Arthur glanced at the smaller yet stronger cauldron and silently sighed. "Aright, go ahead and lit the fire, make a pill and let me see how you progress in it," Mr. E said while waving his hand, inviting Arthur to stand just beside him.
"I know how to make potions," Arthur honestly said, "but not pills," he lied.
He wanted to learn the way of this world to make pills as well.
"Oh, it's not that much different," Mr. E said before adding, "you can control your energy well enough, right?"
"A little bit indeed."
"Great, all you need is to use your energy in all the steps of the making," Mr. E said before adding, "see, making pills is different in this simple technique than potions. In potions you make a lot of fluid in the cauldron, but in pills you make only a tiny fraction of it."
Arthur nodded in understanding before he asked: "I should integrate my energy inside each ingredient, right?"
"Indeed," Mr. E nodded, "then you should manipulate the integration, and here lies the secret and talent. You can't let your ingredients act as they like, you need to control every single bit of their energy and control their merge until you finally have total control over the initial version of the pill."
"Then what?" Arthur got the main idea here yet he kept asking so he wouldn't be too suspicious.
"You will have to concentrate the final fluid then, condense it till it forms its own outer shell and viola, you have a pill," Mr. E seemed excited while he explained these steps to him.
And Arthur nodded. "What about the recipe of making? What pill should I make and what ingredients should I use?"
"First let's start with something simple until you get a good grasp on things," Mr. E waved his hand and five different materials appeared in his hand. "Take these and use only water to mix," he said.
Arthur took these five items and examined them. One was water based ore, silver leaf of some plant, a dark brown small bean-like seed, a small amount of sparkling brown sand, and finally a small thin branch of red tree with smooth outer surface and a thick translucent fluid oozing from its core.
"These are used generally to make a healing pill," Mr. E said before adding, "you should mix the tree branch with the seeds first, make sure they are neatly melted and merged together before adding the sand, the ore, and wait for a minute or two before adding the leaf."
"I'll try," Arthur said before taking his cauldron to the side and started the fire. He didn't take much of the fiery ore, as the amount in hand was scarce.
"The idea here is slightly different from what I used to make," he silently muttered while recalling how he used to make pills in his past life. "I totally depended on my energy to control heaven and earth energy to control the fluid, enriching it, before condensing it into the final pill."
He started putting the first two ingredients inside his cauldron before pouring a little amount of his purified water given to him by the system's help. He waited and even took out a long stick from a nearby tree and used it to mix the melted branch and seed.
"Sigh, the amount of energy here is scarce," he sensed the mix and even tasted it. He didn't find a great energy influx per usual. "I should learn this way first before upgrading it," he decided while adding more ingredients and controlling everything with his energy.
He didn't face any difficulty at all even at the last stage where most people would fail in their first attempt.
Mr. E stood carefully watching him from the side without saying a single word. He nodded in admiration when Arthur finally made his pill and handed it over to him.
"Over average quality, good for your first attempt," he said before adding, "now try to make more than one pill with these," he took out ten folds of the previous materials he handed to him. "A great alchemist isn't the one making a highly grade pill alone, but the one making many of these at the same time."
Arthur nodded as he silently agreed with this theory.
"You know I can help you boost this pill's energy with mine if you wanted," the golden dragon suddenly said as it seemed this low level pill irritated him.
"Do you use the same technique as well in making pills?" Arthur asked in curiosity.
"Sure, but with the difference in injecting energy to refine the materials, not only to control it," the golden dragon said before adding, "the brightest alchemists in the higher realms are all depending on this to make great pills."
"I understand," Arthur knew this was similar to the principle of his past life alchemy. "Except that the disparity between one's limited energy and the endless heaven and earth energy is quite scary," he muttered to himself while trying to control ten pills at the same time.
It proved to be slightly difficult for him, especially when he tried to condense all at the same time. "Damn, I wasted three of them," he inwardly cursed while he started to examine the other seven.
"Not bad," Mr. E commented while standing beside him, "you learnt how to produce seven out of ten, that's an impressive success rate."
"What's the standard rate then?" Arthur asked while handing the seven pills to his grandmaster, "and what is the assessment of these seven?"
Mr. E didn't hurry to answer before examining the pills. "Five are average quality and two are over average quality. That's good," he said before adding, "the standard result is five out of ten, with four being average and one above it."
"That's better than average," Arthur noted before adding, "yet not enough."
He had his own standards, and this wasn't to be slightly over the usual results seen in this world. He aspired higher and Mr.. E just sensed his burning desire.
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