[Chapter 469: Vitality Elixir, Crisis Resurfaces]
After successfully crafting the Beauty pills, Linton spent two delightful days enjoying the gardens with Madonna and her daughter, Sophie Marceau, Cristiana, Monica, and Noriko Sakai. Thanks to the exceptional culinary skills of chef team, they savored a variety of carefully prepared dishes each day.
Evenings were filled with lively, unrestrained parties. In this secluded paradise far from the city's hustle, life felt as carefree and blissful as a fairy tale.
...
Then, determined to push forward, Linton returned to the lab in the office building to continue refining the Beauty Pills. Before starting the potion-making process, he remembered he had to handle the packaging. He called Winnie, asking her to have someone design two exquisite plastic vials and immediately commission their production. The materials had to be non-toxic, with 100,000 units for one vial type and 20,000 for the other.
Modern pharmaceutical equipment had advanced far beyond ancient alchemist furnaces. Once the properties of the ingredients and every step of the process were understood, the entire procedure could be precisely programmed into machines, including every temperature and timing detail. In other words, once the elixir was successfully brewed once, the recipe could be replicated nearly perfectly every time, making future batches practically foolproof.
This was a far cry from the old days when elixirs were made solely by trial and error through a master's experience.
Linton then spent two full days using up all the ingredients for the Beauty pills. He produced over 6,000 pills, storing them all together in a large glass jar, which he then placed safely inside a space ring.
That night, he relaxed to recharge and chase after the pleasures of life. The next day, everyone woke up full of energy.
...
Linton made his way to a different lab room on the first floor equipped with more advanced pharmaceutical equipment. Here, he began working on the far more complex and potent Vitality Elixir.
This elixir required 18 different ingredients in total: three were the same as those used for the beauty pills, and fifteen were brand new. Among the three shared ingredients, one was suma root -- but there was a significant difference in the required age of the root.
According to the authentic Vitality Elixir formula, the principal ingredient of suma root had to be over 100 years old to have the proper medicinal potency. For the beauty pill, suma root was just a supplementary herb with no specific age requirement.
When Linton last procured herbs, he had purchased three types of suma root: wild suma root, forest suma root, and ordinary garden-grown suma root. The wild suma root was only about thirty years old, while the forest suma root was even younger at ten years. The beauty pills had been made with the garden suma root, and it had worked fine.
Now, unsure if these suma root roots would be potent enough for the Vitality Elixir intended for everyday use, Linton methodically spent two days testing all fifteen new ingredients plus two types of suma root to determine the best temperatures and processing times.
Then, after another two days and consuming over 60 batches of ingredients, he finally produced ten pills made of the elixir. The first batch used forest suma root.
Linton didn't bother with intricate designs for the pills; they looked similar to the beauty pills, just a bit larger. But after the pills were made, they didn't absorb ambient energy like the beauty pills did. Was it a failure?
He took a pill himself and, using his spiritual awareness, examined it internally. It had only a faint, subtle effect on the body, far from the promised power of the elixir.
Carefully reviewing every step and comparing it to the formula, nothing seemed amiss. The pills had formed correctly but failed at the last step -- they couldn't absorb the environment's vital energy to complete their crucial transformation.
What could be wrong? Could it be that the forest suma root didn't have enough potency, resulting in an inherently weak pill that couldn't interact with ambient energy?
Eliminating other possibilities, this seemed the most likely cause.
So he decided to try again with wild suma root, hoping for success this time. Although both were suma root, the properties of wild and forest suma root varied significantly.
Switching the principal herb meant restarting the production, but prior experience still helped. After a full day and wasting over 30 batches of materials, Linton finally succeeded again, producing ten pills.
Thankfully, this time the pills immediately began absorbing ambient energy as he watched, indicating success.
He took the ten pills to the beauty pills lab next door and placed them at the center of a small energy-gathering formation. The formation quickly amplified the external energy concentration to fifty times normal levels.
Through his mental focus, Linton saw tiny whirlpools form above each pill, which rapidly absorbed the energy and visibly transformed.
The Vitality Elixir was indeed a high-grade tonic that fortified the body's foundation, demanding far more energy than the beauty pills.
After two full hours of energy absorption at this intense concentration, the pills changed from nondescript white to a semi-translucent golden color, releasing a rich fragrance.
Linton tried one and carefully sensed the changes within his body. Unlike before, the pill emitted a vigorous vitality spreading through his organs and tissues, and some of this vitality flowed with his bloodstream into every muscle and bone.
Of course, since Linton was already at an elite vitality stage, his body couldn't benefit further. But the mechanism was clearly sound, and there were no side effects.
The question was how it would affect ordinary people. It seemed time to recruit test subjects.
With that, he deactivated the energy formation and took the remaining nine pills with him.
...
Back at the main house, he gathered Sophie Marceau, Cristiana, Monica, Noriko Sakai, and Madonna, presenting them with five pills.
"Wow, what's this? It smells amazing!" Madonna exclaimed.
"This is the Vitality Pill I personally formulated. It strengthens the body's core and boosts vitality. Each of you should take one and see how you feel," Linton said.
"What does 'strengthen the body's core' mean?" they all asked, intrigued.
"In other words, it makes your body healthier, younger, and more energetic," explained Linton.
