Thumbs Up, Level Up

Chapter 140

“As you know, the potion itself was put on review by Jungjin, and it passed, as expected. Did you know that even among D-grade potions, there are differences in performance? This is a gap that is difficult to determine just by reading System messages,” Mu-Cheok said.

‘Yes, I know that,” Ji-Cheok answered while tightening some screws into the floor.

“The D-grade potion that you made is considered pretty good among D-grade potions, and the ingredients do not conflict with any of the 20,432 existing patents. So… it’s a new recipe.”

“Wow, I can’t believe they’re checking recipes on my skills. That’s so fucked up.”

“We can’t do anything about that. This is how the potion business is operated. We’re a small business that is stepping into a market dominated by large corporations.”

Mu-Cheok said while handing over the next document.

“And… The price of the potion will be exactly 799,800 won. Are you serious?” Mu-Cheok said.

Ji-Cheok gave the middle finger to the corporations.

“This is for all you filthy colluding bastards~ The E-grade potion is one million won, but I’m going to sell the D-grade potion for 799,800 won. Let’s see how the market turns,” Ji-Cheok said.

Mu-Cheok looked at him with a smile and replied,

“Okay, Ji-Han said he is going to take care of the aftermath. To be honest, I don’t know if we can stop full-on attacks. Ji-Han said he would hire private mercenaries, but I think it’s better to invest that kind of money into buying drones.”

“We just have to hope that the modified drones will do their job.”

Ji-Cheok didn’t know how helpful the drones would be if an attack happened, but since the potion machines were summoned beasts, the drones just needed to buy time until Ji-Cheok unsummoned them.

‘If they find out that the machines are summoned beasts, they’ll come to kill. Oh well, it wouldn’t be the first time, so why am I even surprised?’

“Hyung, you’re crazy.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“The paperwork is now complete, so all you have to do is launch your product, hyung.”

“Okay. How about the websites for our product?”

Mu-Cheok closed his eyes and lifted his head slightly. Then, he opened his eyes, and blue light flickered in his pupils.

“Everything is ready now,” Mu-Cheok said.

“It’s amazing that you can do that without a computer.”

“Do you want to learn it?”

“Ah, that’s okay. I’m just going to keep training my old cultivation skills. Go ahead and make your own universe, while you’re at it.”

Then he asked Mu-Cheok,

“Can I turn on my live stream now?”

The live stream was to advertise his potion.

“Well, there are three minutes and twenty-three seconds until the preview time. I think it would be better to turn it on then,” Mu-Cheok said.

“Got it.”

Ji-Cheok took out the rubber apron that alchemists often wore and put it on. He used skills to make potions rather than the usual laboratory setup, but he thought it would be a nice touch for the stream. Then, he put incense in rice bags that were spread out in the corners of the factory. This was an old superstition among Hunter Assistants.

‘Please keep an eye on me, and take good care of me, Mr. Alchemist.’

He didn’t know where people went after they died.

‘Let’s see if this place is really a cursed place.’

* * *

It was time.

‘Appearance, check. Costume, check. Stage, check. Everything looks good.’

Ji-Cheok turned on his stream.

“Hello everyone! Umji, Gumji! This is Um Ji-Cheok! Are you all having a good day? I’m doing great! Today, I invited my younger brother. Mu-Cheok! Come here!”

His younger brother strode forward with his tall body and filled the screen.

“Hello everyone. I’m Um Mu-Cheok.”

He closed his droopy eyes and smiled.

-Wow a brother stream today. That’s cool

-I just saw the post on Nstagram. I knew that they were together.

-You’re not in your usual dungeon. What’s today’s content?

“But first, please take a look at this!”

A subtitle saying that ‘This stream is a commercial.’ were sent out. The moment it popped up on the stream, viewers started to leave.

‘Oh my god! Just be patient!’

“You all might be thinking ‘Umji thinks his channel got so big that he can just put commercials in his stream?’ But just wait a minute. No, thirty seconds!”

-Did he just admit to his wrongdoing? LOL

-Is Umji… talking back to us?

-The two of you look good.

.

-But commercials are so boring…

‘Fuck it!’

“I started a potion business! Voila!”

He just showed the potion-making machine to the camera. When he showed it to the viewers, they stopped leaving the stream. However, along with the influx of new viewers, malicious comments also began to fill up the chat.

-Wow… You should be thinking about how to make your fans happy, but you’re already planning to take money from your fans… Wow, what a low blow.

-The price of potions is over one million won. Was your GodTube channel all part of your plan to take money from us? WOW

-If you want to do business with the fans, you should’ve started with small fan goods first. I can’t believe you started your business selling potions LOL Are you stupid?

-Is he collaborating with the big pharmaceutical companies and selling them? He’s just working as the frontman for the product.

Ji-Cheok expected this kind of reaction.

“The potion is a D-grade potion. The price is only 799,800 won! Oh, and the potion already passed the review from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. It will appear under the link, so you can take a look at that if you want.”

The chat stopped for a moment. It seemed like they were analyzing how a D-grade potion could be sold at such a ridiculous price. Ji-Cheok could hear the viewers’ brain stop working.

‘I would be like this too.’

If Ji-Cheok sold potions without permission from the government, he would be fined by the strict pharmaceutical laws. And the fact that he was involved with both Jungjin and Jungbi did not help. The parent company of Jungjin was Jungha Group, and Bi-Ga’s Jungbi was just too big of a company. It would be hard for Ji-Cheok to sell illegal potions with companies this big behind his back.

