"Ten... ten percent...!?"
"Good god!"
"Doesn't that mean... if someone's Basic Ability hits 999, then taking the Monster Hunter Special and the Wild Mixture together would push them past 1000, all the way up to around 1100? That... isn't that the same as breaking the limit of the Falna!?"
Watching Alise practically leap out of her seat, Kaguya sighed and gave her a light nudge with her elbow:
"Idiot. Just the Monster Hunter Special alone is enough to push a single ability into the SS range..."
Alise blinked, then it dawned on her:
"Oh, right!"
Still... everyone seated here was a veteran adventurer, and they all knew this wasn't a breakthrough in a single ability, but an across-the-board boost to every stat.
A 10% increase to all stats. Just imagining the feeling was enough to set the heart racing.
Especially for old hands like Finn, Riveria, and Hedin. If they could push another 10% on top of their current numbers, then each of their specialized stats would reach 1098.9. Only 1.1 stat points short of 1100.
Aside from not looking quite as impressive on the parchment of their Falna sheet, it was already almost indistinguishable from SSS in any meaningful sense.
This was taking one more step at the very limit. The significance was on a completely different level.
Especially for old hands stuck at a bottleneck, the value of this combination was simply incalculable.
While the guests were still caught up in the shock of that "10% boost to all Basic Abilities," Iri returned to the living room holding the prototype of the Wild Mixture.
"Here."
Leon smiled as he took the crystal vial from her hands, thanking her softly. Once Iri had quietly taken her place at his side, he lifted the luxurious crystal vial, brimming with elixir and shimmering with rainbow light, up for everyone to see, and gave it a gentle swirl:
"This is the Wild Mixture."
The liquid inside was based in a warm amber-orange, with a dreamlike rainbow sheen flowing and shifting through it.
Riveria gazed at that play of color and spoke softly:
"May I take a closer look?"
"Of course, please."
Leon set the crystal vial down on the tea table and gestured with his hand.
Given permission, Riveria drew a deep breath, picked it up with great care, and held it before her eyes to examine it closely. That endlessly shifting, transforming rainbow really did carry a beauty that bordered on the unreal.
Finn narrowed his eyes, his sharp gaze sweeping over the vial and the liquid inside as he ran a quick calculation in his head:
One look at this presentation and you know it doesn't come cheap.
But on second thought, the New Year had only just passed, and the familia had recently used contribution points to offset a hefty S-rank management fee with the Guild, so they were fairly flush at the moment.
So even if this thing was priced steeply, as long as the effect was real, a large-scale purchase wasn't out of reach.
The only one to pity was Loki. She'd have to tighten her belt for a while.
Finn was still doing the math in his head when Hedin spoke up directly:
"However much you can produce, we, the Freya Familia... will take all of it."
Completely ignoring the stunned look Finn shot him, Hedin delivered the most arrogant declaration imaginable in a tone as flat as still water:
"Price is no object!"
"If there's one thing the Freya Familia never runs short on, it's Valis!"
Leon: "..."
The ladies: "..."
Alise & Kaguya: "..."
Finn & Riveria: "..."
Heith Velvet stared at Hedin, dumbfounded, feeling like the senior in front of her had suddenly become a total stranger. Was this really the cold, sharp-tongued Mr. Hedin she remembered?
The face he was making right now... how could anyone be this arrogant!
Finn slowly turned his head, clearly caught off guard by Hedin's remark as well.
Hold on, didn't we just have an understanding with our eyes? What's with you suddenly going solo here?
And "the Freya Familia doesn't lack for money," he says.
Who are you showing off for? You might as well come right out and say everyone else in this room is dirt poor.
...
Even though it wasn't the first time Leon and the others had seen this, hearing Hedin say it again still drove home just how filthy rich the Freya Familia was.
There was nothing for it. After all, the head of their familia was a goddess, and not just any goddess, but the Goddess of Beauty who presided over "beauty" itself.
As the Goddess of Beauty, having a huge number of devout, even fanatical followers (simps) was probably perfectly normal, right?
On top of that, with Freya's prestige and influence, never mind Orario, there was no telling how many people and powers across the whole world were dying to offer up their "tokens of affection" to the Freya Familia. And even then, whether she accepted them depended entirely on Freya's mood.
Then he thought back to their own Lady Demeter...
...Uh, come to think of it, that goddess who presided over harvest and compassion had never exactly been short on money either...
Never mind, then.
"Ahem..."
Leon cleared his throat lightly, trying to ease the slightly stiff atmosphere in the room, and raised a hand to cut off Hedin's "performance." He spread his hands helplessly, his face taking on a look that was both sincere and troubled:
"I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Hedin."
"About this... I'm afraid we can't agree to it."
Hedin frowned, displeasure plain in his voice:
"What do you mean? If you ramp up production and sell more, won't you earn more too?"
"Or is it that you don't like money?"
Don't like money? Now you're really overestimating me.
Leon grumbled inwardly, while his face kept its apologetic smile:
"There are a few main reasons production can't be increased."
As he spoke, he held up one finger:
"First, there's the alchemy process. Unlike the Monster Hunter Special, the Wild Mixture is an elixir, so the brewing process is inherently complicated and tedious. Some of the steps require lengthy, precise handling, with an extremely low margin for error, and on top of a low success rate... it all makes production very hard to scale up."
Then he held up a second finger:
"Second, there's the raw materials. Do you really think an elixir that boosts every single Basic Ability wouldn't be demanding about its ingredients? Not only must the quality strictly meet the standard, but some of the key materials... can only be obtained through sheer luck."
He paused, then gave an example:
"Take the Royal Honey I got from Miss Asfi. As small a thing as it is, dropped by a mere Lv.3 monster, it still comes from an uncommon Rare Species."
"So, you all understand my predicament now, don't you?"
After hearing Leon's explanation, Hedin, Finn, and Riveria fell silent.
As veteran adventurers, they of course knew exactly what a Rare Species was.
If Strengthened Species were still fairly uncommon on the Upper and Middle Floors, then starting from the Lower Floors, the deeper you went, the more frequently they appeared. Take the 40-plus floors they were currently tackling: nearly every few waves of monsters had a Strengthened Species mixed in, and they'd long since stopped batting an eye at them.
As for Rare Species...
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