Pei Ze was a little surprised.
He hadn't expected there to be such an unwritten rule among Wizards.
But on second thought, it made sense. Without this rule, many Wizards could buy a new piece of knowledge and immediately turn around and sell it.
The ones who would lose out would be the Wizards who had worked so hard to research that new knowledge.
'I can't believe the Wizard World has a sense of copyright protection.'
Pei Ze marveled at the thought.
In his past life, infringing on copyright would at most get you sanctioned by the law. But in the Wizard World, the consequence was very likely death.
Knowledge is power, and Wizards capable of researching new knowledge were rarely weak.
No one wanted to offend such a figure.
"How about this, Junior? For the two improved Magic, I'll pay a total of four Magic Stone Coins. What do you think?" Yin Xue said.
'Four Magic Stone Coins?'
Pei Ze was shocked.
The exchange rate between Magic Stone Coins and contribution points at the Logistics Department was 1:500.
In other words, four Magic Stone Coins were equivalent to two thousand contribution points.
Back then, when Mo Weng bought his Plant Spirit Light, he had only paid with three Spiritual Spring Potions, which were equivalent to 600 contribution points.
Based on that pricing, the two Magic should have been worth around twelve hundred contribution points.
The price Yin Xue offered far exceeded Pei Ze's expectations.
Seeing the surprise on Pei Ze's face, Yin Xue explained with a smile, "I'll be showing the improved Mage's Hand to my teacher later. So, it's like you're selling it twice. It's only reasonable to charge double, right?"
Even so, four Magic Stone Coins was still a bit of a premium.
A warmth spread through Pei Ze's heart. He knew Yin Xue was looking out for him by intentionally setting the price higher.
However, he had already decided to repay his senior in the future, so he didn't bother with pretentious pleasantries and simply nodded in agreement.
Seeing this, Yin Xue took out four Magic Stone Coins with a gentle smile and handed them to Pei Ze.
The Magic Stone Coins looked a bit like black coins. Their material felt like stone, yet not quite, and was slightly cool to the touch.
Looking at the four Magic Stone Coins in his hand, Pei Ze's heart relaxed. He now had the money for the Ferocity Potion ingredients.
After that, Yin Xue took out a Memory Crystal Ball and had Pei Ze transfer the improved Magic into it.
Although he already knew Yin Xue was wealthy—otherwise, she couldn't have produced four Magic Stone Coins without batting an eye—he still felt the profound malice of capital when he saw her casually take out a Memory Crystal Ball.
...
After finishing his daily routine, Pei Ze headed straight for the Logistics Department.
This time, it wasn't the Elder with White Hair sitting behind the desk. Instead, it was the skinny apprentice he had met before.
The skinny apprentice had a particularly strong impression of Pei Ze. The moment he looked up and saw who it was, he immediately broke into an enthusiastic smile.
"What would you like to buy?"
Pei Ze said in a deep voice, "Twenty portions of Level 1 Magic Pet Food, and ten sets of ingredients for the Ferocity Potion."
The skinny apprentice already knew that Pei Ze had been promoted to a Second-level Wizard Apprentice and was qualified to contract a magic pet, so he wasn't surprised by the purchase of Magic Pet Food.
But when he heard the part about potion ingredients, he couldn't help but show a look of astonishment.
'Is he preparing to refine potions?'
'But didn't Pei Ze just get promoted to a Second-level Wizard Apprentice not long ago?'
The skinny apprentice couldn't help but shake his head secretly.
'Becoming an Alchemist isn't that easy.'
'He'd seen many people like this. In the end, it was all a waste of effort.'
Although he wasn't optimistic about Pei Ze's plans, the skinny apprentice didn't say anything and silently went to the warehouse to retrieve the items.
"Level 1 Magic Pet Food is 10 contribution points per portion. Twenty portions total 200 contribution points."
"Ferocity Potion ingredients are 20 contribution points per set. Ten sets total 200 contribution points."
"The total for everything is 400 contribution points."
Even though he had anticipated it, Pei Ze couldn't help but twitch his lips when he heard the price.
'So expensive!'
If not for the income from selling the improved Magic, he would have had to save for at least two or three months to afford all this.
"I'll pay with Magic Stone Coins," Pei Ze said, handing over one Magic Stone Coin.
"Alrighty. Your change is 100 contribution points." The skinny apprentice completed the transaction with deft movements.
At the Logistics Department, you could exchange Magic Stone Coins for contribution points, but not the other way around.
Carrying his purchases, Pei Ze turned and headed straight for the Experimental District.
The environment in his apartment wasn't suitable for refining potions, so his only option was to rent a Potion Refining Room in the Experimental District.
