Chapter 302 – National Beauty
TL: Pharmacists produce health potions whereas Alchemists produce mana potions
Ai Ze La (Epic Tier) : Alchemy LV 10 , Economic Capability 99, Permanent Cost 42000G
……
“F*ck……”
My eyes widened, “I got it! I got it!”
One Second Hero gripped his hand and anxiously asked, “Boss, what kind of an pharmacist did you get?”
“An Epic Tier!”
Reaching out, I waved over the party chat and the Epic Tier pharmacist’s stats were shared. At that moment, Song Han, Matcha, and Fox were all stunned. Matcha blinked a few times and said, “I just looked it up, the Economic Capability implies the amount the NPC can produce in a given time. The higher the Economic Pace, the more he can produce. Boss… we can’t miss this Epic Tier hero level alchemist opportunity. Let’s permanently hire him?!”
“But it’s so expensive. Right now the exchange rate is 1:5, and this hero is more than 200,000 RMB, so costly……..”
“No problem.” One Second Hero picked up his spear and said, “Let’s buy him. I’ll pay for the cost of the NPC shop assistants as well. Boss, we should build it well. Think about the profits we can get from this. Right now, in Ba Huang City the best alchemists can only produce Lv 8 potions. If we suddenly come out with Lv 10 potions, then the price will definitely be higher and our net profit will definitely be shocking. We can get 200,000 RMB back before the week is over and to top it off, it’s a one time payment for a permanent shop assistant.
As he was talking, he then emphasized one more point, “I’ll give you the money to hire an NPC. I know that [Zhan Long] doesn’t have a lot of money right now. I’m not just doing this for [Zhan Long] but also for the 10% profit!”
“Alright!”
I reached out, and “Ding”, the Epic Tier pharmacist Ai Ze La appeared behind me. His hands rested at his side as he respectfully said, “Owner, do you have any commands?”
I let him stand on the side and continued refreshing the NPC list. My luck was pretty good and after refreshing 5 times, another Epic Tier pharmacist appeared, it was time to hire him!
My hand shook a little. How is this a game? This is practically a game of money! Within 10 minutes, I had 10 Epic Tier hero level pharmacists and I had spent a total of 2.7 million RMB, it was almost a little crazy. One Second Hero, on the other hand, seemed fairly calm. He leaned on his shield and stood at the side and smiled as he said, “Continue. This shop can use another 10 alchemists. Mana potions are also in high demand!”
I nodded and continued. I spent another 2.9 million RMB for our shop to have 10 Epic Tier alchemists who could all produce Lv 10 pills. To think, once they start working, we’ll get a fortune in profits!
Afterward, we permanently hired another 3 smiths and 3 equipment appraisers. Those didn’t cost much since the smiths were only 1000G each. The appraisers were slightly more expensive, around 5000G each since the Epic Tiers could produce without needing to pick medicines or hunt to produce health or mana potions, thus they were naturally more expensive since they didn’t require any capital.
……
Bringing along with me a line of people, I returned to [Zhan Long]’s shop. Afterwards I set out the potions onto a counter a began preparing a counter for items. On another counter I prepared a place to repair and create weapons. Everything was set!
Ten of the hero level alchemists obediently stood in front of the counter and began working when I, the shop owner, commanded them to and I could see the progress of their work. One of them had an Economic Capability of 100 and took 120 seconds to make one Lv 10 red potion, which was a quality potion that could recover 3000 health in a gulp. Within an hour, the total was around 280 of those potions and within a day they could produce 6,720 bottles. Every potion was at least 20G, which would earn us 134,400G. If we were to convert that at the current rate then it would mean that we could earn 672,000 RMB in a day. Damn, we could earn back the money used to hire the shop assistants in 8 days!
When I thought up to that point, I began to get excited. But, after scanning around the shop, I became discouraged again. To think that I had to pay a 50% income tax. That meant that 50% of the money would go to the city officials. Motherf*cker, I knew there wasn’t anything as good as this. Of course the game officials !
……
“How much should we sell our Lv 10 potions for?” I asked
One Second Hero took a deep sigh and said, “Normally, people won’t use Lv 10 potions unless they were PKing outside of the city or fighting with a high level BOSS, but since Ba Huang City will probably have a lot of guild battles in the future, it would be extremely uncommon for players to have those potions before alchemist players rush to Lv 10 so it can be a bit more expensive. We can just lower the price in the future.”
“20G?”
“Yea, sure. That price is not too high and not too low. It’s very reasonable!”
“Alright!”
And thus, I set the price of all red potions to 20G each. It was a little underhanded, since it was around 100RMB to drink a potion and ordinary players couldn’t afford to spend that much, but this type of medicine was never meant to be given to ordinary players. We were selling to the high-end players, it was to get the money of people like Jian Feng Han and Simple. For someone like Jian Feng Han who has a high paying job, it would be a shame to his reputation as the war veteran of the generation if he didn’t bring 50 bottles of Lv 10 potions. As for Simple, a high level Mage like her requires a lot of mana, and Lv 10 potions were just what she needs. Simple Mu Rong Yu is the little miss of Mu Rong Real Estate and naturally does not lack any money. On top of that, there’s people like Wang Ze Cheng, Flying Dragon and Li Ying; We were going to get our profits from people like those.
