Chapter Fifty-Two: Potion Crafting

This is the place where you will work. Everything you need is inside. Your task is to make potions, and someone will come to collect the finished goods. At that time, your merit will be counted.

Nora spoke to them in a cool, matter-of-fact tone, laying out the rules.

"The facilities and potion materials inside are all complete. If you have any requests, as long as they are not excessive, we will try our best to accommodate them. Also, if you run out of materials, you can contact anyone here at any time, or come to me directly."

Just then, two people in black armor emerged from one of the rooms, carrying a man between them.

"I was wrong, I was wrong. Don't send me to the city wall!"

The man pleaded bitterly, but the two soldiers were unmoved and coldly hauled him up toward the battlements.

"If any of you are pretending, then be smart and go back to the city wall yourselves. I can pretend nothing happened."

Nora looked at the crowd with indifference.

"If you're found to be impersonating potion makers, you'll be sent back, and all the merit you've accumulated before will be cleared."

At her words, some people remained impassive, but two others changed expression.

They had intended to muddle through by bluffing, never imagining that each person would be assigned a room. In that case, there was naturally no way to fake it.

"Will you go back on your own, or shall I send you?"

Nora regarded them calmly.

"No trouble, no trouble. We'll go back ourselves?"

The two of them waved their hands in panic and hurried back toward the battlements.

As for running away?

They had never even considered it.

Right now, the royal capital of Erlan was already an isolated city. At such a time, where could they possibly run?

Besides, having seen Nora in action, they were all too aware of how ruthless this woman was. She was willing to give them a chance now, but if they harbored any other thoughts, they would not even know how they died.

Nora watched their retreating figures. Only after they had climbed back onto the wall did she withdraw her gaze and look at the others, saying nothing.

Murong Xun casually chose a room and went inside. Though the place was extremely crude, everything needed for potion making was present and well prepared. It was clearly a makeshift workshop, but at a time like this, there was no room to be particular.

Besides a workshop, there was also a room for rest. The treatment was far better than what they had on the battlements.

After checking the materials, he found that they had all been sorted and roughly processed in advance. It seemed they had considered the fact that he would be working alone, without an assistant, and wanted to save time by preparing all the labor that required no skill ahead of time.

Moreover, the materials here were all for a single type of potion, which meant he only needed to make one kind.

Nora's requirement of them was an eighty percent finished-product rate.

In other words, from ten sets of materials, he had to hand in eight bottles of potion. If he had the ability, he could succeed in all ten. The remaining two bottles would be his to keep, or he could sell them to them, for either gold or merit.

The implication was simple enough: if he did not reach eight bottles, he would have to make up the difference himself.

As one of the most basic potions, an eighty percent success rate was the passing line. If one could not even manage that, there was no need to call oneself a potion maker.

Crafting this sort of potion was not particularly difficult. The main challenge lay in controlling the heat, and in the fact that demand was enormous, so they had to produce as much as possible.

There was, however, another troublesome issue: making this potion consumed energy. Though each batch did not require much, it added up to quite a lot.

Murong Xun carried on with the crafting in silence. He had been making this thing every day lately, so of course he was as practiced as could be, with almost no failures.

Because it was a basic potion, multiple batches could be made at the same time, making the speed extremely fast.

By the time Murong Xun had spent two hundred points of energy and produced two hundred bottles of potion, two hours had already passed.

His energy had not been full to begin with. With the bonus from the Radiant Wristguards, his 3.3 aura attribute gave him 330 energy. Combined with the energy from his devouring talent and life drain, which had already reached their limit, he now possessed 380 energy. Even so, only a little over one hundred remained. That was after two hours, during which his energy had naturally recovered by roughly fifteen points.

In any case, he still needed to leave himself some energy, or he would have no means of protecting himself.

When Nora came in to collect the potions and saw the two hundred bottles neatly lined up, she was slightly startled.

Not only because of the one hundred percent success rate, but also because of his speed.

"Two hundred sets of materials, one hundred and eighty merit. The extra twenty bottles can be counted as forty merit."

She accurately stated the current purchase price.

Seeing this output, she was genuinely pleased. He was equivalent to two or three people. If they could make a little more potion on their side, they could treat more wounded and reduce casualties.

"All right."

He had no objection to the price.

If not for the constraint of energy, he could have produced even more. And even though he fought and killed himself to exhaustion on the battlements, the merit he earned in a day would amount to no more than this.

Now he was not only receiving more merit, but also had plenty of free time. More importantly, he did not have to face any danger.

Nora put away the potions and gave him a strange look.

"You seem different from the others."

"Hm?"

Murong Xun looked at her in confusion, not understanding why she would say that.

"You outsiders are all rather strange, anyway."

Nora could not explain it clearly, but she could tell there was a vast difference between the players and the native people of this world.

Murong Xun, in turn, was different from ordinary players.

Yet if she were asked exactly where that difference lay, she could not say.

"Maybe."

Murong Xun took the remark noncommittally. He had thought she had discovered he was a player, and that would have been troublesome.

"If possible, I would like you to make more potions."

Nora hesitated for a moment before speaking.

"I'll have people send more materials over to you."

"Making them isn't a problem, but I need mana."

Murong Xun stated his request plainly.

What constrained him was mana. Without that limitation, making potions would actually be very fast.

"Mana..."

Nora nodded.

"I'll have people bring you some mana-restoring potions, and I can also provide magic items that restore mana. But listen carefully: I need you to make more healing potions."

"I understand."

Seeing the other woman's earnest expression, Murong Xun also became serious and nodded.

For him, making potions earned merit and increased his proficiency, so naturally it was a good thing.