Vans was in the mansion's alchemy room. In truth, it was not an alchemy room, just an empty room that Vans had asked to use. The Duke did not mind, Vans placed all his equipment there, and after that, the room became an alchemy room.
His routine was disciplined, almost rehearsed, always the same movements of grinding herbs, then placing them into the cauldron, applying mana with light magic, and waiting for it to cool before pouring the potion into flasks. While one potion cooled, he repeated the entire process in another cauldron, he had four cauldrons.
Victor was curious about the Hero's sword, he was training with Lysandra while trying to uncover some hidden power within it. Vans could not use the glasses' ability, so Victor had to figure it out on his own. But nothing happened, it seemed to be just an ordinary mythril sword. That was strange, the expectation was that the Hero would use enchanted weapons or ones with unique abilities, using a common sword would be unexpected and even unadvisable.
Victor gave up, Lysandra also tried, but it was useless, Eris felt nothing from the sword. Something about it prevented any kind of analysis, and that was frustrating and exhausting. Vans hated not knowing.
The shop was almost completely renovated, knowing that, Victor sent a message to the Tower, Vesta should come to the Capital with some supplies, along with gold bars made from the old coins, meanwhile, the new coins should be stored and protected in the vault.
Along with her, an alchemist chosen by Vans, Valorie, a blacksmith, and someone trusted by Lotus for sales work should come as well. They had fifteen days after receiving the message. The time was meant to ensure that all the work would be finished properly.
With the purchase of the second shop and the renovation, they would have enough rooms for everyone, in addition to having a relatively large space for the shop's operations and other matters.
Another place he wanted to renovate was the underground area, which he planned to use as a vault and alchemy room, along with other rooms for storage or whatever might be needed in the future. Even as bedrooms, if necessary.
With the shop nearly ready, a problem appeared, the name, no one there was good at naming things. But Victor managed, he chose a name that only the five of them understood the meaning of, "Red Castle Merchant Company." They were not truly a merchant company yet, but there was no rule forbidding the use of that name, so he decided to take advantage of it. Since there were two shops, he chose not to name the second one and left it closed, at least for now.
At that moment, the letter should already be in Vesta's hands, she certainly would not be happy about having to be just a shop employee. But she had no objections, she was relatively understanding.
"Vans, how is the potion production going?"
"I am moving fairly fast, I do not believe we will sell much more than I am producing, but there will be a problem. Some potions only I can produce at a purity level of ninety two percent, my assistant can reach ninety one percent. Because of that, I think I should be the only one producing those potions, so there will be no issues."
Victor did not understand how potion purity worked. Purity was measured by how many attributes the alchemist could extract from a herb, each herb had a maximum number of attributes. The more attributes an alchemist could extract, the purer and more effective the potion would be. But there was a very large difference between a ninety percent potion and a ninety two percent one. A ninety percent potion could not make limbs grow instantly like a ninety two percent one. However, a ninety five percent potion did not change much compared to a ninety two percent one, so the growth was not exponential, and no one knew why. Even so, the purer, the better. Higher purity also consumed more mana, which was why some alchemists could achieve it but only in smaller productions, a cauldron of high purity potions would be very difficult, or even impossible.
Beyond all that, there was also the era level, some could not yield much purity, but most, almost one hundred percent of herbs, guaranteed at least ninety two percent purity. For that reason, Vans had his own herb plantation for extremely high level potions, that was also why he did not share potions with everyone, mass production was very complicated.
The shop's sign was ready, it was a red silhouette of a castle, and below it was the name of the shop. They wanted to be as diversified as possible, since sticking to a single product could be risky, but at the same time it would be the safest option. Still, a shop with varied and different products was not very appealing. A customer goes to a potion shop to buy potions, they do not expect to find food there, but that idea went against what Victor wanted, he was used to some shops from the demon continent, they were always as diversified as possible. That was the norm.
But there was a big difference between a novice and someone who had been in the world of commerce for a long time.
A problem arose, they could not simply start selling products, they needed to disguise some operations. Such as the origin of the herbs, parchment for scrolls, and minerals. Along with the crystals. All products needed a source, they could use the Tower for production, but if an investigation by the merchants' guild occurred, they could be classified as dangerous. Because of that, Victor went to the adventurers' guild and posted some gathering quests for herbs and purchase announcements for magical crystals, in that way, they could have fewer problems.
But Victor, Eris, Niko, and Lysandra had to accept a mission so they would not lose their adventurer identification. The merchants' guild offered identification, but only Victor had it, so the adventurers' guild cards were necessary for them to travel freely between cities and avoid problems when crossing the borders of other countries. Since adventurers had a certain level of trust and could enter other countries more easily by simply paying the entry fee.
The gathering mission also served as an acceptable excuse, they could say that during missions, they also gathered resources. Missions only generated internal records within the adventurers' guild, but they could be accessed if the royal guard requested them for an investigation by the merchants' guild. Missions posted with rewards generated a receipt that stayed with both the guild and the person or group who requested it. Therefore, these receipts worked as proof that the mission had been posted and that the raw materials came from it. This also helped reduce some taxes.
The world of commerce was more dangerous and cruel than the world of war. On a battlefield, there was still a certain kindness in moments when both sides agreed to pause the war to collect bodies for burial, or in other moments such as not attacking those who surrendered. But in the world of business, it was different, the law of beasts ruled, and the strong always tried to completely eliminate the weak.