Lesson One
"Now, could you please tell me what I need to read?" He was almost begging at this point.
"Ofcourse, I'm your teacher after all." She patted his shoulder and said with amusement.
"What teacher?"
"Are you not learning from me? When it comes to alchemy, the knowledgeable is the teacher. You'll be calling me teacher Li from now on, understood?"
"Little girl... alright." He wanted to argue, but agreed after seeing her eyes narrow. 'She's just a kid, it doesn't matter. And anyway she's right about the teacher thing. But she's a kid! It's difficult to swallow, sigh.'
"Say it properly." She snapped at him.
'Just a kid having fun, nothing to get angry about.' "Understood, " he took a deep breath and finished the sentence "teacher Li."
"Hahahahahah." She burst out laughing, she bent forwards as she banged the table with her hand.
"Wait, wait." She chased after Zhang Wuji who had already walked to the entrance.
"Come on, I couldn't hold it in after looking at your red twisted face. I could almost see smoke coming out of your head. Senior brother, you need to loosen up, seriously. You still need help don't you, how could you just walk out like that? I apologise about earlier, alright? Now take a seat, I'll start the first lesson."
He snorted and sat down with a grumpy face which almost made her burst out laughing again. She controlled herself and tried to keep a straight face, which resulted in a red comical face.
"Alright laugh, get it out of your system." He waved his hands in defeat and waited for her to start.
After laughing for a while she cleared her throat and got ready for the lesson. "There's two ingredient books, ten thousand herbs and beast parts compilation, and two books for process and tools. The second two, you could directly read from them. They are specially written for apprentice level. The first two on the other hand are written for genuine alchemists with a certain level of experience.
"Take 10000 Herbs Found in and around Frost Swallow for example. It is written for veteran alchemists who try to change pill recipes or even make new ones. Sometimes different pill recipes need some tweaking before they can be used. For example let us say an alchemist needs to make an antidote pill for a poison inflicted patient.
"Let us say the poison is known and is yang metal kind, and it's antidote is yang fire kind. If the patient cultivated a yang element cultivation technique, then the overlay of the yang element in the poison and the antidote may prove fatal. So the alchemist has to make a few changes in the recipe. The easiest way would be adding an inert herb with yin nature to curb the yang in the antidote. There are other better methods as inert herbs are very rare but let's not get into them for now.
"You need yin element herb which you can find in the first volume. Inert herbs are usually listed at the very beginning. So depending on the tier you need, you could easily find them in the book. It's really fun to use the books once you understand how it works. My Master saw that I was spending more and more time with the book tweaking pill recipes instead of practicing pill refining and prohibited me from reading them till I reach grade one. But seriously if you want me to hurry then don't make me do such stupid jobs! I tell you these..." At this point she was just ranting.
"Ahem, junior sister, what are the four volumes for? Also what are inert herbs, and could you please start with the syllabus?"
"Call me teacher Li! Also don't interrupt me." She was clearly annoyed at the interruption.
'I'm afraid if I don't interrupt, you will never stop.' he gave her an apologetic smile and said "Teacher.. Li,.. sorry about the interruption, please continue."
She nodded with approval, pleased at being called teacher and continued gleefully "The four volumes are for yin, yang, mixed elements and special herbs respectively. The first three are pretty obvious, the last one contains less than three hundred herbs with special elements like space, time, illusion and others. There are also some really strange herbs in there. You don't need to worry about them now. You know what, that's what my Master told me when I asked about them. Seriously, if he can't even answer my questions, why do I even need him? All he does is say you can't do this you can't do.."
"Teacher Li." He called out to keep her on track.
She was interrupted again, but being called teacher was awesome. "Ahem. Sorry about that. Inert herbs as the name says are inert and do not react with any other ingredients. There are some exceptions but it generally holds true. They just release whatever element energy they contain. They are also frequently used as inhibitors and mediums.
"For beginners and even most apprentices these two books are unreadable. The ingredients you need to study about are summed up in these two books which I'm gonna give to you as a gift." She went back to her desk and took out two books from under the desk and passed them onto Zhang Wuji.
