We wandered the city for a while, trying to kill some time before my event started. I received a message from Alex wanting to meet up before the event. We walked to the large park in the city and waited at the respawn crystal.

“Sarah! Over here!” I heard someone yelling my name. I turned to the voice and saw someone I didn’t recognize until they ran closer to me.

“Like my new form? I think I look sexy.” The person, who I now recognized as Alex, did a twirl to show herself off to us.

She was now a tall dragon lady. She had a sleek pair of black horns from front to back, accentuating her snow-white hair. She had chromatic scales that changed color, covering parts of her body, including her face. Her lower arms were completely covered in scales, and she had short claws at the end of her fingers, similar to mine. Two large wings jutted out from her back and folded neatly behind her. I could see a powerful tail swishing back and forth. Her legs, while looking primarily humanoid, were covered in scales and had claws on them too. A smaller claw protruded out of the back of her heel. She had the very appearance of an Amazonian Dragon Goddess.

Her eyes were the same as mine, and despite being two different races in the game, we still looked every bit like twins. To say we were stunned by her new appearance was an understatement. She looked absolutely gorgeous now. Her toned stomach was not covered by scales. Instead, they seemed to outline it, making her look even more exotic.

“Damn, girl! You hit the jackpot with your rebirth,” Naomi said, breaking us out of our stupor. Alex laughed it off as if it was natural.

“Yeah, I think I am going to enjoy this. I wasn’t too sure I’d like it at first, thinking I would turn into a full-blown dragon.” Alex responded.

“Can you turn into a dragon,” I asked, now curious if that was a thing.

“This is my base form. I have two other forms besides this. My rage skill fused with one of the forms giving me a controlled rage ability now with no drawbacks. My rage form is called Draken. I turn more draconic as my feet become more like a dragon, and my face turns full-on dragon. My hair becomes these white feathers, I get these long scaley tendrils that look like hair, and I get covered in full scales. It’s pretty cool.” Alex explained excitedly to us. I would like to see that one day.

“That’s so badass! I can’t wait until We do the dungeon and PvP event. We are so gonna tear it up. Now we just need to get Naomi a power-up.” Yuki said, obviously trying to cheer up Naomi. We could all see in her eyes that she was jealous and disappointed that she was still using a default race.

“Don’t worry, Naomi. We will get you something cool too.” I said to her. “So, you mentioned that you have two forms. What’s the other one you can turn into?”

“I can also become a full dragon, but I can’t do it just yet. My mana is too low to activate the transformation. Once I can transform, I can only do it for thirty minutes with a two-hour cooldown. I assume that will get better as I level the skill.”

“That is so freaking cool. I can’t wait to see you go full dragon mode. I wonder how big you will be.” Yuki said excitedly, as if her dreams had just come true. “I have to ask, though. You were an elf before…so does that mean you still…you know? Got your dick?”

“Yuki! You can’t ask her things like that.” I admonish Yuki for her comment.

“What? You can’t say you aren’t curious either.” Yuki responded as she crossed her arms.

“I was kind of wondering that too myself.” Naomi chimed in.

“You too, Naomi?” I was shocked that Naomi wanted to know.

Alex laughed at my predicament. “Well, let’s just say it looks like a certain adult toy sold by a company with the word dragon in their name. I am definitely going to take it out for a spin.”

I couldn’t help but blush at how forward Alex was. Yet now I was trying to imagine it. “Damn it, Yuki. I didn’t need those images in my head.” Everyone burst out in laughter at my expense.

Once everyone calmed down, we returned to the giant arena in preparation for my event. We had to separate eventually. I was ushered into the waiting area for the contestants. There were tons of other players in the waiting room with me. A lot of them looked nervous, like I was myself.

Eventually, the roar of the crowd could be heard from our area. I could only guess it was because Gordon was talking and hyping everyone. While waiting, we are being debriefed by a staff member. It’s more or less the same as the first event I saw. Five winners will be chosen, and two runner-ups will be in potency and complexity.

