Vientiane Throne of Civilization

Chapter 2061 Life Potion
The nature of this life potion, compared to a potion, is actually closer to a spell like a healing spell.

It's like a healing spell that you can carry with you and, when necessary, simply uncork the bottle, pour it into your mouth, and it will take effect.

That's very tempting.

Often, when soldiers are seriously wounded on the battlefield, their life or death hinges on this one healing spell.

If we can ensure that every soldier has a bottle, then the casualty rate of the Great Zhou soldiers on the battlefield will drop significantly.

"Can this life-saving potion, the most common kind, be produced in stable, large quantities? What I mean is, I want every soldier of our Great Zhou to have a bottle when they go to the battlefield. Is that possible?"

Zhou Xu knew without asking that the life potion must have different levels. Could the medicinal effects of the leaves of a 1,500-year-old life spirit tree be the same as those of a 300-year-old life spirit tree? The extra 1,200 years couldn't have been wasted.

In Zhou Xu's view, high-year production was out of the question, but at least low-year production should be able to achieve mass production.

After all, he had visited the plantation of the Tree of Life, so he was quite certain that there were a large number of young Trees of Life.

However, the answer given by the elven apothecary was somewhat unexpected by Zhou Xu.

"If it's just one or two rounds of supply, there shouldn't be a problem. At the moment, raw materials are still relatively abundant. But if the frequency increases further, I'm afraid we won't be able to supply them."

"..."

Zhou Xu didn't need to ask again; the other party had already given an explanation.

“The Tree of Life is different from ordinary trees. Ordinary trees will turn yellow and fall off in autumn, and new green leaves will grow in the following spring.”

"But because of its strong vitality, even the most ordinary three-hundred-year-old Life Spirit Tree will not naturally lose its leaves throughout the year. The leaves will only fall off when its vitality begins to decline and it begins to die."

"So if we want to get leaves, we have to pick them ourselves."

"After the leaves are picked, new leaves will indeed grow the following year, but the newly grown leaves lack the accumulation of time, and the life energy they contain is incomparable to that of the original leaves."

At this point, Zhou Xu quickly understood.

Even if it's the same three-hundred-year-old spiritual tree, can leaves that have grown for three hundred years be the same as new leaves that have only grown for one year?

"The leaves of those trees can't be harvested only once every three hundred years, can they?"

In Zhou Xu's opinion, that was a bit outrageous.

But in reality, it's obviously not that far-fetched.

"No need for that. After all, the main body is a three-hundred-year-old spiritual tree of life. With the main body's abundant life energy as support, the newly grown leaves will, after settling for about five years, have life energy contained within them that basically meets the requirements."

A cycle of harvesting every five years is a bit long from a human perspective, but it's not unacceptable.

After all, a respectable country can't be at war every year.

While developing internally, they are also quietly accumulating strategic resources, so that when war breaks out, they can directly use the previously reserved strategic resources to defeat their opponents.

For the vast majority of countries, this is the normal pattern.

Sometimes, when faced with a tough battle, a single battle can wipe out decades of accumulated wealth; this has happened before in history.

It's worth mentioning here that, after being harvested, it takes five years for the Life Spirit Tree to regrow, but this only applies to Life Spirit Trees that are three hundred years old. The older the Life Spirit Tree, the longer it takes to regrow, and the more precious the material itself becomes.

"Surely this concocted life-saving potion can be stored for a long time?"

"Generally, the bottle opening of life-saving potions is sealed with a protective barrier, mainly to ensure that the potion inside remains in the same state as when it was first prepared. When the stopper is pulled out, the barrier is broken."

Wow, a magical vacuum extraction!

Of course, despite his complaints, Zhou Xu didn't believe that a vacuuming machine could replace this step.

First, you need to figure out what the key point of this step is.

The key to the sealing of the forbidden substance lies in sealing the life energy within the potion; otherwise, the energy will dissipate naturally, and it really has little to do with whether or not a vacuum is created.

Unable to hear Zhou Xu's inner complaints, the elven apothecary continued to explain.

“Under normal circumstances, the most common three-hundred-year-old life potion will have a relatively simple restriction, but it can maintain its effect for ten years without much problem. When it's almost time to expire, we can arrange to re-enhance the restriction to continue maintaining it, but…”

At this point, the elven apothecary changed the subject slightly.

"However, during the process of re-enhancing the seal, the original seal will be lifted, and the efficacy of the life potion in this bottle will be affected to some extent."

[Understood. Ten years is the optimal usage period. After that, repackaging it turns it into stale medicine, and its efficacy will decrease.]

In addition, the enchantment of restrictions also comes at a cost. Three-hundred-year-old life potions are the most common among the elves, and the elves cannot afford to invest high costs to enchant them with higher-level restrictions.

This is like a daily grocery-getter; it doesn't need a V8 engine, as the cost would be too high and wouldn't fit its intended purpose.

However, if materials that are over a thousand years old are used to concoct a high-level life potion, considering its value, the level of restriction will also be higher. The highest level of restriction can last for hundreds of years or even longer.

"After this restriction is added, is it guaranteed that there won't be any problems within ten years?"

"It's not that absolute."

The elven apothecary wasn't being stubborn at all at this moment.

The main point is that this is indeed the case; similar things have happened within the Elven race before.

If we understand a restriction as an automatically running program, then a low-level restriction is still a very rudimentary automatically running program. In ten years, who can guarantee that there will be no mistakes?
The simplest way is to store all the sealed life-saving medicines in one place and then conduct regular checks every once in a while.

While this will significantly increase storage costs, it can effectively reduce the risk of problems with the life-saving medicine.

After confirming the situation, Zhou Xu fell into deep thought.

The matter was actually more complicated than he had anticipated.

Many people may not realize that the cost of storing large quantities of supplies is actually very high, and the cost of storing even more important strategic materials is even higher.

The storage cost of this life-saving agent is no less than that of ordinary strategic materials.

(End of this chapter)