great-warnovel Chapter 130 The Perfume Industry
Chapter 130 The Perfume Industry
Chapter 130 The Perfume Industry
After the little incident, everyone's spirits were low, but after browsing around, everyone still managed to pick and choose and buy some small items.
The Weasley twins used the money they borrowed from Hermione to buy a lot of firecrackers. These firecrackers exploded when they hit water, and setting them off all at once was quite spectacular. You can imagine that this Christmas will be very lively.
Harry bought a Quidditch book that was a bestseller fifty years ago, "The Noble Sport of the Wizards," which is now being reprinted and is still quite valuable to collectors.
Ron bought a finely crafted short sword. He felt that focusing solely on defense was too passive, and he could use the short sword to learn about magical weapons to make up for his weaknesses.
Neville picked out an unwanted toad pet from the exotic animal exhibit, named it Leif, and treasured it dearly.
Hermione, however, reaped the most rewards: gifts for the professor and her friends, fragments of Galatea's offspring, anti-curse glitter, a perfumery business deal that might involve a large sum of money, and oh, the remaining half-cartload of horned beetle food, which she planned to take back to see if the eight-eyed spiders were interested.
Upon returning to the castle, she immediately went to see Professor Lily. This business involved leveraging the professor's influence, and it was highly likely that she would have to step in later. Hermione alone probably wasn't qualified to negotiate with Beauxbatons on equal terms.
Lily was also surprised. She majored in potions, and at her age, to become a world-renowned potions master was obviously quite focused. She was busy teaching and processing orders every day, and had never even considered alchemy before. But now that she thought about it carefully, it turned out to be true.
She thought for a moment: "Is it hard to find the raw materials for your trigger spray?"
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"Some basic spices, and the rest can be found in the school's greenhouse," Hermione replied.
Lily stood up and paced around the potions office. After a moment's thought, she looked up and said, "If this deal can be done..."
"We will inevitably have to expand production, and I think you certainly don't want to waste all your energy in the workshop."
"Are you willing to disclose the formula to a limited extent?"
Hermione nodded. She had expected this. She couldn't let a business keep her locked up in a dark basement forever.
However, she had no experience in how to make it public or how to train reliable perfumers. There were too many magic tricks in this world that could be used to extract secrets, and she needed to consult with experienced potion masters.
Seeing this, Lily continued, "You know, each professor usually forms a club for their own subject, and so do I. The Deer Club is open to all students in fifth grade and above who are interested in Potions."
"There are some promising young players in the club now. If you'd like, I can bring them over and have them make an unbreakable vow to you."
"Then I will act as the keeper of secrecy, using the spell of unwavering loyalty to protect the safety of the formula."
The Unbreakable Oath Group is a multi-person version of the Unbreakable Oath, usually used by subordinates to pledge allegiance to their leader. Nobles often used this trick, and subordinates who broke their oaths would suffer a terrible death.
However, the Unbreakable Curse only guarantees that they dare not voluntarily reveal the secret. If the enemy uses mind control or truth serum, they will still be unable to do so.
They will also reveal the secret before the curse takes effect.
The "Loyalty Spell" is usually used to keep a relatively stable secret that is not easily spread, such as a hidden address or important information known only to a few people.
However, the drawback of the Fidelity Spell is that the person keeping the secret can inadvertently reveal it, for example, by accidentally losing the recipe.
The incantation of loyalty and devotion would be rendered ineffective without anyone noticing. Moreover, since perfumery recipes are a type of intellectual property secret, the incantation of loyalty and devotion would have to be broken every time new staff members were recruited. It would be too troublesome to rebuild the incantation of loyalty and devotion with all the staff every time. Furthermore, the power of the incantation of loyalty and devotion is insufficient, and the leaker usually goes unpunished and may not even know who the leaker is.
Therefore, using the Unbreakable Charm and the Loyalty Charm in combination for keeping secrets is more cost-effective. All perfumers need to do is cast the Unbreakable Charm, and then another person will guard the secret of the formula alone.
In this way, perfumers know the formula but cannot actively leak it. And because of the protection of the Loyal Heart Mantra, even if others use mind control techniques, they cannot see the information in their minds.
The only flaw in this method is Lily; every time she recruits more people, she needs to cast the Fiery Faith spell again.
If she leaks the secret herself, there's nothing that can be done; everything depends on the guardian's own conscience.
But Hermione trusted this Potions professor completely. If Professor McGonagall felt like a strict but kind grandmother to her,
Professor Lily is a kind and tolerant mother.
Perhaps because she didn't have a daughter, she wasn't as gentle with Harry, but she took extra care of Hermione. During Hermione's first summer at Hogwarts, she felt as warm and comfortable at the Potters' house as if it were her own. Even when Hermione sometimes broke the school rules by going out at night with the boys, she would only blame Harry for leading Hermione astray.
Hermione would feel very reassured if she were the secret keeper; no one knows better how to keep a formula secret than a Potions Master, and she is also very difficult to threaten or bribe.
"You've thought of everything very carefully. Let's do it your way." Hermione immediately pulled a blank sheet of paper from the table and wrote down the formula for the trigger spray.
Lily laughed and said, "You trust me too much. If this deal goes through, even I will be envious."
"But we don't need to rush. Beauxbatons should need some time to react."
"I will first ask interested students and then gather them together."
"I suggested setting up the initial workshop at the school, as this would ensure better confidentiality. Professor Sprout could become completely self-sufficient by simply making slight changes to the greenhouse planting ratio, keeping the spray formula a secret from outsiders."
"However, in that case, you'll probably have to give some shares to the school, which would be like Hogwarts and you jointly running a factory. What do you think?" She asked Hermione for her opinion. After all, although it was said to be Master Lily's new research, the entire perfumery discipline actually belonged entirely to Hermione.
"That's even better!" With Hogwarts as her backing, she's no longer afraid of being envied by those with ulterior motives. As a Muggle orphan with no background or power, Hogwarts is naturally her biggest support, and it's only reasonable for her to get a share.
So the two of them went together to the Transfiguration Office to discuss cooperation with Professor McGonagall, the actual principal.
McGonagall never expected such a windfall. According to expert Lily's estimate, given the size of Beauxbatons' alchemy business and the highly versatile auxiliary effect of the trigger spray, Hogwarts could generate a steady stream of income from this single share.
Leaving aside its role in specialty alchemy, this spice is equivalent to speeding up the entire refining process in general industries. All basic steps can be significantly accelerated because of it, and many steps that require the continuous addition of consumables to maintain reaction time can also save a lot of costs.
This means that Beauxbatons' production capacity will increase dramatically, resulting in Beauxbatons' competitiveness overwhelmingly surpassing all other small workshops, including those in large settlements that were originally capable of competing with Beauxbatons.
Even with the support of nobles, they will be powerless to resist the influx of inexpensive and high-quality industrial metal products.
Unless Hermione also opens up the purchase rights to the trigger spray, which depends on how much Beauxbatons is willing to pay to compete for Hermione's exclusive agency rights.
If Hermione were to be ruthless, she could easily use her connections with the professors to reveal the existence of the trigger spray to various settlements, leading to a bidding war that would have earned her even more. However, she's not a pure businesswoman; her main focus is on magic and her own improvement. As long as Beauxbatons offers a reasonable price (as Professor Lily would decide), she doesn't want to make things too complicated.
For her, this business is enough to ensure she has enough to eat and drink after graduation.