Pill Concocting Basics

"Ok," I took a deep breath after Alex left me alone in my workstation, "Let's see how far along my Wood Flame has progressed."

After summoning the modest flame and seeing it drain my reserves significantly slower than before, I grinned. This would probably suffice for the purpose of starting Alchemy. Even if it didn't last through the entirety of completing a recipe, I should be able to complete individual phases of the alchemical process at a time, or, at the very least, get additional practice in with the flame to grow my abilities with it.

I started immediately, having already decided last night on where to begin.

"Waking Pills are a Low Grade alchemical staple of the Yyvel Empire," I recited to distract myself from the deafening silence of the otherwise isolated room as I located all the necessary ingredients. "Even the worst quality Lowest Grade Pills can replace a whole night's worth of sleep."

"The average person spends a third of their life sleeping, so if I manage to start producing batches today, Alex and I will have around eight more hours each day to progress with our bullshit provision stipulations," I narrowed my eyes as I finished weighing out the precise quantities of ingredients needed to concoct a standard patch of ten pills on the workshop's magical scale.

"Now for the first step of pill concoction," I picked up the first ingredient I'd be processing; a cluster of blue-greyish grass. "Essence Extraction is the process of dividing an alchemical ingredient's medicinal essences from its contaminants; more specifically, it's the division of useful recipe-required essences from everything else."

"For my chosen recipe of Sleepless Pills, only the Yin and Yang essences of Glassgan Grass are to be spared from my cleansing Wood Flame," I concluded before taking a moment to focus as advised by the knowledge I'd integrated from the alchemy books in the room.

I conjured my Wood Flame before affixing it to the workshop's alchemical furnace and lowered its intensity by decreasing my magical output to as low as I could comfortably hold without there being any flickering.

I then dumped the portion of weighed-out Glassgan Grass into the smoldering furnace, caught the ingredients with my Wood Flame, closed the furnace, and lastly, I also closed my eyes. Everything from this point forward would have to be done through feeling the changes of my Wood Flame and the refined ingredient.

It was an odd feeling, being able to sense something through a magical-flame construct, but eventually, I felt comfortable enough handling the near-nonexistent flame to turn up the heat and…

Welp, all it took was the smallest spike in magic, the slightest hiccup, for everything to burn asunder.

Fortunately, there was more than enough practice fodder for me to cultivate my newfound alchemical skills throughout the day.

I emptied the grass ash and cleaned the furnace before starting the process from the start again, and again, and again, and so on until eventually…

[New Skills Alert!

New Branching Transcendence Path Unlocked!

Titles:

Name: Apostle Apothecary

Grade: F

Effect: Effective Magic Potency increase, and Magic Cost decrease, by 5% when using Alchemy Skills. Additionally, Alchemy Skills are 10% easier to improve.

Creed Effect Override: Plant-type Alchemical Ingredients with a Quality rating up to Lowest Class are two times easier to manipulate.

Skills:

Name: Essence Extraction

Grade: F

Description: The ability to process and divide alchemical ingredients by essence. It is possible to split an alchemical ingredient into two parts with relatively high purity. Though, each subsequent subdivision of essences will exponentially decrease purity for each succeeding essence extracted.]

Eventually, I managed to divide a portion of Glassgan Grass into Yin and Yang Essences while burning off everything else. However, the advent of my new Title and Skill surprised me just enough to ruin my one success after hours of failure.

"God damn it," I cursed while smiling like a madman.

I cleaned out the furnace for the umpteenth time and on the very next attempt, I failed again…

After two more tries, though, I processed a portion of Glassgan Grass without failing again. Carefully, I split my [Wood Flame] to carry the processed Glassgan Grass Essences out of the furnace and into a container that looked exactly like an Erlenmeyer Flask, before turning up my magic output to incinerate the impurities that were left behind in the furnace.

"Ok, ok," I muttered to myself. "That's one down, so… only four more to go," I grimaced as I immediately started working on processing the next ingredient.

It was a nightmare having to learn how to split the essences of completely different ingredients. But, as my continued practice elevated my Magic Stats and Skills, I found the process slowly getting easier over time. I mean, I couldn't actually definitively claim either — Magic Stats or Skills — improved as they didn't change at all when I checked my Soul Mirror. But, practically speaking, I could see and feel the improvements regardless.

"Now for the hard part..." I took a deep breath and wiped my forehead of the sweat that had built up over the past couple of hours, for it was now time to move on to the second and final phases of the pill-concocting process.

"Essence Fusion and Pill Stabilization..." I didn't dare begin until my Magic Reserves were fully restored as there was no guarantee I would have enough to form even a single pill; assuming I didn't outright fail at the fusion phase.

I placed the flask which held all the essences I'd extracted thus far into the alchemical furnace before I casted my [Wood Flame] to start what probably wouldn't be my first successful attempt.

Almost immediately, I began to sweat as I increased the heat of my [Wood Flame], and my magic output by proxy, to nearly triple that of what was required for the [Essence Extraction] of the most heat-resistant ingredient before the combination of Essences finally started to melt and meld together.

Through the "Flame Sense" I'd developed during the [Essence Extraction] process, I could feel that in the furnace a bright incandescence was being released. A minute would pass before the intensity of the light started spilling out of the closed furnace and a minute after that, a faint black smoke escaped as well. These were the final impurities left behind by the Essences I'd failed to completely remove.

Alas, my Magic Reserves and [Wood Flame] Skill weren't high enough for me to see the process through to its conclusion. Only about a third of the incandescent solution was fully fused, so before I gave up, I'd only have that to work with while I attempted Pill Stabilization.

Grunting, I opened the top of the furnace and used a pair of tongs to lift the flask out and over to the workshop table. Through the manipulation of my [Wood Flame], the fused magma-hot liquid split from the unfused portion in the flask and hovered before me. Still covered by the flames, the liquid started spinning chaotically as I lowered my Magic output as slowly as I possibly could.

Five minutes later, I was resting my head flat against the workshop table in total exhaustion. To my side, however, there were two crude pills in a pill bottle.

They were toxic garbage…

It would take nearly seven hours before I had succeeded in concocting a partial batch of pills.