Maybe it was because no one was selling him any materials for half a day—or maybe it was just the cold shoulder from everyone around—but the warrior player named SodaPop was starting to get confused.
It wasn’t until he saw a group of players walk right past him to trade their materials with a nearby archer or fire mage that he finally realized:
Someone else was already buying bat materials here.
And by the looks of it, they’d been here long enough to lock down the market.
“That’s weird… why the hell are people so into these materials? I mean, fine, the poison sacs I get—but who needs bat claws for potion-making?”
SodaPop scratched the back of his head.
But now wasn’t the time to be thinking about crafting recipes.
If he failed the guild quest, he was the one who’d get chewed out.
After thinking it through, he finally made a decision: he’d double his original offer.
“Buying bat poison sacs! 6 copper per stack! First come, first served!”
As it turned out, money solves everything.
The moment his voice rang out, players who had been clustering around Lost in Clear Skies and the other archer girl suddenly swarmed SodaPop instead.
“Hey man, trade with me!”
“I’ve got ten stacks ready!”
The two original buyers were caught completely off guard.
The archer girl’s expression turned stormy in an instant—she packed up her things and left without a word.
“That idiot!” Lost in Clear Skies realized what just happened and couldn’t help cursing him in her heart.
She quickly followed the other girl, fully aware of what kind of chaos this move was about to unleash.
And sure enough, it did stir the pot.
It was already odd that someone was buying up bat materials in bulk.
But now there was someone willing to raise the price just to snatch materials from others?
It didn’t take long for many players to get suspicious.
Something was up with these bat parts.
There had to be more to them than met the eye.
But SodaPop wasn’t concerned about any of that.
Or rather, he had no idea what was really going on.
The only thing he was worried about now was… how the hell was he going to explain this to the guild?
***
Inside a rented room in the Alchemist’s Association, a stern-looking man named No Talk glared at SodaPop.
“You dumbass! I gave you 10 silver and THIS is all the bat poison sacs you could bring back? What part of this was supposed to be hard!?”
SodaPop shrank into himself, looking sheepish.
“Boss No Talk, c’mon, it’s not my fault. I don’t know what’s going on, but people everywhere are buying this stuff.
Some of them are even offering higher prices than market value.
If I hadn’t bumped it up, I wouldn’t have gotten anything!”
“…Is that so?”
No Talk was taken aback.
Sure, SodaPop was a bit unreliable, but he wouldn’t lie about something like this.
“Bat poison sacs are garbage. No one should be buying them at all.”
“I dunno, maybe those guys are doing the same thing you are?” SodaPop offered weakly.
“No way. I got this recipe from a hidden quest. The NPC gave it to me personally. Even if it’s not totally unique, there’s no way a ton of people know about it.”
“Then… maybe it’s another hidden quest?” SodaPop muttered.
That earned him an eye-roll of pure disdain.
“Are you stupid? It’s called a hidden quest. If everyone knew about it, it wouldn’t be hidden.”
No Talk waved him off.
“Whatever. Go level up or something. I’ll call you if I need more help.”
Once SodaPop was gone, No Talk got to work.
He used the poison sacs to craft a batch of Alkaline Paralysis Potions—a type of new poison.
It wasn’t particularly lethal, but its paralyzing effect made it incredibly useful for players in the early game.
It was thanks to this recipe that No Talk had become the top alchemist in his guild, Starry Myth, gaining priority access to most of the guild’s crafting resources.
But lately, things were starting to shift.
Especially after he learned that two other guild alchemists had acquired rare potion recipes, threatening his dominance.
“I need to hit Apprentice-level Alchemy ASAP,” he muttered.
“At this rate, I’ll lose my edge…”
He opened his status window and checked his Alchemy proficiency—barely one-third into the Beginner rank.
And that was after hoarding most of the guild’s alchemy resources.
Any other alchemist wouldn’t have even half his progress.
“If only there was some hidden quest that could boost profession levels…”
He chuckled to himself.
Thinking back to his earlier chat with SodaPop, he found the idea funny.
A hidden quest that just lets you skip ahead? What were the odds?
Except… his laughter slowly faded. Because something suddenly came to mind.
A thought he couldn’t ignore.
After a moment of hesitation, he left the rental room and walked over to the Association’s mailbox terminal.
There, he retrieved a mail from yesterday.
“Orwin Empire – Capital Faerns – Red Garnet Street.
Complete the task and receive immediate promotion to Alchemy Apprentice.”
He underlined the part about the Apprentice promotion.
Normally, he would’ve dismissed this kind of thing as a prank—or some random troll’s joke.
Because real hidden quests don’t just drop into your inbox like some magical loli from the sky.
And if they did, it’d probably be a 45kg steel plate to the face.
That’s what he’d believed at first.
Until he recalled a certain detail in the quest text for the Alkaline Potion recipe.
It had mentioned an NPC by name—one he definitely remembered.
“She was listed as… Master Alchemist, right?”
As an alchemist, he knew exactly what that title meant.
Anyone with a Master rank or higher could teach players and help raise their profession levels.
Which meant… this mail might actually be legit.
Suddenly, he didn’t waste another second.
No Talk dashed out of the Alchemist Association and made a beeline for the location mentioned in the letter.
He still didn’t know who had sent it or what their goal was. But it didn’t matter.
If there was even a chance he could become an Alchemy Apprentice, he wasn’t going to miss it.