"Excluding negligible costs, tonight's total income was one thousand six hundred and thirty-seven taels!" County Princess Ling Lan said.
"Wait, did you calculate wrong?" Several girls showed surprised expressions. They hadn't expected that tonight's sales would earn over sixteen hundred taels of silver.
What happened next left them speechless—someone seemed displeased with this result.
"Yeah, did you calculate wrong? Only this much?" Xiaoyao frowned. "I should have set the prices higher. With you all here, it shouldn't have been a problem. Besides, my pills are of excellent quality. What a loss!"
"..."
This guy was really asking for a beating. Earning so much in one night—even wealthy families don't earn as much as you—and you're still complaining it's too little.
"Little servant, you should be content. It was just one evening, over sixteen hundred taels. Some people can't earn this much in a lifetime," Nangong Suxin knocked Xiaoyao on the head, saying somewhat irritably.
"Yes, yes, don't be ungrateful..." Zhang Caiyi chimed in. Her face was full of envy now, thinking how wonderful it would be if she had this money.
"Young Master Xiaoyao..."
Amid everyone's complaints, Xiaoyao spoke again: "You might have misunderstood. This wasn't just one evening's work. Tonight I only sold finished products. These finished products required me to collect materials and then refine the pills. That time isn't just one evening, And there are costs involved!"
"..." Several girls were stunned. They had never done business before, so they hadn't thought about these issues for a moment. Perhaps it was also because Xiaoyao's numbers were quite shocking, making them forget to consider these common-sense problems.
"That's also true..." Nangong Suxin nodded. "You still need to spend money purchasing medicinal materials and time refining them. Still, even so, you've earned quite a lot,"
Indeed, there was a lot of water in those sixteen hundred taels, but Xiaoyao definitely made money. Calculating the material costs for Essence Pills, the medicinal materials for one Essence Pill didn't cost five qian of silver. This was still calculated based on relatively ordinary alchemy standards.
At this time, no one knew Xiaoyao's alchemy level, but it was certain that Xiaoyao definitely wouldn't be too poor at it. For one Essence Pill, even a lower-grade one, he could at least earn double.
If they knew Xiaoyao's pill completion rate, they would definitely curse Xiaoyao for being shameless—earning so much and still saying "only this much," still saying "what a loss." They would definitely slap Xiaoyao to death.
However, they didn't know about another matter. Xiaoyao's pills weren't all put up for sale—many were consumed. He supplied all of Guxing's needs and gave some to the Young Miss as well.
The Young Miss and Guxing still didn't know that Xiaoyao selected only high-grade pills for them. No wonder their strength progressed much faster than others.
Generally speaking, even the largest families could at most guarantee a supply of pills, but definitely couldn't guarantee a supply of high-grade pills. This wasn't because they couldn't afford them, but because high-grade pills were in short supply.
People who could consistently have high-grade pills were definitely the focus of super great families, and such people were very rare. Even so, what they could guarantee were only elementary and intermediate pills. Advanced pills and above were something that couldn't be guaranteed.
There weren't many people who could refine advanced pills to begin with, so the quantity that could be produced was limited. Additionally, advanced pills generally had low completion rates and quality. Being able to consume lower-grade advanced pills was already good. Middle-grade ones required explosive luck, and high-grade ones were rare treasures.
But Guxing was much better off than these people. Someone prepared her advanced pills, and they were all the best high-grade ones. The quality was even a bit better than ordinary high-grade pills.
For this, Xiaoyao had to spend large amounts of money buying materials for advanced pills. Generally, advanced pill materials would have at least one or two expensive components, with special ones having even more. The cost alone wasn't something ordinary people could bear, let alone after pill completion.
If it weren't for the opportunity provided by the Heavenly Wind Kingdom last time, Xiaoyao estimated he still wouldn't have gathered all the materials for advanced pills and would still be stockpiling intermediate ones. After all, Guxing didn't need advanced ones at that time.
Now, Xiaoyao had stockpiled enough intermediate pills and naturally wanted to move toward advanced ones. He would sell the unneeded lower and middle-grade intermediate pills to purchase materials needed for refining advanced pills.
Elementary pills? Xiaoyao had already sold those off back in Qingyun City. That is to say, by the time they were in Qingyun City, Guxing no longer needed elementary pills—her level had long reached the point of using intermediate pills.
The current Guxing was about to break free from intermediate pills and enter the era of advanced pills. Her progress had been quite fast these days, possibly due to the saturated supply of pills allowing her to achieve the best effects.