“I realized at Paju shelter that potions are very important. So, I did some research with the intention of making a potion with the same effect, but at a lower price…. And it was successful! Phew!”

Ji-Cheok exaggeratedly wiped off the sweat from his forehead.

“The potions are for sale. But we will sell it for a limited time.” Ji-Cheok said.

Ji-Cheok was only planning on selling one thousand bottles. Although it was a limited amount, it was not a small number.

However, within an hour of the stream, all D-grade potions were sold out. Then, resellers sold them once more for double the price. Funnily enough, this was profitable for both buyers and resellers.

?It’s sold out, it’s sold out, Master! Sold out!?

Cheok-Liang did his happy dance and Ji-Cheok was busy recording it with his phone.

“I should use this for the ‘sold-out’ dance.”

‘There’s going to be so many memes of Cheok-Liang dancing!’

* * *

?Potion manufacturing companies’ stock prices crashed!?

Jungha Group, Shinsung Group, Daehun Group, GK Group, and SL Group. These were the top five companies in Korea. All of these companies had subsidiaries involved in alchemy and chemicals. The only difference was that some companies made alchemy and chemicals their main focus, and others held on to them only for tax reasons. For example, Daehun Group’s subsidiaries working with alchemy and chemicals specialized in special concrete research. As a construction company, they believed that medicine for buildings was more important than medicine for people. Likewise, the Jungha Group was primarily involved in alchemy that helped with their mechanical engineering. The GK Group specialized in manufacturing coolants for the automotive heavy industry. On the other hand, the SL Group was a company where alchemy and chemicals could be said to be their main focus.

The SL Group, which had recently shared stock with foreign pharmaceutical companies, accounted for forty-six percent of the Korean potion market, and the remaining shares were occupied by pharmaceutical companies in the United States, China, and Japan.

The stock of SL Chemical, which was the representative company of the SL Group and served as a holding company, fell by thirteen percent. That was already a massive dive, but the next day it fell another nine percent!

It was not just SL Chemical that had fallen—all of the large potion manufacturing companies plummeted. Although the decline stopped for a bit, the amount of money lost by the companies was still a tremendous amount.

However, nobody thought it was strange. Some crazy kid started dispensing D-grade potions at a price of 799,800 won. This was the kind of price that could only be seen in infomercials.

—Currently, we estimate that the quantity he can produce per day is one thousand bottles. And it’s run by machines, not people, so the production doesn’t need to be stopped for things like food and sleep.

“This kid thinks he can do anything he wants. He has no fear.”

—The average price of a D-grade potion is two million won, and he just launched a product that was 1.2 million won cheaper than that. I’ve given money to reporters to make bad rumors about the product, but it is not easy. Jung Ji-Han is doing everything in his power to fight back, and he is backed by the Jungha Group.

“There is the Korean proverb ‘You get what you pay for’. Can’t you just write articles saying that since the potions are cheap, the quality will be worse than other potions?”

—Even if the quality is worse than other D-grade potions, the consumers are still willing to buy cheaper potions. Plus, the System doesn’t lie.

“System, System! I don’t want to hear about the fucking System!”

—I showed it to alchemists with observation skills, but they couldn’t find any side effects from his potions.

“So you’re saying that his potions are the same quality as other healing potions on the market. And Hunter Um Ji-CHeok will get stronger, which will result in faster potion production.”

If that happened, the price would go down even further. The pharmaceutical companies would have to lower their price to compete with him.

“And as for the military side?”

—They said they will continue to use our products. But I don’t know what will happen if the government changes in the next election.

This was very problematic for Park Mak-Gi. He was the Chairman of the SL Group. He knew that he had to reorganize the whole lower-grade potion market. Although he was close to eighty years old, various skills and elixirs preserved his youthful looks quite well, and he looked merely in his mid-fifties.

He sat in front of the phone with the blood vessels on his forehead about to pop. He looked like a reincarnation of a demon king.

“Alright, that’s it for now.”

He hung up the phone and took a deep breath. Then, he called another number. After a few rings, someone answered the phone on the other side. Even before he could hear ‘Hello?’, he started to talk angrily.

“Hey, Chairman Jung, what are you doing trying to benefit from other people’s turf?”

—Haha. How are you, Chairman Park? What can I do? My youngest grandson did this all on his own.

“Oh, really? So your youngest grandson did this independently? So you would be fine if I taught him a lesson, also independently?”

—I can’t let you do that. Don’t you think that if anyone is going to teach him a lesson, it should be his own grandfather?

“Ha….Hahaha.”

Chairman Park could feel how calm his interlocutor was just from his voice over the phone. It meant that Chairman Jung wasn’t going to do anything to punish his grandson. Chairman Park laughed, with a distorted expression.

“Hey, Man-Deuk.”

—Oh hi, Mak-Gi. Why are you calling people by their first name so randomly?

“Do you really want to do this? Okay, let’s do it. If something happens to your grandson, I will be sending you some flowers to comfort you.”

—Do what you want. Anyway, I’m going to hang up.

Click.

The call was disconnected. Chairman Park Mak-Gi stared at his phone and started talking.

“Hey, Il-Sung.”

“Yes, Chairman.”

Park Il-Sung was the eldest son of Chairman Park Mak-Gi and the current CEO of SL Chemicals. As the undisputed first in line for succession, Park Il-Sung was already managing all of the SL Group’s work.

“This Man-Deuk is trying to start something with me. What is he trying to gain after all of this?”