Trade (Please Keep Reading)

Commercial District, Anna's Hut

"It's fine if you want to borrow a hundred Magic Stones, but why do you want to buy a Focus Potion, and a Premium one at that?" Anna looked at her Junior Brother in surprise. "This stuff isn't cheap. What do you need it for?"

Richard cleared his throat and gave the excuse he had prepared long ago.

"Sister Anna, I'm studying Focus Potions too. I figured that since they're both Focus Potions, the ones Teacher gave me and the ones sold in the Commercial District must have something in common. Buying a bottle might give me some inspiration."

"Inspiration?" Anna rolled her eyes at Richard. "We Alchemist Wizards believe in learning more and practicing more. Who relies on something as vague and intangible as inspiration?"

Yet despite what she said, Anna went into the back room of the shop and brought out a hundred-milliliter bottle of pale blue potion.

"Here, a Premium Focus Potion. Its shop price is thirty Magic Stones, but I bought it secondhand, so the price doubled." As she spoke, Anna dangled the potion before Richard's eyes, a teasing smile curling her lips. "Now that I'm selling it to you, how many Magic Stones do you think would be fair?"

"Uh..." Richard looked at the potion, immediately torn.

He did not have many Magic Stones on him right now.

"You were actually thinking of paying for it." Anna could not help rapping Richard on the head. "This stuff is scarce even at the Academy. If one bottle makes its way out in a month, that already counts as high production. You can't buy it with Magic Stones alone."

"Then... Sister Anna, are you giving it to me?" Richard's eyes lit up.

"What a lovely dream." Anna glared at Richard. "Consider this lent to you. Once you manage to make Premium Focus Potions, you'll have to pay me back with two bottles."

"Do you accept those terms?"

"I do, I do, of course I do." Richard nodded repeatedly, then added, "Sister Anna, you're so good to me!"

Anna's cheeks reddened slightly. "Go on, go make your potions already. I'm starting to regret this. I should've asked for three Premium potions!"

Back in his dormitory, Richard activated the Miracle Furnace with the potion in hand.

[Material: Premium Focus Potion]

[Extractable skill: Potion-making operations (incomplete)]

[Extraction cost: 10 Mental Power]

[Extractable information: Focus Potion formula]

[Extraction cost: 10 Mental Power]

[Extract?]

"It can even extract a potion formula?" Richard looked at the information provided by the furnace, delight rising in his heart. "If that's the case, wouldn't I be able to extract the formulas for all the potions sold by the Academy?"

That mad thought made Richard's heart tremble, but he quickly buried it deep inside. Even if he extracted all those formulas, he could not sell them in the Commercial District. Those Wizards would be able to tell at a glance whether a potion was made from his own formula.

Gerald could not protect him from such a grave crime as stealing knowledge.

"Still, even if I can't sell them, I can use them myself." Richard's lips could not help curving upward. "With so many potions being sold, getting one or two bottles for myself shouldn't be a problem."

Richard chose to extract the skill. With his Mental Power at a staggering twenty-three points, he felt only a faint wave of dizziness before the extraction was complete.

After absorbing the orb of light that recorded the skill, Richard instantly felt as though he had transformed into a Wizard. One material after another became like putty in his hands, freely kneaded and handled. Materials of every strange shape, soft or hard, posed no problem for him. When brewing Magic Potions, he was equally at ease, able to respond to every situation without even needing to think.

Once the absorption ended, Richard shook his head, stood, and picked up the materials for brewing Focus Potions.

Crushing, sieving, extracting, grinding—before Richard's mind even moved, his arms had already processed the materials on their own.

"A Wizard's skill is terrifying indeed."

Richard let out a long breath, his reverence for Wizards rising once more.

With such skill, Richard naturally found potion-making effortless. Though he still failed at times, failure was unavoidable. Throughout the process, he did not forget to record data. He had always had some objections to the vague figures in the formula.

