Furan arrived at the Apothecary Association and handed over her recommendation letter directly.
The Receptionist took it and slowly read out the contents.
"Recommended by member Rita... Furan as a new member. So, you are Furan."
Furan nodded and proceeded to fill out a form. After the Receptionist took the form back, she said:
"Welcome to the Apothecary Association. Would you like me to introduce the association to you?"
"Yes, please."
"The Apothecary Association is the organization responsible for managing all Apothecaries under its banner. All members who join must take note of the following:"
"First: You cannot disclose potion-making methods to non-members."
"Second: You cannot sell potions privately; violators will be held accountable by the association."
"Third: We will accept all potions as long as they are sold to us..."
"You accept all potions? If someone keeps refining the same potion, wouldn't you lose money?"
The Receptionist explained patiently, "The prices of raw materials are not static. If a material sells more, its price naturally rises, and the purchase price of the potion will decrease slightly, but not by much."
"I see!" Furan noted this key piece of information. It seemed she couldn't just refine one type of potion; she had to refine others to make more money.
She looked at the material price list handed over by the Receptionist. At first glance, she saw the three materials for the strength potion: blood food flower, animal meat, and weathered crystal.
The prices here were much lower than outside. On average, the cost of the three materials was a third cheaper than outside. Furan couldn't help but click her tongue; joining the association certainly had its perks!
Logically, she should now choose a potion, buy the materials, sell them directly after making them, and then use the profit to buy more... a complete cycle.
However, she only had the price list for materials in her hand, and potion recipes required additional money to purchase.
She saw many low-priced materials now but didn't know what potions they could make. If she bought a recipe at random and its profit margin turned out to be the lowest, what then? She fell into a state of indecision.
Asking directly when having a question was a good habit of Furan's, so she spoke up:
"Which potion here is the most profitable?"
The Receptionist was momentarily speechless by her question. It was the first time she had seen someone ask that. After a moment of daze, she said tactfully:
"Well... as long as you refine the potion here, there will be a profit."
Not every set of materials could produce a bottle of potion. Even many Apothecaries who had been immersed for years were not 100% successful when making potions. Only those Apothecaries who had made hundreds or thousands of bottles of a specific potion could approach a 100% success rate.
The cost of most materials was directly related to the price of the potion. Generally, one bottle of potion was worth the price of several sets of materials.
But it wasn't something a newcomer who had just entered the field could easily earn. Newcomers without experience found it very difficult to make money from potions.
A newcomer needed to accumulate at least a few potion recipes, keep track of their success rate, and frequently check the prices of various materials—all were indispensable.
If the Receptionist mentioned a potion and Furan couldn't produce a single bottle no matter how hard she tried, what if she came back to cause trouble?
Thus, the Receptionist could only say that. Furan also realized she wouldn't get an answer this way, so she changed her line of questioning.
"Which potion has the highest sales volume right now?"
"energy potion." The Receptionist could answer this question; after all, this potion had a huge market, and the supply of materials was very stable.
As the name suggested, an energy potion was a potion that increased energy after drinking. It was very popular in Apprentice City. After all, when you were tired from practicing Spells, a bottle would leave you full of energy.
This was different from coffee and various energy drinks on Earth; this truly had a magical effect. Even if you were exhausted, you would remain energetic within the duration of the potion's effect.
Of course, drinking too much would certainly cause problems.
"Give me the recipe and twenty sets of materials..."
---
Furan arrived at the Apothecary Association again, but this time the Receptionist had changed; it wasn't the previous one.
Furan took out all the potions from her large backpack, placed them on the counter, and said:
"Fifteen bottles. I'm selling them all."
Actually, Furan had ended up refining eighteen bottles, with only two failures at the beginning and middle due to mistakes.
The reason she didn't sell them all was that, based on the potion and material prices she saw and the previous Receptionist's constant hints that the success rate wasn't very high, she kept three bottles for herself.
She would use them herself. The effect of the energy potion was quite good. If it were revealed that Furan's success rate in refining medicine was actually very high, she felt there might be trouble.
But despite all her calculations, Furan never expected that the price of energy potions would rise, and by no small margin, bringing her profit to a terrifying figure.
"Based on the association's current purchase price, these fifteen bottles total one hundred and thirty-two silver coins and seventy-eight copper coins."
One silver coin can be exchanged for 100 copper coins.
It rose that much? According to the purchase price she saw before, fifteen bottles of energy potion should have been around ninety-some silver coins. This was way too high.
"Is the price of energy potions so high now? Even I want to try refining some." When Furan came in this time, there were several Apothecaries chatting nearby. Seeing the situation here, one Apothecary said with some interest.
"You've never refined energy potions, have you? If you start learning now, you'd be lucky to produce one bottle in five attempts before this price hike ends."
"That few? I produce one bottle of focus potion in three attempts. Is that level enough?"
"Hardly!"
"Don't be fooled by how many energy potions are sold every day. There are too many masters who have refined energy potions for a long time. Their proficiency is very high, yet they still only produce one bottle in three attempts. You can imagine how difficult it is."
Listening to the surrounding conversation, Furan knew that selling so many this time was a bit too eye-catching. If she wasn't careful, it might expose her high success rate. Fortunately, the Receptionists worked in shifts.
Furthermore, things had already come to this. If she turned around and didn't sell them now, it would attract even more attention. She could only continue to be careful in the future.
The reason she had such a high success rate was that she directly gained 200 proficiency points upon her first successful refining of an energy potion, and 50 points for every bottle thereafter, allowing her to quickly reach the mastery level in Pharmaceutical Studies.
She also unlocked a trait: [Skilled Apothecary: When refining a potion you have already made, your speed and accuracy increase. The more times you refine it, the greater the increase.]
She felt that before reaching mastery, it was just good luck that none failed. When refining the last few bottles, she relied on this trait. At that time, she could no longer focus well, yet she could still complete them by instinct, losing only one bottle.
"Give me the recipe for a healing potion and ten sets of materials."
She discovered that successfully crafting a certain potion for the first time rewarded a large amount of proficiency, so she planned to start with ten sets of each potion to max out her proficiency first.