Chapter 173 - Hundred And Seventy Three - I am an audacious small alchemist (1/2)
It had all been about trial and error in the end.
Leon had purchased a small set of scales in order to measure out the amount of herbs he was using, in order to create more uniform pills for the experiments; his first Burning Blood Pill even took a step increase in quality, considered good, rather than average. This additional fortune was duly noted with each measurement and tested to see if this more precise recipe continued to produce good quality pills. Six out of ten were of good quality, leading Leon to believe that something was not so good with some of the ingredients he'd used.
Regardless, this happy coincidence gave him a good base to work with as he tried to create his first variant. However, after producing five marbled orange pills when trying to produce the first Smouldering Blood Pills, he came to realise that he was still missing some point. Each of these five pills had differing amounts of the Cloud Fern herb, so perhaps it was not dimming the effect of the green Mothtail leaves like he'd previously thought.
He'd felt a bit depressed after that and in some desperate measure, tried to compare again the marbled orange variant attempt with one of the marbled orange Burning Blood Pills from earlier and found no difference in the look of them... however there was a slight difference in how they'd smelled. With a bit of hope, he'd once more descended the mountain, this time rushing straight to Ursam's shop, where he'd explained his difficulties and his suspicions.
Ursam had then brought out the small golden evaluation device to help him test the pills he'd made so far. They had been astonished to find that there were differences amongst the five pills, that the three with the lowest amount of Cloud Fern herb were not so good as the after effects were just too strong, but the fifth pill had the worst effect in terms of improving ability. After that, while his beloved Wife prepared the guest room and cooked a delicious meal to help sustain them, the pair had worked together to create a pill with the best ability with the least after effects, however it was still a marbled orange pill.
Ursam had looked at the vivid colour of the pill and off handedly mentioned that it was the same colour as the Salamander's breath poppy petals.
”They c-come in d-different c-colours you know,” Leon had mentioned, before the epiphany hit and the men had rushed out to try and purchase some. After a little testing, Leon managed to produce a good quality, burgundy-marbled pill that was of course named the Smouldering Blood Pill.
Having already taken three days to finally create this pill, they only had one left in order to produce a Bursting Blood Pill that could be a worthy counterpart to the other. They used vivid red poppy petals to complete the product and allow it to look a little different to the principal product. For the auction, Ursam had decided that it was best to just sell one of each pill, to spark interest.
”20 silver!” Before the auctioneer could even suggest a price, a bid was put forward. This was already way above the value of an average Burning Blood Pill, which usually sold for 3 silver, thus 6 silver for two.
”30 silver!” Leon's eyes widened. The enthusiasm for these two final products was obviously much greater than their weaker versions.
”45 silver!”
”Excellent, excellent!” Ursam rubbed his hands together. Leon and he had agreed to split the money earned by these two pills and despite the amount of purchased ingredients they had used, their costs already were more than covered.