The rental fee for a standard Potion Refining Room was as high as 5 contribution points per hour. The advantage was that it came with its own Refining Vessels, which saved Pei Ze the cost of buying them himself.
You had to know, even a beginner's set of Refining Vessels sold for as much as 250 contribution points at the Logistics Department.
Upon entering the Potion Refining Room, Pei Ze didn't start working immediately. Instead, he first took out a portion of Magic Pet Food to feed Wuyu.
Actually, the best food for Wuyu was Magic Stone Coins.
But Pei Ze couldn't afford such an extravagance just yet.
He still needed to save his money to buy Magic models, cultivation resources, and potion ingredients. There were many things that required spending.
However, if he could successfully refine a large quantity of potions, then feeding Wuyu Magic Stone Coins would be nothing.
At this thought, Pei Ze was filled with motivation.
He took a deep breath, calming his slightly restless mood, then took out the ingredients for the Ferocity Potion and placed them on the table.
Each set of potion ingredients was packed separately in a black wooden box, containing only three medicinal components.
On the left was a black, shriveled rootstalk.
In the middle was a thumb-sized glass vial containing a pale red liquid, suspected to be the blood of some ferocious beast.
On the right was a grayish-white powder.
Pei Ze had long since mastered Advanced Identification of Extraordinary Materials, and with a brief inspection, he recognized the origins of the three ingredients.
Uge Root, Violent Ape Essence Blood, and Iron Rhino Bone Powder.
The latter two both came from ferocious beasts, and moreover, they were beasts at the level of a Senior Knight.
Pei Ze turned his head to look at the vessels on the table.
There was a retort, a distilling flask with a lid, and a glass tube for guiding liquids, along with some test tubes and beakers of various sizes, all arranged neatly on the table.
"Omniscience, begin analyzing the Ferocity Potion formula."
[Task created. Beginning analysis of Ferocity Potion formula. Estimated time: 3 days, 18 hours]
"Consume Spirit to accelerate."
In an instant, the analysis time dropped to zero. A massive amount of incredibly detailed knowledge on how to refine the Ferocity Potion flooded Pei Ze's mind.
After a good while, he finished digesting all the information, opened his eyes, let out a long breath, and a smile touched the corners of his lips.
The reason for the low success rate in potion refining lies in its complex and tedious process.
The coordination of Spiritual Power fluctuations, the micro-regulation of Spiritual Power input, the understanding of medicinal properties, and the precise control and correction of the potion's changes at any given moment—all of these things were difficult to describe with words.
Even with an Alchemist's personal guidance, it was difficult to fully convey through instruction.
One could only gradually master it through personal experience and feeling during the potion refining process.
And this process consumed an astronomical amount of resources.
This was also the main reason why training an Alchemist was so difficult.
Behind every qualified Alchemist was an astronomical consumption of resources.
But Pei Ze was different. The Eye of Omniscience had long since fused with his soul. As long as it was knowledge analyzed by the Eye, it was as if he had learned and mastered it step-by-step, fully internalizing it. There was no information gap whatsoever.
Under these circumstances, Pei Ze's understanding of the Ferocity Potion was no less than that of an Alchemist who had been refining it for over a decade.
Calming himself, Pei Ze stood before the table and began refining the potion.
First was processing the ingredients.
He took the ingredients out of the boxes, weighed them, placed them in a beaker, and then lit the Ash Stone Lamp used for heating.
The Ash Stone Lamp was somewhat like a solid alcohol lamp, but it used ash stone instead of alcohol as its fuel source. When lit, the wick produced a faint blue flame with a temperature far exceeding that of an ordinary oil lamp.
Many ingredients required extremely high temperatures during processing, and a normal kerosene lamp simply couldn't provide the necessary heat, which was why an Ash Stone Lamp had to be used.
When refining High-tier Potions, one even needed to use a Magic Stone Lamp, whose flame temperature was even higher.
Pei Ze added some water to the beaker and then covered it with a glass lid.
Under the heat of the blue flame, the liquid in the beaker quickly began to boil, producing a large amount of bubbles.
In just two or three minutes, the water inside turned a stark, blood-like scarlet. A large amount of steam billowed out from the edge of the lid, filling the entire room with a slightly pungent odor.
Pei Ze took just a small sniff and felt his whole body become agitated, his blood flow accelerating.
He quickly suppressed the restlessness within him and focused his gaze on the liquid in the beaker.
A moment later, with a flick of his finger, a speck of fiery red light instantly shot into the beaker.
At the same time, his lips moved slightly as he softly uttered a string of strange syllables, at times sharp and high-pitched, at others low and faint.
And following his voice, the scarlet liquid in the beaker began to shift into various shapes.
More than ten minutes later, the scarlet liquid gradually calmed down. Its volume slowly shrank, finally becoming a thick, red, jelly-like substance.