"Moving it clockwise had a definite better result. So, maybe I should try moving it clockwise at a slower pace but at a much lower temperature so that the rate of energy released is the same, but the powder accepts more energy in the end," Alex thought.
It was close to 5 am, and he was still testing out the different ways to improve the pill. By now, he had broken about 5 black cauldrons and finally, had managed to bring the harmony up to around 36%. Considering about 15-20% of the energy was usually lost during the process with the black cauldrons, it meant that the pill was still rejecting about 34% of the energy away.
That was too much of a waste. Even when the pill-splitting Qi appeared, he could only read a little above 30% harmony on both pills.
"Aside from that, I should increase the third ingredient's movement speed, while increasing the temperature," he thought.
One thing that he didn't need to worry about now, that he wished he realized quite early, was the rate of energy release. With how stable the energy inside the final product was, all he had to do was tweak the process such that the energy was released at the same rate, but the pill was different enough to have a change in the energy acceptance rate.
He looked into his storage bag a signed. He had a lot of ingredients when he began testing these things a week or so ago, but now it was down to less than a dozen.
In about 10 more batches, he would have no ingredients left for the pill he was making and would have to move on with a different pill altogether.
"Alright, let's forget about that for now and focus on this one pill. I will make it the best," Alex promised himself.
He started making the pill once more. Had he known that he didn't need to make so many changes that included energy change, he might have had a better result by now, but he had to fail once before he learned from it.
He cleaned the cauldron and tried once more. He had nothing to tell him if he was anything good or bad right now. All he could do was wait for the pill to be formed and he could finally see how accepting of the energy they were.
He made sure not to make a single mistake along the way and when he finally completed the pill, he was a little disappointed. The changes he had made actually made the pill worse.
Alex was a little disappointed. He contemplated what mistakes he made, but there was nothing to think about. He had nothing to compare his new pill with.
'I will just have to grind through it,' he thought and continued. He cleaned the cauldron, made a few new adjustments to the recipe, and continued.
He followed the recipe perfectly, and yet he once again made a worse pill.
"Okay, I can't continue like this. What the hell am I doing wrong?"
He was close to ripping away his hair. He took the pill out and checked. "Did I burn it somewhere I couldn't see? Are some ingredients not turning to powder? Am I really making any mistake?" he wondered and looked at the pill.
He tried to see any abnormalities with the pills, but he was too novice in the grand scheme of Alchemy to know what he was doing.
In the end, he couldn't see anything wrong. He was about to put back the pill when he remembered something. The gesture he was making right now, taking a pill up to his face to check it, was something he had seen another person do as well.
'Didn't the royal alchemist do the same thing?' he thought. He remembered back to the day when they had met him. The man had taken his pill and looked at it in just the same way.
Except… he hadn't. 'He couldn't see anything so he had to eat another pill right?' Alex thought. He remembered seeing the Royal Alchemist's eyes go wide after eating that one pill.
'Could it be that pill amplified his visions and allowed him to see something?' Alex wondered. Then, he thought back to the remark he had made.
'He talked about my temperature controls, my cauldron, and my ingredients. However, he also talked about something else,' Alex thought.
'Structure and Composition of the powder and pill.'
Alex's mind raced as he tried to make sense of those words. 'Structure? Composition? Am I supposed to know these things by now?' he wondered.
There was nothing in his lessons from his master regarding this. As for the different books in the libraries… he checked again.
"Oh, there is something," he was surprised when he did indeed find a little information. It didn't tell him anything at all, but somewhat vaguely explained what the Structure and Composition of a pill meant.
"I see… " he thought when he finished reading it all. He felt like he comprehended a new aspect of the alchemy process that he just didn't know about before today.
"So, composition refers to the ratio at which the powders from the different ingredients are mixed. The Royal Alchemist seemed to care about it, so if I manage to make pills that will use all the powder in a cauldron, or at least the proper ratio of it, then I'm guaranteed to have a much higher level of pill huh?" he thought.
It would take a long time, but if he could learn enough to tweak the ratio around, then presumably, he wouldn't even need to use all the powder to make a perfect pill, just the right amount.
"Structure on the other hand looks to be much more important. Isn't it basically telling me that the shape of the individual powder impacts how much energy I can store in it?" he wondered.
Structure referred to the shape of the minute individual particles of the powders.
"So… the direction in which the ingredient moves and the speed at which it moves must determine the structure of the powder that is formed, and that powder determines whether it can hold the resulting energy of the pill or not."
"So, if I want to make my pill better, then I will have to make sure that their powder ratio is the best, and that the structure of the powder is also the most accepting of the energy."