……
Once I finished up there, I set down the prices for the blacksmiths, which was basically 15% cheaper than refining at an NPC shop. That way we would get 20% of the profit and the rest would go toward taking care of the shop, which, as usual profited the system. In reality, the amount we were earning was relatively a lot. Everyday there’s a lot of people who need to repair their weapons and our shop was even right next to a medicine shop. Earning money like this wasn’t too bad.
Finally, it was time to set up the appraisers…..
I fished out an equipment. It was the Emperor Tier leg guards that Jian Feng Han dropped, Ottoman Battle Knee Guards. They had 17% Magic Resistance, 7% Physical Resistance, and added 500 points to the user’s Health. All in all, it was pretty good. Besides, it also had the [Ottoman Glory] special effect that gives 10 minutes of 5% increase in attack. If I didn’t already have my Dragon Knight’s Leg Guards’ [Dragon Knight’s Recovery] special effect, I would’ve switched to this pair of Ottoman Knee Guards.
As I thought about it, I told Old K, “Originally I was planning on giving you or Ah Lei these knee guards, but… our shop needs to establish its reputation so I’m planning on using these leg guards to become our eye-catcher. We can sell it in the store and whoever gives the highest price in 10 hours can have it. Hope you don’t mind Old K……”
Old K slapped his chest and laughed as he said, “If you didn’t treat me like a bruh, then I would actually mind. The grand scheme is important and it’s not like I don’t have a pair of leg guards. Put it up for auction!”
“Okay!”
I then put the Ottoman Leg Guards on the shelf. I looked toward the appraiser, it was a 20 year old girl with flaxen hair and a pair of clever and clear eyes.
“Can you appraise this?”
“Ok……”
The girl touched the Ottoman Leg Guards and blinked a few times, saying, “This is around…. based on the game’s current development, this pair of leg guards’ price is 200,000G. I suggest we start auctioning at 150,000G, that way we might sell it for more profit. Owner, is that ok?”
I nodded and said, “Yup, we’ll auction it like that!”
“Alright owner!”
“Pa Ta” Our first equipment on sale was put onto the shelf and it was very highly rated. I took another pile of equipment and threw it over. Song Han and Matcha also brought out a few equipments out to be sold at our auction. When the auction is over, we would receive 10% of the money as transaction fee and the rest would be returned to the players. This was actually just an ordinary auction and thus we had to rely on our popularity to get better equipment to sell. It was because of this that I brought out Jian Feng Han’s Ottoman Leg Guards, which held some emotional significance, especially since Vanguard’s Guild Master had dropped it.
When the appraiser took the equipment, she also needed to be paid. It was part of the shop’s income tax. I threw in 1M RMB, which should be enough to use for a while. Besides, the Lv 10 red potions had already gotten set up and will bring a large amount of profits soon.
……
“Boss.” Matcha smiled and said, “Any plan can succeed with an Eastern Wind. Now that [Zhan Long]’s first shop has been set up, we’re still missing the name. Have a go at it, why don’t you choose the name?”
TL: Eastern wind is an idiom that refers to when Zhu Ge Liang waited for an Eastern Wind to complete his plan and destroy the enemy’s troops, in here it refers to the fact that the last piece/factor is missing and with it the plan would be complete.
I thought about it and smiled, “What would be a good name to call it?”
One Second Hero said, “[Zhan Long] Little Shop?”
“That’s too conventional…..” Matcha shook her head, “What about the [Treasure Bowl]
I shot a glance at Matcha and said, “How is that better? Otherwise we can name it ‘I Like Grapes’?”
“Boss, you’re too much……”
At that moment, Fox squinted at me and said, “How about we call it ‘National Beauty’? On one hand it describes our OP skills and equipment for sale that are godly items that can defeat a nation, and on the other it’ll refer to our [Zhan Long]’s beauty team. When Lin and Dong Cheng beauty joined [Zhan Long], we were able to bring together at least 5 of the most beautiful women in three great cities, a feat that can only be described as a National Beauty…”
I gasped and said, “The other names were too boring. Let’s use National Beauty, what does everyone think?”
“Yup, not bad!” Song Han and Old K said, laughing.
And thus, I entered the two words, National Beauty. Soon, the nameplate in front of the shop had the words “National Beauty” written in two big majestic words. It could even be said that these two words made Ba Huang City even more beautiful.
……
For the final step, I fished out 5000 RMB, and had an advertisement made for our store. After a few minutes, a chain of system notifications sounded throughout the sky of Ba Huang City –
“Ding~!”
System Notification (The words of Player Xiao Yao Zi Zai) : Ladies and gentleman of Ba Huang City, please pay attention. The guild [Zhan Long] has opened the store 【National Beauty】 at the Ba Huang City’s North Gate. Inside, there are a number of treasures that are being sold, among which are Lv 10 health potions at 20G as well as cheap equipment refinement and high level equipment auctions! Also, 【National Beauty】 is currently selling a few pieces of OP equipment, one of which is the Emperor Tier Leg Guards – 【Ottoman Leg Guards] from: Jian Feng Han. The bottom price is 150,000G, and after 10 hours, it will be sold to the highest bidder. There are more OP equipment waiting to be picked by you. Don’t miss this opportunity, come and check us out!