The deal with Moody Writer

Li Wei quietly proceeded towards the room 291. He did not need to be guided since it was self-explanatory; he simply needed to follow the arrows and signs on the wall. The Alchemist Association was similar to the Warrior Association. It provided rooms for alchemists to train. With the help of spatial magic, the rooms took less space when viewed from outside but once one entered a particular room, they would find that it was much larger.

It did not take long for Li Wei to reach Moody Writer's practice room. He quickly used the guest badge and entered the room. As soon as he entered, he was assaulted by a strong medicinal smell, similar to what he smelled at Elder Jari's house but in a much stronger version.

The room was not too large. On the walls were shelves on which several recipients containing materials were neatly arranged. Strange runes could also be seen on the floor and the walls; they were there to increase the rate of success of alchemy production. The room was quite dim giving Li Wei the vibe that he just entered a witch's territory.

At the center of the room, he saw a man in around the mid-twenties. The latter was naturally Moody Writer. He did not bother to even look at Li Wei who just entered the room and continued to focus on the cauldron in front of him. Li Wei did not mind his behavior and silently waited near the entrance. He knew that failing a concoction could be pricey and did not want to be the reason for Moody Writer to fail his attempt. It was already kind of him to allow Li Wei to enter the room and watch him while he was concocting.

If a player saw Moody Writer, they would never match his appearance with that of a dignified Grade 1 alchemist. He was quite short, had a small physique and a common look. He wore casual clothes rather than combat equipment and the circles under his eyes made him look like a common worker on Earth. His hands moved rapidly; stirring the mixture in the cauldron, controlling the fire and adding new materials.

After a dozen minutes, the mixture in the cauldron had completely evaporated, leaving behind 10 perfectly spherical pills. Moody Writer's hand quickly passed over the pills, swiftly placing them into an empty bottle.

After that, he placed the bottle in his inventory and stood up.

"Sorry to make you wait. I am Moody Writer. Nice to meet you," said the alchemist as his tired eyes swiftly examined Li Wei. Although he allowed him to come to discuss, he still held some doubts about his claims. An item that could help him increase his alchemy level was definitely rare if not unique.

Seeing nothing wrong with Li Wei, he quickly said: "Have a seat please!" while pointing to two chairs on the side.

After sitting down, Li Wei started: "It is an honor to meet one of the first Grade 1 Alchemists."

"From what I was told. You have something I might be interested in?" asked Moody Writer, cutting Li Wei's introduction short.

Seeing his reaction, Li Wei decided to go straight to the point, "I won't beat around the bush. This is what I have to trade," declared Li Wei while taking out one of the potions from his inventory. The potion was naturally the spoilt one he obtained from the Ghost Farmer's territory.

After getting back to the city, he tried to find ways to use the potions effectively and, in the end, he settled on trying to trade with an alchemist. The stats reduction was useless to him right now, but alchemists could experiment on the potion and extract the recipe. Grade 2 potions were already available for sale by the NPC alchemists but just like the players, they were also trying to take advantage of the limited access to them and priced the potions at 500 gold.

The relevant part was simply that Li Wei's potion was spoilt but spoilt in a strange way. Normally, pills and any other alchemy products had a shelf-life beyond which their effect would start to weaken, and their grade would decrease. That meant that if a Grade 3 Health Potion became spoilt and became a Grade 2 Potion, it would then only restore 50 Health instead of 100.

However, even if Li Wei's potion was described as spoilt, its effects completely changed causing a permanent decrease in stats instead of an increase. It was the first time he saw that. Even if he was not an alchemist, Li Wei had access to some information through the forum and the library and never stumbled upon this type of potion. Although he was not sure, he could guess that the potion went through some sort of mutation; maybe it was due to the presence of the precious materials in the chest or the very long period it stayed underground but the fact remained that it was unique. It was a potion that crossed the line between two disciplines: Alchemy and Poison Mastery.

Moody Writer was smart, he immediately realized the value of the potion. First of all, the fact that it was spoilt meant that the potion was originally a higher grade one. If he successfully extracted the recipe, he could possibly obtain the recipes of the Grade 3 or even Grade 4 version of the potion. Secondly, it was the first time he was seeing a mutation in a potion; while he was browsing through the books at the Alchemist Association, he naturally found some information about mutations, but those were very rare. Mutations would usually cause defects to appear but in some rare cases, the potions were actually improved; if one was able to control the mutations, then that would be a revolution. Many alchemists were already spending a lot of effort researching this field. Thirdly, recipes changed over time. The potion brought by Li Wei might use completely different materials from the ones sold nowadays.

While he was relatively new to alchemy, Moody Writer already set his heart on this discipline. It was not far from what he did in real life and so, he chose to master this profession instead of hunting monsters like others. He already made a name for himself among the players but among the NPCs, he was still unknown. The only way for him to be recognized was to rapidly level up his profession or to make a brilliant discovery and the potion Li Wei brought could precisely help him achieve both.

"May I ask where you found this?" asked Moody Writer. His attitude already improved as he saw that Li Wei was not scamming him since he really brought an item. His small hands were lifting the bottle near a candle so that he could examine it.

"I got it when I went on an adventure. As for the exact location, I would like to keep it a secret," declared Li Wei. There was no precise reason for Li Wei not to reveal the location, he just did not want Moody Writer to pry too much into the matter.

