A mage's journey begins with a battle mage.

Chapter 81 First Trial of Alchemy

Chick was standing at the edge of a construction site, acting as a foreman and overseeing the construction work.

"Hurry up! It must be finished by tomorrow!"

"Keep up the good work, or I'll give you extra pay if you finish today!"

Upon hearing that they would receive money, the workers on the construction site sped up their work.

If you look closely, you'll find that this is Dr. Weasley's clinic.

After Jiang Shuzhou successfully helped Dr. Weasley avoid the death penalty, the doctor, out of gratitude, gave the clinic to Jiang Shuzhou.

Although Jiang Shuzhou wasn't interested in the property, and he wasn't helping Weasley for any personal gain, he couldn't refuse Weasley's earnest request and accepted the property.

Chik then learned of this and was quite perceptive, or rather, the chamber of commerce behind him understood Jiang Shuzhou's needs very well.

Funded by the Chamber of Commerce and overseen by Chick, the renovation project for Weasley Clinic began.

This place will be transformed into Jiang Shuzhou's office in the dock area. The initial plan is for two floors: the upper floor will be Jiang Shuzhou's personal office, and the lower floor will be the rest area for Hayes and Jiang Shuzhou's guards.

Jiang Shuzhou did not object to this. Although he only planned to work for two months and then leave, who wouldn't like something given away for free?

Anyway, this land is already his, so he can decide what to do with it later.

Considering that Jiang Shuzhou's term was coming to an end, Qi Ke naturally worked overtime to oversee the construction, and in less than half a month, it was almost completed.

"Chik, how's it going? Will it be finished by tomorrow? The master is planning to come and take a look tomorrow."

The speaker was Hayes, who had just arrived. Hayes hadn't been idle after completing his mission; he now had to arrange patrol duties in the dock area every day. For some reason, the missions had become increasingly heavy lately, as if something had happened.

"It will be finished by tomorrow morning, Lord Hayes."

Chick said to Hayes.

On the other side, in the room assigned by the Mage Guild.

Jiang Shuzhou picked up the test tube and started fiddling with it.

Now that I've decided to study alchemy, I naturally need to prepare the alchemical tools.

This set of equipment was a second-hand item that Jiang Shuzhou bought from the Mage Alliance for only 150 gold coins. However, it looked quite new, probably because the mage who bought it before failed to learn alchemy, so he sold it to recoup his losses.

Alchemy is divided into many types, such as potions, rune inscription, magic circles, machinery, and even the flesh-and-blood transmutation in the previous knowledge of the flesh-and-blood gospel.

The most common and popular form of alchemy is potion-making.

Jiang Shuzhou is now preparing to put his learning into practice in pharmacy.

Given his circumstances, other disciplines would not be very suitable for practical application.

Jiang Shuzhou didn't have many of the magical materials needed for rune inscription, and he had to relearn the remaining subjects, not to mention that the direct benefits were incomparable to those of potion-making.

Finally, there's the flesh and blood refining technique. Jiang Shuzhou knows how to use it, but he doesn't dare to, mainly because it's quite dangerous and could easily cause trouble if he's not careful.

After much deliberation, I decided that pharmacy was the best option—simple, practical, and a quick way to make money.

Jiang Shuzhou planned to start practicing with the simplest medicine.

Magic Water is a potion that has no effect on the human body. Its only function is to carry other potions and serve as a base for mixing them.

By fusing elements with water and then mixing them, you can obtain magic water, which is the simplest potion, bar none.

However, it's easier said than done. Jiang Shuzhou tried five times and spent more than two hours before he successfully refined one bottle.

The failures are mostly due to elemental contamination. Because of its function as a carrier, the elements in the magic water must be pure. Apart from a certain proportion of water, any other element will contaminate the purity of the magic water.

Pour water into a flask, bring it to a boil over a low flame, and then slowly infuse it with water elemental power using magic. After failing twenty times, Jiang Shuzhou finally succeeded in refining another flask.

"I've finally mastered it."

Looking at the bottle of colorless and transparent liquid in his hand, Jiang Shuzhou felt a sense of emotion.

This stuff costs ten gold coins a bottle, but the raw material is just some water, with no other ingredients added.

