Chapter Ninety-Four: A Blessing for Herbalists, the Apothecary of Falling Cloud City

At long last, the apothecary in Fallen Cloud City, an institution that had already been settled upon, finally began to run in earnest.

With the largest shop serving as a covert channel for promotion, and with its doors kept shut all this time to stir the players’ curiosity to the fullest, the very first day it opened saw an endless frenzy of players lining up outside.

The first player to enter, blinded by the dazzling array of impressive potions before him, unwittingly poured every last gold coin on his person into them. When he staggered back out, dazed and unsteady, the apothecary’s business had already become unstoppable.

That player was indeed quite cunning.

He kept only thirty gold for the teleport fee, and spent every other coin he had earned on all kinds of potions. The effects of the apothecary’s wares needed no further praise.

He then immediately teleported to Lightshine City and listed everything he had bought in the auction house at three times the price.

In an instant, every potion was bought out.

Countless members of major guilds happened to notice these newly appeared potions, and the lucky players who managed to snatch them up immediately posted their stats in their guilds.

The guilds were in an uproar. It was all for those stats, and for a price that, compared with them, was practically nothing.

Countless people began searching for the source of the potions, but it did not take long for them to find out, because no matter which faction it was, they all had people stationed in Fallen Cloud City.

By now, Fallen Cloud City had faintly become the battleground where the various powers of the player world contended, and under certain circumstances, it could even be called the foremost city of the human world.

Every new thing, every good thing, without exception, came from there. And this time, as expected, it was the same.

As more and more people bought the potions, news of the apothecary spread quickly.

According to the Eastern Patriarch himself, the price they had set already gave them a tenfold profit. If it went any higher, they would worry at first that people might not accept it.

Li Ren sighed. People who did not know how to do business truly did not know how to do business. Still, he did not say so. Instead, he let the people of the Eastern clan decide for themselves: if they did not want to work themselves to the bone refining potions every day, only to still have demand outstrip supply, then they should raise the price. They would earn more, and, relatively speaking, save themselves some effort.

A perfect win-win.

But Li Ren had completely underestimated this group of people who had grown up close to the spirits of grass and wood. To them, refining potions seemed to be the most important thing in life. Every one of them, child or adult alike, had the art of medicine in their blood. Even at such a young age, they could already provide enormous help in alchemy.

So he could not be bothered to manage it anymore. As long as they were happy, that was enough.

After all, they did not intend to sell the higher-grade potions. What they were selling now were only failed batches, inferior goods, or diluted products mixed with a great deal of water.

There was nothing remotely comparable to a peerless, heaven-defying treasure such as a Berserk Spirit Elixir.

Seeing the gold pile up too quickly and the herbs being consumed at an alarming rate, to the point that it became difficult to keep buying more, Li Ren hurriedly had the apothecary’s business temporarily shut down.

At first, the Eastern Patriarch was somewhat puzzled, but after Li Ren explained it to him, he understood at once.

So after opening for only half a day, the apothecary issued a notice saying that the potions had sold out and asked everyone to come back tomorrow.

The players still waiting outside immediately caused a stir. But there was nothing to be done about it. Once they learned what that first fellow had done, almost everyone had begun spending all their gold on potions in hopes of flipping them for profit.

And by the looks of it, there really was no shortage of buyers for such a trade.

So when the apothecary opened the next day, a long line had already formed early in front of its doors.

Outside the apothecary, however, there was now an NPC. This NPC was actually one of the Eastern clan. He looked delicate and scholarly, wearing a plain blue cloth robe, every inch the image of an alchemist. His main duty here was to exchange the players’ herbs for the potions the clan had produced.

And only herbs would be accepted. Here, too, there even appeared diluted versions of top-tier potions that would never otherwise be seen inside the apothecary.

Of course, there were very few of those as well.

Now, wherever the apothecary was involved, the players formed long queues without exception.

The first player to come before the NPC, after looking over the displayed potions and carefully reading the conditions, found that he happened to be a herbalism specialist. He even had a stockpile of rare herbs that were seldom seen in ordinary times. Without hesitation, he took them all out and exchanged everything for potions.

If he had tried to use those herbs himself, at best he would have managed to produce only some unreliable concoctions. Compared with the finished products before him, their value was worlds apart.

Even if he had simply sold the herbs directly, the difference in value would still have been enormous.

Thus, another path opened before the vast number of herbalists.

And as a result, the Fallen Cloud City apothecary began receiving a continuous supply of raw materials.

Sometimes, a single rare herb obtained by the NPC who handled exchanges would be worth as much as ten bottles of finished concentrated potion.

And these herbs were usually things that were rarely seen in ordinary times, yet now they were appearing before their eyes by the handful.

How could the Eastern clan, who loved herbs as if their lives depended on them, not be overjoyed?

With better herbs in hand, they could make even finer potions, and every such fine potion could count toward Fallen Cloud City’s own strength.

After the apothecary began to reap tremendous profits, Li Ren also drew out a portion of the highest-grade potions, diluted them, and placed them on the task exchange board. The soul cost listed beside them was absurdly high. Even so, several players from the same guild would pool their contributions to redeem a bottle, or solitary players would band together and then find a chance to sell it.

In short, every potion was being sold at a speed beyond the ordinary.

Later, after doing the math, Li Ren simply reduced once again the number of potions in the apothecary that could be bought with gold. He put the remaining potions entirely on the task board, waiting for people to exchange for them, waiting for them to be driven to work hard, to level and hunt monsters, to labor for him and enrich their souls, so that Fallen Cloud City’s strength could rise still further.

Yet in truth, this also served as a real boost to the players’ power. If they wanted more things, they could only keep fighting monsters. Wherever there were the most monsters, that was where they would go. They no longer even cared much about equipment. So long as they killed enough monsters of the same level, they could exchange for what they wanted in Fallen Cloud City, and they would surely get it.

This way of thinking was gradually becoming the mainstream among the players. Moreover, apart from equipment, there were simply too many other things they wanted to exchange for. No one could have imagined what kinds of items would eventually appear on Fallen Cloud City’s task exchange board.

For example, the Berserk Spirit Elixir that had just appeared had already caused an especially fierce upheaval among them.