After the family and Marc finished catching up over lunch, Alex went with Susan and Eve straight to the alchemy shop. He had several things to take care of—starting with cleaning.
Susan, on the other hand, wanted to help Alex, while Eve was simply curious.
After arriving, they spent a couple of hours cleaning the place thoroughly. Once done, Alex brought out all the plants he had bought.
"What are you going to do?" Susan asked.
"Well, of course, I'm going to make weapons," Alex replied sarcastically.
"Hey!" Susan caught onto his sarcasm.
"Of course I'm going to make potions," Alex said, smiling. "You see, that year I spent working with Octavious taught me something—how much money one can make in this trade. The old man was pocketing four to six hundred gold in net profit a month."
"And that was only from selling healing and mana potions!" he added. Alex had hundreds of recipes, so he'd spent the two days on the carriage sorting through them, searching for potions that could become necessities.
He came up with nine.
Three were the typical healing and mana potions. Then came a rest and recovery potion that used a common ingredient, Restwort, followed by a potion to reduce magical fatigue. Next were a few enhancing potions—endurance, stamina—and finally, some arcane potions: one to clear the mind, one for focus, and one to calm the mind. All were meant for mages.
He chose the last three with a bit of cunning. He intended to sell them as sets, since together they offered a huge boost to mental condition—and used at the right moment, they could mean the difference between life and death.
'I wish I had this set when I fought that bear,' Alex reminisced.
If he'd had this combination back then, he probably could've avoided the mistakes that nearly cost him his life.
"So, do you need any help?" Susan asked. She was curious—just like Eve. After all, her sister's curiosity had to come from somewhere.
"Yeah, you can help if you want. We'll be opening at five p.m., so we've still got some hours left." Alex was glad Susan wanted to learn, so he brought her over to the alchemy instruments and started explaining.
Not even five minutes passed before Susan grew bored and gave up.
"You know what, just let me take the counter. This is really boring," she said.
"Huh? It hasn't even been five minutes since I started," Alex said, shocked by the sheer speed at which Susan could ditch learning something.
"When you know, you know," she replied flatly.
Alex was a little dispirited—until he heard Eve's voice reach him like an angelic song.
"Hmm, I still want to learn. This looks like fun," she said, her big aquamarine eyes sparkling.
Alex looked at her incredulously, then broke into a grin. He was overjoyed to finally have someone eager to learn.
He brought over a chair and helped Evelyn stand on it so she could see the table properly.
"Listen, Eve," he began. "Alchemy is a process that's both complex and simple."
Alex started explaining to Eve just like Octavious had once explained to him—except there was one key difference. He was bluffing. After all, he hadn't invented any of these potions; he had merely copied them from somewhere else.
Still, who didn't want to show off in front of their little sister?
After explaining the basics of alchemy, he guided Eve through the use of each instrument. He even noted everything down in a small notebook so she could reread it later if she forgot.
"It's like cooking!" Eve said excitedly.
"That's right!" Alex replied with a chuckle. That was exactly how Octavious had compared alchemy.
Seeing how excited Eve was made Alex resolve to teach her everything he could during the thirteen days of vacation he had left—mainly how to make the potions he'd chosen and how to identify plant age. He even gave her his Common Plant Compendium, a book he got from his pocket watch, since he had already memorized every entry.
He also had a complete book on magical plants waiting in his dreams to be copied.
And so, Alex and Eve spent the rest of the day brewing potions until five p.m.
When they finally opened the store, it stayed empty for a while. That was within Alex's expectations—it had been closed for three months, after all.
After some time, their first customer stepped in.
"Welcome," Susan said brightly.
"Hi. Is Octavious back? Didn't he retire?" the hunter asked.
"Yeah, he retired," Susan replied. "But his pupil took the reins after a year and three months of training."
"Oh? I didn't know the old man had a disciple. Well, since this is still the only alchemy shop in town, show me what you've got," the hunter said skeptically.
"Well, we have the classic health and mana potions—and we also have a new system in place," said Alex, emerging from the back of the room with two boxes filled with potions.
"Long time no see," he greeted. This hunter was the same man he'd met on his very first day working under Octavious.
"Oh! Kid, so the student was you?" the hunter exclaimed.
"Mhm," Alex nodded.
"So, what's this new system you mentioned?" the hunter asked curiously.
"It's simple," Alex said, grinning. "If you bring the ingredients for the potions yourself, I'll make them for you at a discount—a nice discount." He rubbed his hands together like a seasoned merchant.
"I've got a list here of all the potions I can make, along with the ingredients needed. It even has drawings of the plants, so you'll know exactly what to look for!"
"I see…" The hunter flipped through the pages, his expression turning from doubt to surprise. "Wow, these are some insane potions! Octavious didn't even have half of these!"
"Yes, they're good," Alex said smoothly. "Unfortunately, coming up with them burned through all my plant reserves, so they can only be made if you bring the ingredients yourself."
A blatant lie followed by his cleverly disguised scam—Alex was truly a paragon of honor.
Susan gave him the side eyes of the century.
'Well, I can leave the code of chivalry to Marc. I've got a family to care for,' he thought.
Still, it wasn't like he was robbing anyone. He was just making his customers do fieldwork for him without realizing it—collecting plants, paying him for the potions, and thanking him for the privilege.
A win-win.
Well, for Alex, it was more like a win-win-win-win—profit from every side.
The hunter ended up buying a few potions and memorizing the plants needed for the stamina brew. He spent six gold in total.
"Alex!" Susan said the moment the customer left.
"Hm?" Alex replied.
"Six gold! Six! Do you know how much money that is?" Susan was so excited she could've jumped through the roof.
"I do," Alex said with a grin. "Didn't I tell you how much money the old man made? And that was without all these extra potions! Also, the plants used to make one don't even cost a full gold, so the rest is pure profit."
Susan couldn't have been happier. She hadn't fully trusted Alex's words before—five hundred gold a month sounded ridiculous—but now, seeing the gold coins pile up before her, she started to believe.
Counting gold felt just as easy as counting copper now.