We were all given a number that designated our assigned station. Looking at my number, I could guess that I was near the judging panel.

I was quickly pulled out of my thoughts as the staff member then ushered us out of the waiting area. We were all lined up according to our numbers in rows of two. As we emerged into the arena, we were met with loud cheers. I was becoming self-conscious even though I knew the attention wasn’t focused solely on me.

I found my station relatively quickly and noticed the closest ingredients to me were near the judges.

“Welcome everyone to Rebirth Online’s first-ever apothecary event! This will be much like previous events. Contestants will have ten minutes to choose from a wide selection of materials. After which you will all have one hour to make three potions. One healing, one buff or debuff, and one damage potion.” Gordon said as his voice boomed out to everyone. I noticed I saw the same judges as the tailoring event.

“Get ready…start!”

Knowing what to do after seeing an earlier event, I set off toward the nearest area for my materials. I stood back closely to examine the different ingredients to use. I was delighted to have training from Old Man’s training and his books. I decided on a debuff potion focusing on ability curses to lower things like strength or intelligence. My next potion is a necrotic potion that poisons and hinders healing. The healing potion will be a basic one that Old Man taught me.

After I scanned what was available, I quickly grabbed what I needed without too much trouble and made it to my station. I then started to craft the potions as I was taught. I used the mortar and pestle to grind various mushrooms and herbs. I put some ground herbs into something like cheesecloth, tossed it into the small cauldrons, and infused my mana in intervals as taught. I boiled everything thing down until it was a thick sludge, then added small parts of the sludge to mana-infused water and honey to make it more drinkable and not so viscous. Once I was done, I got the attention of one of the staff members and turned it in. I then waited for everyone to finish.

~|~

Gordon examined the contestants through the use of the many sparks flying about. His attention was caught by a nearby demon woman as she was absorbed solely in her task.

“Looks like contestant…” Gordon paused as he searched for the contestant’s name. “Gyndolyn is opting to craft manually rather than use the automatic feature.”

“That is something I can appreciate. It was the same for the blacksmithing event previously. Most players used the auto craft. The auto craft option can be good for beginners, but they should try to get into the habit of making things manually.” Dexter responded.

“I am not too sure what it is she is doing, but I have done similar things in labs before, but I am not a chemist, so I rarely get to experience something like this. I love the confidence she has, though. Everything is second nature to her, and she has no doubts about what she is doing.” Astra said, admiring the craftsmanship.

“It seems she is doing things a bit differently than even the players that are crafting manually. Most of them put the ingredients straight into the cauldron and then strain it afterward to separate the solids from the liquid and put it into bottles. She is boiling it to sludge and then dissolving it into the water and…is that honey?” Gordon tried to comment on what he was seeing. It was just so different than what the other manual crafters were doing.

An hour later, the judges collected the potions from everyone. They went to a separate room to judge everything and review videos of how players crafted them. Eventually, they came across Gwyn’s potions.

[Potion of Soothing]

[Grade A]

Restores %180 of HP allowing HP to go past the max for 20 minutes.

Removes all Grade B curses and the necrotic debuff.

[Potion of Agony]

[Grade A]

Poison that reduces max HP by %45.

Applies Necrotic debuff. Stops regeneration and reduces healing by %20.

[Potion of Abyssal Curses]

[Grade S]

Reduces all stats by %20. If not cured in 24 hours, it becomes permanent.

The judges looked on in both horror and awe at the ridiculous effects of the potions presented to them. The guest judges might have only played the game casually, but even they knew just how potent the potions were.

“I think it’s safe to assume who won first place, then?” Gordon finally managed to spit out.

“Yeah.” Astra and Dexter said simultaneously.

AN:

Sorry for the delay. Tried to get this out yesterday but I ended up rewriting the chapter a bit. Wasn't really satisfied with it. Still not %100 satisfied but it's fine.