That night, Alex went back to his room and prepared to make the new pill.
He read the recipe and thought about it all for a few minutes. There were 16 ingredients exactly, of which 4 of them would be considered rare.
Of course, they weren't as rare as the willow they just found, but it was rare enough that only one or two of such ingredients would pop up in the market every day.
'I will have to gather them and use them towards the end,' he thought. For now, he simply had to make the pill.
'Maybe I won't even need to do anything,' Alex thought. 'Maybe this pill is already the best it can be.'
Since this was a pill recipe from the long past when humans and demons fought, Alex had more faith in the recipe than the new ones made by local alchemists.
So, once the cauldron was properly heated up, he started making the pill.
One by one, he put in the ingredients and followed the recipe as closely as he could on the first try without making any mistakes.
As time went along, he put one ingredient after another. The ingredients were all filled with either Earth energy or neutral energy. So, as more and more Earth energy mixed together, the final energy ended up becoming a very dense and strong Earth energy that was hovering on the verge of reaching Saint level.
Fortunately, it didn't and Alex managed to guide the energy into the pill.
What came out of the cauldron was a brown pill with a dirt-like smell. He could see spots of black too, and from that, he could easily tell how unsymmetrical the pill was.
It was better than most pills he had seen, but it still needed a rework.
Alex checked the Harmony and realized that it was 52%. It was decent, but not good enough. Even if he fixed the other problems like good quality ingredients, proper control of fire, or a high-quality cauldron, Alex was sure that the most he could do were reach 60% with it.
If he had a technique to perfectly form a pill, then maybe he could push it to 75% too. But he would never be able to reach 100% with what he had at the moment.
Alex went ahead and made 2 more of the pills, which came out better than the first one with 54%, and 56%.
Most alchemists would consider this an amazing Harmony, but Alex wanted more. He knew he could get more, so instead, he decided to go ahead and rewrite the formula.
Of course, he didn't have any ingredients at the moment, so it would have to wait for tomorrow.
In the meantime, Alex thought of something and brought out an ingredient to turn it into powder.
Once he was turned to powder, he studied it carefully, checking its shape and size before discarding it for another of the same thing.
For the entire night, Alex did the same thing with the same ingredients, changing only the speed of the ingredient's motion, the direction of the motion, and the heat of the fire, all in order to bring out the energy of the ingredient at the constant rate as a certain pill's recipe dictated.
For the whole night, Alex dwelled on just that one ingredient, and it wasn't even an ingredient for the pill he needed to make.
Once morning came around, he spent 2 hours practicing his talisman and formation skills before leaving to go see his mother.
"I might not return for a few days, mother," Alex said. "Keep Pearl with you, and tell him to train while he can."
"Where are you going?" Helen asked curiously. "Are you going somewhere with those girls?"
"No, mother. I will be at the guild for the next 3 days working on the pill I told you about. If I succeed, I can help you and myself improve our spiritual roots," Alex said.
"Alright, alright, no need to get defensive. I was just teasing you," Helen said. "Go, I'll take care of Pearl."
"No, I'm taking care of mother," Pearl interjected.
"Yes you are," Helen said as she rubbed his head.
"Bye," Alex said and left the sect to go to the guild.
When he arrived at the guild, it was still morning, so instead of doing anything else, he started buying as many ingredients as he could for the other pill.
Alex sweat a bit when he realized he had spent over 4000 True spirit stones on what most would consider a frivolous purchase. However, since he knew it was important, his heart, fortunately, felt no negative impact.
He waited a few minutes for Liang Qiu and Han Daiyu to come around, but it seemed it was really early for that. So, he took a few missions on a whim and went to complete them.
An hour later, Alex came out with 5 different pills and handed them to the staff who looked at him with a dumbfounded face when they realized he had taken this mission just an hour ago.
5 pills in an hour meant that he made exactly 1 pill every 12 minutes, and that was without wasting a single minute, which was impossible.
Secretly, the staff was starting to think more and more of Alex as an alchemist.
Alex went back outside and managed to find Liang Qiu and Han Daiyu waiting for him.
"Oh, sister Laing, sister Han, you finally came," Alex said as he walked towards him.
"Alchemist Yu! How could you make us wait for so long?" Han Daiyu complained.
"My apologies. I waited for a while, but you never came so I went to complete a few missions for the guild," Alex said.
"Whatever," Han Daiyu shook her hands to tell him to get over it. Then her face made the most excited smile as she asked, "Did you make it? Is it done?"
Alex shook his head. "I'm afraid I was correct," he said. "I will need at least 2 if not 3 weeks to change the recipe around. Otherwise, even if you were to take the recipe to senior Xue, you will never end up with pills above 60%."
"You tried it already then?" Liang Qiu asked.
"Yes," Alex said. "I reached 54% and 56%. If you want those pills then I will hand them to you right now, but I suggest you wait for the next 3 weeks so I can improve the pill."
"Are you sure you can improve it?" Han Daiyu asked.
"Yes," Alex said. "I'm confident I can. All you will have to do is wait 3 weeks."
"Alright, if you can really improve it, do it," Liang Qiu said. "I've already waited 2 years for this. I can way 20 more days."
"Thank you," Alex said. "So… uh… about the ingredients"
"How many do you need?" Liang Qiu asked.
"At least 50 each," Alex said with an embarrassed smile.
"50 each? Are you serious?" Liang Qiu asked.
"Yes," Alex said. "With that, I can increase the pill's Harmony by at least 10% if not more."
"That's tempting really," Liang Qiu said. "Alright, let me go do it right now."
Liang Qiu stood to go to the reception to buy the ingredients but stopped.
"Should I make a mission while I'm at it?" she asked.
Alex shook his head. "No need, this pill won't be under the guild's name. I assume you would want to keep it that way," Alex said.
"Yes," Liang Qiu said. "Then I will just buy the ingredients for now."
"You may not be able to find a lot of the rare ones, so leave that part to me," Alex said.
Liang Qiu nodded and went to buy.
"I was looking forward to that pill you know? Can't I just eat this one right now and take a better one later?" Han Daiyu asked.
"I don't know how helpful that would be, sister Daiyu," Alex said. "If this pill improves your roots, it won't be as much as the other pill I will make."
"So, if you were to eat this, improve your root, and eat the next pill, I'm afraid that your roots will not respond to the pill like they would have when they were weak," Alex said.
"It's like—"
"I understand," Han Daiyu said. "I was just saying what was on my mind. I can wait too."
Alex smiled back at her. "I promise you, sister Han. I will make the best pill you've ever seen," Alex said.
"Is that so? I come from a big family you know. I've seen great pills. I've even eaten Saint rank pills," she said.
"I promise you won't have seen pills like what I will make," Alex said. "Ahem, barring saint rank pills of course."
Liang Qiu returned with a bag full of ingredients and handed it to Alex. "I couldn't get some ingredients, so you will have to get them on our behalf. There are some spirit stones in that storage bag, you can use them however necessary."
"I only ask that you make our pill with it," Liang Qiu said.
Alex looked through the storage bag and saw every single ingredient. Just as he asked, there were 50 each of about 12 ingredients.
Of the last 4, there were between 2 to 10 of them. 'How much do I have to buy them?' Alex thought and looked through the spirit stones when he stopped.
"Um… isn't 10 thousand spirit stones a bit too much? I'm not sure I'll need more than 3 thousand," Alex said.
Liang Qiu smiled. "Use however many as you want. I just want the pill," she said.
Alex smiled. "Very well then," he said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I seem to have a new task come upon me."
Alex waved the two goodbye and went back to the alchemy room to make this new pill.
