After taking several turns in the library, they arrived at the doors of an alchemy lab deep within the library. Nana pushed the open and the aroma of several dicinal leaves invaded Alex's nose.
"This is my personal lab, from now on this is where you will practice your alchemy. I will teach you my skills and techniques in alchemy and many more, without my permission you are not allowed to teach another. The things that I'm going to teach you might get you killed if you were in the celestial realm." Nana stated.
"Why?"
"Because they are skills that only mbers of my clan know. Being my disciple makes you half a mber of my clan, so there's no issue there." Nana explained.
"Nana, what cultivation realm are you in?" Alex had been curious about this for a while.
"Why do you want to know? Do you have anyone that you want to offend? If so then go ahead, although I won't make it a habit of mine to always protect you from danger, I also won't allow others to bully my disciple."
"No, I it's not like I want to go around making trouble. I was just curious, that's all."
Nana chuckled at his reply. "Didn't you hear when I said that I have no equals in this plain realm and in the ordain plain realm, guess the rest on your own." She dismissed his question and went ahead to bring out a simple-looking cauldron that was ash in color.
"I'm going to teach you how to make the simplest type of pill for people of your level. It is called a chin-chin pill."
"That's a weird na, what does it do?" Alex asked.
"Rember the pill that I gave you and after you took it you went to sleep?" Nana smirked at him.
"Yes, why?"
"That is what a chin-chin pill is used for."
"A sleeping pill? Really?" He raised one of his eyebrows.
"My dear disciple, let tell you sothing that many veterans that study alchemy still fail to understand, but know. Four pounds can move a thousand pounds, while it might just be a sleeping pill, it can also be made into sothing deadly and ferocious. Even if it takes you years to master and re-master the composition of this pill, or any pill, the knowledge you gain and has the possibility to many other things that will prove to you that you haven't wasted your ti.
The first ti that you ca to the library, I can recall that you read a book about rune mastery, by Sheldon Shellie. The first thing in her book refers to the possibility of anything with the help of runes just as long as you can afford to pay the price. It is the sa with alchemy, you can make anything just as long as you have the right ingredients, follow the right steps and sequence, and then it is possible. The price you have to pay in alchemy is your ti."
Alex tilted his head, he was a little lost there. "Why did you say that the veterans know but fail to understand?"
"In other words, they fail to see the possibility in every impossibility and the vast realizations in every small component. Many veterans in alchemy like to play it by the book, they do not like to use unconventional ways or even search for other possible ways that can be used to concoct a pill. Most of them just learn several approved techniques, then teach it to their students and then those students teach it to their own students. You can hardly see diversity in alchemy." She explained to him.
"I think I understand."
"Good. Let's begin."
Nana put the cauldron over a stone that looked like it had runes inscribed all over it. As soon as she did that, the stone started to turn red before it set ablaze.
"For people like that have no affinity with flas, we use stones like this. And when I need to control the temperature I use telekinesis to do that." She demonstrated this by making the fire under the cauldron grow bigger.
Suddenly so ingredients of different nature started to levitate. She rinsed them properly and then left them in the air. After a while placed one of the ingredients in the cauldron.
"Let guess the things you did when you attempted to concoct that poison of yours. After you placed the first ingredient in your cauldron, you waited for a while and then placed the second one in. From the third step was where you kept on having issues, am I right?"
"Yes," Alex answered and gave her the attention he had. He didn't want to miss a thing that she did.
"The first mistake you made was trying to do sothing like that with knowing how to use telekinesis. The second is that you failed to extract the impurities in your ingredients after your flas heated them. The reason I ntioned the second one is because, it is possible to concoct pills without telekinesis, and there are other ways to filter out impurities. The only problem with those ways is that they are more lethal than you can imagine. It is possible to start a plague that way if one's not careful."
"This is how you remove the impurities when concocting a pill." She made a gesture with her hand, telling him to co closer and watch what she was about to do. Alex obediently did as she asked and ca closer.
With her telekinesis, Nana made gestures with her hands and drew so black goo out of the first ingredient that she placed inside the cauldron. She then threw in another different ingredient in the cauldron. Unconsciously, Alex raised his hand, he was expecting the thing to explode, just like it happened when he attempted alchemy.
"Drop your hand you silly boy, it won't explode." She extracted the impurities in the second ingredient that she threw in.
She did this repeatedly till all the ingredients that were levitating thrown into the cauldron.
After that, she turned the fire out and the lemon-green-colored liquid in the cauldron started to solidify at a noticeable speed. She quickly used her telekinesis to turn the solidifying liquid into the round pills. 8 brown pills hovered in the air, right in front of Alex.
"They changed colors." He uttered.
"Yeah, what you see is not always what it is." She handed the pills to him. "These pills are my creation, although they will make you sleep, while you are asleep they help injuries heal faster." She ntioned.
"Thank you," He smiled and accepted them.
"Now, co and try concocting the sa thing that I just did." Nana stepped aside.
"I should try it? ?" Alex wasn't confident in himself.
"Yes, you, who else. Be fast about it, you have better rember the sequence of ingredients and timing that I placed them in the cauldron or else." She squinted her eyes at him.
Alex gulped and nodded his head.
"There's still sothing that I haven't told you, it is also vital when for concocting but I want to see if you can figure it out on your own." She placed her hands behind her back and watched Alex. She tilted her head a bit, telling him to go on.
['Rise!'] He said in his mind and surprisingly the ingredients rose. He could feel that so of them were heavier than the rest. He frowned.
Nana saw his expression and understood why he was frowning. "The weight of so things depends on the level of QI integrated into them. For example, you can use your telekinesis to make normal people levitate but you can't use it on . Because of the QI in ." She explained to him.
"I understand." He used his telekinesis to put the stone on and soon it started to burn. He could already feel his ntal strength draining as he did that.
Alex rinsed the ingredients, just like Nana did. But the speed at which he did his, was slower than hers.
He threw the first ingredient in the cauldron and waited for it to lt. He then focused on removing the impurities in the ingredient.
Slowly but steadily, a thick black gooey substance was being extracted from it. Alex hadn't finished extracting the impurities in the ingredient and he was already feeling tired. He bit his lips lightly to until it bleeds. He did so just so he could keep himself awake.
"You are doing well, keep it up," Nana comnted.
When he was done, he stopped to catch his breath.
"If you waste too much ti then your efforts will go to waste. The ingredient in the cauldron will burn." Nana pointed.
Alex could feel a migraine coming on. "Can't I just reduce the heat?" He squinted his eyes as he shook his head, trying to relive his pain a bit.
"That will also destroy your efforts." She ntioned.
Alex sighed and brought the second ingredient to the cauldron. As he threw it in, Nana chuckled.
-Boom!!!
Reviews
All reviews (0)