Chapter 258

"What price?"

Annie frowned in thought, occasionally glancing at the perfume in her hand. She remembered the perfume her mother had given her, which was supposed to be the finest kind. A bottle of it cost eight gold coins.

"Exactly, after all, you're the one who knows about perfume," Lucas said softly. When he mentioned "knows," he was referring to understanding the perfume of this era.

"The bottle I used before cost eight gold coins, but the fragrance is nowhere near as good as this one," Annie said, shaking her fox ears, seriously. "It's far worse than this bottle!"

"How long did it last?" Lucas asked, getting to the important question.

"About ten days. For some reason, that perfume started to have a strange smell."

Annie pouted. "I don't know if it wasn't stored properly; I only used it two or three times..."

"Uh..." Lucas's eye twitched. Eight gold coins for just two or three uses? That was pretty terrifying.

"I heard that perfume like that is rare. It's usually only available to the big nobles. That bottle was a gift given to my father by an envoy from the Kingdom of Siacan. My father gave it to my mother, who then passed it on to me." Annie said, her eyes filled with nostalgia and a hint of sadness.

"..." Lucas was speechless. The perfume seller was quite clever, giving the perfume to foreign royal families. The result was a brilliant advertisement for the product.

"That wasn't your fault. That perfume was just bad," Lucas raised an eyebrow and asked softly, "Was the perfume given to you in the summer?"

"Huh? Young master, how did you know?" Annie asked, surprised.

"Because of the weather, combined with the poor quality of the perfume, it would start to smell off after about ten days." Lucas said calmly.

"What? Are you saying that bottle of perfume only lasted for ten days?" Annie's brown eyes widened in disbelief. "That can't be right!"

"Well, did you use that perfume again afterward?" Lucas asked gently.

"No, I didn't. I heard that perfume was produced in limited quantities, and even the big nobles had to wait a long time to get it." Annie shook her head.

"That's the cleverness of the perfume seller. The fewer bottles they sell, the fewer chances there are for someone to notice the problem," Lucas said with a smile. He glanced at Annie and continued, "After all, nobles care about their face. Even if the perfume goes bad, they won't advertise it widely. After getting fooled a few times, they'll become more cautious."

His analysis came from some intelligence he'd gathered. The second floor of the Drunken Night restaurant was usually reserved by merchants, and many boastful merchants, who dealt in luxury goods like perfume, couldn't resist bragging about their products.

Coming and going. Lucas had gathered the specific details about perfume in this era, of course, he had to discount the exaggerated claims from merchants. The key topics were the perfume's shelf life, its exorbitant price, and its scarcity.

"It really seems to be like that..." Annie said, tugging at her fox ears awkwardly. The perfume had gone bad, and every time her mother asked about it, she would say it was fine, secretly hoping for another bottle.

"This is just outrageous!" Nicole exclaimed, her eyes fixed on the perfume on the table. She couldn't fathom that the perfume sold outside only had a shelf life of about ten days and was priced in gold coins.

"So, Young master, how long can your perfume last?" Annie asked, her brown eyes fixed on Lucas, her hands clenched tightly.

"Well! This one is made with essential oil and alcohol, with distilled water. After opening, it can last about six months." Lucas said, a confident smile curving on his lips.

"What? Six... six months?" Annie's brown eyes sparkled brightly, and her fox tail wagged excitedly.

The number also surprised Nicole; this was a bit extreme. Six months—enough to make the nobles go wild over it.

"Young master, the perfume market will be ours in the future." Nicole exclaimed excitedly.

"Of course!" Lucas nodded with a smile. This highly profitable industry was definitely something he intended to dominate.

"Young master, I think we can sell this bottle of perfume for twelve gold coins each."

Annie bit her thumb, her voice trembling slightly. "There will definitely be people fighting to buy it."

"Twelve gold coins, huh?" Lucas nodded. This was about what he had expected, but he wouldn't neglect the lower-end market either.

Lucas took the distilled water he had prepared earlier, drew some up with a syringe, and then created another bottle of perfume. However, the fragrance was half as strong.

"Young master? What's this?" Annie blinked in confusion. "The scent is much weaker."

Lucas held up the perfume mixed with distilled water and asked, "How much do you think this bottle should sell for?"

"This perfume's scent is still better than the one I had before," Annie hesitated, "How about we sell it for eight gold coins a bottle?"

"Eight gold coins, then." Lucas nodded. He then added a large amount of distilled water and created another bottle with an even milder fragrance. "This one will sell for four gold coins a bottle."

"Got it!" Annie nodded and began jotting everything down in her notebook.

Lucas continued adjusting the ratios of distilled water, essential oil, and alcohol, making several different versions of the perfume.

From 80 silver coins to 12 gold coins, Lucas had created five different levels of perfume, ensuring that he didn't leave out the merchants.

"Wow! I can't believe there are so many variations of perfume!" Annie marveled, her notebook already filled with pages of notes on the various perfume ratios.

"The tier of twelve gold coins will only have three hundred bottles a year." Lucas said seriously.

"Huh? Young master, why only three hundred bottles? That's way too few! Within a month, the nobility will snatch them all up!" Annie was surprised. She knew that other kingdoms also came to Siacan to buy perfume.

"Scarcity makes things valuable," Lucas replied indifferently. The first tier, with just three hundred bottles, would already bring in 3,600 gold coins in income, and any more would only invite envy.

"I understand," Annie said, her clever mind quickly grasping the idea that rarity is what makes the perfume precious.

"The second tier will have five hundred bottles a year; the third tier, one thousand bottles; the fourth tier, three thousand bottles; and the fifth tier, five thousand bottles." Lucas quickly decided on the quantities.

"Phew..." Nicole was breathing quickly, her eyes darting across her notebook as she rapidly calculated the profits. As she worked through the numbers, she started to feel dizzy.

After subtracting costs, the annual profit from perfume alone roughly amounted to a terrifying 18,000 gold coins—nearly double the income of a duke's entire territory in a year.

"Young master, this... this cannot get out!" Nicole was trembling. "If this profit gets out, those powerful nobles, even the royal family, will stop at nothing to seize it!"

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