"I plan on opening an apothecary of sorts and came here to seek a license for operation."

"You don't need such a thing," the old man said. "Just hearing someone is interested in the art of alchemy is good enough for me."

"Oh? I would have thought that the guild would collect some royalties from my shop?"

"You can keep all the money you make. Guilds will collect money to help improve the business, but, there's nothing we can do. I keep on saying we, but in truth, it's just me."

"So this means I'm not the second member of the guild?"

"Membership isn't necessary. In fact, it might cause more harm than good in the long term for your carer."

"Let me guess, something to do with Mirrored Tower?"

The old man nodded. "They will not accept any students who have ever been a part of an alchemical association outside of Mirror Mountain."

"Ever been part? How ruthless of them." Aleister smirked. "Then, hopefully, this question won't offend you, but, how long have you been the only member of Osetia's Alchemy Guild?"

"No offense taken young man, and oh, I don't know, it's been at least a few decades at this point."

"Well, if Mirrored Tower sounds interesting, and if I didn't already have a teacher, I would consider joining it. So in that case, I will join this Alchemy Guild, even it causes trouble for me in the future."

"Even so, I wouldn't recommend it, young man?"

"Why do you keep on pushing me away from joining? Don't tell me you secretly work for Mirrored Mountain?"

The old man puckered his lips and ejected a large wad of spit onto the ground. "I wouldn't work for those lunatics even if it cost me my life."

"Lunatics, hm?"

"Forgive this old man for his crass actions. If you truly wish to join, follow me, I'll apply your name in the registry."

Aleister followed the man into the back room. In contrast to the front, the place was organized and in perfect condition.

"What's your name, young man?"

"Aleister."

"Full name?"

"Aleister of Stillside."

"Orphaned?"

"Technically."

The old man didn't ask any more questions. "Sign here, and I will go file your name right after you take your leave."

Aleister arrived at the alchemy guild the following day and collected the official paperwork which signified his membership.

After this, he spent the rest of the day pursuing and visiting various shops across all of Osetia. Before yesterday, he never really cared about or paid any attention to the prices of common remedial items. He could get away with this in an open market since negotiations and bartering for different goods were the common practice, but in a shop, people could only haggle with money and within fine margins. This meant he couldn't price his items without gaining an understanding of what the current market was like.

And so as the day ended, he headed back to his room with a paper full of the various prices in hand.

"I told you didn't think your plan completely through," Syn said through a yawn.

"No, this is fine," Aleister said as he sat down in his chair. "This is about what I expected. Even after asking the shopkeepers, there really are no healing potions in direct competition with mine."

"There can't be any competition if there aren't selling any."

"Exactly. The blockade around Mirror Mountain preventing anyone from exiting has decreased supply to the extent that they are no longer sold. And since most of the alchemical practitioners who could create such potions are stuck there along with their goods. This is in turn, is quite the perfect opportunity for me to overtake the entire market."

"Quite the lucky break."

"Yes, I'm sure I could have overtaken the market just by undercutting them anyway because I don't care about making money right now, but this will make it much easier. In fact, to make the process even smoother, I will still undercut them by a small percentage, so whenever the blockade is lifted, they will have to lower their prices to undercut me, or match my price."

"The only problem is the quality and name recognition behind Mirror Mountain."

"Yes, that's why I have to market my products in such a way that invokes a sense of loyalty to the locals. The only real problem is the quantity of product I need to produce because what I have is far from enough."

"The only reasons quantity of product is even an issue for you is because of how often you've messed up and destroyed the ingredients you've used."

"It's all part of the learning process."

"I was able to perfectly create potions and pills up to stage three before I ever messed up."

"So now you conveniently remember a fact about yourself to rub in your alchemical genius in my face? I see how it is."

"You can also speed up the process by using a larger cauldron and tripling or quadrupling the number of ingredients you use."

"I know, but the problem is that if I mess up, I wasted that many times more ingredients."

"It's a trade-off. You either get quality with lower quantity or quantity with lower quality."

"I need both high quantity and high quality though."

"Just sacrifice the quality aspect for now and go hard on quantity. This way you can undercut the other potion prices even more. Then, as your product takes up more shelf space, you'll have enough of a buffer to where you can have produced more quality products to replace them. Then when the time comes where the products from Mirror Mountain arrive, it will be a quality product at a cheap price."

"That's is what I'll have to go with. Guess I'll have to pay Luo Yun a visit."