"One of these, one of these, and one of these...
Ooh! Definitely one of those!" William mumbled to himself as he wrote down a list of ingredients. He forgot all about how much he hated Alchemy when a mental picture of high-Tier ingredients filled his brain.
He raised his hand, beckoning one of the judges over to inspect his list. Elder Fuxi stood up, hoping to find something wrong with William's ingredients list.
"Let's see what kind of garbage you've put together." he snatched the sheet away from William's hand and adjusted the thick pair of glasses on his face.
Elder Fuxi scanned the list with great precision, but his eyes widened after just the first ingredient. "What is this?!?" he yelled out attracting the attention of many other nearby Alchemists.
"You want a Star Dragon's Tooth for a Tier 2 pill? Are you insane?
And...and what's this? You also want three Hydra Scales? Is this a joke?"
William maintained a serious face. "You said I could prepare the ingredients for any Tier 2 pill, is this not correct?"
Elder Fuxi didn't know what to say. How could you make a Tier 2 pill with these materials? They were more than enough for a Tier 6 pill, not to mention how difficult to acquire each material was!
"What..what pill do you plan to make?" he asked with an icy tone.
William understood the problem. "Oh that's right, I forgot to mention the pill. I want to refine a Tier 2 Soul Refinement Pill."
Elder Fuxi didn't know what William was talking about, but Elder Tianshen's attention was ripped from an Inner Core Disciple's ingredients list when he heard the words "Soul Refinement Pill".
Elder Tianshen looked at William with shock, "Did I hear you correctly? You want to make a Soul Refinement Pill?"
William nodded. Was there something wrong with what he said? The System never explained the value of the ingredients, just the Tier they were at and what pills they could be used in.
Elder Tianshen whispered in Elder Fuxi's ear. "Let me watch this one, you can take the little fellow I walked away from just now."
Elder Fuxi nodded, still with some fury in his eyes. The nerve of this brat!
Tianshen looked at William again. "I can provide the materials, but only if you explain the refinement process thoroughly before you begin. I do not want to waste such precious ingredients on a mere Outer Core Disciple."
Tianshen was an Alchemy Master that focused on the refinement of pills related to the soul. There was only one issue: he couldn't seem to successfully refine a Soul Refinement Pill, even at Tier 1. He had wasted thousands of materials and hundreds of years of his life just trying to refine this one pill.
For William to suddenly bring this up was either his good fortune, or a ridiculous prank. Elder Tianshen was confident in his knowledge of Soul Pills, so he would immediately notice if William misspoke during the explanation.
William nodded. He was also excited to refine such a pill, since the System said it could improve his resistance to spiritual attacks. If anything was certain in the Cultivation world, it was that more defense meant a higher chance of survival.
"I'll be back in a moment." Elder Tianshen said before picking up the ingredients list and disappearing into a locked room reserved for Elders of the Alchemy Hall.
He came back with an armful of tightly sealed jars, each containing the ingredients William had requested. Elder Tianshen arranged them neatly on the table where William's ingredients list was previously placed, then turned to face him.
"Now the first step. Where will you begin?"
William looked at Elder Tianshen, who looked dead serious. He didn't ask for permission and picked up one of the jars filled with pale purple leaves. "I'm going to mash these into a paste, removing the stems beforehand."
He set down the leaves and picked up another jar containing the Hydra Scales. "Then, I will place these flatly into the paste, allowing the scales to absorb the residual Mana of the Soul Snaring Leaves, eliminating the destructive energy of the Scales."
I will dispose of the remaining paste, then deposit the Hydra Scales into a cauldron of water and heat it until the Scales become liquid."
Elder Tianshen listened intently to William's explanation. Something didn't make sense though. "Why would you melt down the Hydra Scales instead of cutting it into small pieces? Do you understand how intense a flame you need for that?"
William became somewhat annoyed and forgot he was speaking to an Elder. "Isn't it obvious? How else are you going to perfectly merge the reinforcing nature of the Hydra Scales and the soul strengthening aspect of the Soul Rending Leaves? Just absorbing the leaves isn't enough." he didn't mention how the pill would also taste better than crunching down some hard scales.
Elder Tianshen felt his mind explode as his hundred years of failure were finally met with an explanation. His eyes lit up, "Of course! That makes so much sense now! Go ahead boy, I want to see you refine this pill."
With Elder Tianshen's approval and all the materials he would need, William quickly got to work. He performed the steps mentioned to Elder Tianshen one by one in a methodical manner.
Everything was going smoothly until William placed the enhanced Hydra Scales in the cauldron of water. Elder Tianshen's brows furrowed as he realized William was but an Outer Core Disciple with no Cultivation. How was he going to hear up the liquid? Official source ıs novel{f}ire.net
Yuming had taken a moment in between his shipments to watch William's refinement and had the same thought, but those worries quickly dissipated when William called Mana of the Fire Element to his palm.
At first the temperature was hot, but not overwhelming. Yuming could barely feel its heat from his position just inside the stage. As time progressed, however, the flame became much more intense, until the heat forced some of the nearby Alchemists to take a step back from William to avoid losing their ingredients to the heat.
Elder Arthur smiled, as he had already spoken with Elder Wen about William the previous day. He was well aware that the boy was a Manamatus, which further cemented his desire to pull William into the Alchemy Hall.
Even under such intense heat, the Hydra Scales took nearly half an hour to melt fully. By this time, William only had around ten minutes to finish the refinement process.
Luckily, the next steps were quite simple. William added the Star Dragon's Tooth and a few other ingredients to the solution, quickly melting them down with the intense flame. He stirred occasionally, not allowing any irregularities before he entered the final pill condensation stage.
Lowering the heat, William formed a natural scoop using Mana of the Earth Element, condensing the ingredients inside to form six purple-red pills the size of a grape. Naturally engraved on the pills were three miniscule golden swirls, which informed Elder Tianshen that the result was much better than expected.
The only problem was...the result was TOO good.
The moment William completed the formation of the six pills, dark clouds began to gather from inside the Alchemy Hall.