He took the books and flipped through the one labelled Herbs. It looked normal. No abbreviations and everything was understandable.
"One has to buy these books in the city. You don't need to go through the hassle. Also I used these books myself and have marked important ones and also written some notes. This is gonna make your life much easier." She paused and looked at him, clearly waiting for him to shower her with gratitude.
"Thanks for the books, junior sister. I'll be on my way now." He got up and walked towards the doors.
Li Xiaomei took a moment to realise what was happening. She quickly caught up to him and stood right infront of him, stopping him from moving forward. "Wait, where are you going?"
"Junior sister, as you can see I'm not strong enough for my age and if I want to continue in the sect, it is very important for me to learn alchemy. The content in the books is clear and I don't think I'll need your help with it. I do not have the time to keep you entertained and act in the theatre. I hope you understand. I'll repay you later for your help. Maybe we can try the theatre thing then." He smiled and said. She had a cheerful attitude and it was fun talking with her but he needed to concentrate on improving himself right now.
"No! Wait. Just listen to one lecture. If you feel it is not helpful, you are free to go. Also you don't need to keep me company during the shift. Two hours I'll teach after which you could do whatever you want. All I ask in return is that every now and then, you'll practice acting with the crew.
He hesitated a bit. He shouldn't waste time but once wouldn't be much. Also it's not like he'd be wasting it. "Alright."
He went back to his seat and waited for her to start.
She breathed out in relief, thought for a bit. "This is a bit sudden, but no problem. I'm a genius after all. Methods and tools are pretty straight forward, you can read them yourself. I'll help you with the ingredients.
"My mother says linking things together helps remember. So I'm gonna teach you pill-wise. We'll start with the popular ones, my Master said most questions are asked from those. Let's start with the pill you are most familiar with, qi recovery pills.
"These are pills used to recover spent qi. Their effects vary according to the tier, quality and pill recipe. I'll be teaching you about the blue wasp qi recovery pill which is the grade 1 pill you consume and is the standard pill for qi recovery in the sect. It has ten ingredients in it with a blue wasp being the main ingredient along with sweet wormwood. Blue wasps are real fun creatures. See, they have great memory, so if you mess with them once, they'll chase after you everytime they see you. But they're stupid. One time.."
"Could you stay on track?" He was feeling helpless. They didn't even get into the subject and she got sidetracked.
"No the story will help you remember. It'll cover all it's essential properties. Just listen." She waved him off and continued.
"We have these wasps in the sect. One time I personally went to collect a few for the physical strength enhancing paste cangi, made of ants, grasshoppers, earthworms, blue wasps and termites along with a bit of goat milk. Medicinal pastes are easy to make. Just mash all of them together and mix in milk to get a good consistency and then strain it to remove all the insect carapace.."
"Can't you just skip that?" Zhang Wuji's face was twisted, he felt like retching.
"Disgusting isn't it? Will help you remember. Now don't interrupt anymore."
She continued with the story and covered all the sub headings he saw in the book. The things they require to grow, the pills and medicinal liquids they are used in and others. She did the same for all ten ingredients of the pill. Sometimes she didn't have a story, so she compared them with others that had their own stories or peculiarities.
"Alright, that's it for today. What do you think?" She looked at him with a confident smile, clearly waiting for his praise.
"I can't un-remember the stories unfortunately but I still think reading myself would yield better results."
"Hmph ignorant. Go back, read the book and remember ten herbs of your choice and come again tomorrow, I'll see how much you remember from both methods. We'll see which method works better." She smiled with contempt and kicked him out.
'I can imagine the fawning smile he'll have when he comes tomorrow, I can't wait!' She smiled foolishly while thinking.
'What if he won't?' She became worried all of a sudden before smiling again. 'Nah, he definitely would. If he doesn't, I have his name. I'll get someone to drag him here. Hehehe.' She laughed evilly and went back to sleep.