"Thankfully Leo decided to let the matter rest and without further provocation, Ryan swept the coins into his pouch. The clinking sound the coins made as they were swept in sounded like music to Ryan's ears.

His entire being felt jittery; that was his record sale of potions to a single customer in an exchange — forty-five vials. It was quite the number.

After tying the strings of his pouch taut, he looked back at Leo warily, expecting anything but what he saw on the big man's face — begrudging respect. It was plastered on Leo's face and was as clear as the silhouette of Arson rising in the sky.

"What are you staring at?" Leo asked, breaking the spell of silence.

"You... I expected you to complain about my methods or something, but you look like you respect it," Ryan said hopefully.

A snort left Leo, and at this point Ryan was tempted to call Leo a jenkal the way that he was snorting like an animal.

"You wish. Your method is barely remarkable and your marketing strategy... meh," Leo said with a grin. "But they work, and even I have to accept that that's what is important."

Ryan didn't know how to feel at the words that had just escaped his friend's mouth. Should he jubilate at the rare compliment, or was he to fixate on the jab that had accompanied the words?

In the end, he decided to go for the main message Leo had tried to pass on to him.

"I only see you criticizing me," Ryan pointed out. "Maybe you should focus more on giving me useful advice that could, I don't know... improve me?"

Ryan stared intently at Leo; the big man seemed to become uncomfortable at the request that Ryan had tabled to him. Something that made Ryan smile — of course it'd be easy to criticize, but maybe his 'brother' should've been proffering solutions instead of trying to bring him down and downplay his achievements.

"Well, for starters, your potions give me the ick like I've already told you," Leo said with a raised eyebrow. "Then your pitch about the T-stones to the elf that just left was weak and, dare I say... desperate."

Ryan sucked in a deep breath. Yep, he'd just opened the floodgates to the ripping apart of his very business, and he did it consciously and intentionally. It wasn't something that would be nice to hear, but he needed to hear it.

Ryan's frame became somewhat tense at Leo's two opening salvos. Well-organized ones, he should add — or were they?

"The potions are a no-go. You've already seen what happened with the dwarf when I tried to convince him about that," Ryan pointed out.

"Don't play coy with me, Ryan. I'm here to help you. You can either cooperate or tell me to shut up; it can't be both," Leo said, clearly waiting for a response.

"I apologize, go on," Ryan said, conceding the fact that he'd been purposefully running Leo in circles.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Fantastic. Now we both know that you were trying to scare off the dwarf with the thirty-five percent jenkal shit. True or true?" Leo asked.

It was such a ridiculous question to ask, but he knew that Leo wouldn't continue if he didn't respond, and there was only one answer to this question. An answer that Leo already knew but wanted Ryan to say so that he could prove a point and boost his own ego.

"True," Ryan said, choosing to play along.

"Good. Now I brew potions myself, and I know a trick or two about modifying them to make them aesthetically pleasing," Leo said, giving Ryan a look. "The good part is that it can be achieved for a little more silvers."

"Must you brag about everything?" Ryan asked irritatedly.

"Do you want to hear what I have to say?" Leo retorted.

The pair locked eyes for a fraction of a second before Ryan backed down, knowing that he was the one who would end up on the losing side this time.

"Yes, please go on."

"Like I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, I have a recipe that would enable you to cut down the normal costs of aesthetic reagents to mere fractions of what they usually are," Leo said.

Ryan was really intrigued by the possibility that had just been touted by his friend.

Reagents for mere fractions and he could charge more as they'd become better than his previous batches — sign him up. Although there was a little hiccup.

"I'm not trying to offend you or annoy you anymore, but do you really think that they'd pay more for just that?" Ryan asked gently, trying not to provoke his already annoyed brother.

Leo took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose before opening them and releasing the breath he'd held in. Apparently Ryan wasn't the only one who had been influenced by Carl's habits.

"You're like a brother and I love you like one, but sometimes you're just so... slow," Leo said as gently as he could. "Let's say you don't upgrade your potions. What happens to your already withering business when those that sell aesthetically pleasing potions drop their prices close to yours or even to match?"

"They'd leave?" Ryan said.

"Ding ding ding. Maybe you do have a brain inside that skull of yours," Leo mocked. "No adventurer, even as loyal as they may seem, would prefer drinking your rat piss tasting potion over one that tastes like tea or honey... or whatever flavor they add to it. Plus, your potions are a dull red compared to the others. I'm pretty sure that if I was an adventurer, I'd be able to put two and two together."

"Oh," Ryan said sheepishly.

"'Oh' is correct," Leo said in agreement. "The adventurers won't hesitate to jump ship if other vendors start matching your discount, and what would you do then... keep going lower until you go bankrupt?"

"Well, when you put it like that, I really seem foolish, don't I?" Ryan admitted.

"You do. It won't cost you much, and it'd guarantee your current crop of customers better value for their money so that if anyone else offers the same, they wouldn't see the need to jump ship."

Now that Ryan thought about it, he felt like a big fool for missing such an obvious flaw in his model. All it'd take at this point was for one of the vendors to match him in price and have higher quality potions, and they'd succeed in poaching most — if not all — of his current customers.

He had no doubt that adventurers like Talas would jump ship the first chance they'd get. He didn't even think that the dwarf would let Ryan try to improve on the ones he currently sold. Nope, the dwarf would simply go for the best deal, and Ryan wouldn't judge him nor would he in good conscience judge any other adventurer that would jump ship either.

"Okay, I'm on board with altering the potions," Ryan finally said.

"As if you had a choice," Leo mocked.

Ryan tried not to take the jabs to heart as he knew that his friend-turned-brother was only looking out for him and had nothing else to benefit.

"What did you mean by my pitch was weak?" Ryan asked, getting back to the statement that bothered him.

"Ryan, you sounded desperate, and I wouldn't want to buy anything from a desperate merchant willing to offload," Leo said. "Your deals are sweet enough that most people would forget that fact, but you offering the T-stones outside a deal was plain stupid."

"How?" Ryan asked, genuinely confused.