"Haah, haah."
His thick deerskin boots trampled over the soft earth, accompanied by his heavy panting.
"Those damn maggots! I was only a step too late, and all the Bloodpetal Flowers on the edge of the camp were wiped out. Are they all locusts or something?"
Joseph was a human adventurer. At that moment, he was walking through the dense forest with a wary look on his face. To calm his nerves, he kept grumbling complaints under his breath.
The elf boy's lesson a few days ago had swept away the gloom hanging over Marshal's Refuge. Even Joseph, who had already bought a ticket for a ship home, had resolved to stay.
He had spent all his savings, but all he'd gotten from that darned Sarona Biological Alchemy Workshop was a tiny bottle of Jinkela.
But just as he was about to break down from the pain of spending so much, he thought of taking the Bloodpetal Flowers back to the Eastern Kingdoms and selling them to the mage lords of Dalaran. That made him firm in his resolve.
But when he arrived at the edge of the camp, clutching the Jinkela he had just gotten, full of excitement,
he found that the Bloodpetal Flowers, which had once been rampant, had already been snapped up by other clever adventurers. Even the rich soil had been scraped three feet deep by the greedy, shameless locusts.
So, dejected, Joseph decided to head "out" and try his luck.
"Just one. Even one, and Jennifer and I would have enough money to move to Stormwind City."
He gritted his teeth and tried to encourage himself.
"Holy Light above, what is that? Don't eat me! Ah, help..."
A huge beast appeared out of the shadows and sprang nimbly in front of Joseph.
A moment later, a bone-chilling sound of chewing came from the dark forest.
Perhaps today really wasn't Joseph's lucky day. Perhaps he'd jinxed himself by tempting fate. In any case, the unlucky man would never get the chance to move to Stormwind City.
The same thing was happening all over the wild jungles of Un'Goro Crater.
"What's wrong, Hemet?"
Al removed his ruby monocle, stopped his research, and looked at the dwarf hovering by the doorway in confusion.
"Sir... there's something..."
Hemet nervously rubbed his handsome beard and spoke hesitantly.
"This isn't like you dwarves, always so hearty and straightforward. Did the alchemy workshop blow up?"
Al made a lame joke and looked at the dwarf with interest.
"No, no, it's just... it's just... I think I messed up."
After saying this, Hemet wilted like a frostbitten eggplant, all his energy gone.
"Oh? Is it worse than getting your beard pulled out?"
Al seemed not to care at all and continued teasing him.
"Come on, sir, could you show a little urgency? You've put all this effort into researching Jinkela, and now we can't sell it."
Hemet slapped his thigh and said in anguished dismay.
"Did the formula leak? Are those adventurers making trouble again?"
Al furrowed his brow in thought.
"I thought it was flawless. Looks like we'll have to cut the price. How about selling the finished product, which originally went for 100 gold coins, for one gold coin?"
Hemet: ...
"Still too expensive? How about 50 silver coins?"
Hemet: ...
"Ten silver coins, and not a copper less. Surely my patent fee, Al Salona's, is worth at least five silver coins?"
Hemet: Is that really something a person would say? So the Jinkela that sold for 100 gold coins a bottle only cost five silver coins to make? I worried about you for ages, afraid you'd take a loss. Turns out I was the clown all along?
"Don't just stand there in silence. We've got a big business to run; we still need food and drink, don't we? If even ten silver coins is too much, we'll just have to cut costs.
"Dilute the finished product a hundredfold. Sure, it'll be much less effective, but we can make it up in volume... Hey? Where are you going? Don't go, I haven't finished yet..."
The numb-looking dwarf lit his pipe and curled up in the corner of the hallway.
"'Profit'? What profit are you talking about? We adventurers get up earlier than chickens, eat less than dogs, and do work that puts our lives on the line.
"You parasites, you bloodsuckers, you even want to drink our blood. When will adventurers finally get to stand tall?"
The old dwarf, worked up by his thoughts, slammed his still-swollen right hand into the ground, then yelped in pain.
"That's what happened."
The old dwarf spoke with a solemn expression.
"Oh, so supply exceeds demand. I'd thought of that, too. I'd planned to hand this over to you after a while. Here, take these. As for the price, let's tentatively set it at 500 gold coins a bottle."
As Al spoke, he took a large box from his spatial backpack. Neatly arranged inside were hundreds of green potions.
"This is Jinkela 2.0. It can make Bloodpetal Flowers split without limit. One drop can produce one split, and the copy will be no different from the original."
Al paid no attention to the dwarf, who was reeling in shock, and continued.
"These adventurers just caught a lot of Bloodpetal Flowers, so they probably haven't had the chance to cash them in yet. Before they board the big ship to Tanaris, we should run an ad and get them to come back with their money. Then we can fleece them again..."
"Oh, right. Once we sell this batch, the workshop can start developing new products.
"Why stop selling Jinkela? Are you stupid? With all those split Bloodpetal Flowers, plus how fast they reproduce on their own, won't that cause inflation?
"Don't worry about what inflation is. Either way, by then, neither Bloodpetal Flowers nor Jinkela will be worth anything, and we won't be able to sell them. Got it? So we'd better hurry and dump all this Jinkela and Jinkela 2.0 on the market and make a quick buck."
Hemet stumbled out of Al's bedroom in a daze. By the time Al had finished speaking, his brain had already shut down, and he was swaying on his feet.
"Phew."
He sighed and said with complicated feelings:
"Gnomes would weep, Goblins would kneel. A talk with you is worth a whole talk. No wonder you're a mentor of the soul! Teacher Al! I understand now!"
P.S. There'll be another chapter tonight. Since the new book is being recommended, please vote and add it to your collection!