It had been a few days since Jean had earned her first level in Alchemy, and she was thriving.

  The inmates hadn’t discovered her pond. She had managed to build a modest shelter, dug into the bank and hidden beneath a thick layer of foliage—almost invisible to anyone passing by.

  She had made a breakthrough with her Alchemy.

  While her salves were effective, they were difficult to store and transport. After some experimentation, she discovered that by drying the salves over fire, she could reduce them to a fine ash that, surprisingly, enhanced their potency—though the quality still varied.

  Maybe it started as an accident—she’d left one of her salves a bit too close to the fire overnight, and the next morning it had baked itself into a weird little crumbly brick. She’d poked it, sniffed it, and then, when she identified it and realized what she had made. "Huh. Guess I'm an alchemical prodigy now. Totally on purpose."

  Upon reaching level 3, she unlocked a skill that streamlined the ash-making process and enabled her to compress the powder into crude but functional pills.

  Her exploration range had steadily expanded, allowing her to discover a wider variety of herbs. She now had a growing collection of pills: healing pills, mana pills, and even one that offered a minor stat boost—though that last one had proven especially challenging to refine.

  Her university professors would have been proud—she was blazing a trail in this new world, a true pioneer in magical alchemy.

  Class levels hadn’t come as easily, but she now stood on the brink of reaching level 3—and she hoped, like with her profession, it would come with a new skill choice.

  Jean had avoided the event beacons—they were too risky, too obvious. She wasn't about to gamble her safety for the promise of loot.

  Instead, she found herself locked in a grueling, hour-long battle of attrition with a snapping tortoise cloaked in thick, mossy vegetation.

  [Mossmaw Snapper- Level 4]

  "Why won't you leave me alone, you overgrown salad-wearing lizard?" Jean shouted as she sprinted away from the car-sized creature crashing through the underbrush.

  "I didn’t know that plant was your tail, alright? My bad!" she yelled, hurling another mana bolt that fizzled uselessly against the creature’s thick, armored shell. Its defense was absurd—like trying to dent a tank with a water balloon.

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  And unfortunately, that was her only offensive skill.

  She had hoped that if she put enough distance between them, it would eventually lose interest—but the creature was relentless.

  She had to think of something else.

  Then it hit her—fire. If she couldn’t crack that shell, maybe she could turn it into a walking stew pot.

  "Alright, Snappy, time for a new game," she muttered, ducking another lunge from the mossy beast.

  Jean began snatching up every dry stick, twig, and scrap of kindling she could find, all while shouting taunts over her shoulder. "Come on, Snappy! That’s it, keep up! Good boy!"

  She looped the area in frantic circles, always returning to the same spot to drop her gathered sticks before luring the beast away again with shouted taunts and frantic footwork.

  "System reminded me if i survive this, i need to start exercising more." Jean was panting, while that beast seemed to been keeping the same steady pace.

  After what felt like forever, she was finally satisfied with her pile of sticks—she must have gathered every last scrap of firewood in the surrounding area.

  Now for part two, the hardest part.

  She lured the creature closer, feigning exhaustion—though at this point, it wasn’t much of an act. She was absolutely knackered.

  The creature barreled forward, jaws snapping inches from her heels. Jean dodged left—just a little, then a bit more—guiding it exactly where she needed. "Perfect," she muttered through clenched teeth.

  The Mana Flint was ready. Jean had discovered just how absurdly effective it was at starting fires—it made traditional methods feel like caveman nonsense. She wasn't new to camping; she knew how stubborn a fire could be. But this? This was like dousing kindling in fuel and tossing in a lit match. Instant blaze.

  The poor beast let out a guttural screech as the fire ignited beneath it. Flames leapt from the smouldering sticks to its mossy limbs, climbing rapidly up its legs and licking across its thick, armoured shell like a hungry tide.

  "Sorry, Snappy! I warned you!" Jean shouted, unleashing a flurry of mana bolts as flames engulfed the creature. Now that its defences were compromised, she didn’t let up. One blast after another slammed into its charred shell. She even popped one of her temporary stat-boosting pills mid-cast. "Time to see if those hours grinding alchemy were worth it!"

  The mana bolts she flung now hit harder and came together faster, her hands almost moving on autopilot. Dodging the beast’s thrashing became less a frantic scramble and more of a rhythm—clumsy, but hers.

  By the time the stat boost finally wore off, she was drenched in sweat and ready to collapse. That was, of course, the exact moment the System decided to ping her with a notification.

  You have slain [Mossmaw Snapper- Level 5], Bonus experience gained for slaying a foe of a higher level than you.

  [Level Up: Caster Level 3 Achieved]

  [Class Skill Available: Choose Now? Y/N]

  "Getting way too comfortable burning green stuff... Pretty sure this isn't what Dad meant when he warned me about smoking too much at uni," Jean wheezed, coughing as the wind shifted just right to deliver a lungful of roasted tortoise straight to her face.