Xiaoyao wasn't worried that her mental state couldn't keep up with her strength, because previously Guxing's cultivation of mental state was much faster than her strength. Even with the saturated supply of pills, her mental state could still easily control her own strength—it far exceeded her strength.
Xiaoyao had previously made Guxing focus on cultivating her mental state. Perhaps he had long anticipated this result. Naturally, there were also reasons why pill supplies couldn't keep up back then.
Mental state cultivation was also one of the most important practices for martial artists. If one only improved strength without improving mental state, then one would be unable to control their own strength, greatly reducing their effectiveness and possibly even causing qi deviation.
Mental state was sometimes also an obstacle for those who relied on pills to improve their strength, preventing them from treating pills like food. Otherwise, those with capital would really do this.
There was another point—the advanced pills Xiaoyao made weren't the best, since he currently couldn't afford those materials. Those materials could only be collected by super families and great empires.
The advanced pills Xiaoyao currently made were the most cost-effective kind, with some of his improvements added. Although their medicinal effects weren't as good as the best ones, they were still what everyone wanted. After all, not many people could make those top-tier advanced pills, and few possessed them.
If Guxing could continuously consume such advanced pills, it would make everyone envious, even those who had top-tier pills would be envious.
Because they couldn't guarantee they could continuously consume such advanced and high-grade pills. This effect wouldn't be weaker than occasionally consuming top-tier pills—it might even be better.
Achieving qualitative change through quantitative change was a good illustration of this. If we don't have top-tier ones, then we'll pile up with a bunch of advanced ones!
"There's not much profit, but at least it breaks even..." Xiaoyao muttered.
Although Xiaoyao still lacked money and materials, it was because of the consumption by Guxing, himself, and a little glutton. The pill usage of all three individuals (including the monster beast) wasn't small. But excluding their consumption, as Xiaoyao said, it could break even.
Excluding what they used themselves and still achieving a balance of income and expenditure meant their consumption had been earned back—this was already pure profit.
But this still wasn't enough. Xiaoyao needed more funds and more materials.
"We need to increase income in the future. Now we can't get any windfall..." Xiaoyao looked at the over sixteen hundred taels in his hand, frowning as he thought of solutions.
Previously, he could still get some windfall through Mo family affairs, but now he had left the Mo family. Opportunities like the Heavenly Wind Royal Palace wouldn't come again. The New Moon Empire wouldn't spend resources for talents from other countries—that would be making wedding clothes for others.
Therefore, he needed to find ways to make money in the coming days. He wasn't thinking about ways to make money—he had plenty of ways since he knew a little bit of everything. What he was contemplating now was which industry was the most profitable.
In the world, the most profitable things were often those with no capital investment: stealing, cheating, swindling, robbery, and extortion.
Xiaoyao had considered these, but the risks were a bit high. Of course, if necessary, he would still do it. He would engage in the most technical form of theft.
Theft had the highest cost-effectiveness among these options. It didn't require too much time, yielded the richest returns, and had the lowest risk of exposure, because only theft could be done without showing one's face at all.
Xiaoyao had never studied theft techniques, but he knew lock-picking, mechanism-opening, concealment, disguise, information gathering, and other skills. All the techniques required for theft, he knew, and could do them at the highest level. If he went out to be a thief, he would definitely become a legendary master thief.
However, as Xiaoyao said, this was only if necessary. Under normal circumstances, he didn't need to do this, since he had many money-making skills, several of which were extremely profitable.
The simplest was medical arts. This was one of the most profitable industries in any era and any world, because few people would gamble with their lives—they would use everything to buy their own survival.
Although Xiaoyao's current medical skills still lacked something compared to those super divine doctors, they were sufficient for making money. He believed that as long as he continued studying medical arts, the distance between him and those super divine doctors would shrink until he surpassed them...
Among the books Xiaoyao was currently reading were also medical texts. The more he read, the more advanced his medical skills naturally became. Books were the accumulation of predecessors' experience and knowledge, which could improve the experience and knowledge of any skill, naturally also improving the skill itself. As long as one was careful in verification and practice, it could lead you to the peak.
Yes, careful verification and practice were very important, otherwise it would just be armchair strategizing. Xiaoyao couldn't possibly make such elementary mistakes, as could be seen from his current level of ability.
Because he wanted to improve, Xiaoyao didn't use medical arts to make money by setting up stalls during the following ten-plus days. He wanted to finish reading through the Book Fragrance Tower, and ideally, if there was a chance, he could look at the collection in the New Moon Empire's imperial palace. However, this opportunity was very slim and wasn't realized this time.
(End of Chapter)