Kuzunalis
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FLTL Ch 184. Precautions
🕑 Added 2025-03-07 14:30:03 +0000 UTCSyryne took a deep breath before she started explaining. "I had divided that twelfth batch of Losuvil leaves into four different parts once I had seen that it had lasted the longest so that I could try a different new method with each of them to make it last even longer - including repeating the process of preserving the ninth batch with all of them. I didn't achieve a good result with three of those smaller batches, so I will skip them for now."
She pointed at the clay pot in front of her. "This pot contains only one half of the two parts I had divided the fourth smaller batch into, the other also being discarded when it lost its effect. So the final process starts with immersing the intact leaves in concentrated juice of some Toloraberries for at least seven days - thankfully, ma had still kept a few of them in the kitchen so I took it from there. Then I removed the leaves and covered them with a good quantity of salt for three days."
She continued, "After that I cooked them in some ale, before adding a certain amount of dry roasted and crushed rizako mushrooms in it - which I brought from the shed in the south. Then I had to make it into a paste using a mortar and pestle before immersing it in some relatively concentrated alcohol for three days - for which Lord Kivamus gave me one of the precious few bottles of wine of the previous baron he had found in a locked trunk recently - and then I had to dry that paste near the fire, nearly roasting them, before I..." She kept speaking further enthusiastically but then paused and looked at others' faces, which just showed confusion.
Shaking her head, she explained, "The actual process is even longer and complicated, but I have noted it down in full detail, so we can repeat it in the future as long as we have all the materials available for that - including wine, Toloraberries and Rizako mushrooms."
Duvas exhaled loudly. "I'm just glad that Lord Kivamus chose you to do all this instead of me."
Syryne laughed, and looked at Kivamus. "Should I show some of the final product?"
Kivamus nodded. "Sure, but only a small amount, and then put it back. After dividing it so many times, there is only a small amount left here and we need to keep using this batch for as long as possible to see how long it remains viable."
Syryne nodded and walked closer to the table. She picked up a small wooden spoon and after dipping it into the pot, she brought it closer to show it to everyone in the light of the candle. It was a powdery reddish substance, which looked like it was completely dry.
Duvas took the spoon and brought it closer to his nose, sniffing it. "Doesn't smell like losuvil paste at all."
"We do need to use a few drops of water to make a paste from this before applying it," Syryne explained.
"That makes sense," the majordomo commented.
Kivamus was still thinking about it though. If this powdery substance contained the compound acetylsalicylic acid - which was better known as aspirin - then it stood to reason that it could also be effective if taken directly with water. He looked at Syryne. "Now that we have a powder which is still usable, next time I want you to give it to the injured guards to consume it directly along with some water. Use the smallest possible amount in the beginning, and if it doesn't work, keep increasing the dosage in very small amounts until it starts to work."
"But... losuvil is always used as a paste directly on the wound..." Syryne said with confusion.
"Yeah..." Kivamus muttered. There was still a lot of knowledge like the basic concept of atoms, molecules and compounds which were alien to these people. But he neither had an easily explainable way to tell about that, nor Syryne was ready to absorb that knowledge at this point. For now, he just waved it off, and tried to explain it in simple terms. "I know about that, but trust me on this. At this point that powder doesn't really resemble losuvil leaves anymore, like Duvas mentioned earlier. It is a highly concentrated compound now. Uh... basically, it contains the essence of losuvil leaves - which is the part which helps to reduce pain, fever or inflammation. So I'm quite sure that it will work even better if consumed directly with water."
Duvas and others looked doubtful about it, but Syryne gave an understanding nod. "You have been right about all of this so far, so I'll trust you on that. None of us could have expected that it was even possible to preserve the effect of losuvil leaves for longer than a week, but it can be done after all - just like you had expected."
"That's true..." Gorsazo muttered looking at Kivamus. "It seems your otherworldly knowledge is going to be even more useful here than I ever expected."
