A Certain Middle-Aged Man’s VRMMO Activity Log - Chapter 40

Dance of the Fairies Second Half, Crafting during the Event #2

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 I’m holed up in the Compounding Lab.
I’m 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 haven’t 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, there’s 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 doesn’t 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 don’t throw it far enough, you’ll 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 it’ll 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 isn’t something that originally suits my style, but if I run into several dungeon monsters that are locked together with Link, I’m 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 I’ve decided that I’ll have to reproduce what they call B-Heavy Oil in real-life. I’ve decided that it’s 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 won’t be anything more than a carrier fluid1 since I’d have to put additional effort in to purify it to get heavy oil.
Are? Isn’t this a pretty unreasonable demand …?

But I’ve 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.

To make the composition be finely ground, the medicinal plants … I say that, but there’s poisonous ones too, but those as well are first dried and then prepared by being ground; one by one they’re compounded.
There’s probably no other player who’s needed to try and make heavy oil, so it’s truly trial by error. I’m confirming things on the Wiki for the time being, but there’s no introduction for the oil the NPCs sell, and here I also haven’t had a chance to produce anything.

―――――――――

30 minutes at it and there’s 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 Grass2 is especially promising.
If eaten you’ll become slow, so it’s 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 it’s there, it isn’t quite sticky enough, but there is a glue-imitation material that exists in this world.
Or like, I don’t 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 it’s 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 don’t 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 don’t normally do makes the part of my brain that I don’t 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 didn’t 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 won’t explode by finely stabbing them.

With what I have being ores, I mix in iron and steel specks for an inert portion, similar to exploding gunpowder’s non-explosive bits.
Since they’re inert, I take a pick to the ores to break them into tiny pieces.
I did all of this once, but if the product is finished without all this work, it would be terrifying to use, so I fought through this operation. I don’t want to do this over and over.

The shape of the bottle I’m 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 it’s experiment time.
I’ve 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 Thief’s Danger Perception.
Since I’ve been using it while in town, Thief Skill that doesn’t involve stealing has somehow gone up naa.

Going back to the subject, first off I lightly toss Candidate A’s oil bottle.
I didn’t slam it to the ground; it was a light toss, like one that’s accompanied with a [poi-!] sound effect.
And then Crash! when it shattered … flames didn’t happen, it’s 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 B’s 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 hadn’t taken my distance was also mixed in and blown away.
It’s 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.

Because magic, for some reason, isn’t hot outside of its area of effect, the explosive-type Fire Magic can still be used in dungeons, but this oil’s blast is more terrible.
If this oil is exploded in a dungeon, there’s no doubt it will be a suicide bombing!
… well, if I think that I can use it as a last chance struggle, there’s a way to use it.
It won’t be a bad idea to keep a few of them in my bag …
I’m going to nickname it “Hell’s Main Oil” …3

Lastly, I pull out Candidate C’s oil. If this fails, today’s 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
I’ll just need to finetune the details …

At this point I leave it at that; it’s 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 day’s 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 there’s barely any oil, the burning time is short.
However, anything within the fire’s area of effect will sustain large amounts of damage as well as heavy burns.

Quality 4    Inflicts the Bad Status, Burn

—
Enhanced Oil? (Hell’s Main Oil with Earth’s naming sense)

An explosive with an overly large area of effect, it’s 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

ExP　18

A/N: And so, 1 of the trump cards, the Explosive Oil, is finished.
It looks like it’ll 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.