Professions Question

What exactly does levelling up in a profession skill do?

I'm hoping to level up Alchemy and Herbalism, so I can make cheap potions. The Alchemy skill is at level one and aside from making potions, it says nothing about any easy means of levelling Alchemy (which is what I planned to do anyway). Also, it says to make a simple alchemy mana pot, I need like 50 empty pots, and three herb pots filled with Marigold flower. That's just over 5000g to craft a single pot. Do materials go down as you level up?

Or does it just raise those weird Empathy and other stats?

You gain access to more potion types and will be able to make potions more efficiently, I believe?

You get more than 1 pot when you use those 50 empty pots; I think you get 50. By the time you're making strong potions, it becomes extremely cheap compared to the potions' counterparts. As you lvl, the chance to become successful at making certain potions increases, and you become able to craft higher lvl stuff. Eventually you'll have to find recipes for the much higher lvl potions. These potions are not limited to basic hp/mp pots, but can give massive stat boosts that stack with attack pots. Not only are these incredibly useful to you, but they sell for a great price in the fm (anywhere from 5m-50m per pot in bello, depending on the type/desire).

Herbalism lvls up by harvesting and creating ingredients and Alchemy lvls when you craft potions. The max lvl of each is 10. You also gain boosts to your traits that go beyond the 500 daily limit.

Yea, I noticed (already at level 3 of the herbalism skill and it's been only like 1-2 hours). What about those secret potions? I didn't see the formula yet on the recipe sheet. Are they truly secret (as in you have to find a rare recipe merchant to learn them), or do they just not show up until you complete some event? Being a hp priest (yes, still, I managed to make it to 100 easily enough and now that gallos is old news, I can grind pretty well), I can probably use those secret HB pots to great effect, to have a much higher INT stat and defeat heavy hitters more easily. Other than that, I'm probably likely to have some serious use for these lower level pots (though, I'll likely need to figure out which ones would give the best deals, since making the weakest pots, even if it does produce multiple is not efficient if there's a stronger type for the same number of jars). Those alchemy pet items (not the pet seeds; the heart candy, the alarm clock, and the phonograph), are they worth anything to people? What's the, I think it was called item fusion or something. How is that done, and being lukless is there anything I can actually use (I assume it's for equips and not fused pots, but not sure)?

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By the time you're making strong potions, it becomes extremely cheap compared to the potions' counterparts.

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Well, even if it didn't Tesi, there's the matter of lost product. That is, if you for instance want a higher than common level potion, let's take hp/mp potions, you wander to one town and they sell watermelons. Head to another town, and they sell chocolate. We're not even mentioning the more expensive pots like ramen or ginger ales. If you aren't in the town involved, you'll need to eventually unload the last set or so (selling back at a fraction), and buy new ones so that when grinding, your supply doesn't cut out on you and leave you with nothing to fill up with in the middle of grind or boss battle. Just being near a decent town, and you can go brew more potions of the type you need. What choices for Profession did everyone make? Did I make the right choice?