The first four levels of the dungeon had already been conquered by Prosperous Guild with the exact same team.
Ren, despite being a mediocre cleric, had still been busy the whole way down.
His job was simple: keep everyone alive, especially Gareth, their main tank.
The first level had been a gnoll warren, filled with screeching, flea-bitten beasts who were more annoying than dangerous.
The second was a trap field, with boulders, spike pits, and collapsing floors that punished every wrong step.
The third was an underwater maze, packed with mermen, swamp eels, and a giant crustacean that nearly took Moss’s leg off.
Because they had cleared those areas before, this time it was just a fighting march through familiar territory.
Ren shuffled along on foot with the others, still grumbling internally about how much he missed Parkinson’s 19 (his Kodo), and how much walking sucked.
Every few minutes, he threw out basic healing spells, refreshed buffs, and kept Gareth from getting overwhelmed by stray gnoll attacks.
It wasn’t glamorous, but it was necessary.
And Ren was good enough to do what was needed.
The fifth level, though—that was where it changed.
As soon as they stepped through the stone arch into the cavern, a system notification flashed across their vision:
SYSTEM NOTICE:
From here onward, no premade potions/buffs can be used.
You have 24 hours to craft new supplies for the final boss.
At the same time, every buff they had—healing fields, resistance wards, armor boosts—blinked out of existence.
Gone. Just like that.
Ren watched his status bar flicker, feeling naked without the layers of protections he was used to.
They had expected this.
Prosperous Guild had already tried to power through this section before.
They had dragged in every mid-tier alchemist they could find, flooded them with raw ingredients, and hoped sheer quantity would save them.
It hadn’t.
Twenty-four hours wasn’t nearly enough time for real brewing.
A basic healing potion, the kind that restored a sliver of health, still needed a few minutes if you were a bad alchemist.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
And basic potions weren’t going to help here.
They needed top-end alchemy: full-health restorations, instant mana refills, antidotes strong enough to purge curses and poisons mid-fight.
They had failed.
Over and over again.
Eventually, they had given up and gone crawling to the last person they wanted to ask.
Ren.
Ren, who hated raids.
Ren, who hated dungeons.
Ren, who hated anything that involved walking somewhere he couldn’t teleport to with a hot meal waiting.
But Ren was also the best alchemist they had.
Possibly the best alchemist the game had ever seen.
He sighed and shifted the reagent bags on his shoulders, feeling the weight of the job ahead of him.
‘Twenty-four hours to save everybody’s asses,’ he thought with annoyance.
***
One of the biggest advantages of Ren’s massive alchemy level was the fact that he could multitask.
A Level 1 alchemist could only brew one potion at a time.
At his level, he could brew four at once—if they were all simple, Level 1 potions.
It was one of the few things that made this whole insane operation even remotely possible.
They had already planned out what they would need for the 24-hour crafting window.
This wasn’t their first trip down here.
They had made a list, organized by importance:
Required, Hopeful, and Wishful.
The required list was obvious.
Full-health potions. Emergency mana restorers. Focus potions. Instant-revive potions if they could manage it.
The hopeful list included things like armor buffs, resistance amplifiers, and anti-paralysis brews.
Wishful thinking was all the luxury stuff they probably wouldn’t have time for—flame resistance potions, frost shields, anti-curse salves, the kind of things that hurt when the boss started throwing out every nasty trick in the book.
Ren had grumbled at the list but hadn’t fought it.
He wasn’t the one making the battle plans.
Besides, he hadn’t even been there when they first explored the fifth level.
He had no idea what the boss’s attack patterns were like.
Well, he hadn’t—
Not until he was forced to sit through a two-hour “mandatory strategy meeting” about it.
Two.
Agonizing.
Hours.
Exactly what he hated about being part of a guild.
Exactly why he hated dungeon missions.
Two hours he could have spent doing literally anything else.
Two hours that could have been spent running side-by-side tests on the molecular differences between dragonweed and dragonleaf, and their impact on basic healing potion formulations.
Instead, he had been trapped in a voice channel with a bunch of sweaty raid captains arguing about whether the boss’s third phase required more flame resistance or just better dodging.
Ren still wasn’t sure which was worse—the boss or the planning meeting.
****
24 hours might have seemed like a long time to a lot of people, and for Ren, it would have been a long time to sit in his tent and wait.
But because Ren himself was the one in charge of alchemy, he didn’t even notice the time passing.
If there was one thing that could suck up his attention and make hours fly by, it was alchemy.
If there was a second thing, it would have been a really good TV series.
But hey, once he got through this mission, it would be cheese castles, hanging out, and more potion crafting.
He worked through the required list as fast as he could.
And at his level, it was fast.
Multitasking, he had four separate cauldrons running at once, each bubbling and brewing perfectly under his control.
The guild team watching him realized just how badass he was compared to the mediocre alchemists they had brought before.
Most adventurers knew how potions were made—
they understood the basics—
but they had no idea about the huge difference between a good alchemist and a great alchemist.
Ren was a great alchemist.
Because they had wiped several times before, they knew exactly what needed to be on their required list.
And they had really hoped Ren would work through their hopeful list as well.
Before the 24 hours were even up, Ren had finished all of the required potions.
He finished the hopeful list too.
And the wishful thinking list, the one nobody had actually expected him to touch?
Yeah, he finished that too.
***
