"If you are willing to go out of your way to give me a private lesson, then I am more than happy to oblige and put the creations Evelyn has made on the shelves of my store. But still, this is only a stopgap measure. It would be best if she was able to sell her own product."
"Yes, you are right about that Katrina, but making an inferior product on purpose would be a waste of ingredients… Oh, I cannot believe I did not think about this earlier!" Melisandre exclaimed.
She then turned towards Evelyn with a big smile on her face and began telling her about how she could make lesser quality potions without wasting ingredients.
"This is rarely done since when making a potion or the like you want the best that you can get, but there is a method of reducing the quality of a brew while increasing its quantity. That way we can increase the yield instead of just wasting materials."
Hearing this not only did Melisandre garner Evelyn's attention, but Katrina and even Anneli who was still making a meal to celebrate Evelyn's advance to the peak of the fiend beast rank.
"Oh, you never taught us anything about this before Lady Melisandre." Anneli said, jumping into the conversation over continuing to cook.
"I never taught either of you because it is not a common practice. But if the two of you really want to know I can teach you at the same time as Evelyn."
Melisandre could tell form both Katrina's and Anneli's faces that they were not going to pass up on learning a new piece of information in regard to alchemy. So, she simply agreed to teach them as well.
"Thank you, Lady Melisandre." They both said in unison.
After that Anneli went back to cooking and Katrina went to help since Melisandre told them that she would hold the lesson immediately after they finished eating.
Soon enough the food was prepared and the four of them ate all together with Katrina and Anneli almost in a frenzy.
'Wow that was good.' Evelyn thought once she finished off the last bite of meal.
Whatever it was that they had made was absolutely delicious and she felt completely energized and very focused.
"Hm, I can tell that two you really are excited to learn this technique by what you made. But really it is not something as amazing as you might think. I already told you that it simply allows one to create a large quantity of a brew at the cost of quality." Melisandre warned.
She did not want the two of them hyping up this method to the point where their expectations were unreasonable. It was not something that often needed to be used other than when a massive amount of a certain item was needed, and the quality was of less consequence.
When they arrived in her lab for the demonstration, she simply brought out the materials to make the same type of healing potion that Evelyn had in order to make it easier for her to understand.
"Now for the most part all of the steps are exactly the same. You just make the potion as usual as I have done, but at the end you add water to dilute it."
Melisandre then used her magic to pour in water until it was exactly equal to the contents of the brew and then stirred for another thirty minutes.
"There it is done. As I said it is not a difficult or revolutionary technique. It simply allows one to dilute the brews they have made."
Now knowing the technique both Anneli and Katrina were wholly underwhelmed.
They had thought this might be interesting, but it would really only be useful in times of war when a mass quantity of potions was needed over those of quality.
It would not really make sense profit wise either, as having more inferior product would most of the time lead to less profit for almost all alchemical items.
However, for Evelyn's situation where she was able to make potions of outstanding quality which were above her rank's normal skill, it was the perfect way for her to still be able to brew and sell her creations.
"Oh, but this will not work for making pills, but in that case just adding any number of harmless powders as filler works the same." Melisandre said before running off to a cabinet and grabbing some random white powders.
Soon enough she demonstrated the process with pills as well and completed her demonstration.
"Now with this method you will be able to make items that are not above the quality sold on the ground floor. Though as to how much you should lower the quality by, I am not sure. But perhaps you know Katrina?"
Melisandre turned her head towards Katrina and gave her a hopeful look.
For a few moments she contemplated her master's question before answering with what she believed to be best.
"Seeing as how Evelyn is a peak fiend beast now, I would say somewhere between forty to at best fifty percent of the quality of her creations is acceptable. It would still be on the high end, but not out of the realm of possibility and would not likely gain her any ire from those on the second floor."
"There you have it Evelyn. Now all you need do is create more items and dilute them to between forty and fifty percent of their effectiveness." Melisandre said with a smile.
But for Evelyn there was still just one problem.
"Melisandre, what should I do about making more healing potions though. I am out of the regen capybara blood, having used it to make my current stock. Would it be okay for me to just water down what I have already made?"
Unfortunately, things were not going to be that easy, and Melisandre shook her head, and said, "Sorry now that the potion is cooled and bottled, putting it back into the cauldron would degrade it horrible. Then trying to water it down would likely have you end up with a product only marginally better than that first potion you showed me. No, it will be best that you start from scratch."
Hearing this Evelyn sighed since that meant she was going to have to go back out and collect more blood from the elusive beast that was fast to flee and difficult to take down.
'How many rocks to the face am I going to have to take this time.'
Though as Evelyn was lamenting her situation, Melisandre gave her a lifeline.
"Just this once seeing as how you have done everything I have asked, I will loan you some of the ingredients you are missing. Then once you have made enough sales, you can pay me back then."
Looking up at Melisandre like she was a savior, Evelyn thanked her profusely for not sending her out after more of those difficult to capture capybara.
"Now feel free to spend the rest of the day practicing your magic and I will procure a decent stock for you to work with. Then tomorrow you can make some new product and after that open up your shop and start earning credits and a name for yourself."
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l