Unexpected Gains

Frederick's life changed a bit after Katie arrived.

For example, the last exercise every evening was Katie hacking at him with a sword for about ten minutes, making him run and block until he was exhausted before stopping. After the practice, he got jelly to eat.

Katie grew up by the sea and was familiar with various seafood products, including the seaweed that could be boiled down for agar.

Inland, the biggest use of agar was to clarify beer and wine, which Frederick had never seen. Only now did he get to eat jelly.

Today was Frederick's day off, and he planned to sleep in until he woke up naturally. Instead, Katie dragged him out of bed for breakfast.

Breakfast had just finished when Friedrich, the Poison Master from Weissenburg University, came to visit.

Frederick had allocated some of his limited funds for him to research deworming medicine, and he was here today to report on his progress.

In the living room, Friedrich poured a bottle of powder into a dish and began to explain, "Principal, this is the deworming medicine I've recently developed. It's tentatively successful."

"To reduce the side effects of the medicine on people, I've moved away from the previous approach of poisoning the worms and instead chosen to anesthetize them."

"The medicine I've made now can effectively anesthetize the worms for a long time, preventing them from clinging to the intestines. Combined with a mild laxative, it can expel the worms."

"I've experimented on cattle, sheep, pigs, and dogs. Eating it for three consecutive days can expel all the roundworms in the intestines."

"But there's still a problem: when you first take this medicine, it causes severe stomach pain. This issue hasn't been resolved yet."

"The medicinal materials used in this medicine are not expensive. The cost of a three-day course is equivalent to a common person's food expenses for one day in Weissenburg."

Frederick nodded slightly. The cost of a course of medicine being equivalent to one day's food expense for a city dweller wasn't expensive. Adding labor costs for packaging and such, and doubling the profit, would still make it affordable for tenant farmers in the villages.

It was just that the side effect of stomach pain was hard to accept. You couldn't exactly boil it and pour it in from the other end.

"Is it only stomach pain?" Katie suddenly asked.

Senior Sister was very curious about what her junior brother was doing, so she followed along to watch the fun.

Now she understood. Frederick had someone make a medicine, but this medicine had a problem: it caused stomach pain when taken.

Friedrich replied, "It's mainly stomach pain. When the medicine reaches the intestines, there's slight dizziness and drowsiness, but that's not a big issue."

"That's simple," Katie said with a confident smile. "Just separate the powder from the stomach while it's in there. Let's go to the kitchen."

Then, in the kitchen, Frederick and Friedrich witnessed Katie making capsules by hand.

She put some water with agar and boiled it until it dissolved. Since there were no special tools available at the moment, she used the handle of a dinner knife to dip into it, coating it with a layer.

When the dinner knife was taken out, the agar cooled and solidified in no time. When removed, it was a small pouch.

Using a small spoon, she filled it with the powder. There was no need to attach another half; just heating the back of two dinner knives and pinching the capsule sealed it perfectly.

"Hiss..." Friedrich gasped, taking a sharp breath. "If this method is used for poisoning, it could delay the onset of the poison and be very difficult to trace."

"Yes," Katie said calmly. "It's usually used for kamikaze agents."

Frederick fell silent, deciding to pretend he hadn't heard anything.

Back in the living room, Friedrich held a few capsules in his hand, observing and contemplating. After a while, he said, "If this method can effectively prevent the medicine from irritating the stomach, then many medicines can be taken directly."

"I'm also thinking of a powder for treating diarrhea and a powder for treating colds."

"Principal, let's build a medicine workshop."

Like the others at Weissenburg University, Friedrich had also caught the "money-oriented" bug.

Frederick smiled and said, "No problem, but I don't have that much energy lately."

Friedrich seemed to have considered this issue. He patted his chest and guaranteed he would handle everything himself, and the Principal just had to wait to count the money.

Frederick let him do it and immediately wrote a note for him to directly find the administrative officer, Flick, to get a piece of land to build the workshop.

During the subsequent small talk, Frederick asked curiously, "Won't these powders irritate the intestines if eaten directly?"

He was going to meet Psyche in the afternoon with Katie and Kroll to discuss papermaking. His mind was full of fiber in the morning, and at this moment, he remembered that ingesting wood fiber directly could cause physical irritation to the intestines.