"That sounds great. I'll go first." Madonna happily swallowed the pill.
After a short while, she described the effect: "It feels like a warm, soothing energy flowing through my whole body -- so pleasant."
Under Linton's mental observation, the pill's vitality was subtly permeating her body, though effects were not striking. This was mainly because Madonna's body was already highly nourished and regenerated from Linton's unique vitality essence -- she was 37 but could easily pass for an 18-year-old.
Sophie Marceau, Cristiana, Monica, and Noriko Sakai took the elixir afterward, experiencing similar effects.
This suggested that Linton's vitality essence alone provided superior nourishment compared to both the Vitality and Beauty Pills combined.
However, the Vitality Pill was too potent to give casually to assistants or household staff. Its effects were significant and should remain confidential.
Moreover, the elixir's raw materials, especially wild suma root, were extremely rare, limiting production quantity severely.
Linton then spent nearly another day completeing the processing of all Vitality Elixir ingredients, finally producing over 1,500 pills.
Because the main ingredient was wild suma root of over thirty years, this was destined to remain exclusive to elite and wealthy clients.
Due to the rarity of wild suma root, increasing scarcity was inevitable, with extinction a real possibility.
Linton wondered if the suma root he was cultivating on his farm, nourished by ambient energy, might eventually substitute for wild roots -- though for now, that had to be kept secret. If revealed prematurely, he'd find a better time to launch.
...
Linton's determination to develop these two elixirs had been forced by circumstances.
Two years ago, U.S. Senator Jennifer Cassito joined forces with eleven other powerful women and, through Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's director Caroline, established the "X Laboratory" aimed at discovering Madonna's secret to reverse aging.
During that time, Caroline tried to manipulate Madonna several times during her pregnancy.
Enraged, Linton orchestrated the elimination of everyone involved in that conspiracy and ensured the FBI investigation was misleading.
He thought the threat was over -- until earlier that month, when Hillary came to his estate seeking his essense, delivering troubling news.
In Washington and New York, elderly female power brokers were secretly collaborating to break the secret of female reverse aging.
Madonna, at 37, still looked like an 18-year-old, which bred envy and jealousy among these older women.
Even more astonishing was that Madonna gave birth at 37 and soon regained her youthful figure and appearance -- a phenomenon that would typically accelerate aging, yet seemed not to affect her at all.
This made these powerful older women desperate to uncover and claim this secret.
Their research targets included not only Madonna but also Sophie Marceau, Cristiana, Monica, and Nicole Kidman -- four actresses in their thirties who all looked eighteen again.
They even turned their attention to Hillary, though they dared not do anything to her directly. Instead, they repeatedly pressed for visits, subtly probing for her beauty regimen secrets.
Hillary, at 48, had restored her appearance to that of a 30-year-old, baffling them.
Each time, she deflected with excuses about good mood, fitness, and diet.
Since they couldn't touch Hillary, they might attack others.
Linton had already eliminated one wave of threats. He couldn't go on killing people forever.
This problem needed a fundamental solution.
He resolved to take two approaches: first, increase protection around Nicole Kidman; second, keep Madonna, Cristiana, Sophie, and Monica secluded at the farm and gardens, confident no one could harm them there.
Simultaneously, he would accelerate the development of these beauty and vitality pills to release them strategically, addressing the root of the problem.
As for the previously considered "magic" solutions, those were ineffective against these well-connected older women, who wielded too much power and influence.
Linton wasn't worried for himself -- his elite vitality state made him invulnerable -- but his circle of women was large, increasing risk.
The relentless quest by these women to regain youth underscored the massive demand in the beauty market.
Why not shake up the entire market with his beauty elixir and advance his overall enterprise?
In fact, the beauty market dwarfed even the film industry. With the elixir's effects, he couldn't afford to price it too low. High profits were necessary -- possibly garnering more income yearly than his media empire combined.
Another advantage was that his formulation was impossible to replicate. Even if competitors obtained the recipe and processes or poached his technicians, they couldn't produce authentic beauty elixirs without ambient energy for activation.
Vitality Elixir, on the other hand, fundamentally strengthened the body's core and sustained youthfulness. Long-term use could root out many illnesses like hypertension, leukemia, diabetes, and heart disease.
Most importantly, it extended longevity by around five years, according to his estimates.
However, releasing the Vitality Elixir posed a huge risk, potentially provoking a united front from pharmaceutical giants far more formidable than any media conglomerate.
Therefore, he hadn't yet decided how or whether to bring it to market.
...
Since success had been achieved, securing large quantities of raw materials was next.
He located the contact for the herbal supplier Alvarez at the Herbal Emporium and placed an enormous order.
He demanded all 28 types of herbs procured previously -- suma root counted as three types -- except for the garden suma root, adjusted to the new recipe.
The order was 100 times larger than before. For wild suma root over 30 years old, he ordered 1,000 kilograms -- double the previous amount.
Worried about increasing scarcity and possible future shortages, he aimed to stockpile.
Although he had considered ordering 2,000 kilograms, Alvareze xplained that was beyond his capacity. Ultimately, Alvarez agreed to supply 1,000 kilograms.
The price was steep: the total order cost $13 million.
They agreed on price, quantity, quality standards, delivery method, and payment terms over the phone.
Thus, the preparations for mass production of the Vitality Elixir were officially underway.
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