Self-Grown, Sold Cheap, Chicken Game? I'll Return It in Kind

The current state of the potion market — HP potions, doping enhancers, MP potions, the whole spectrum — could be summed up in one simple phrase: monopoly by the big pharmaceutical companies.

Individual buyers had no choice but to rely on private sellers hawking hard-to-find materials at auction house prices padded with fees, and they were inevitably crushed under corporations with unlimited capital — fully built infrastructure, aggressive marketing, ad campaigns, and bargain prices on top of it all.

And even that wasn't the whole story. For other pharmaceutical companies, jumping in had been unthinkable for a long time already; they simply couldn't stomach the combined power of Taesung Pharmaceuticals, which had stormed to the front of the potion market ages ago, and its cadre of A-rank alchemists.

Corporations aren't stupid. They gamble on a fight only when there's a hill worth dying on and a plausible chance of winning — nobody sane stakes their company's very existence on pure pride.

And so the monopolized market stretched out before us today. The Alchemist Gallery cursed Taesung into dust and beyond for creating this mess, but curiously enough, the Hunter Gallery's assessment of the company wasn't all that bad.

It wasn't wrong. Whatever their ulterior motive, the losses Taesung Pharmaceuticals was swallowing at this very moment could honestly be sold to consumers as "good honest prices born of competition."

There were plenty of people who, even while cursing the alchemists, begged them to hold out to the end so Taesung's prices would stay where they were.

Which meant the core keywords came down to three. In-house production. High-volume, low-margin. Chicken game.

Produce the Life Herbs themselves to slash costs, sell in massive volume at cheap prices, still turn a profit. Even running in the red, if you frame it as the price of monopolizing the market, it suddenly made sense why they'd push raw material prices sky-high to corner the ingredient supply too. And topping it all off, the insane final move of slashing and locking prices by carving flesh off their own bones.

Independent alchemists had zero reason to wade into that.

How dire the situation was showed in Lee Arin herself — an S-rank alchemist holding the title of Korea's number one — who hadn't made money brewing potions so much as piled up 1.3 billion won in debt.

So the decision was simple: I would use Taesung's strategy exactly as written. Fight fire with fire; an eye for an eye.

Not that that was the intent. It just so happened, by pure coincidence, that the same strategy was available to me too.

"You can self-produce the Life Herbs, the raw extract, even Amplification Powder, and the other materials aren't that pricey if you buy them at the auction house. You might end up growing the high-grade stuff yourself too. And mass production at rock-bottom prices is where you truly shine, oppa — your labor costs are literally zero. If you still make money on every single unit sold, can you really call it a chicken game?"

Kim Yerin, who'd been lazing around the house, had spotted the potions listed on the channel and came bounding over in a flurry of excitement.

Unsurprisingly, word from Lee Arin arrived not long after as well. But I thought the price was just right — after all, whatever price I set would become the market price.

The price was exactly one-quarter of the A-rank potion Taesung had released under its so-called "premium line." Consider the listings side by side:

But as for performance? There was simply no comparison.

Nobody had to tell consumers to compare — comparison happened all on its own. Especially since Taesung Pharmaceutical's A-rank potion had launched just days earlier as a "premium line," flooding money into ads and hype, the gap could only get thrown into even sharper relief.

How much had they spent, I wondered? Television, dramas, YouTube, social media, even Taesung Channel events. Every last won poured into promotion became fuel that handed the 100x Potion its wings as a point of comparison.

Seeing the opportunity, I listed another hundred potions and let the word spread.

Then I posted an official announcement.

Truthfully, the 100x Potion [Hero] had originally been meant for personal use — I'd planned to list a token hundred or so purely to keep Taesung's so-called "premium line" A-rank potion in check. But once the sales went live, the response was so overwhelming, and the gap between the two potions' options so absurd, that I had no choice but to list more.

And above all, I wasn't the only one getting fired up by this reaction.

I hadn't planned on listing any more, but when your slave volunteers to work herself to the bone, refusing would've been a crime against productivity.

I sell a product, and I get showered with praise. Meanwhile Taesung, sitting idle, watches its image plummet through the floor.

Granted, these were just the handful of Hunter Gallery community users, so Taesung might dismiss them — but in this day and age, the influence of online communities, social media, and above all the Hunter Gallery, where countless people gather, is not something to be lightly ignored. Just look at the fact that it became the talk of the Hunter Gallery and sold out in three seconds flat.

My balance — which I'd drained by lending Lee Arin 1.3 billion won — had quietly filled itself right back up.

So this is why people farm.

And this was pocket change. I hadn't even used half of the potion ingredients I'd handed over to Lee Arin, and the warehouse was already stacked with over three hundred raw Life Fruits.

And this was only the beginning. So this was what it felt like to get rich overnight.

At the sting of a gaze on me, I turned my head to find Kim Yerin perched on the edge of the bed, watching me with eyes practically sparkling.

"What?"

"Nothing. It's just, seeing you so happy makes me happy too. Not that I want anything, obviously. You already gave me stuff before, plus five sets of the wild-dog armor — what more could I possibly want? I'm just saying I'll keep going out there and grinding away, fetching water and everything."

Transparent flattery, transparent scheme.

But an amount I'd never once held even in games made me want to bask in it.

"Fine. You work hard out there too — you should buy yourself whatever you need."

I transferred 200 million won to Kim Yerin.

"Oppa. Can I say something I've never said in my entire life?"

"No."

"I love you!!"

"Ugh, get out."

I kicked away the lunging kiss and she bolted out of the room, cackling that she'd take that as a yes.

"I've got shopping to do tomorrow, so stay on standby!"

"Yes sir!!!"

Who knew being a good older brother was this easy?

Grow Life Fruits and Life Herbs myself on the 100x Server, drag in an S-rank alchemist to work for free, print money like a photocopier — and all it takes to keep the little sister happy is pocket change?

With what remained, I started digging through the auction house for materials to bring back to the 100x server.