"This is the advance payment for your family's salary this month!" Jia Lan said as he carefully counted out sixty gold taelans that shone with an attractive luster from his bulging purse and handed them solemnly to Old Brown's calloused hands.
Then, he took out the remaining forty gold taelans from his purse and handed them to Aunt Brown who was standing beside him with a smile, "The rest will be used as the advance payment for your food expenses after I hire you!"
Hearing Jia Lan's words, the faces of the Brown family instantly bloomed with surprise and joy. Although in essence, these gold coins did not increase by a penny, but just changed the way they said it, for some reason, they felt that such an arrangement seemed easier to accept.
Aunt Brown couldn't wait to snatch the heavy sixty gold taelans from Old Brown's hands, and carefully put them into her bib and hid them as if they were rare treasures, with a smile of satisfaction and gratitude on her face. Then, she turned around and walked quickly to the kitchen, and diligently served Jia Lan the rich breakfast that had been prepared long ago.
Perhaps because of the change in status, the Brown family and Alan's attitude towards Jia Lan became much more reserved. They no longer chatted and laughed casually as before, but seemed to be respectful and carefully served their employer.
Seeing this, Jia Lan did not say anything more. After a simple breakfast, he pointed to the pile of materials and tools sent by the mercenaries during the meal, and began to instruct the Browns to deal with the complicated materials in different categories.
Jia Lan himself, with Alan and the two sisters of the Brown family, carefully arranged the various tools needed.
He patiently taught them how to use these tools to prepare potions, from the most basic grinding and mixing to the complex extraction and distillation, and explained every step in detail.
Of course, Jia Lan would not do some preparation processes that did not require fine mastery and rich experience. After all, his power is limited. If he has to do everything himself, the output of the potion will not be able to increase.
Alan, a girl from a remote village, naively thought that as long as she paid the examination fee of five gold talans and five silver jims and the talent test fee, she could successfully join the coveted Komo University.
However, Jia Lan knew that the truth was not so simple. He estimated that the fee was just the cost of the entrance test, and the actual tuition fee was probably far beyond her imagination.
In order to thank this kind girl who helped him when he was "in trouble", Jia Lan decided to recruit her to join the potion production team in the name of employment. In exchange, he promised to pay the expensive tuition fee for her.
Through yesterday's experience, Jia Lan has roughly understood the value of the potion he prepared in this era. After careful consideration, he decided to improve and optimize the potion formula.
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In this era, a high-quality brass-level primary potion can be sold for a high price of five gold talans, and a can of "high-efficiency violet ointment" of the same quality that can treat three moderate injuries can be sold for a staggering twenty gold talans. This undoubtedly brought huge business opportunities and development potential to Jialan's potion production business.
However, Jia Lan showed amazing business acumen and made full use of it.
He cleverly diluted a jar of precious "High-efficiency Violet Cream" into 10 portions. Although this reduced its quality and total amount, the efficacy of each portion was comparable to that of the "Brass-level Primary Potion". What's even more amazing is that the diluted cream can be sold at a high price of 50 Jintalan.
But this is just the beginning, Jia Lan did not stop.
He diluted the 10 portions of "Brass Primary" cream again, miraculously converting it into 50 portions of "Black Iron High-level" cream, and the selling price of these creams was as high as 100 Jintalan.
Then, he diluted 50 portions of "Black Iron High-level" ointment into 250 portions of "Black Iron Intermediate-level", and then diluted 250 portions of "Black Iron Intermediate-level" ointment into 750 portions of "Black Iron Primary-level", with each portion of ointment sold for 2 and 0.5 gold tarans respectively, with a total sales volume of 375 gold tarans.
In this way, the value of a can of "High-efficiency Violet Ointment" miraculously increased by more than 18 times in Jia Lan's hands.
Although the efficacy of the diluted "Micro-effective Violet Ointment" has been greatly weakened, its quality is slightly better than that of the "Black Iron Primary-level Potion" due to its special hemostatic effect.
Therefore, even if the price of a bottle of "Micro-effective Violet Ointment" is the same as that of a bottle of "Black Iron Primary-level Recovery Potion", both of which are sold for only five silver gimms, those mercenaries should be able to discern which potion is more cost-effective. After all, for most mercenaries, cost-effectiveness is what they care about most.
And Jia Lan knows this even better. He keenly noticed that the people who have the greatest demand for potions are not the high-level mercenaries who can afford the "silver-level" potions, but the large number of low-level mercenaries.
These low-level mercenaries have a lower strength and a higher chance of injury, so the demand for life-saving potions is more urgent.
From a business perspective, Jia Lan's choice is undoubtedly wise. He did not blindly pursue high-quality potions, but formulated sales strategies based on market demand.
Is it more cost-effective to sell a can of "high-efficiency violet cream" worth 20 gold talans, or to sell 750 bottles of "micro-effective violet cream" worth 5 silver jims? The answer is obviously the latter.
So, Jia Lan decided to focus on the large-scale configuration of "micro-effective violet cream" in the few days before the start of the school of "Komo University".
Of course, he will not completely give up the production of high-quality violet cream, but will configure a small amount of top-level ones as a gimmick to attract customers.
In order to ensure the efficiency and quality of potion configuration, Jia Lan has prepared a series of professional tools and equipment.
Large-capacity potion crucibles, special temperature-controlled furnaces, precision medical scales, time-keeping hourglasses... these tools and equipment undoubtedly provided great convenience for his work.
He didn't even need to do it himself. He just had to ask Old Brown to clean and grind the "blood mistletoe vine" into powder, and then Alan would use a medical scale to mix the powder into portions that would fit the capacity of each potion crucible, and then give it to Aunt Brown to throw into the potion crucible to boil. Finally, the Brown sisters were responsible for bottling and sealing, and the whole process was successfully completed.