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Fine minutes later, I received another message, this time from AI.

You've been granted permission to generate recipe: "The Emperor's Smoldering Delight".

Category: Class D Food.

Price of basic recipe: 400 gold

Price of unique recipe: 4000 gold

Price of patent: 2000 gold for 1% coverage

You've been granted permission to generate recipe: Yellow Brown Dye, tasteless, odorless.

Category: Class E Food Colorants

Price of basic recipe: 100 gold

Price of unique recipe: 1000 gold

Price of patent: 500 gold for 1% coverage

Total price of the basic package: 500 gold

Total price of the unique package: 5000 gold

Total price of the unique package with maximum patent: 30000 gold

Without even thinking, I accepted the last version. The gold clinked, making me thirty grand poorer. I had five thousand cash left.

Congratulations! You've received a unique recipe "The Emperor's Smoldering Delight"!

Requires level 50

Requires 100 Cooking Skill

Ingredients: Swamp Lily leaves, Juice of Millefleurs, Pollen of Gigantic Fly-Trap

Congratulations! You've received a unique recipe "Yellow Brown Dye, tasteless, odorless".

Required level 50

Requires 100 Alchemy Skill

Ingredients: Juice of Brown Fern, Wax from Forest bees, Spring water

Would you like to learn the recipes?

Yes!
 
A moment later, I had the skill I needed. Now my alchemy was up to date but I still had to level up my cooking skill. Not a problem. I opened the auction and ordered two basketfuls of sandwich fillings of various difficulty levels. I also discovered tons of recipes from the happy selling crowd. After an hour and a half of slicing, layering and wrapping I was the proud owner of three hundred indestructible sandwiches and a precious skill.

I checked all the ingredients I needed to make the dye and tobacco. The dye was no problem. Its ingredients were so easily available that the cost of production turned out to be around 1 silver. After another half-hour, an army of fat vials lined up on my table.

Tobacco proved more difficult. Either Gigantic Fly-Trap didn't grow here or nobody bothered to collect its pollen, and it was only available from two sellers. One of them was asking 2 silver for a batch while the other, for some reason only known to him, demanded one gold for the same quantity. I bought up the former's entire stock which amounted to sixty doses, then PM'd him offering to buy any quantities he might happen to have. Then I set up auto buy with the task of buying all six ingredients in bulk for a setup price. This way I could get the cream of the auction's crop. The auto buy didn't charge much—3% of the deal—but promised to save me a pretty penny.

And things got rolling.

By the evening, I finally made it to my recliner, took a swig of strong coffee and a tug on a cigarette, the first in this world. Jeez, it felt good. And the way the smoke wafted around! The real-world manufacturers would have jumped off a cliff for my iridescent smoke recipe.

I finished the cigarette, rolled my eyes and lingered in the chair, enjoying the fragrance. Even more important was the fact that I wasn't ruining anyone's health by selling the stuff. All I was doing was helping others enjoy their habit.

Time to run field trials. I stuffed all the rollups into my bag—about two hundred in total, costing 4 silver each—and walked downstairs into the main hall. As always, evenings were pretty busy. I walked over to the bartender, exchanged a few words and ordered a shot of brandy. With a practiced gesture, I produced a cigarette and flicked it into my mouth. I slapped my pockets, searching for a lighter, found none and made an international gesture as if asking him for a light.

Mechanically, he reached under the bar and struck a match. His hand froze halfway to the cigarette. His eyes stared at my mouth. I leaned forward and lit up. Then I inhaled, just like in that cowboy advert, and let out a cloud of smoke. His eyes grew enormous as he stared at his own reflection in the iridescent smoke rings. He made a very peculiar movement with his nose, taking in the familiar aroma. His burned fingers twitched as he dropped the match.

"S-s-spare a smoke?" he stuttered, voiceless.

With pleasure. I offered him a rollup. Breaking matches, he finally lit up and drew in a lungful. Slowly he exhaled. His face was euphoric. "This is too good..."

Everybody spoke at once.

