nagpurpolice Chapter 58 Business
Chapter 58 Business
"Let me think..."
Rowan's expression turned serious. She unconsciously raised her hand to touch the pearl earring on her earlobe and gently twirled it.
After a long while, she said to Zag, "I have a business, a very good one... I specialize in selling alchemical potions under the name of the Golden Palace Research Institute to Quen Island. Not like [Hand of Healing], but rather little trinkets favored by noblewomen. These alchemical potions have beauty, sleep-inducing, and mood-healing effects. They are expensive, made with the best ingredients, and the formulas are ones I personally researched..."
"Well, this business has never been able to grow very large due to shortages of many raw materials, but if you can really provide a stable supply of healing mucus..."
"What I mean is, I can absolutely acquire it long-term at a price that will satisfy you, no less than the price you paid to Holland!"
Hearing this, Zag had a general idea of what was going on.
Rowan's business is essentially the "pink" business of this era. Wealthy noblewomen who are not short of money certainly do not mind spending money on how to make themselves more beautiful or to please themselves. As long as they find the right positioning and channels, it is a very profitable market.
These alchemical potions might be just as effective as a bottle of Healing Hand, but the psychological effect they provide is quite remarkable.
This is similar to modern-day products like bird's nest and donkey-hide gelatin marketed to women; what they're consuming isn't the actual effect, but rather a sense of psychological satisfaction.
Of course, besides "pink" businesses, certain special "blue" businesses are also very profitable. For example, anything that can be associated with boosting virility or tonifying the kidneys can sell like hotcakes and generate huge profits, even if it has no effect at all.
Goji berries, oysters, chives, and certain unregulated medicinal wines soaked in special ingredients are how the "blue" market is harvested.
However, whatever kind of business Rowan is in, as long as she wants to acquire healing slime long-term, it's a good thing for Zag.
So he immediately nodded: "No problem. Since we're going to cooperate long-term, you're even less likely to let me lose out on the price."
Rowan replied, "Of course. At market price, the healing slime costs roughly six to eight gold pounds per ounce. I can offer a relatively high price, but of course, I'll have to write to Holland at the Golem Post Office to ask about the exact price... What do you think?"
So tall!?
Zag was startled.
He had indeed heard Snowball mention that healing slime was now a very precious magical material, but he hadn't expected it to be this expensive!
At least 6 gold pounds per liquid ounce, which translates to 120 gold pounds per pint!
Nearly half of the tuition fees for the Golden Palace Dharma Master Research Institute were suddenly paid out!
If this business goes on for a while, it's conceivable that in less than a year, Zag could save enough to pay for his tuition at the research institute, and might even be able to cover his living expenses for the next few years!
Seeing Zag's strange expression, Rowan raised an eyebrow: "What, you think the price is too low?"
Zag quickly explained, "No, no, you're overthinking it. I just didn't expect it to be more expensive than I thought, which is quite important to me."
"It seems this batch of goods will indeed make you a lot of money," Rowan said with a smile. "Actually, this stuff wasn't this expensive before. In fact, at its lowest price—I mean, hundreds of years ago, I heard my teacher say that back then, healing slime, and some other magical materials produced in the Kingdom of Orodia, could mostly be priced in shillings."
"Unfortunately, the Great Calamity not only destroyed the Gore people's homeland, but also had a near-devastating impact on the economy of the magical field. Many commonly used recipes had to replace their raw materials, especially healing slime, a magical material that used to be inexpensive and effective. After it was replaced, the effectiveness of many potions was affected, and even Lady Weyland's reputation suffered."
"Customers don't care about the quality of your raw materials; they only judge the cost-effectiveness and the conscience of the business based on the results."
This is not hard to understand, since the Great Cataclysm directly led to the disappearance of the treants' main habitat. With fewer and fewer treants, the Gore people, who knew how to cooperate with them, also scattered and fled, naturally reducing the production of healing slime.
Moreover, even if the Norse wanted to learn from the Gore, they couldn't. Treants are magical creatures that cannot speak—or rather, unless one reaches the level of an intermediate mage or higher, there is no way to communicate with treants through magic, and naturally, there is no way to trade with them.
Of course, there's also the reason why the predecessors cut down trees and the successors exposed them to the sun. The Norse people have always had a terrible reputation for treating magical creatures, and the tree spirits don't want to have anything to do with these vicious humans who capture other intelligent beings and keep them as slaves.
So from this perspective, Xueqiu has made a great contribution!
“No wonder,” Zag readily played the role of a novice in the mystical: “I only knew that this thing was valuable, after all, it cost me a lot of money to acquire this batch of goods, but I didn’t expect it to be really worth this much… It seems that I can really use it to exchange for a large sum of money and find a suitable spellbook on the black market.”
"Then I wish you good luck. After all, I can't be of much help with magic. But if you're interested in alchemy, I can give you some pointers—for free, as one of the small rewards I'm paying for our future cooperation."
Rowan didn't comment on Zag's desire to buy spellbooks to learn on his own. She was a very distant woman, simply offering a friendly blessing before reminding him, "By the way, the black market is open on the third Monday and fourth Tuesday of each month, sometimes switching, but you should check the Pipe Tavern's listings in the Golden Helmet Harbor Daily. If there are listings for buying cheese, it's the reverse order; if they're listings for other goods, then everything is normal..."
"Well, there's also a very special extreme case: if the pipe bar registers a GG (a platform for buying and selling alcohol), it means the black market for this month has been temporarily canceled."
Zag felt a chill run down his spine: "Are all black market rules this complicated?"
Rowan shrugged. "It's not that complicated. Most of the time, there aren't any problems. To control the black market, you have to have connections in both the legal and illegal worlds. But you know, you have to leave yourself some room for maneuver in everything you do. You can't be sure whether tomorrow or an accident will come first, right?"
"That's right," Zag agreed, then picked up the Healing Hand and said, "I'll head back now. My mother is waiting for me to deliver the medicine; she's exhausted these past few days. I'll bring the Healing Mucus over for you to inspect when I officially start work in a couple of days, and then we can discuss the price in detail."
Rowan nodded: "No problem, please give my regards to Mrs. Marsh."
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【Golem Post Office】: The best choice for long-distance mailing of letters and small items. It is a technology developed by the Golden Palace Wizard Research Institute. The principle is to hide letters and items inside the belly of a magic statue, and then let the magic statue travel quickly to its destination through the subworld (usually the Annihilation Realm). It is simple, convenient and safe. It only takes a few hours to travel from the Eastern Harbor to the capital Holland.
However, there is also the possibility of losing emails—after all, the things living in the Oblivion Realm are always unpredictable, even if the magic statues are useless to them.