Garn has been out for a few days. I told him to collect as many seeds as he could. While thinking about the various products I could make when he got back, I realized something. I can't get cheese. Unfortunately all I know about cheese making is that it requires fermenting milk and doing that without knowledge is probably gonna make people sick. That means if I want to use any sort of cheese, I'll need to get it from human society. I can't go into human society until Alford deals with the organization. Haaaa... I guess I'll have to go without it for a long ass time.

For now I should get the snake tribe into a position to profit hard once the organization is gone. If we want cheese, we'll need products to trade for it. I'm thinking that the products we sell should be marketed to nobles as they'll have the most money and will be the ones we negotiate with. When I think about what a noble would want, I think good food, fancy clothes, and fine art. While I can offer unique, never before seen food, I can't guarantee good food. That leaves fancy clothes and fine art.

 Both fancy clothes and fine art share a common need, pigment. Luckily for me, with modern knowledge I can make much safer and cheaper pigment then the current era. Furthermore because we are on the isolated island of Esu, the amount of colors available are limited. Currently the most common colors are red and white. Thats because Esu has natural mines for lead, zinc, and cinnabar. Both lead and zinc can be used to make white pigment, however lead is poisonous and zinc degrades quickly. Cinnabar make a beautiful red pigment called vermillion, but its like 80% mercury and I don't think I need to explain why thats dangerous to produce. 

Some other colors that are available are purple and blue, however these are currently REALLY expensive. The only way to get blue as on now is to crush lapis lazuli. Lapis lazuli is considered a precious stone. Lapis lazuli can only be acquired by buying it from the very rare foreign merchant. Only the wealthiest of nobles can afford blue. Purple is really expensive because of the process to make it. Just like in medieval times on earth, purple is considered a royal color. To make purple, you need to crush thousands of a specific species of shell fish and ferment them i a pot of heated water. Its a awful job because its tedious and smells horrible. Not only that but at a certain point in the process, in order to ensure it went well you must either stick your fingers in the vile substance you've made and feel its slimy texture, or taste it. Its even worse in this world because the shell fish are monsters and will actively attack you. A combination of the large amounts of materials required and unpopularity of the work leads to ridiculous prices.

With magic, I can easily make all of these and more for way cheaper and jack up the prices while still being less costly than the alternatives. Well except for red and white. On earth people are still looking for a long lasting, non-toxic red pigment. Most reds have at least some toxicity or degrade quickly. White on the other hand can be made easily using titanium dioxide, but it would be harder to sell. While lead white is being slowly phased out of oil paints, many artists prefer it over titanium because of its brightness and quick drying. However some artists prefer to have their paint dry slower and also prefer making their tints with Titanium white. Basically I can't just show up and say my paint is better in every way like with the other colors. At least I can take solace in the fact that I won't need white pigment for making clothes.

Starting off, I guess I'll make blue. Specifically YInMn blue. It'll be really easy to make with magic as all I need to do is throw Yttrium, Indium, and manganese oxide into high heat overnight. With magic I can just summon the Yttrium and Indium. The problem is the compound. Thankfully with earth dragon magic, stuff like that is pretty easy. I'll need Mi'ara to help out at the start, but once we get the proportions right and teach the snakefolk how to do the process, we'll have a brand new industry.

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It took many attempts but we finally did it. We made the pigment. A lot of villagers joined in to at least watch the process. This lead to an impromptu chemistry lesson from me and eventually Sky. Me and Mi'ara then had to teach them dragon magic and by the end of it, I ended up being considered a great sage and got the nickname "The Colorful Witch".

By the time we finished, Garn returned with various seeds. Including flaxseeds, which could be turned into oil to make paint. Thankful Sky decided to overtake the process of teaching how to make oil pant and Livia knew how to dye cloth. Suddenly there was an explosion of blue. Blue clothing became the new trend.

Purple, orange, and green were more of the same. I just had to add certain elements to the formula for YInMn blue and after finding the balance, it would come out the right color. There seemed to be a decent number of people in the village who have picked up oil painting. Murals have been popping up left and right now that more colors are available. I suppose I should do white next. I have no clue how their art has came out so well without using the most important color.

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I've spent the last few weeks locked in my room. I've been devoting myself for a single purpose. It started out as a small whim. A joke, you could say. I thought it would be real funny to reproduce vanta black. Ohhohoho how funny I thought it would be, but it wasn't. It was suffering. I had no fucking clue what the hell a carbon nanotube was. What it even meant. Now I do. I've not merely stared into the abyss, I've created it. My titanium knife now looks like a beautiful hole in reality.

I can't wait to show everyone!