AlterWorld

The constable bellowed, "Natinel, level 32 Ranger, who in honest combat has proven his right to the Champion's Bracelet, accept your prize!"

The stands cheered, the plaudits enthusiastic even if not too numerous. The ranger stepped out and accepted the engraved bracelet and a purse with a hundred gold.

"Do you know of a lady you would like to proclaim Tournament Queen?"

The ranger's voice came out squeaky and childish. "I do! It's Lena from freshman year."

The Constable drowned his laughter in a coughing fit. The stands screamed with delight. This time their applause was longer. It took Major Medved some time to bring the crowd under control.

"Unfortunately, the lady has to be present at the castle. I suggest you bring her along to the next tournament."

The Constable turned to me. "Laith, level 52 Death Knight, accompanied by a bear and a demoness. Today you have shown a strong fighting spirit and excellent combat training as you kept defeating the strongest of your opponents. Wear this well-deserved bracelet with pride. We'll be happy to see you here next year."

The stalls clapped their hands in unison. Only fair, really: I'd provided a lot of the show that day, and quite a few of them had made a nice profit or at least hadn't lost their gold. As a welcome addition, a heavy purse dropped into my bag.

"Sir Laith! Do you know of a lady you would like to proclaim Tournament Queen?"

"Yes, Sir Constable," I answered in the same key, getting into the medieval spirit. "Lady Taali has captured my heart. Truly she is the Tournament Beauty Queen!"

"So be it!"

The trumpets resounded. The arena gate swung open, letting in Taali in a long cream-colored robe, riding a white unicorn. She looked stu

The unicorn approached. Taali jumped off into my arms. The stands whistled, envying us, as the Constable concealed a smile behind his mustache.

Finally he raised his hand, ordering silence. "Truly Lady Taali deserves the title of Tournament Queen! Your portrait will be the centerpiece of our Hall of Fame. Please accept this modest prize!"

He walked down his platform and handed the girl a custom-made platinum tiara. Taali blushed, eyes glistening. Her chest heaved, betraying her excitement.

Later, we didn't remember much of the remaining ceremony. We just stood there holding hands and whispering. Ditto for the banquet and the dance.

And later that night… later I envied my own luck. Now I knew the best way to a woman's heart. You needed to become her knight, to win a tournament and publicly a

In the morning, as I sat in my easy chair with a cup of hot coffee in my lap, I sensed again the void in the local worldbuilding. Anything for a cigarette. Suddenly I flashed back to the thought that had hit me as I'd gobbled that Russian salad. I needed to get a recipe for cigarettes. Unique, preferably. Naturally, you couldn't solve this kind of problem straight out, but if I'd learned one thing in life it was that every problem had multiple solutions. I had money now, so I could afford to toy around with the idea. I ordered the smell and taste files and chose classic Marlboro as a prototype. I thought a bit more and pulled out its complete specifications. Length, color, dryness, burn rate and a dozen more production standards.

Right, let's try and see. I dug into the menu and found the recipe generation application form. Oh well. Ten gold for each attempt. Not too expensive, but still. I started filling out the form.

Incense sticks for temple rites. Dry mixture. Color: yellow brown. Chopped to specification and wrapped in white paper. One end is filled with fiber to 1/4 of the length of the stick. When lit up, smolders for 8 min filling the room with fragrant smoke.

I uploaded the smell and taste samples from the file. That seemed to be it. I crossed my fingers and pressed Submit.

AI didn't think long. In less than a minute, I received his reply:

Warning! It seems that your recipe will result in creating an item which is identical with certain prohibited items.

Item name: Cigarette, 91% match

Item name: Cigar, 86% match

Item name: Tobacco, 79% match

We advise that you can't create a new item with more than 50% match.

Change the item's ingredients and try again.

Aha. So that's how it worked, then. And if I deleted the filter? I changed the recipe and submitted it again. Same result, only the cigar and cigarette's percentages had swapped places. Oh well. Apparently, I couldn't create the recipe from scratch. I had to break the task down and start with creating some tobacco. I had a fu

Sushi 'The Emperor's Smoldering Delight'.

Ingredients: rice, fish and nori seaweed, yellow brown. Smell and taste samples attached.

Why would I need smoldering nori seaweed, you might ask? Because apparently it's some arcane sushi ceremony. AI took fifteen minutes to reply, too long for an automated answer. Most likely, he could see right through my schemes and had been deciding what to do with this sneaky cheek.

Got it.

You've been granted permission to generate recipe:

Sushi 'The Emperor's Smoldering Delight'.

Category: Top A Restaurant Dishes

Price of normal recipe: 1800 gold

Price of unique recipe: 18000 gold.

They didn't want much, did they? Apparently, I had to drop this restaurant nonsense and get rid of the ingredients I didn't need.

Nori seaweed sheets for sushi making. Color: yellow brown. Smell and taste samples attached.

As if! 82% match with tobacco. Was it my imagination or was AI laughing his mechanical head off watching me trying?

What else could I get rid of? What if the sheets were white? 76% match, that's better. I really didn't want to use rice or other worthless ingredients, because in the case of mass production it would turn into millions of gold wasted. And what if I deviated from the classic tobacco formula a bit? What's the point in stubbornly copying something if you can modify it?

After another hour of intellectual ping pong, I won with the score 1 to 22. After twenty-two attempts, my recipe for white tobacco was accepted. So what if the smoke was not blue but rainbowy like a soap bubble? It would be even more fun watching it. And if you didn't like the fact that it tasted of strawberries, then you shouldn't have tried to eat it, should you?

Now a few finishing touches. I generated some yellow brown dye. Taste: none, smell: none. It went through.

Then the paper. Having said that… I already had my sheets of white tobacco. So I could use them to wrap chopped dyed tobacco. And add a normal paper filter. Or I could use some budget filterless solution, like some cheap Soviet-era cigarettes.

I crossed my fingers and submitted the patent request. It took them a while to reply. After an hour, I got pretty nervous. Coffee cups piled up on the table. The room had been paced in all directions. Finally, I received a PM alert.