"Alright. In that case, may I ask what you want in exchange for this?" asked Moody Writer. The latter was tactful and immediately directed the conversation back to where he believed Li Wei wanted it to go.

"Same offer as I gave the receptionist, one of each Grade 1 and future Grade 2 stats increasing potions you'll make and 20% off the profit you'll make while making the Grade 2 Mind Strengthening Potion," said Li Wei. He said the exact same price he said to the receptionist. The reason was simply that he himself had no precise idea of the value of the potion, he could make a rough estimate but that was very subjective.

"I'll agree if you remove the % profit!" quickly answered Moody Writer while crossing his arms.

This answer took Li Wei off guard. In his mind, the price was exorbitant, considering that a Grade 2 Potion was selling for 500 gold and a Grade 1 Potion's selling price was 100 gold. But the answer also brought some doubts, should he present the other potion in his inventory?

However, Moody Writer had different thoughts. Although he was paying a high price, he felt that it was worth it. The sky-high price of 500 gold per potion was only temporary. As players would become Grade 2 alchemists, the price will naturally decrease. But more importantly, what was important to him was to be able to quickly level up his profession. He was well aware of how competitive the alchemy profession was, the quicker he leveled up, the better he would be. He could become the first player in the city to reach this level and enjoy some benefits from the Association earlier. It was a unique opportunity and while he wanted to lower the price, he also did not want to push Li Wei away.

In the end, Li Wei chose to take out his other potion. He simply had no other use for it, he could bring it to the Fleeting Clouds Sect, but he felt that it was not the right things to do. In truth, he was starting to have mixed feelings about the sect. As for the NPC alchemists, Li Wei never considered them. Although they had more experience, in term of growth potential, the players greatly outclassed any NPC.

Moody Writer's eyes immediately lit up when he saw the other bottle. Finding a mutated potion was considered extremely rare but in front of him were 2 bottles of such potions.

"Then how much are you willing to give if I pinch in this one too?" asked Li Wei.

"You can naturally have 10% of the profit in this case, but I know that this is not enough. Name your price!" declared Moody Writer. After all, from his point of view, he was only paying Li Wei about 1000 gold for the potions. That was considering that the material of a Grade 1 potion would cost about 8 gold and with his skills as a new Grade 1 Alchemist, he had a 35% success rate for this type of potion. As for the Grade 2 potions, their raw materials would cost about 40 gold each. As for the success rate, he would not know until he tried.

It was clear to him that it was not an expensive price and so, he tactfully asked what Li Wei wanted. But from Li Wei's point of view, it was different. He was considering his offer using the market price which meant 100 gold per Grade 1 Potion and 500 gold per Grade 2. In his mind, he was asking for 3000 gold on top of the % profit.

"I would like two Beast Cores from monsters above level 15," answered Li Wei while looking at the alchemist in front of him.

"Deal!" quickly said Moody Writer. To him, monster cores were not expensive. They would rarely cost more than 40 gold, but they were rarely available to the public. Most of the time, they could only be obtained through hunting or at these profession-type associations.

A contract was quickly signed since the two parties already discussed the terms. The only thing they needed to sort out was the payment method. It was extremely unpractical to have Li Wei always come to the Alchemist Association to receive his profit. In the end, the latter agreed to set up a bank account at the Martial Bank.

The Martial Bank was an institution present in the ten human empires of Zero. It had a tremendous influence and as its name suggested, it was a bank. One could easily create an account everywhere. The reason Li Wei did not do so earlier was simply because one needed to pay a flat fee to keep their bank account open. It was a modest fee that could easily be balanced by the interest rate generated by the deposit in the account, but it was still something Li Wei found unnecessary to pay. But now that he was making business deals, it would greatly facilitate the process to have a bank account.

Li Wei initiated the trade and gave the two potions away. However, he would only obtain the potions in a few days, Moody Writer still needed to concoct the Grade 1 potions. It was an easy task for him, but he still needed to respect his fatigue level. As for the Beast Cores, he would need to first make a trip at the trading area of the association.

"I will concoct those potions as soon as possible! Let's add each other as friends so I can send you a message when they are ready," said Moody Writer. He was very satisfied with the deal he just made and when he thought about how Li Wei refused to reveal the location where he found those potions, he thought that this young man might have some other treasures.

"Sure!"

With a quick move of his hand, Li Wei opened his interface and sent Moody Writer a friend request. At the same time, his eyes glanced towards the friend requests he received. He previously blocked the notification concerning friend requests at Algate City. Too many players tried to add him after he defeated the Wolf Queen. He was submerged by a series of "Ping" and so, he chose to simply disable that option and forgot about it. He would usually only check that part of his interface when he wanted to add someone as a friend.

However, now that he was looking at it, Li Wei immediately noticed an abnormally high number of friend requests. With a closer look, he found that many came from fellow guild members, but he also noticed that many belonged to the Li family. "Strange... They have really sent many friend requests, but they did not try any direct contact? It seems that Cai Wenji is keeping them away," said Li Wei to himself.

At the same time, Moody Writer gladly accepted the friend request. He was about to see Li Wei out when suddenly, three knocks came from the door.