Ch.2727. Alchemist Lee Jihyun

Lee Jihyun is an alchemist.

A hunter who awakened with A-class alchemy abilities.

Her specialty is potion production.

Though she can’t enter dungeons to hunt monsters, she ironically receives more love calls than dungeon hunters, with offers of high salaries and a flood of guild recruitment inquiries from everywhere.

Potion-making hunters don’t necessarily have to join guilds.

These days, university hospitals and large medical centers also recruit hunters.

Hunters with healing abilities are in such high demand it’s exhausting to even talk about, and hunters like Jihyun who can make potions are valuable for creating potions and healing herb ointments.

Of course, if you’re chasing money, most people join guilds.

Lately, many large corporations and wealthy companies have been gathering promising hunters to start businesses, and to outperform competing companies, they need to secure good hunters first—which ultimately means showering them with money.

Compared to places that strictly try to minimize salaries, these opportunities might be less secure, but they offer definite compensation.

Nevertheless, Jihyun rejected all offers and was developing her alchemy abilities on her own.

The reason was obvious.

Growth.

And increasing her market value.

Hunters with alchemy abilities are truly rare.

Particularly, among the Hunter Association, there aren’t even 1,000 hunters registered in the alchemy field in Korea.

Considering that over 95% of them have C-class abilities or lower, Jihyun’s A-class alchemy means she has an extremely high ceiling for growth.

Plus, she’s young.

With her whole life ahead of her, this time is an investment in her future.

She was convinced that even if she struggled for a few years, by diligently raising her level and skills, she could earn dozens or hundreds of times her current salary or generate direct income.

After all, alchemy, like other hunter abilities, improves with growth.

Not all potions are the same.

Jihyun is someone who has vaguely grasped this principle of being a hunter.

Every hunter knows that even with the same ability, the results differ depending on the effects of the skills used when making potions—naturally, since the grade of the ability and the grade of the skill are different.

But not many alchemists research how the grade and condition of the ingredients also affect the outcome.

That’s why Jihyun was running around the Hangang Market herself, purchasing healing herb ingredients.

To raise her alchemy level, it’s important to make various potions and many of them, but since making potions costs money either way, if she couldn’t manage both quantity and quality, she had to focus on one—and Jihyun chose the latter.

Healing potions are in high demand.

The price of healing herb fruits is mostly fixed, and processing them into healing potions yields at least some profit.

When selling as an individual, you have to sell a bit cheaper due to taxes or cash transactions, so the profit margin is embarrassingly small, but at least she gains experience.

She avoids losses while gaining experience.

That alone is reason enough to put in the legwork.

So today, too, Jihyun was wandering around Hangang.

No matter how much effort she puts in or how little profit she makes, what matters most is luck.

“Healing herbs are so hard to find these days.”

The hunter market has existed for over ten years.

It’s become a red ocean, and dungeons are so saturated that it wouldn’t be strange to hear there are no more dungeons to mine, yet day by day, dungeons keep increasing and the demand for hunters keeps rising.

Resources naturally become both rarer and more abundant, but with increased usage, their value rises rather than falls.

The world now cannot function without dungeons.

Especially healing herbs, the most basic resource related to life, have become so scarce that they haven’t been seen in the market for three days straight.

It’s not that there’s no supply.

It’s just that hunters have so many convenient and profitable ways to sell them that they don’t bother bringing healing herbs all the way to the market.

In the end, the only option is to buy at high prices, but even then, healing herbs sell out so quickly that finding decent ones in this vast market is like catching stars from the sky.

She’d be willing to reluctantly buy even one or two poor-quality healing herbs at this point.

But today, she got lucky.

“Healing herbs! Fruits! Leaves! Why are there so many?”

Since healing herbs wouldn’t be left in places where many people pass by, she was walking through a more secluded area when she spotted brilliantly red fruits gleaming from afar and immediately ran over.

Seeing people already gathered ahead, she was certain.

They were healing herbs.

Up close, they were definitely healing herbs.

There were dozens of fruits and so many leaves it looked like someone had pulled up weeds.

Jihyun looked at the seller in surprise.

“Are these stolen goods?”

The quantity was so unbelievable that her words came out rudely.

Well, healing herbs aren’t exactly rare or difficult to obtain.

With luck, finding a dungeon where they grow in large quantities could easily yield this much.

But from what she could see, these were in excellent condition too.

“No. Did you grow these yourself? Why are they in such good condition?”

Jihyun repeatedly expressed genuine admiration as she crouched in front of the healing herbs, examining the condition of the fruits with her eyes.

Her personal alchemy philosophy held that the freshness, shape, and size of ingredients were very important.

Even if the item information showed them both as E+ grade, smaller ones with darker colors would produce potions with noticeably less healing power.

The fact that these hadn’t sold yet seemed impossible.

Looking at the price tag, she couldn’t help but nod in understanding.

“D+. C-. The price…”

The grade matched the brilliant glow and the fruits that were 20% larger than ordinary healing herb fruits.

She had already confirmed through the item information that the seller wasn’t lying about the grade.

The grade and quantity made her wonder if they were actually cultivated.

No seller would answer such a question, but she was genuinely curious.

And she felt greedy.

If she could buy this entire quantity, how many potions could she make?

Wouldn’t she be able to raise her level by at least 3?

Moreover, though her specialty was potions, healing herbs were also used in ointments, so she naturally had her eye on those too.

Ointments are also a type of alchemy.

Usually, people just crush healing herb leaves and mix them with various ingredients to use as ointments, but ointments made with skills are definitely more effective.

She glanced at the seller.

He was handsome.

Tall too.

A coolness and indifference that suggested he’d never experienced hardship was plastered all over his good looks.

Even now, his expression clearly showed he wanted to sell quickly and go home, making the gathered people hesitant to start haggling.

It was kind of funny.

Some of the merchants sitting around in this market were people she knew well.

Those who would brazenly rip off a sucker by lowballing prices were like cancers in this market.

Yet even these people couldn’t attempt to haggle.

And for good reason—the sword the handsome man was carrying looked extremely threatening.

It matched his expression well, giving the impression of a mad… well, not dog, but a mad handsome wolf.

It felt like if you bothered him wrongly, he might actually bite.

So Jihyun also hesitated to speak up.

First, her bank balance came to mind.

The fact that all these people weren’t leaving despite being unable to even attempt haggling meant they still had lingering interest.

If the quality of the goods looked good to her, it would naturally look good to others too.

So she had to decide whether to buy at a high price or give up.

Not leaving meant waiting for the right moment to buy, even at a high price.

‘Maybe I should get a loan…’

Would an opportunity like this come again?

She had been thinking that someday she would need to invest for growth anyway…

Just as she was about to gather her courage and speak, the seller spoke first.

“Are you an alchemist?”

“…What? Me?”

“Yes.”

“Ah… yes! How did… yes, I’m an alchemist.”

She nodded quickly, asking back in response to the completely unexpected question.

The man briefly looked Jihyun up and down.

From head to toe.

His gaze lingered in the middle long enough to make her blush slightly, but his next words washed away any embarrassment.

“Can I have your number?”

“…Pardon?”

“I’ll sell everything to you. Please give me your number. Let’s talk somewhere else.”

“…”

What is this?

Is he hitting on me?

For a moment, Jihyun’s mind went blank.

But amidst that, her instinct—her desire to succeed—gave commands to her frozen body.

Nod, nod.

Her phone was handed over to the man’s hand.