"Otherworldly knowledge?" Duvas asked with a raised eyebrow. "What does that even mean?"
Kivamus' breath hitched in his throat and he glared at his former teacher for the slip.
"Oh... uh..." Gorsazo hesitated. "I mean, the kind of things he has read in books, and the ideas he thinks of to help the village might very well be otherworldly in how innovative they are."
"That's true enough..." Duvas nodded with understanding.
Giving an exhale in relief, Kivamus noticed how Syryne was staring at him carefully, but he shook it off. "At this point this losuvil extract is dry enough, but we need something to seal it inside in the future to make it last even longer. Likely small glass jars, although they are going to be very costly -so even ceramic ones would do. We will have to buy some of them from any visiting merchants, but that's for after the winter, once the losuvil vines in the eastern hills start sprouting leaves again."
He looked at everyone for a moment. "Now that we know that we can preserve losuvil for at least a month, and probably even longer, I think it can turn out to be very profitable for us in the future. I think it would be a good idea to try to do it at a bigger scale in the future, so that we can try to sell them in nearby towns and cities. But we have to make sure that the exact process of preserving it doesn't leave this room."
Gorsazo looked at him in anger. "To profit from it would mean charging a high price from people who can barely afford it!" He continued loudly, "And if they don't have the money to buy it, it would mean someone in their family might lose their lives because of our... greed!"
Kivamus sighed and shook his head. "No, that's not what I meant at all. If... we are actually sure in a few months that we can make this powder last much longer, then we will sell it to traders, but at only a small margin. In fact, I will only sell it to trusted merchants like Pydaso after taking an assurance from them that they will not mark it up more than a certain percentage, otherwise even if we sell it to them cheaply they might just increase their selling price later. I am not going to profit from sick people who can barely afford to buy it, especially when we have so many losuvil vines in those hills that we might never exhaust them fully."
He continued, "But I still need to think of the village first. We were only able to afford to give Syryne access to these pots and the materials she used because we had the money to spare for it, even if barely. Think how many more such helpful things we can make in the future if we have the money to keep experimenting like this."
Knowing that Gorsazo knew about his past, he added, "Even if nobody else, at least you should understand that I am not lying when I say that I really have a lot of ideas to improve the lives of everyone." Thankfully, others would only think that he meant to say that he had gotten ideas from his studying at the library in the Ulriga Palace, instead of the real reason.
Gorsazo took a deep breath. "I... I know that. I shouldn't have shouted at you, but after hearing that you wanted to profit from sick people, when my own wife died because I couldn't afford to bring losuvil paste in time to save her just made me too angry to think rationally. But you are right, of course. If anyone else was saying this, I would say that they were lying, but I do agree that it's different with you."
Kivamus nodded, trying not to look at Syryne who was still frowning at him after listening to his teacher's words. "Exactly," he said. "This is still a long way away, but what I plan to do is to sell it at a high enough volume that we will still make a decent profit even if our margins are not high, since we are going to be the only source of this miraculous medicine. For example, if the usual losuvil paste sells for ten silvers in Cinran for a single use, maybe we can keep the price at five silvers - assuming that covers our costs and gives us a small profit. That way people would be able to afford it easily, and we would get a reasonable profit as well."
He added, "That's why I prevented our hunters who had gone to the east from telling anyone else about the source of Losuvil vines as a precaution, even though they will eventually let that information slip in the future. However, we have to keep the information of the preservation process limited to the few of us here. Do not mention even a single word about this process to anyone else."
Duvas frowned looking at Kivamus, "Is such a precaution really necessary though?"
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A/N: Enjoy the weekend, everyone! I'll see you on Monday!
Next chapter: FLTL Ch 185. Profiting Or Profiteering
Comments
Kuzunalis
Yup. Thanks for the correction.
Luqman Ul-Hakim
“In fact, I will only sell it to trusted merchants life Pydaso” - the sentence should be like Pydaso, i think
