Black-Market Buffs

A black-market chemist dies in a lab accident and wakes up beneath a warded city, in the Undercity where all the city’s waste, leaked mana, and monsters collect. The System brands him Unregistered, then gifts him the one thing he cannot seem to escape: Chemical Intuition. Down here, “crafting” is not just dangerous, it’s illegal. The moment he tries to improvise, the System logs Unlicensed Alchemical Activity, and every success buys survival at the price of attention. He learns fast. A runner named Trent offers routes, blind spots, and a way into the city’s quiet criminal economy. A pathfinder named Allen buys his crude stamina draughts and pays him with contraband: a ward-sink anchor that can smother a potion’s telltale glow and blur the city’s scrutiny. With a soul-bound Character Ledger and a new name, Antoine Laurent, he starts building a controlled supply line in the cracks between guild law and undercity reality. Then he discovers his first real product: a filtered spirit called Knolle Vodka that spikes Charisma. And the moment profit becomes possible, pressure arrives at his door: a messenger demanding ten bottles by nightfall, with eviction, scrutiny, and bureaucracy tightening into a noose. In this city, attention is a reagent, and the wards remember. What to expect: Crafting-forward LitRPG with alchemy/chemistry logic, items, and stats Undercity survival, monsters, and “blind spot” infrastructure in the city’s wards Black-market deals, escalating scrutiny, and time-pressure economics (bottles, cuts, deadlines) LitRPG, Progression Fantasy, Crafting, Alchemy, AntiheroContent notes: violence, criminal economy, references to drugs/addiction themes