Alex looked around at some of the alchemy ingredients and noticed many of them were thing from the real world. There was common fruits and vegetables like apples and carrots as well as more rare herbs such as saffron.

Turning back to the book he noticed Hardore was already working on more potions, only leaving one cauldron available for Alex. The very first entry in the book was a basic health potion. It needed the juice from 5 apples, 1 crushed garlic, 2 thinly sliced ginger and the juice of 1 lemon. The final ingredient was a healers core which came from some kind of healer monster in the dungeons.

After reading the instructions Alex began by cleaning all his tools, firstly he washed and cleaned the cauldron, then the knife, two bowls and a spoon marked with a 2 on the handle and finally the juicer. Then he filled the cauldron with 30 marks of water since he was making a batch of 20, after turning the heat on high and setting the cauldron on the flames, he started preparing the ingredients.

First he used the juicer to juice the apples and lemon. The juicer was just a metal tube with a metal plate with small holes at the bottom, the top had a solid metal plate and a lever used to push it down. Crushing whatever happened to be inside. The top came off allowing you to insert ingredients into it.

Next he crushed the garlic using the flat side of the blade on his knife. Then he thinly sliced the gingers and added them to the bowl. After stirring everything together he looked back at the water to see it just started boiling. He walked over with his bowl of ingredients and dumped them in before turning the heat down to medium heat. Now he needed to let it cook before adding it to the healer core powder.

Alex went to the shelf holding all the different cores and noticed jars full of already crushed core powder. He wanted to crush his own core so he could figure out the best way to do so. As his hand reach for one of the blood red healer cores, Hardore called out to him.

"Don't you dare boy. I have jars full of the powder already and those are expensive. If you want to learn how to crush them watch when I do it or use your own money to buy some cores."

Grunting at the dwarf Alex grabbed the jar labeled "Healers" and used his number 2 spoon to get a full scoop and added it to his still clean bowl. The potion had been cooking long enough so he turned the heat of and put the lid on the cauldron before locking it. The lid has small holes on half of it, allowing you to strain any liquid.

He pored the liquid out into the metal bowl containing the core powder, watching as it seemed to bubble and mix together. Grabbing his spoon he stirred the concoction and it slowly got thicker before finally he got a notification.

[60 EXP]

Setting the cauldron down he called up his status.

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[Name: Potio Regis

Class: Potion Crafter

Race: Telarii Goblin

Level:1

Experience: 60/200

HP:100/100

MP:80/100

SP:100/100]

Artisan classes require more experience to level because you aren't risking death where you could loose experience and items like combat classes. A level 1 combat class requires 100 experience and each level after that increases by 100. Artisan classes such as potion crafter, require 200 and increase by 200 each level. Which he was fine with, if he wasn't going to be fighting and risking his levels and items then it is only fair for it to be harder to level.

Hardore smacked him on the back of the head before saying, "Stop standing there looking like a fool and bottle the potions. You can daydream on your own time."

Shaking his head Alex grabbed a crate holding 20 vials before filling them with the potion. After they were all filled and corked he decided to inspect one.

[Basic Health Potion]

[Quality: Good]

[Rarity: Common]

[Restores 20 HP when drank completely]

[Crafted By: Potio Regis]

"Huh….an good quality potion on your first try. I'm mildly impressed. Fine I'll keep teaching you, at least for now." Hardore said.

"How much will this sell for?" Alex asked.

"Five silver each for basic health potions of this quality. I'll give you two silver for each since you used my ingredients, and I still need to make some money, so 40 silver for all 20." Hardore explained before pulling out 40 silver from nowhere and handing it to Alex.

"Ask Torbin out front to give you an expanded coin pouch. Eventually you might be able to afford a space storage ring like this one, but they're expensive. After that get back to work making more health potions." Hardore said before turning back to his cauldrons.

Alex was happy all around, not only had he crafted a good quality potion his first try, but he had also earned 40 dollars in about 10 minutes of work. His racial buff had come in handy and decreased the time required by 50%, and he could've reduced it another 25% if he had remembered to activate his skill. However he still had one question for Hardore.

"How does the racial buff work exactly? It sped up the process but I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary." Alex asked the dwarf.

"You didn't notice some of your mana had been used? It's not something you activate, it just happens automatically which means you have to be observant of your mana levels, if it drains completely you'll pass out until it's regenerated. It's a double edged sword, it's an amazing boost but can do more harm then good if you aren't careful." Hardore said before continuing, "When you were preparing the ingredients you were passively injecting your mana into them, which caused them to cook faster. Then when you turned the fire on you again injected your mana into the flames causing them to burn hotter. Which made the process be reduced by half the usual time. Now get back to work, make health and mana potions, and if you have to drink a mana potion because of being an idiot you'll be paying me its full price."

Alex found the whole idea of your body passively using mana interesting. However it could be a downside if he wasn't careful. All of his stat points would be going to his mana and stamina for now, they are his most important stats at this level.

By the end of the day Alex had made 6 more batches of basic health potions and 2 batches of mana potions. Unfortunately he had to take long breaks to eat and regain his mana, but he still made 360 silver or 3 gold and 60 silver, from the 9 batches total. After Hardore closed the shop he told Torbin to show him to an inn, where he paid 10 silver for the night and 3 for dinner. Once he logged out and laid in his own bed, his one thought before drifting into sleep was…

'It's going to be a long week'