Let's do it!

Leo immediately changed the topic, "Alice, you had a good background back on Earth. What do you think are the essential ingredients to create a solid background?"

Alice replied after some time, " For any good background 3 things are essential. One, power and money: more the better, although it's crude to think like this it's the reality. Two, connections: When you have a lot of connections, people think twice before messing with you. Three, hidden trump cards: One can't have a sunny day every day, when things go south, trump cards must hold the fort for you."

Leo was genuinely impressed by her reply. His problem of creating a background became streamlined now. A big problem would be a big problem until you break it down into small manageable problems.

Leo thanked Alice and let her carry on with her cultivation. He started to come up with a blueprint for the 3 things Alice just pointed out. Apart from background, his other requirement to pocket one million crystals was gaining a reputation in the potion hall.

But he was not worried about that as he had a good grasp of equipment and technical know-how after spending 2 weeks in the potion hall. It would have been impossible for any other person to gain such a mastery only after 2 weeks but Leo was not an ordinary person as he was equipped with the creation system.

What can't he buy using crystals? Everything was possible with the creation system. His poverty narrowed his imagination in the beginning but once he had a sufficient amount, he simplified everything with two words.

Just buy!

He used crystals to buy mastery over different aspects of potion-making in the creation system. Then he used his time in the workplace to try creating potions and without any surprise, succeeded the first time. Potion making was simply playing with ratios of different ingredients. After understanding the simplified knowledge of the creation system, he felt Potion hall's understanding of potions was only rudimentary.

He felt like they were kids playing with mud.

Now that he had mastery in potions, he had endless possibilities. He could create a new potion that was not in the market or simplify/strengthen an already existing potion or simply write research papers and publish it.

After thinking a lot, he decided to go with strengthening the already existing potion. Building reputation was like constructing a tower. One needs to go step by step. If he suddenly invent a new one, he would garner too much unnecessary attention. If the product succeeded, greedy people would not bat their eyes to kill him on sight.

Underworld was not some democratic country where people have fundamental right to live, you could die just when you were taking a piss in a random street and the worst part was, you wouldn't even know why you died.

By using the pretense of 'accidental discovery' he would first gain some reputation in the potion hall. Using that reputation he would build the foundation for his background. Then when he felt like his foundation was strong enough, he would come up with his own potion and build on his already existing reputation.

When he was finally satisfied with the background and reputation, he would go for a home run and provide the balanced equation, and pocket a million crystals. That way he would be able to effectively deal with the consequence of having that many crystals.

In conclusion, he couldn't isolate either background or reputation. He should use one to strengthen the other and propel himself up using the synergy between them. After organizing his thoughts, Leo finally let out a sigh.

"A million crystals are not easy to pocket." He had everything in his hands but he didn't dare to take the final bite as it was tantamount to suicide. Having the cake in your hand not being able to eat it was an unbearable feeling. It was similar to having a girlfriend but not being able to touch her.

Truly unbearable!

Anyway, to kick start the reputation and background game, he had already decided on the first potion. It was none other than the essence recovery potion, also known as stamina potion. It was the same potion that he gave to Alice when Clara was in a pinch. Clara's almost instant recovery was all thanks to that potion.

The most effective stamina potion in the market had a recovery rate of 50% within 5 minutes and its price was ridiculously high costing 50 crystals per bottle. It was pretty much a high ended product and was only affordable for rich people.

The normal one in the market which was accessible by most of the people in the underworld had a recovery rate of 30% within 30 minutes, costing 5 crystals. It had captured around 80% of the low-end market with a few others players playing around the rest.

But Leo's stamina potion had a recovery rate of 100% within 10 seconds!

If any other underworld resident heard this claim, he/she would simply laugh it off as a ridiculous joke. Forget about others, Leo himself didn't believe it when he first read the notification of the system after creating it, until he finally tried it himself.

Instead of happiness, he was scared shitless when he experienced the effects of the potion. His potion would create a blood bath immediately after it enters the market as its effect could change the way battle was fought in the entire underworld.

Just imagine that 2 guys were fighting for a treasure. If one person had a potion of 100% recovery in 10 seconds and the other had a potion of 50% recovery in 5 minutes, without any suspense the former would trump over the latter.

It's not just limited to individual fights, a group fight's dynamics could change instantly if even a single person carries Leo's potion. Forget even the group battle, war between heaven and underworld would be decided in a matter of days if underworld forces possess a huge amount of Leo's potion. Think about it, no matter how heaven-defying an expert in Heaven was, he would be eventually killed if he ran out of gas but underworld experts would not face that problem!

Even the almighty Heaven would cease to exist just with a single potion!

Yes, there was not an iota of doubt in Leo's mind. If he gave the potion to masters of Heaven, a similar fate awaited for the underworld. If he say that heaven and underworld were in his palms was not a far stretch statement at all. He could crush either of them without sweating a single drop.

To say that its effect was scary was really an understatement. If he used this potion to gain reputation…Leo felt chills just thinking about it. He immediately decided to reduce the effect to a 'reasonable' level.

After some calculations, he decided to go with the recovery rate of 40% within 20minuites. Every minute and every percent was important. It was a matter of life and death in a battle and it was a matter of victory or defeat in a war.

By focusing on the above recovery rate, he was trying to improve and capture the low-end stamina potion market. After he gained a low-end market, he would set his sight for the high-end market. Finally, he would swallow the entire stamina potion cake.

Although pills rule over potions in many areas, stamina was an exception. Potions undoubtedly dominate the stamina market. The main reason was the cost price. Unlike stamina potions, stamina pills were difficult to scale up due to their arduous process of making. To mass-produce stamina pills one needed to invest a sky-high amount of resources but it would be done with half an amount using potions.

In fact, the establishment of the potion hall was to address the issue of scaling up different products. Undoubtedly, it succeeded in the stamina area and a few other niche areas but it was still struggling in every other area.

If stamina potions were removed from the equation, then potion hall would have no reason to exist as it would be redundant because pill hall had a solution for all the problems. That's why potion hall was racking its brain to come up with a new line of potions to increase their survival rate in the market as it was just a matter of time before pill hall comes up with a solution for the mass production problem.

And that's the biggest reason why potion hall was offering such a huge reward for balancing an equation that was necessary for a breakthrough potion. As soon as they had a breakthrough potion they could kick start a new chain of breakthrough potions and increase their survival rate in the medicine market.

Everyone was trying hard to survive in the underworld, potion hall was not any different. Leo sighed as he was in the same boat as the rest.

"What am I waiting for? Let's do it!"