Ring, ring, ring, ring—
As the view outside the window shifted from gold to black, the alarm clock on the desk began to ring.
And as the alarm sounded, the potion inside the cauldron emitted a golden light, just like when the base was first activated.
This was the normal process once a potion was finished.
Eight hours were up. Time to turn off the heat.
Lan Qingyou put down her book and snapped her fingers. The flame on the base extinguished instantly.
A freshly brewed potion couldn't be bottled immediately.
She needed to use a slotted spoon to scoop out all the boiled herbs, then use a cloth and a funnel to drain the liquid from them.
Then she had to let it cool and allow any remaining herbal impurities to settle.
During this time, Lan Qingyou went out to eat.
About half an hour later, she returned with a wooden ladle, a wine dispenser, and ten test tubes.
Using the wooden ladle, she gently scooped the potion from the cauldron and poured it into the filter, taking care not to disturb the liquid at the bottom.
When only a small amount of residue remained in the cauldron, she used a cloth to bundle the residue together with the herbs she had scooped out earlier. She squeezed them tightly until every last drop of potion was extracted.
In Albert's words, the liquid trapped in the residue contained the most medicinal essence. If you skipped this step, you would only end up with a half-finished product.
Once all these steps were complete, she just had to wait for the filtration to finish.
The twenty liters of water had been boiled down to 2000 milliliters—roughly four catties. It wouldn't take long to filter.
As soon as the potion in the upper half of the filter disappeared, Lan Qingyou couldn't wait to scoop some out with the wine dispenser, fill a test tube, and identify it.
【Apprentice-level Mana Potion (E)】
【Effect: Restores 5 mana points per second for 10 seconds.】
【Description: A standard Apprentice-level Mana Potion. The dosage is a bit high; the one who made it must be an apprentice who just entered the field of alchemy. It's too textbook, no flair, a bit boring, and rather stiff.】
So in your eyes, an alchemical potion is supposed to have 'flair'?
Lan Qingyou curled her lip at the description.
The potion this time didn't give the small screen anything to mock, so it was just making up complaints?
Lan Qingyou was quite satisfied with her first true act of alchemy.
Consequently, she was rather displeased with the small screen's evaluation.
With the identification results confirmed, the only thing left was bottling.
2000 milliliters of potion only required 200 test tubes. Compared to the 1000 tubes from last time, it was incredibly easy. Lan Qingyou finished bottling them in no time.
However, she wasn't in a hurry to sell them. Instead, she first sent ten to Gu Xiaobei.
Lan Qingyou: “This is the difference I promised. If you don't mind me asking, where did you get that blueprint?”
Gu Xiaobei, who had been bored and scrolling through chats, immediately grew excited when she saw her friend list flashing.
In fact, compared to Lan Qingyou, who had a grand total of two friends, Gu Xiaobei currently only had one.
She knew exactly who was messaging her.
Along with the flashing notification, she saw ten potions appear on her small screen.
Gu Xiaobei was stunned when she identified the potion's effects.
Gu Xiaobei: “It restores 50 mana! That's amazing! Thank you, big shot! As for the blueprint, I got it from a supply chest.”
The excited Gu Xiaobei sent a string of messages filled with exclamation marks, gratitude, and answers.
A supply chest?
You can get stuff like that from them?
Lan Qingyou had originally thought supply chests were just for basic supplies, but now she finally understood what the 'treasure' in 'treasure chest' meant.
It seemed her nightly search for chests would have to continue.
Gu Xiaobei: “By the way, big shot, do you need herbs? I have a lot. I have Ascetic Grass, Yellow-tail Flower, Magnolia, Bramble Thorn, Stone Orchid, and Evening Beauty.”
Lan Qingyou: “How do you have so many herbs?”
Sitting at her desk, Lan Qingyou was surprised. Although these were all herbs for E-grade potions, she never expected anyone else would bother gathering them.
Gu Xiaobei: “It's because of my talent. I went out to gather these after I saw that you could make potions.”
Lan Qingyou: “I see. In that case, I'll give you one mana potion for every catty of herbs.”
Gu Xiaobei: “Great! I'll apply for the trade right now.”
Even though the herbs wouldn't be as effective as freshly gathered ones since the other party hadn't processed them, Lan Qingyou decided to buy the whole batch.
Gu Xiaobei's actions reminded her: how could her own gathering speed ever compare to having others do it for her?
If she didn't waste time on gathering, she could produce two cauldrons a day. The profit margin alone would be massive.
She didn't want to discourage the girl's enthusiasm.
As for what the other girl's talent was, what did that have to do with Lan Qingyou?
“An alchemist never worries about materials. I'm not interested in how they're sourced,” Lan Qingyou chuckled to herself.
She then began to think about how to mobilize the people in Villain's Valley.
Undoubtedly, the Apprentice-level Mana Potion was enough to motivate them. The problem was that they didn't recognize the herbs; they might just bring her a handful of weeds.
To avoid unnecessary trouble, Lan Qingyou decided to use the camera function on the small screen to take photos of the herbs. She then edited the photos with identification methods.
Finally, she posted them to her profile page.
This profile page was somewhat like a blog that could be edited, and anyone could access it by clicking on her avatar.
It was just like how Lan Qingyou had clicked on Shang Chuan's profile page before.
However, most people were currently busy upgrading their shelters and preparing for the end of the newbie period, so very few people wrote online journals.
Lan Qingyou could make perfect use of it.
After finishing all the preparations, Lan Qingyou put the batch of potions up for sale. One mana potion for 60 basic units of materials.
She also added two trade listings in the shop.
One was: ‘E-grade Herbs 500g for Apprentice-level Mana Potion 1’.
The other was: ‘E-grade magic creature core 1 for Apprentice-level Mana Potion 2’.
Instantly, the entire channel was in an uproar.
The previous potion that restored 1 mana per second was barely adequate, but it worked.
But now, one that restored 5 mana per second? That was a game-changer!
One had to realize that the average Blue Star person's spirit stat was around 5 or 6, meaning their total mana was only 50 or 60 points.
Now, a single 50-point mana potion was enough for most people to restore their mana to its peak within ten seconds.
“Damn! I just bought ten Crude Mana Potions, and now the Apprentice-level Mana Potion comes out?”
“Shut up!”
“If you don't buy it, plenty of others will.”
“Buy it? It's already gone!”
“That fast?”
“Gone in an instant.”
“Wait, there's more! You can trade magic creature cores and herbs for them.”
“That looks good. One catty for one potion. But how am I supposed to know what the herbs look like?”
“She has explanations on her profile page, even pictures.”
“No dirt allowed, and they must be washed clean, otherwise she'll blacklist you from the shop. Man, she's outsourcing all the work to us, isn't she?”
“Well, what do you expect? If you were her, would you want to deal with a catty of herbs that's half dirt?”
“Fair point.”
“Wait, doesn't this seem unfair? When it was 10 mana, the price was 10 units of materials. Why is it 60 units now for 50 mana?”
Rate on N.U.
