Chapter 51

I stood there, gazing contentedly at the newly built production room and the new mixing kit that had been moved in.

"Man, this is crazy. I can't stop grinning, Kyoko."

"Yes, it certainly looks like we've secured the minimum aesthetic requirements."

In the corner of the room, the portable furnace we had been using until now was placed, along with the beams from which lanterns hung to provide light, and a simple wooden stand.

"Ah, I want to invite people over for tea here. More than that, I want to show off."

Overwhelmed with joy, I touched everything—the feel of the stone walls, the larger mortar in the mixing kit, the wooden windows, and the item box for storing materials. Kyoko smiled continuously at my childlike delight, but if I went overboard, she might start to chuckle. Realizing this, I cleared my throat and changed the subject.

"By the way, what happened to the pyrethrum seeds and moss stones I gave you yesterday?"

Right, I had given them to her to plant in the fields to increase their numbers. How was the harvest?

"The flowers are doing well. They are turning out to be of high quality. As for the moss, I placed it near the rocks around the field, and it has started to spread a bit."

"Got it. I'll harvest the flowers and use them for seeds. I'll let the moss grow a bit more before harvesting it."

"Yes, that sounds good. And since we have an item box here, I'll store the harvested items in it."

"Right. We should separate the products and materials. Once we have some extra money, we could make a list of materials we can buy?"

"If we had enough money from the start, Yun wouldn't have to go out and scrounge for funds. We could increase our profit margins through added value."

Kyoko sighed. No, I appreciate all the hard work you've done.

"Don't worry, with this new mixing kit, we'll increase our product range! They'll definitely sell! Probably."

"Probably? Well, with the current inventory, we won't run out of stock anytime soon. Should we use all the field harvests for experiments?"

I felt like she was hinting that no customers were coming, so the inventory was piling up, but I ignored it.

"Sure. I'll use them. It would be great if we can make use of the monster meat and vitality trees that we couldn't before. First, I need to check the tools."

Kyoko said, "Good luck," and went out to the front counter. I started the mixing process. First, I needed to confirm what I had read in the book. I put a large amount of herbs into the larger mortar and ground them up. I remembered how I used to grind them up outside due to a lack of funds. I boiled the ground liquid to make a beginner potion.

This time, I separated the ground herbs into effective and impure components using a component extraction machine. The number of herbs consumed would be the same, but how would the effects differ?

While waiting for the extraction to complete, I read the borrowed book. The four-volume set seemed to be about the general handling of monster meat, which was useful information for me as I would be dealing with it.

"Hmm? Monster meat contains a lot of impurities like toxins, so it's not recommended to eat it."

"Interesting. The method involves finely chopping the monster meat, boiling it with a potion, and then filtering it. Hmm, that's not a very clear explanation. It's not much different from making a detox potion. Maybe there's a different procedure to enhance its effects."

There was also a method for extracting specific components from a mixture of multiple components, which seemed important. I took out my notebook and pen from my inventory and took notes.

"Okay, to extract specific effects from a mixture of multiple components, you immerse a wide, large piece of paper in the mixture and use its permeability. That's paper chromatography."

I muttered, recalling something I had learned in school recently. It seemed useful. I could use filter paper for the filtration. With more methods, I could try various things.

The other information was... a page titled "Herbs to Soothe Your Tired Heart."

"Huh? Did I pick up the wrong book?" I tilted my head, but it seemed to be the right one. It detailed how to make herbal tea, the differences between dried and fresh herbs, and how to brew a delicious cup of herbal tea.

I found the content fascinating and copied it into my notebook. Surprisingly, herbal tea was treated as a recovery item, with a slight effect on both HP and MP. While the recovery was minimal, it might be a nice item for beginners.

"Where can I buy herbs? Oh no! The potion!"

I had been running the extraction machine too much, and the concentrated effects had become equivalent to two potions.

**Concentrated Potion [Recovery]**

The effect wasn't particularly high. Thinking that I could dilute it since it was concentrated, I diluted one concentrated potion with distilled water to make five potions, each with the usual recovery amount. Diluting the other one tenfold turned it into a beginner potion.

"I kind of failed, but what can I use this concentrated potion for?"

I didn't know. The recovery amount wasn't high. I searched the book for relevant terms but found none. I might find more detailed information in another book, so I made a note in my notebook not to forget.

I then tried various materials in the extraction machine: antidote grass, paralysis grass, medicinal grass, spirit grass, various meats, and drop items.

For herbs, drying them before extraction seemed to yield slightly more effects. The effects of antidote and paralysis potions improved, becoming [Antidote 2] and [Paralysis 2], which reduced two stages of status abnormalities. It was worth the extra effort. For high potions and MP potions, the effects increased by 10%, but with no risk, future production would likely go through the extraction machine.

Incidentally, after using the new mixing kit, the skill screen for mixing changed. Instead of a one-step conversion, it now specified the tools and procedures to use for mixing. The skill production process involved selecting work processes, and the better the combination, the better the effect. More complex processes consumed more MP, and the difficulty of mixing increased, among other small changes.

"Wow... there are so many more options."

However, more complex processes weren't always better. When I put blue potion through the extraction machine, it turned into blue jelly.

Additionally, the MP consumption of the extraction machine was very high, making continuous use impossible.

"Well, I can read a book and recover while I work. Still, they say that medicine can also be poison, and I can make poison."

Extracting components from the toxic blood dropped by bats yielded [Weak Poison]. It was a different item from [Poison]. Poison, as the name suggests, caused status abnormalities.

Further extracting the five [Weak Poison] items turned them into [Weak Poison], which caused [Poison 2] status. Logically, further concentration should have yielded a higher-level poison, but the item's limit prevented it.

However...

"Haha... I know there's more than one way."

Using the upper-level conversion in alchemy, I managed to bypass the mixing limit and successfully produce [Poison] from all the leftover toxic blood. It was a significant step forward for me.

"The item produced is [Poison] with a [Poison 3] bad status."

It dealt 1% damage per second, so over 90 seconds, it could deal a maximum of 9% damage.

I started researching whether I could refine poison from other items with "poison" in their names. Starting with [Poison], I tried monster meat, and even the drops from the once-feared Poison Doser, grinding them and mixing them with water before putting them through the extraction machine. However, the best I could get was [Weak Poison], and further concentration or alchemy only produced [Weak Poison].

Logically, status effect items could be enhanced through various methods, with a maximum of two stages of improvement. This applied to antidote and paralysis potions, allowing me to produce [Antidote 3] and [Paralysis 3] potions through alchemy.

"Poison 3 with Antidote 3. It might be useful in a pinch, but the unit price is too high to sell."

While it wasn't difficult to make, the cost was high, making it hard to sell.

I hoped stronger enemies with more potent poisons would appear. No, there were Bull Beetles, but they were too much trouble to handle alone.

"Ah, dealing with beetles with just a bow is impossible. Maybe I should mass-produce Magic Gems and use them as traps."

There were still many mixing methods to try with the materials I had, but I realized a lot of time had passed. I needed to stop mixing for today and go gem mining.