Apparently, the patrons had long left their places and surrounded us, waiting for his verdict. Now they all fought for my attention, interrupting each other, all saying the same thing, "Spare one, sell some, leave a few, please!"

"One per head," I shouted over the noise as I handed out the precious sticks placing them into their impatiently shaking fingers.

A minute later, the inn was dead quiet. Colorful clouds of smoke hovered under the ceiling of what now resembled an opium den: all smoke, smell, silence and blissful faces.

A teleport popped outside in the courtyard. The door shook and collapsed, hanging on one hinge. A bloodied paladin in dented armor burst into the hall, oozing drops of blood onto the floor. His life pulsated in the orange zone. But he didn't seem to care. His nostrils widened as he sniffed the air. His practiced eye singled me out in the crowd. Avariciously he headed for the bar.

Someone uttered his name, recognizing the famous knight. "Fuckyall!"

He held out a compelling palm. I placed a cigarette into it and struck a match. The warrior inhaled, closed his eyes and exhaled through both nostrils. Then he loosened up as if someone had deflated him. The hard expression left his face; his lips curved into a smile.

Another teleport popped outside. A furious level 205 cleric girl stormed into the hall.

"Fuckyall! Very nice, fucking off in the middle of a fight!"

The warrior shot out his arm, calling for silence. He was all blissed out.

Having finished the cigarette in two deep drags, he stepped closer, hovering over me. "How many've you got? I'm taking 'em all."

The patrons grumbled, rising from their seats. The paladin swung round and growled at the angrier ones, with little effect. I heard the grating of unsheathing knives.

Fuckyall thought better of it. "Very well. Think you can sell me a couple packs? My whole soul's on fire. Have been smoking nothing but moss and straw for two years flat."

"I only have 'em loose," I warned him placing about fifty cigarettes on the bar. "Actually, it's been a promotion. I've been offering them for free, one apiece."

The paladin waved the idea away. One of the Russian cluster's most powerful warriors, he was too used to shaping the world after his own needs. No way was he going to adjust to any amount of senseless regulations created by some anonymous paper-pushers. "How much?"

"Two gold apiece," I quoted the price I'd already calculated.

Fuckyall slapped his pockets and grimaced. Pulling a massive bracelet off his wrist, he threw it onto the table. "Take it. You're worth it. Barman! Three bottles of brandy and the best room you can find in this rat hole. I need some rest."

In the meantime, more teleports started popping outside. The news of the cigarettes arrival was spreading fast in this world.

When I finally stopped distributing cigarettes to the eager, I didn't feel good. Honestly, I was scared by what I'd just seen. These weren't people wishing to cadge a smoke. These were addicts; this was cold turkey raising its ugly head. In the center of the city, right before my own eyes, decent citizens were prepared to kill each other over a fix, jumping at their biggest paladin hero's throat. Only now I started to understand what kind of genie I had just let out of the bottle. The terrible thing was, there was no way I could stuff him back in now.

Possessing this kind of recipe was like giving a fist-sized diamond to a hobo. The stone wouldn't make him rich; if anything, it would put an end to his life pretty soon. Then it would travel on, leaving a trail of blood wherever it went until it finally came to rest on a shelf in some billionaire's vault.

Potentially, this recipe meant millions: too much money and influence involved to allow a lone newcomer to make it. Whether I liked it or not, I had to become part of one of the more influential groups. It had probably been stupid of me to give myself away so openly. I should have tried to produce small batches and auction them for exorbitant prices. But then again, who would pay that kind of money for some obscure Emperor's Smoldering Delight, even if it looked like a cigarette?

Most importantly, this wasn't what the Admins were after. They didn't need eighty percent of a million, even. It was peanuts for them. They had simply decided to use the entrepreneurial youngster to beta-test the market. They wanted to study the demand, double-check its influence on the economy and see the public's reaction. Whatever happened, they could always tell the powers that be that they had nothing to do with it and blame it on the player's personal initiative. It wasn't their fault he'd mixed up a few ingredients that allowed him to puff rainbow smoke at the ceiling. Those players just couldn't help experimenting with substances, trying this and that, from moss to straw, so now it was seaweed's turn. They'd tell the powers that be that they were more than welcome to bring the scumbag to justice—if they got hold of him. Because the scumbag just happened to be a perma player and out of the real world's jurisdiction.

