Looking at the busy shop across the street, Cleia felt unspeakably sad.
Since the opening of the shop called "Gest's Potions Store" across the street last month, Cleia's business has plummeted, and only a few potions can be sold every day.
The day to repay the money is getting closer and closer, but the savings in Cleia's hands are getting smaller and smaller.
If this situation continues, she will not be able to make up the shortfall by the end of the year.
At that time, not only will the potion shop, where all her efforts have been concentrated, become someone else's, but even her younger brother Blake will become a slave working for others for free.
At this time, Cleia regretted her previous decision.
Since Blanc was detected to have the talent of a spellcaster the year before last, in order to give him a better future, Cleia worked hard from dawn to dusk and worked four jobs a day.
But even so, the money she can get is only a drop in the bucket. Every piece of knowledge in the caster's mind requires real money and silver, and the physical work she does is not even a fraction.
With this rate of making money, even if Cleia was given ten years, she might not be able to collect the price of knowledge for her brother.
Just when Cleia didn't know how to get a lot of money in a short period of time, Rudd, the tavern owner who offered her a temporary job, provided her with a way.
Borrow money from nobles.
There are many nobles in Waterdeep City who specialize in lending activities, and they will provide certain financial help to their favorite goals.
In return for receiving sponsorship, the other party will either be unable to repay and need to work for them until it is repaid, or repay more money than the original loan in return.
This method undoubtedly made Cleia very excited.
After repeated discussions with her brother, Cleia found a noble who specialized in lending money. Using her brother's future as a guarantee, she easily obtained her first huge fortune from the nobles of Waterdeep City -
Twenty gold coins.
After all, no noble would think that this transaction would result in a loss.
The price is that after one year, she needs to pay back the other party thirty gold coins with interest.
If he cannot repay, then as a price, Blanc will have to work for the other party for free for ten years.
Fortunately, Blanc was also very successful. With his outstanding alchemy talent, he earned enough gold coins to pay off the loan within the first year, and there was still a balance of about ten gold coins.
Originally, if things ended like this, it would be considered a perfect ending.
However, as Blanc's strength increased, both knowledge and materials used for experiments became more and more expensive, so in order to have a better future, the two discussed and decided to borrow money again.
But unlike the last time they had a small fight, this time the siblings borrowed a hundred gold coins, which also took one year to repay.
After all, Blanc had easily earned dozens of gold coins last time when he was just an apprentice. Now that he is a junior spellcaster, there is no reason why he cannot even earn a hundred gold coins.
Having had the experience of working together once, the second loan came very easily for the two of them.
Moreover, after the other party learned that Blanc was already a junior spell caster, his attitude became even more enthusiastic than when they first met.
The terms of the loan are not much different from the last time, except that last time thirty gold coins had to be repaid, but this time one needs to be repaid a final one hundred and thirty gold coins.
After paying the tuition fee to purchase knowledge and purchasing some training materials, the two of them still had a balance of about ten gold coins.
After discussing with Blanc, Cleia used the remaining gold coins to open a potion shop in the trading area of Waterdeep City to sell the potions that Blanc usually made and to purchase some alchemy materials he needed.
.
Things went very smoothly at first.
The opening of the potion store indeed brought a lot of wealth to the two siblings.
After throwing away the money needed to purchase knowledge and materials, the two of them still saved a deposit of more than 70 gold coins, and there were still five months until the repayment date, which was still plenty of time.
Just when the two of them were full of longing for a better life in the future, something changed.
Last month, a potion store suddenly opened across the street from where the two siblings opened their potion store, selling some basic potions at even lower prices.
At first, Cleia didn't pay attention, thinking that the other party just opened a new store, and maybe the price would return to the market price in a few days.
But as time passed, Cleia felt something was getting more and more wrong.
There are fewer and fewer customers in her own store, and many of her old customers in the past have gone across the street to buy other people's medicines instead of hers.
After half a month, Cleia finally became anxious when she saw that the situation in the store still did not improve.
During this period, she also pretended to be a guest and went to the other party's house to buy a bottle of the most basic recovery potion.
Except for the slightly off-color color, those slightly red recovery potions were not only cheaper in price, but even more effective than her own recovery potions.
And in order to allow her younger brother Blanc to study hard and not be bothered by these mundane things, Cleia never told him about it and kept lying that the business in the store was still the same.
In just two months, the store has accumulated more and more basic medicines, and there are fewer and fewer gold coins on hand.
And faced with this situation, Cleia didn't think of any solution to the problem at all.
Seeing that the time for repayment was getting closer and closer, and the gold coins in her hands were getting less and less, Cleia couldn't help but feel deep despair and regret.
It was already noon, but she still hadn't sold a bottle of potion.
"Is this really all we can do?"
Seeing three more people enter the shop opposite, Cleia's face showed a trace of reluctance.
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"Hey~ If you want to buy recovery potions, this is the place to go!"
"It has been newly opened for two months, and the price is currently the lowest in Waterdeep City."
After taking Sauron and Kahn around for a few streets in the trading area of Waterdeep City, Hana finally stopped in front of the pharmacy called "Gest's Potion Store".
However, Zoro did not choose to go in immediately. Instead, he turned around and looked at the situation around the street.
In addition to the current "Gest's Potion Store", there are two or three other potion stores on this street. On the right side of Sauron is a pharmacy called "Blank's Potion Store".
It's just that the business of these potion stores is obviously not as prosperous as the business Hana introduced.
Perhaps, as Hana said, this "Gest's Potion Shop" is the cheapest potion shop in Waterdeep.