Rise of the Alchemy God

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Ethan returned to the initial shop screen.

As he examined it for a moment, he noticed that two lines of text had appeared on the left side of the floating display:

[Items]

[Alchemy Laboratory]

Ethan proceeded to click on the second option, and the screen in front of him instantly changed.

The first thing that caught his eye was what appeared to be a 3D image of a cauldron.

Below it, there were small squares lined up with '+' signs on them.

One of the squares was slightly separated from the others, and above it was the word:

[Recipe]

Ethan noticed that the squares aligned next to this first, slightly larger square also had text above them, [Ingredients].

'So, there are two separate sections: one for the recipe, and the other for the ingredients.'

Ethan quickly got an idea of what he might be able to do with this.

If his intuition was correct, then...

'Maybe I can produce pills directly from here.'

As soon as he had this thought, he couldn't help but smile.

And why wouldn't he?

If this feature was indeed what he thought it was, then his pill production could be doubled or even tripled, depending on how much time it took to produce pills using this system function.

Lately, Ethan had been thinking more about the issue of production.

Even though his refining speed was high, considering the number of different pills he had to produce each day to meet the market's minimum quota, Ethan found it too exhausting.

After all, he was just one person, and no matter how fast he could produce, he couldn't keep up with the constantly increasing number of clients.

He had also discussed this with Da Shu, and they were both considering whether to hire assistants.

Although the proposal was valid, Ethan immediately dismissed it.

His reasoning was simple.

Where would they find other people capable of refining pills of this grade while maintaining a high success rate?

It was known that most novice alchemists had a success rate of around 50%, or even less depending on the alchemist and the grade of pills they had to produce.

If there were truly people with a very low error rate, what were the chances of hiring them?

Answer: almost none.

If someone were that skilled, they wouldn't need to work for anyone and could simply make plenty of money by producing a certain number of pills each week.

His brand had been very successful recently, so the market demand for his pills had increased accordingly.

At this point, Ethan thought it might be better to set a limit on the number of pills a person could buy or a maximum number of pills each shop could sell each month, so customer demand could be kept under some control.

But both of them thought this idea might do more harm than good, and it wasn't necessary to take action unless the situation became truly dire, which it would if they didn't find a solution soon.

Ethan had no intention of working day and night just to slightly increase his production.

He knew that even if he adopted such a method, he wouldn't be able to keep it up for long.

Not to mention, he had no desire to spend the rest of his life this way.

What was the point of earning so much if all he did was one single thing all the time?

How could he enjoy life like that?

For a moment, he even considered making his products exclusive, but since he was still new to the market and the level of his pills was too low to be considered exclusive, he knew that such a move wouldn't be very successful.

So, upon seeing this new system feature, Ethan was happy.

He wanted to understand how it worked and decided to give it a try.

First, he chose the square on the far left, the one labeled [Recipes].

As soon as he pressed it, another screen appeared in front of him.

Ethan immediately noticed that the display was very similar to the [Items] section, listing all the recipes he had learned.

But unlike before, the options for the various recipes seemed to be grayed out, with a line of text above them.

[To unlock this recipe, you must produce 10 perfect-grade pills related to this recipe]

[Status: 0/10]

The same message appeared above all the other pill recipes listed below.

Ethan didn't understand why this was necessary, but he quickly came to terms with it.

'It seems that, for now, I can't use it.'

Ethan wasn't sure what to do, but he decided that he would produce 10 perfect-grade pills later to see what would happen.

He felt a bit disappointed but quickly shook it off.

It wasn't a big deal.

He could produce perfect-grade pills in no time, but he decided to do it later.

For now, he had another new feature to check out, one that interested him the most at the moment.

[Minor Dimension]

Ethan immediately went back to the system's main screen and entered [Storage].

Upon entering, he saw that the first of the various available slots was no longer the one containing his money but had been replaced by an image of a portal made of blue energy, rotating.

The slot containing his money had been moved to the second position.

Ethan checked to see if there were any other changes besides this one.

After a few seconds, confirming there were no further changes, he pressed the first square.

As soon as he did, the Amphora of the Seven Sages, which was floating in Ethan's spiritual sea, emitted a slight fluctuation.

Ethan, who had just pressed the square, felt a strange sensation, and for a second, all his senses darkened.

He could sense that something was changing around him, and in what seemed like the blink of an eye, he disappeared from his dormitory room.

The disorienting feeling he experienced disappeared just as quickly as it had come, and as soon as it faded, Ethan could sense again with all his senses.

As he did, he immediately realized what had happened.

He had been transported to another place.

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FRANK_LEE_JUNIOR:

Here's today's chapter. I hope you enjoyed it.

As usual, if you have any comments, suggestions, or errors to report, you know where to do it.

See you tomorrow.