Or, if other materials are added, it wouldn't be called magic water but rather a more advanced potion.

Earning ten gold coins in two hours may not seem like much, but in reality, it's not.

Jiang Shuzhou was only making potions for the first time and was not familiar with the use of various equipment. Yet he was able to successfully make magic water. One can imagine how high the profit margin of magic water is.

"No wonder so many mages don't want to work. If I could brew ten or so bottles of magic potion a day, I really wouldn't need to work."

Indeed, many mages may not be able to concoct other potions, but they are very skilled at concocting magic potions, which is also their source of income.

Acquiring a potion base that anyone can make might sound incredible, but it's actually quite normal.

Alchemists had long ago invented methods to concoct potions without having to do it themselves.

The process of brewing medicines by simulating pharmacists using machinery is quantified to determine when to add various herbs and the brewing time, thereby enabling mass production.

Using this method and principle, alchemists established alchemy workshops, which mass-produced low-level potions.

Some low-level potions require the heavy involvement of alchemists, so alchemy workshops cannot produce them; they can only be made by apothecaries.

As for intermediate and high-level potions, they all need to be crafted by alchemists themselves, and to this day, no one has been able to break through this limitation and achieve mass production.

Magic water is the most representative low-level potion, although its production process only involves one step and the only raw material is water.

However, this very step requires the mages to refine it themselves.

For this reason, in order to keep operating, major alchemy workshops purchase magic water almost without limit, since it is the base and other potions cannot be made without it.

The alchemy workshop consumes an astonishing amount of magic water; typically, two portions of magic water and one portion of the corresponding materials are needed to refine one potion.

Since he has just started learning potion making, Jiang Shuzhou's efficiency is still relatively low. Once he becomes more proficient, his efficiency will return to normal. A mage's normal potion making efficiency is five portions of magic water per hour.

A certified alchemist can produce at least several dozen copies per hour.

Of course, no alchemist would make money by concocting magic potions, since simply concocting magic potions doesn't make one an alchemist.

A true alchemist must master at least three methods of brewing potions of the same level, excluding magic potions; otherwise, he is merely a mage who knows some alchemical knowledge.

Jiang Shuzhou was certainly not content to be just a mage who knew alchemy. He had the talent of an "alchemy master," so he had to at least become a high-level alchemist.

Otherwise, wouldn't it be too embarrassing?

Having made up his mind, Jiang Shuzhou once again devoted himself to the refining of the magic water.

A solid foundation is essential. In any case, one must be proficient in refining magic water and not aim too high. Besides magic water, the refining of any potion has a cost.

If you don't lay a solid foundation before trying to refine those potions, you might end up losing everything.

And so, the night passed.

Tonight, Jiang Shuzhou did not choose to practice meditation, but instead immersed himself completely in the refining of potions.

At first, it took two hours to refine only one bottle, then it took one hour to refine three bottles, and finally it took one hour to refine fifteen bottles in the morning.

In order to refine multiple bottles at once, Jiang Shuzhou used some alchemy techniques, such as refining directly in a large beaker. After refining a complete large beaker, he used a bottle divider to divide it into smaller bottles, so that he could refine five or six bottles at once. This method is also known as the bottle dividing method.

However, the downsides are also more obvious. If it fails, the water in the entire beaker will be contaminated by the elements, leading to failure. At the same time, the requirements for Jiang Shuzhou's element control ability are also more stringent.

This is why Jiang Shuzhou's refining speed started to slow down later on. If Jiang Shuzhou had continued to use the method of refining one bottle at a time, he could have refined twenty or thirty bottles per hour, but that would have been meaningless.

He was making these potions so that he could make more advanced ones in the future, not so that he could become a worker on an assembly line and only make this one potion from then on.

Trying out various refining methods to improve refining efficiency also lays a good foundation for refining other potions in the future.

"At this rate, refining a hundred bottles per hour is not a dream."

Although the bottle-dividing method has a high failure rate, practice can always increase the success rate. By repeating this process, one day Jiang Shuzhou might be able to make a whole bucket at once and drink the magic water like regular water, even though it is water in the first place.

As for now? Time to go to work.