Shadow Potion

The shop did well after it opened. With Antidote Potions available, more people went into the forest to gather herbs, and everyone who went brought an Antidote Potion.

Antidote Potions were especially cheap: 10 silver coins for an Excellent Quality potion and 15 silver coins for an Excellent Quality one.

What? You think that's too expensive, when the ingredients cost less than 3 silver coins?

Well, the shop had to make a profit. Drew needed to earn money, and so did the mayor.

Besides, even ordinary Antidote Potions cost 10 silver coins in the big towns. The merchants who hauled them back to the small town had to make a little money, too, so the price was bound to be higher than 10 silver coins.

Drew was selling high-grade Excellent Quality potions for only 10 silver coins. It was an absolute bargain.

You ask why he didn't sell ordinary potions? Well, the lowest-grade potions Drew could make were Excellent Quality. He simply wasn't skilled enough to make ordinary ones—he didn't have any to sell.

Besides, he'd considered the price carefully. If he set it too low, the townspeople might suspect there was something wrong with the potions.

This was the most suitable price.

A few days later, someone came to Drew's door.

He seemed rather ill at ease. He stood outside for quite a while, repeatedly straightening his clothes, hat, and shoes. His face was full of nervousness and unease.

At last, he gathered his courage and knocked on Drew's door. Drew soon came out to answer it. He didn't invite his guest inside, only standing in the doorway and looking at him.

"Sir, h-hello. I'm Deke, the mayor's nephew.

"I'm here to pick up the potions." Deke took off his hat and clutched it to his chest with both hands, speaking nervously.

"I know who you are. Here you go." Drew took a bag filled with Antidote Potions from behind him, handed it to Deke, and turned to go back inside.

"S-Sir, please wait."

"Is something else the matter?"

"The mayor said the stock of Antidote Potions is more than enough.

"You don't need to make any more until he gets in touch with merchants in the big towns.

"The market is already saturated. Could you make a new kind of potion instead?"

Drew stopped and looked at him. The honest Deke immediately grew nervous.

He quickly lowered his head, not daring to meet Drew's eyes.

Drew thought for a moment, then said, "All right. Tell the mayor to come back in three days to pick up the new potions."

"Yes, sir. I'll be going now." Deke bowed and slowly backed away. He only turned to leave once Drew had closed the door.

Drew knew the market for Antidote Potions was still huge, because the ones he made were all Excellent Quality or better.

Most Antidote Potions on the market were ordinary or poor quality, with only a small number of Excellent Quality ones. There were no Excellent Quality Potions to be found; anyone who got their hands on them kept them for themselves.

After all, a good Antidote Potion could save your life.

Antidote Potions of different qualities could counter different ranges of poisons.

Sometimes, you might get poisoned, but the Antidote Potion you had on hand might not work against that particular poison.

In that case, having a potion was useless. Cure Potions weren't like that: no matter what grade you drank, they all worked; the only difference was how strong the effect was. But an Antidote Potion could mean the difference between life and death.

So, there was a huge market for high-quality Antidote Potions. Otherwise, why would the townspeople buy Excellent Quality ones?

Most of the Antidote Potions Drew made were Excellent Quality, but the ones left in the shop were all Excellent Quality.

Even ordinary people knew that higher-quality Antidote Potions were better. If the wealthy people in the big towns learned about the Excellent Quality Antidote Potions here, they'd rush to buy them and stockpile them. The only problem was that he hadn't opened up the market yet.

The mayor had definitely underestimated the market for Antidote Potions. Drew could make more now, and they'd certainly all sell eventually.

Still, Antidote Potions were simple potions. Making them all the time wouldn't help him learn alchemy. It was time to move on to a different potion.

Which potion should he choose?

Drew began searching through Karen's memories again. Oh, it seemed his host had been full of praise for a potion called Shadow Potion.

Then he'd try making this Shadow Potion.

Shadow Potion was often used by thieves. It heightened the user's awareness when moving in the shadows.

After drinking it, when you walked beneath the shadows, the potion made you blend in with the surrounding darkness.

While blended in, the user became indistinct and was easily overlooked, making him hard to spot.

When Karen went to capture the Stone-skinned Boar, he'd drunk this very potion.

By the time Karen got close, the Stone-skinned Boar still hadn't noticed him.

That wasn't to say the potion could only be sold to thieves. It had become famous because of how well thieves performed after using it, so people naturally associated it with them.

In fact, the townspeople could use this potion, too.

It was very useful in the forest.

The forest was full of towering trees, and their shadows were everywhere.

With this potion, you could move through those shadows without ordinary beasts noticing you.

In the forest, the greatest danger wasn't poison, but wild beasts. When hunters went after beasts, they often hid in the bushes near their traps, waiting for prey to fall into them so they could catch it.

But their prey often spotted them and fled, wasting a whole day's wait.

With this potion, the prey wouldn't spot them. And in the forest, a prey animal getting away wasn't the worst thing. The most frightening thing was when you were waiting for prey and a predator was waiting for you.

Hunters were often injured by wild beasts.

But after drinking Shadow Potion, even if a ferocious beast was within a meter of you, it might not notice you hiding in the shadows.

That would greatly improve your chances of staying safe.

So, this potion would be useful for anyone who made a living in the forest.

All right, he'd decided to start studying Shadow Potion.

Like Antidote Potion, Shadow Potion's recipe required five non-magical ingredients.

Its main ingredient, Shadow Herb, grew in the forest. It grew beneath the shade of large trees, often alongside mushrooms.

It was also a very common herb, and there was plenty of it, so it was cheap. A portion cost only 10 copper coins. Of the recipe's four remaining ingredients, two were Ingredient B and Ingredient D from the Antidote Potion recipe, and there were still plenty in the storeroom.

He'd also bought some of the other two ingredients earlier.

After all, there weren't many kinds of non-magical herbs. During the earlier bulk purchase, Drew had asked people to buy some of each kind.

So the storeroom had all the ingredients needed to make Shadow Potion.

The cost would be less than 2 silver coins per potion. The process was the same as before when he made Antidote Potion: first extract the ingredients, then turn on the scan function while mixing and observe them microscopically. This let him determine the optimal proportions.

As expected, two of the ingredients in the Shadow Potion recipe had slight differences in their composition.

After finishing the potions, he continued with a series of controlled comparative tests to determine the best formula.

Using the optimal formula, most of the Shadow Potions he made were Excellent Quality, with the rest being Excellent Quality, too.

Drew took a bottle of Excellent Quality Shadow Potion and went to the small grove beside the house to test it.

The results showed that after using an Excellent Quality Shadow Potion, it was quite difficult to see the user with the naked eye.

Unless you already knew someone was there, you couldn't spot the user even if your gaze passed right over him.

Of course, someone with high spiritual power could still sense him by concentrating.

The effects of an Excellent Quality Shadow Potion were pretty incredible. He wondered if a Perfect Quality potion would make someone completely invisible.

It would be better to restrict sales of this potion at higher qualities. What if someone used it to do something bad?

Of course, it wasn't because Drew was particularly righteous. He was afraid someone would trace it back to him and cause trouble. He didn't want to be exposed, so it was best to avoid that if possible. He'd only sell ordinary and Excellent Quality ones.

Someone might ask: where would he get ordinary potions, when Excellent Quality was the lowest he could make?

Well, their thinking was a little off. Couldn't he simply make potions without following the optimal formula?

If he didn't use the optimal formula, wouldn't that give him ordinary-quality potions?

All right, he'd make potions for three days. Then Deke could come pick them up.