Rhonda handed Luke his third exercise potion. "My trainer said that rest potions should be as useful as exercise potions for training, while also adding in the benefits of reducing my need for sleep. Would it be possible to upgrade the rest of the exercise potions to rest potions; and if so, how much would it cost?" Luke asked as he took the potion.

"Maybe for Dixon slop, there's no difference, but a real rest potion would probably be too much for training. A sip should let you stay awake for an entire 24 hours without any of the side effects of not sleeping, not just take away the need for a couple hours of sleep. You can absolutely overdose on rest potions, unlike exercise potions, too, so I'd say not to make the switch, at least not as a direct drop in replacement for exercise potions. The hallucinations from too much sleep potion are not fun," Rhonda said.

"Speaking from experience?"

"Went a little aggressive on the dosing early on in my career, trying to use the extra time to properly babysit the process overnight. Learned that was a bad idea real quick, the indescribable things I saw still sometimes pop up in my nightmares. Felt like I was seeing into other realities. Not really sure how a rest potion would do that, though, so I doubt that's what actually happened."

"What is the proper dose for rest potion, then?"

"One sip a day. Once you start feeling sleepy, take another sip, basically. I could probably make little tablets for people to take instead of a full potion, but my stuff's already too expensive. I guess the ability to buy single-day doses instead of a full potion would maybe be cheap enough to compete with Dixon's stuff, actually, now that you've made me think of it."

"How much do those edible coatings on pills cost, anyway?"

"Dunno, though I'm sure I could just conjure some."

"Oh, you can do magic?"

"Not very much in any short period of time, but yes. If I could do more magic at once, it wouldn't take so long to make my potions. Some of it can be automated with printed spellforms - all of it, if you're ok with pumping out the bare minimum like Dixon - but you'd need more pure ingredients than are available anywhere for automation to be as good as someone properly looking after a potion as it's made.

"Adjusting heat and the various magical effects applied to the brew as ingredients react differently based on their relative purity is the main reason my stuff is so much better than theirs. Maybe I could have a printed spellform made so I could dip it in and take it out as needed, but that would be too expensive for my blood. Honestly, even with your up front payment, I'm still going to barely have enough money to keep the lights on here and live off the profits."

"Anything I could do to help out? When my potion's run out, I'm going to need to rest like a normal person, I could maybe use that time to help out around the shop."

"Oh, no need for that," Rhonda said while swiping the idea out of the air. "You'd be wasting your precious time learning stuff that wouldn't benefit you long-term unless you wanted to work here; and honestly, this place won't be around too much longer. Heck, I'm not even sure I'll be able to finish your commission in time for my death in the arena. I kinda feel bad for taking all your money up front like you insisted. You really should take it back and pay as you get your potions."

"It wouldn't be a waste if I can help my potions get here faster. I also don't have much more time, either. I figure two and a half years, max. Also, keep the money. Spend it, if you need. Any potions I won't get that you can't make in time will be a waste, sure, but might as well use my resources while I have them."

"Sounds like you're going in not long after me, then. I'm on page 4673. I'm not going to try to count how far down with how fast it depletes, so that's around four and a half million. Where are you at?"

"Page 4949. Huh, fun number for the day, I guess. I'm surprised you're before me, though, you seem like 5 or 6 years younger than I am. I know it's not perfectly chronologically ordered, as there's many teenagers at the time of arrival that have already gone in, but still, that big of a gap seems too much."

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Rhonda shrugged and said, "I honestly don't pay too much attention to the fights themselves. Too busy working on potions. I have your commission ongoing, plus those of a few other clients, the occasional stray coming in, and also my own war stockpile to make. I haven't slept in years."

"Sounds like you need a break."

"Heck no, I love making potions. Sure, it can get a bit tiring doing the same, singular thing for years on-end, beyond basic living requirements, but I only have so much time left. Might as well spend it all doing something I enjoy."

"That's fair. Still, with a workload that high, it sounds like you could really use some help. Anything I could do, or maybe see how much of my funds I could spare to hire assistants?"

"How much magic can you do?" Rhonda asked while tapping her counter.

"None," Luke said, placing the exercise potion that was the whole point of coming here on the counter. "Not that that's my capacity, I haven't had that tested and won't waste money on one until I can actually do some, but I just can't keep a whole spellform in my head at once."

Rhonda rubbed both of her cheeks with one hand as she thought before saying, "I don't think there's anything you could do right now. Maybe some assistants, if you're willing to pay however many thousands of dollars each day any mages would demand to work here, but all the mundane stuff is easy. Maybe bottling, but that's just place the bottle in the bottler, wait, and take it out. A single arm motion would not save enough time for it to be worth it.

"Even then, I'm not sure what I'd have my assistants do, my process is pretty optimized for a single person working on each potion. I could maybe teach them how to make potions from step one on their own, but that would take a lot of time off from my own potion making and also I wouldn't be guaranteed to be selling quality potions if I'm not the one doing them."

"Learning to make potions actually sounds like it could be useful. I'd have to see what's in the arena's woods to actually know that, but it's not like there's been much exploration of the place that anyone's managed to record."

Rhonda was confused at that as she responded, "I doubt you'd have time to make a whole potion in the arena. Even Walker only lasted 10 minutes, taking the singular fraxion with him. I don't think you can get to his level in the time you have."

"I don't need to, I don't actually plan on killing even one fraxion. Heck, if they're injured, all the better, it'll make it easier to survive. No, I plan to learn as much healing magic as I can, boost my capacity as much as I can, and just survive for as long as I can. Ideally, years, to let humanity catch up in magic ability to that of the fraxions. Being able to make my own potions could potentially be useful in that regard."

"That's a crazy idea, though taking in a small warehouse of combat potions like I plan to is also a little crazy. You'll need to learn magic before I even entertain the idea of teaching you how to make potions, though."

"That seems fair," Luke said, tilting his head to the side for a second in submission. "Oh, also, if you can make capacity boosting potions, why don't you make some for yourself to use, since you said your capacity was your main bottleneck."

"Oh, I do. I take two each day. They just have significantly diminishing returns. The first three you take will always - well, first three of mine, you could probably take hundreds of Dixon slop before it matters - will always be the most impactful magic capacity potions you take. The rest will have such a small effect that you probably won't notice, unless your body can handle some really large amounts of magic."

"Do you think it's a waste to be buying 65 of them, then?"

"Not at all, as any little bit helps, and the effects never truly disappear, just get really small. With your plan, you'll need every drop of magical capacity possible. Maybe I'll bump your orders up in priority a bit. Most of my other customers are health-related potions. They won't matter when they end up in the arena, anyway. There is some teenage kid who's spent millions on various training potions, like you're doing but more diversified, so I can't just make you priority number one, but maybe I could delay the non-training customers' orders a week.

"They'd all survive without my stuff, might as well put as much effort into making actual competitors as strong as possible in the time they have."

"I'm not so driven as to make some people's lives worse just to make my chances better."

"Oh, but I am. I'm pulling the switch on that trolley problem every time, no way am I letting myself feel bad for doing everything I can to make humanity survive, even if it ends up not having that large of an impact in the end, in either direction."

Luke picked his potion back up and said, "I'm not really sure I'm comfortable with my potioneer having that outlook."

Rhonda chuckled before saying, "From my point of view, the entirety of humanity is well worth the medical bills of a few sick folk. It's not like they'll die because of it, just need to spend a bit more on mundane medical bills."

"I guess," Luke shrugged. "Laura did say magic needs utter confidence in yourself, so I doubt I'm convincing you otherwise at this point."

"Oh, absolutely not."