Chapter 16: The First Level 2 Hearthhold

[Hearthhold  -  Level 2]

[Available Furnishings & Expansions:]

[Bedroom: Wood ×500, Leather ×20, Sand ×10]

[Living Room: Wood ×500, Stone ×100, Leather ×30, Sand ×50]

[Storage Room: Wood ×300]

[Bathroom: Wood ×50, Stone ×10, Sand ×6, Iron Ore ×10]

[Required Add-on: 10-Liter Water Reservoir  -  Wood ×100. (The reservoir does not consume an amenity slot.)]

[Stove: Wood ×30, Stone ×50]

[Fireplace: Stone ×30, Sand ×10, Water ×2 units]

[Lower-Level Exterior Platform: Small  -  Wood ×50; Medium  -  Wood ×100; Large  -  Wood ×200]

[Upper-Level Balcony: Small  -  Wood ×50; Medium  -  Wood ×100; Large  -  Wood ×200]

[Required Add-on: Door  -  Wood ×10. (The door does not consume an amenity slot.)]

[Upper-Level Terrace: Small  -  Wood ×100, Vines ×10; Medium  -  Wood ×200, Vines ×20; Large  -  Wood ×400, Vines ×40]

[Required Add-on: Floor-to-Ceiling Sliding Doors  -  Wood ×100, Sand ×300. (The doors do not consume an amenity slot.)]

[Each Hearthhold upgrade grants three amenity selections. Choose according to your needs.]

Serayne finished reading the last line, then cast her eyes back to the top of the roster. The sheer thrill of unlocking extra living space collided with the unique irritation of someone presented with a tantalizing catalog, only to be told she could barely touch most of it.

“Three… of course it's only three,” she muttered, trailing her finger along the glass. “The Worldheart must get a real kick out of watching people agonize over what they have to give up.”

The menu was far more tempting than she had anticipated. After days of scraping by with mismatched pots, wooden crates, and scraps of salvage, the prospect of outfitting an actual home inspired a flurry of ideas - each seeming utterly indispensable for a fleeting moment.

The bathroom caught her eye immediately. The storage room promised an end to cramming everything against the walls, and the upper terrace solved the windowless bedroom problem in a way that sounded far more appealing than sitting under a lantern all day.

Before she could start weighing the options in earnest, she noticed a small arrow tucked at the bottom of the interface. Tapping it in hopes of finding something to make her choice easier, she found an option that instantly claimed one of her three coveted slots.

[Alchemical matrix blueprint detected within the Hearthhold. Resident is presumed to practice alchemy.]

[Apprentice-tier Alchemical Workshop unlocked for construction.]

[Cost: Wood ×50, Stone ×50, Iron Ore ×30, Sand ×10]

Serayne turned her head toward the wooden board resting by her mattress, where she had been practicing glyphs and layouts with charcoal, then looked back at the system prompt.

“You can't possibly mean that, can you?”

The wood was still covered in lopsided circles, scratched-over lines, and dark smudges where her fingers had smeared the sketches. Calling that an alchemical matrix seemed like an extraordinarily generous assessment - especially after the scathing appraisal of her first potion.

Apparently, the Worldheart could at least recognize what she had been trying to draw, and Serayne had no desire to argue with the system when its leniency worked in her favor.

Fine by me. If a few crooked doodles get me a workshop, I'm certainly not going to explain that one of those lines happened because my sleeve caught the charcoal.

The choice was a no-brainer, but a glance at the bill brought her excitement down enough to recall something she lacked: iron ore.

Opening the market, she typed in the query and combed through the listings, but found nothing that could supply the needed mineral. After a second check, she began wondering if she would have to post a buy order and delay construction until tomorrow.

Then she remembered the silver hair, gold-rimmed glasses, and the simple bio of a professional merchant.

First, she set up a buy order for the missing sand, cleared the filled water buckets away from any construction zones, and opened a chat with Serava.

[Serayne Veyra: Do you have iron ore?]

[Serava Moonveil: Yes. How much do you need?]

Serayne’s eyebrows arched. The reply had arrived so fast it was as if the merchant had been hovering with her finger over the send button, waiting for the chance to sell her something else.

[Serayne Veyra: Forty units.]

[Serava Moonveil: Three hundred units of basic materials.]

[Serayne Veyra: Send the trade.]

This time she didn't even try to haggle. After searching the market herself, she had a clear idea of how scarce iron ore was, and having the workshop ready tonight rather than putting it off until tomorrow was well worth the price.

Besides, there was that remarkably convenient maxim coined by someone whose wisdom Serayne was finding more and more reasons to respect:

An alchemist has no interest in money.

She smirked to herself. Not long ago, she had fretted over the cost of a few test tubes, and now she was invoking Avelra’s words every time she felt like splurging on materials without feeling guilty.

What? I'm not blowing it on decorative rugs. It's a workshop. That sounds plenty responsible.

Serava sent over the trade request almost instantly, tacking on another batch of one hundred and thirty test tubes collected since the previous delivery. Serayne confirmed both transactions, increasingly pleased with her decision to outsource the tedious buy orders.

Every fresh carton meant more potions bottled, and given the ravenous demand, glassware no longer felt like an expense - it was an investment that would promptly return in spades.

