The public alchemy labs seemed to be getting less and less crowded with every passing day. The lack of students and the hubbub in the main hall aside, Alec couldn't hear the occasional explosion or see the toxic fumes permeating the corridors either.

He had also felt a suffocating heat, not enough to actually make him sweat, but enough to make it uncomfortable. Now, however, the lack of such heat actually felt worse. As if something important had been lost, as if a recently turned-off oven was cooling down on its own, indicating the imminent end.

In such a situation, Alec patted his chest and found comfort in that motion. He stopped concentrating on what was lost and started looking at what was ahead. And by ahead, he was thinking of money.

"What ingredients are you going to use?" Evan said, looking contemptuously at the bag filled with random wild herbs in Alec's hand. He had insisted on visiting the alchemy shop and paying for the ingredients himself but was baffled when he realized Alec wasn't going to buy any at all. Alec, on the other hand, had no intention to explain anything. He was already skeptical about the deal at hand, after all.

"Look man," Alec turned around with a sigh. He patted Evan's shoulder and looked around before continuing with a whisper. "I do the cooking, you do the selling, let's not get things mixed up. Alright?"

"Uh... I don't think you 'cook' potions. You brew them," Evan said, reeling from how close Alec was. Hearing his words, Alec felt like he was getting older and older.

"Never mind," he said, caressing his forehead tiredly. "The point is, I know what I am doing and you know the results. No public formula can create potions that are that potent. And weren't you the one who offered to work together? Trust me more!"

"Alright alright!" Evan stepped back. He looked around to see if anyone had heard them but instead noticed how empty their surroundings were. "Oh... I've heard that there has been a lack of resources lately. The potion and herb prices keep going up they say."

"Interesting. Was there a problem with the source, I wonder," Alec said. He wasn't annoyed by the fact that Evan had changed the topic so suddenly. Quite the opposite actually. He didn't really want to argue over such a topic. Even with their bickering, they were both aware of their trust in each other.

Shrugging, Evan walked up to the counter and rented a room. Since his first potion creation trial, Alec had depleted most of his credits. His monthly allowance distributed by the academy itself was nowhere near enough to fund him, and alchemy labs were incredibly expensive to rent, which left him with no choice but to make Evan pay for it.

Seeing the uncomfortable expression on Alec's face, Evan patted his shoulder and rolled the token in his hand.

"Don't worry. This amount of expenses is okay while starting a business," he said, to which Alec nodded in agreement. He himself knew that. He was quite a money-oriented person in his nature after all. However, the academy grounds weren't quite the place to make money comfortably.

'Once I leave this place, I will start a company or something. Hell, maybe I will write some novels and see how that goes...' Alec muttered to himself as they traversed the corridors.

When they finally reached the correct room number, Alec took Evan's entrance token.

"It shouldn't take long. You can wait in the main hall if you want," Alec said. Evan crossed his arms and leaned against the wall next to the door. Seeing him uninterested in leaving, Alec entered the alchemy lab silently and closed the door behind him. "Now..."

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He dumped the wild herbs on the table and placed the bag aside. Although Evan knew what was inside, and was confused at Alec's antics, this was a necessary step to hide their endeavors. It would be weird if he went into the alchemy lab with nothing at hand and came out with a batch of potions after all.

Afterward, he incinerated the herbs with a fireball and placed the ashes inside a jar to be disposed of later. With his preparations done, Alec took out The Author's Pen and started his 'cooking' process.

He had other uses for his mana for the day, so he had to be conservative in his spending.

'Why don't I start with some very-low grade health and stamina potions? Those oughta be easy to sell and less conspicuous,' Alec thought to himself. He wrote with incredible speed and vial after vial started appearing on the table. His mana stat had reached 32 and with constantly active mana regeneration potions, he could achieve quite the efficacy in his creations.

'Five of each should be pretty good. Considering the recent price increases, even if we are selling them for cheap, we should get about 7 or 8 thousand credits each,' Alec calculated in his head. Alongside his recent increase in mana, the fact that he was inside an alchemy lab seemed to reduce the cost of The Author's Pen potion creation even further.

'I wonder if I should create that...' he thought to himself, his gaze wandering between the vials on the table and The Author's Pen.

For a long time, Alec had thought of utilizing The Author's Pen to help his friends in some way. There was a feeling in him that told Alec that he couldn't survive in this world on his own. And for that, he thought of Evan as a pretty good candidate.

'What could happen if I gave him an upgrade potion?' Alec thought to himself. He wasn't actually a deeply cynical person. He could build relations on trust, just like how he did with Evan. What he didn't trust was this new world he was inside.

After all, Evan himself could be completely loyal to him and still harm him in some ways. For example, what if there was a cult following Evan around for some reason and he led them to Alec? What if Evan had an incredibly strong ancestor always watching over him wherever he was in the world and stumbled upon Alec's secrets that way?

'That's a no-go... I should keep The Author's Pen a secret...' Alec thought to himself. Then, however, he still wrote a very low grade strength upgrade potion. 'I can just dodge any questions he asks. There is also a very good chance he won't question me at all. He should know how dangerous the existence of such a potion is.'

Once he was done with that, Alec closed his eyes and waited for his mana to regenerate a bit. Not too long, approximately 15 minutes. After that, he wrote another potion and split it into two vials before wearing them as a necklace.

'With that done, I should be ready for the last part,' Alec thought to himself. He had to create some cover-up potions to use on an Alchemy Crystal.

'Beginner-level Health Potions should be good. Two of them maybe?' he made an educated guess. With the intent to create a traditional potion, Alec closed his eyes and started writing once again.

However, weirdly, the potion-creation process felt somewhat weird.

'Why is it taking this much mana?' Alec thought to himself. Because of the low level of the potion, it still wasn't that expensive. However, compared to the three times more effective very low grade health potion, it was at least five times more expensive.

His eyes trailing the mana motes leaving his body and slowly forming into a beginner-level health potion, Alec scratched his cheek in confusion.

"There are two major aspects that affect the creation cost of potions. One is the difficulty of its creation, the other is how rare the ingredients are. However, very low grade health potion also has the fact that its formula is unknown to this world, which should make its creation incredibly expensive. So why is it cheaper?" Alec contemplated. "The ingredients? The creation process of the traditional health potion is relatively easy, and I myself made it before by hand. There shouldn't be a problem regarding that. So the ingredients should be the bottleneck here. Then, what ingredient is this easy to find..?"

With a sigh, Alec filled the potions into his bag and came out of the alchemy lab with the two health potions in hand. Evan was waiting in the same pose Alec had left him. Once he heard the door open, he opened his eyes and turned around to look.

His gaze first wandered over the two potions in Alec's hand, then shifted toward the bag in hand.

"Good job," he said. Alec handed over the bag filled with potions. Once he saw the rows of vials, Evan let out an unintentional gasp.

"These are..."

"Health and stamina potions. Three times more effective than the traditional beginner-level ones," Alec explained. With a loud gulp, Evan tightened the mouth of the bag and led Alec back to the main hall.

Registering the cover-up health potions on the Alchemy Crystals, Alec and Evan left the lab building together...