todays results will be surprisingly low while praying for it to work, I throw it at the ground.

As the third Crash! sounds, a Woosh! sound occurs along with a pillar of fire flaring up.

Oo this is it, this is basically the finished form I was looking for in the completed product !

Fire power, range, burning time, I have just about no complaints with any of them. Later

Ill just need to finetune the details

At this point I leave it at that; its already about time to enter an inn in town to

Log out, and also about time to change, spread out the futon, and go to sleep in Real.

And the next days play time will be finally succeeding my goal and completing the Enhanced Oil.

Enhanced Oil

When thrown, it will explode and burst into a pillar of fire.

Because theres barely any oil, the burning time is short.

However, anything within the fires area of effect will sustain large amounts of damage as well as heavy burns.

Quality 4 Inflicts the Bad Status, Burn

Enhanced Oil? (Hells Main Oilwith Earths naming sense)

An explosive with an overly large area of effect, its a dangerous oil that will blow up even the thrower.

To effectively use it, it would probably be better to set it up as a trap.

Quality 3 Wide-ranged explosion.

SKILLS

[Hunting Bow]Lv41

[Kicking Assault]Lv9

[Farsight]Lv46

[Wind Magic]Lv46

[Craftsmanship]Lv45 1UP

[Alchemy]Lv40 5UP

[Stealth]Lv35

[Physical Ability Reinforcement]Lv14

[Thief]Lv32 1UP

[Whip]Lv32

Reserved Skills

[Woodworking]Lv26

[Cooking]Lv48

[Blacksmithing]Lv30

ExP18

A/N: And so, 1 of the trump cards, the Explosive Oil, is finished.

It looks like itll be preciously used.

By the way, Bleed -> continued HP damage; Burn -> continuous small HP&MP Damage.

If you just want to shave of HP Bleed is superior, but Burn is better against monsters that specialize in magic.

(Added Part)

The part when he broke apart the Exploding Ore was added.


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