Once the buy order for sand had also filled, she returned to the expansion panel and selected the bathroom, the large upper-level terrace, and the alchemical workshop. With a bit of thought, narrowing down three amenities hadn't been nearly as agonizing as she’d feared.

She could furnish the bedroom using what she already had; the mattress didn't become any less comfortable just because it lacked a decorative frame. A living room with a couch was a nice luxury for down the road, but solved no urgent dilemma right now.

A stove could also wait. She had plenty of packaged rations and zero desire to spend hours cooking elaborate meals when an unread stack of books sat right by her bed.

A storage room and an expanded ground platform would have been convenient, but in the newly doubled room, she could manage with crates for a while longer. A proper bathroom, on the other hand, meant never again having to strip down by a freezing stream, straining her ears for predators while trying to rinse soap from her hair.

The sheer memory of that morning's wash sent an unpleasant shiver down her spine, prompting an instinctive rub of her shoulder as she adjusted the slipping strap of her dress.

The terrace provided space to lay out herbs that needed sun-drying without cluttering the main entrance.

Stepping directly outside from her future bedroom sounded lovely as well, though Serayne told herself that was merely an added bonus - lest she admit to herself just how much she adored the idea of lounging on her own grand terrace.

As for the workshop, that required no justification at all. It was alchemy, after all, that allowed her to browse home improvements instead of counting leftover sticks of firewood.

Double-checking the cost tally to make sure the reservoir and sliding doors were accounted for, she pressed the build button and drifted clear of where the new installations would take shape.

From a corner of the lower floor, a dense plume of vapor-like smoke billowed forth, accompanied by rhythmic thumping and clattering that filled the room - as though an entire crew of frantic artisans had commenced work behind an invisible shroud.

Similar sounds echoed from above, but Serayne stayed below, observing the transformation from a safe distance and deciding that peeking into the epicenter of a magical renovation wasn't an experiment she needed to test firsthand.

The mist had barely begun to clear when a familiar chime rang out, the voice of the Worldheart cutting through the dying echoes of construction:

[Congratulations to Serayne Veyra of Sector 666  -  Hollowbriar Forest.]

[As the first resident of this sector to complete the Hearthhold Level 2 upgrade, you are granted a reward of your choice.]

Serayne froze, palm planted against the floor, then turned slowly toward the console where a new window had popped up.

A bonus reward too?

On the Regional Channel, the reaction was considerably louder:

[Holy fuck, she’s already Level 2?! It’s only day two!]

[Does that surprise you after how many potions she sold?]

[The moment she put up trade orders for cores, it was obvious what she was aiming for.]

[The upgrade doesn't surprise me, but a reward? You get a reward for being first?]

[Fantastic. First she hoards a mountain of materials, now she gets a prize on top of it.]

[Serayne Veyra, boss, what does a Level 2 Hearthhold look like? Just curious.]

[Serayne Veyra, show it off! We all chipped in for it after all.]

[The mental gymnastics of your brain fascinate me.]

[Did you buy a potion or equity in her house?]

[Crowdfunding an upgrade - now I've seen everything.]

People who had already turned in for the night were rushing back to their consoles to check the announcement and chime in, while others scrambled to deduce whether future tiers would offer similar milestones and how far behind they were in gathering materials.

Serayne didn't spare the chat a single glance. Four categories hovered before her, and the prospect of free loot commanded her attention far better than the cheapest bargain on the exchange:

[Tools]

[Magic]

[Items]

[Knowledge]

Having gone through a similar selection when claiming her gardening mattock, she knew how to navigate the interface and opened the final category without hesitation.

A new tool would have been handy, and a spell was undeniably tempting, but after her breakthrough with potions, what she wanted most was something that would help her refine her craft, understand the underlying mechanics, and stop making amateur blunders.

Moments earlier, she had assumed picking the category was the hard part. The instant the roster expanded, however, Serayne realized just how wrong she was:

Fundamentals of Crafting 

Fundamentals of Cultivation 

Fundamentals of Animal Husbandry 

Introduction to Monsterology 

Compendium of Monsters 

Fundamentals of Magical Instrument Crafting 

Fundamentals of Beast Taming 

Fundamentals of Astronomy 

Fundamentals of Astrology 

Fundamentals of Meteorology 

Fundamentals of Mechanics 

Fundamentals of Enchanting

She scrolled down, only for another equally extensive list to unfurl, and her initial delight gave way to the creeping realization that the system had found a far more devious way to torment her than a three-amenity cap.

Every title promised something invaluable. Serayne could brainstorm an immediate use for at least half of them - from identifying lethal predators to cultivating her own herbs so she wouldn't have to venture into the wild every time.

“One…” she muttered, dragging a finger along the bezel of the console. “Of course it's only one.”

For a second, she pictured every single one of those tomes lined up on the shelves of her new workshop, but firmly banished the daydream.

I can't pick what I might want to know someday. I have to pick what I need right now.

Her thoughts drifted back to the cauldron, the bitter brew, and the scathing appraisal advising both the draught and the alchemist to review the basics. She scrolled slower this time, passing over one tempting title after another with mounting effort, until her finger finally froze.

Nestled among the remaining selections was the exact book she was hunting for:

Fundamentals of Elixirology.