Friedrich asked doubtfully, "Why would it irritate the intestines?"

Frederick replied, "The powder from those plants goes into the intestines without being digested, and they will irritate the intestines."

Friedrich understood and said, "Please rest assured, these powders are obtained by dehydrating medicinal solutions boiled from medicinal materials. This makes them easy to store, and they dissolve when they encounter water."

Frederick blinked, then his eyes widened.

He immediately put a little powder in a teacup, poured in some tea, and stirred it a few times. The powder quickly dissolved.

"Is this method of drying medicine difficult?" he asked, a little excited.

"It's not difficult. A Water Repulsion Spell is enough." Friedrich also became excited. "What, can it be used to make money?"

Frederick said happily, "Of course it can. After drying milk into powder, it can be stored for a long time. When you want to drink it, just add water..."

He suddenly noticed Friedrich and Katie shaking their heads together. His heart sank, and he asked, "What, is there something wrong with what I said?"

Katie stroked his head and said in a coaxing tone, "Your idea is very good, but you don't need to go through so much trouble to drink milk."

Frederick blinked, realizing he seemed to have misunderstood something.

He was indeed wrong; he had wrongly judged the status of milk here.

Because fresh milk was difficult to preserve, people preferred to eat processed dairy products that were easy to store, such as cheese and butter.

Moreover, nobles didn't like to drink milk; they only used it in cooking.

Frederick was the eccentric one. He had a special place at the foot of the castle mountain where he kept rotating dairy cows just so he could have fresh milk every day. Everyone else just considered it a hobby of his.

It was the farmers in the villages who actually drank fresh milk, but they were more likely to drink the whey and skim milk left over from processing cheese and butter.

Cheese and butter were important sources of income for farmers. It was better to process them for money than to drink them themselves. Only fresh milk that couldn't be processed in time would be drunk directly.

Seeing Frederick's dejected look, Katie comforted him, "It's alright, the caravans and sailors might like it."

Frederick sighed. Selling milk powder in an idyllic age was problematic. This market could only be cultivated when cities developed later on.

However, he thought of another direction and asked Friedrich, "What about broth? Can we dehydrate the soup and the vegetables in it, and then just add hot water when we want to drink it?"

Friedrich asked, somewhat exasperated, "Is that necessary?"

"Yes," Frederick said with certainty. "For example, the best soup in the city – if you want to drink it, you can only go to that restaurant."

"If it's preserved by dehydration, then you can just take it out at home and pour hot water into it whenever you want to drink it."

Friedrich was stunned for a moment, thought for a while, and said, "I think we can give it a try."

So they went back to the kitchen, where a pot of lentil soup stewed with lentils, onions, carrots, garlic, thyme, etc., was ready to eat.

Frederick had the cook ladle out a bowl of soup and place it on the table. Friedrich had the cook place another empty bowl next to it, and then began to cast a spell.

As Friedrich chanted, a blue magic circle appeared at the bottom of the soup bowl. Moments later, water elements, like a fountain, passed through the soup bowl unobstructed and slowly gathered above.

In less than a minute, all the water molecules in the soup bowl were carried away by the water elements, controlled by Friedrich and placed into the empty bowl.

The full bowl of soup was left with only shriveled vegetables and some greasy residue. The water in the other bowl was very clear.

Friedrich said, "This magic has many uses, such as drying wood, extracting clean drinking water from dirty water, and even turning low-alcohol drinks into high-alcohol drinks."

Katie added, "And killing people."

Frederick rubbed his temples. This magic would definitely need to be in washing machines in the future.

Next was the most important moment.

There was hot water in the kitchen. He scooped a spoonful in and stirred it. Soon, a steaming bowl of lentil soup reappeared.

Everyone picked up a spoon and tasted it, then tasted the original lentil soup from the pot, and finally came to a conclusion.

"The taste is about ninety percent of the original," Friedrich said.

Katie chewed and said, "The texture of the beans and carrots is a little off, but it's acceptable."

Frederick nodded, thinking that the prerequisite technology for instant noodles now was just the packaging bag.