Richard believed that the low success rate of Magic Potions was largely due to those vague figures.

And so, a month passed in the blink of an eye.

"These... were all made by you?" Anna stared at the box of Focus Potions before her, her mind spinning.

She felt that something must have gone wrong with her meditation. Otherwise, how could she be seeing the illusion of her Junior Brother, who had only been brewing Magic Potions for one month, coming to her with an entire box of Focus Potions to sell?

This had to be an illusion!

"Sister Anna, will you let me consign these potions here?" Richard asked with some dissatisfaction after receiving no answer for so long.

After extracting the skill, Richard had devoted himself wholeheartedly to brewing Magic Potions for the past month. After spending all the Magic Stones he had borrowed from Anna, he had brewed a total of sixty-five Focus Potions, with a success rate close to two-thirds.

"Yes, yes." Anna came back to herself and cautiously probed, "How many times did you fail making all these Magic Potions? The Magic Stones I gave you shouldn't have been enough, right?"

A thought that made Anna ashamed flashed through her mind—she actually hoped Richard had failed more times.

But Richard's answer shattered her last fantasy.

"I failed many times, probably a fifty percent success rate." Richard put on an embarrassed look. Gerald's book had recorded the achievements of many of his former students, and a fifty percent success rate did not even compare to the very last place.

To Richard, such results suited his identity as a Low-level apprentice perfectly.

"How much?" Anna felt another wave of dizziness. Since becoming a Wizard Apprentice, she had never felt as helpless as she did now.

"Fifty percent." Richard repeated it word by word. "Senior Sister, I've only just started brewing Magic Potions. Isn't a higher failure rate normal?"

"A fifty percent success rate! When ordinary apprentices begin making Focus Potions, a ten percent success rate is considered passing, twenty percent means talent. But a Low-level apprentice like you, reaching a fifty percent success rate the moment you begin brewing potions, I, I..."

Anna felt somewhat powerless before Richard at that moment. She had thought Richard, like herself, was talented in Magic Armor, but now it seemed that Richard's talent was far more outrageous than she had imagined.

"Ah... is that so?" Richard's expression stiffened, and he forced a smile. "But according to the records in Teacher's book, I wouldn't even rank anywhere."

Anna took a deep breath, trying to keep her tone calm.

"Richard, Teacher has taught several hundred classes of students at the Academy. Everyone he accepted as a student possessed exceptional talent, and the apprentices he recorded in his book were even more the cream of the crop among geniuses."

"Haha, I knew I couldn't be that bad, not even able to beat the last place in the book." Richard tried his best to sound more excited. At this point, he had already smashed the jar and let the pieces lie.

A genius, then a genius it was. In any case, he had made all those potions with his own hands. Even if someone asked him to repeat the process, he could do it again.

With so many native predecessors as dazzling as pearls before him, a transmigrator like him would not stand out all that much.

"But don't become too proud," Anna said, gathering her emotions and returning to her usual cool, regal demeanor. "Apprentices with talent are as numerous as grains of sand in the sea, but only a scant few truly become Wizards."

"Mm, I understand." Richard nodded obediently.

Anna counted the potions in the box. There were forty-six bottles in total. At a selling price of five Magic Stones per bottle, these potions had brought Richard a net profit of nearly one hundred and thirty Magic Stones.

That was only because Richard had deliberately sold fewer of them. If he had been willing to sell more, he could have earned even more.

"As your Senior Sister, I won't take a commission for consigning your potions. Take these one hundred and thirty Magic Stones." Anna put the potions into the display counter, then handed Richard a bag of Magic Stones. "Focus Potions are easy to sell, so I'll give you the money in advance.

Go back and get some proper rest. This month must have worn you out."

Warmth filled Richard's heart. He accepted the Magic Stones, politely bade Anna farewell, and headed straight for the Central Black Tower.

Rest was unnecessary. Now that he had money, how could he not go on a proper spending spree?