I opened
 
the Wiki to check Russian clans' ratings. I had to find a strong syndicate to cover me. The Vets were #14 in the overall ratings. The Olders, #3. That was another unknown quantity. Logically, they were the ones to turn to. But... How sure was I that Russian get-rich-quick billionaires wouldn't stab the ambitious loner in the back? In real life, would I go cap in hand to one of those? No way. I'd rather die.

The Vets dropped to #32 in the economic ratings but made the Top 10 because of their military power.

Talk about the devil. Eric walked into the inn. Dan the cloak-and-dagger guy dallied behind. Now what did
 
he
 
want? I hadn't invited him. Had they already heard about the cigarettes?

For a moment, the two vets froze. Then they looked around, noticed me still standing with a couple of remaining cigarettes in my hand, and walked over to the bar.

Dan winced studying the packed room choking in smoke. Eric, ever the joker, slapped my shoulder with his steel hand. "I knew that if there was an anomaly somewhere, we had to find you at its center."

Dan
 
didn't mince words. He gestured around the room. "Your work?"

I lowered a guilty head. "It was supposed to be a free promotion. I wanted to make everyone happy. Turned out, it was more like entering a cageful of hungry tigers carrying a bowl of steak. Can you imagine they very nearly ground Fuckyall into dust, of all people? All because of those wretched cigarettes."

Dan shook his head. "This is only the beginning. How sure are you that they'll let you out of this room now? Are you certain they won't chain you to that table in the corner and make you roll more cigarettes until some other clan kidnaps you and locks you up in a bunker?"

I cringed. "No need to be so negative. I already know I might need to turn to someone. Had you seen all the windows open in my interface, you'd have known I'm already working in this direction. Trust me I've already looked the Vets up, too."

There! If they wanted me to come crawling to them with my recipe on a silver platter, I wouldn't give in so easily. Let them make the first move and make me an offer I'll find hard to resist.

"Is that your recipe?"
 
Dan said. "Did you make it?"

"Yeah."

"Lots of people tried before you," he added tentatively.

"You can't make it from scratch. It's too obvious. You have to create a sequence of tasks leading to the end result you need."

Eric shrugged. "Bullshit. Wait till the Admins come back to their senses tomorrow. They'll axe your recipe before you know it. So before it happens, how about a few?"

"Oops, sorry, guys. Completely forgot."

I handed them a cigarette each. The two men pulled at them with relish.

"Too good," Eric managed.

I wasn't going to trash my merchandise. "Talking about the Admins. No way they're gonna axe it. They already have their cut."

Dan
 
perked up. "Are you sure? Do you realize how that changes everything?"

"Read this," I forwarded him the letter from the Administration.

He scanned the text, then went through it again, slower this time, looking into all the fine print. "The twenty percent of profits that they've left you is a lot. In real life, tobacco vendors don't have that. Taxes... excises... Aha. They're talking about the patent. Does it mean you have a full unique patent protected for 10% coverage? You can grant manufacturer's licenses but you don't have the right to relinquish the patent without their consent? Is that so?"

I thought about it. He'd somehow managed to unscramble the whole thing. Looked like he was right. My diamond was even more precious than I'd thought. Right now it had grown to the size of a melon.

I nodded, "Exactly."

"That's smart," he said slowly.

Eric turned to him, "Why do you think the Admins decided to leave him the patent? And even allowed him to grant licenses?"

"I think all they want is to tie the invention to a
 
perma player. This way it would be much easier for them to keep lawyers at bay. You can't sue a perma. At least not for the time being."

He sat back and fell silent, squinting at the play of smoke like a cat basking in the sun.

Eric reached into his bag and produced a small figurine depicting my demoness in the heat of battle. Her hair was flying in the wind; she was baring her teeth, grinning, as she raised her whip in a violent hand. I peered at the characteristics.