Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Chapter 2256  Momo's First Pill

Momo struggled to make pills the way her master did. Alex made it all look so easy. A little motion here, and a little hand movement there. The ingredients inside the cauldron seemed to dance on their own when he made the pill. When she did it, it was like having to watch 20 different cats who all seemed to want to run off in different directions or fight with each other.

Every time she grabbed one, the other left their spot. Every time she separated two from fighting, another two began quarreling. It was all so much pain.

Momo quickly realized that she couldn't focus all of her attention on what she was doing. She had to separate it. Keeping some to maintain the previously processed ingredients and energy, while placing some into processing the newest ingredient.

And some of it would go to controlling the temperature of the flames, which were hard to get right the first time around.

She got the hang of it more or less, but by that time, it was all over. She had come to the end and she had to make the pill. There was no technique for her here. She just had to gather it all into one place and turn it into a tiny sphere.

She did the last action and opened the lid of the cauldron. As soon as she opened it, she could smell the sweet aroma of the pill she had cooked and the overwhelming amount of energy she had just ended up wasting.

The pill came out, partly burnt. She looked at Alex who simply smiled and said nothing, and then put the pill onto the pill tester she had with her.

She watched the pill tester give her a result. 13%. It was absolutely horrible.

"Hey, not bad!"

Alex's words came to her like a cool breeze on a hot summer day, taking away all of her negative feelings with her. She looked up at him, surprised.

"Not bad?" she asked. "But… it's only 13%. It's not even a usable pill."

"13% on your first pill is not bad," Alex said. "Actually, it might be very good even. I remember my first pill. My old sect had a requirement of 10% for the pill to be considered usable, unlike the Immortal world where everyone wants 50% or higher. My first pill got me 6%."

Momo couldn't believe his words. "No way," she said. "6% is bad, isn't it?"

"Very bad," Alex said. "And unlike you, I had watched and learned about making pills for a while before I even attempted. And yet I still failed."

"Oh!" Momo said. "How did you make a good pill then?"

"Practice," Alex said. "Which is what you are going to be doing. Practice making pills one after another. Making different pills one after another. All until you are accustomed to the feeling of making pills. Now, take a moment to go through everything you know you did wrong, and let's try that again."

With her newly unlocked incredible memory, Momo found it easy to go through what she had just done and look at every single part of it, figuring out where she went wrong. She told Alex all the mistakes she thought she made. Alex didn't explain whether that was all or if there were more, but he affirmed her suspicions about the issues she saw. Once they did the talking, Momo started making pills once again.

She tried a second time and ended up making a much better pill at 22%. Then going through the same routine, she ended up making another better pill at 28%. Alex had her speak about the issues in her previous attempt each time and explained a bit more about what she had to do each time. By the 7th time, she had nearly reached 50%.

"Alright, we're done for the day," Alex said once Momo finally made the 7th pill.

"Really?" Momo asked. "I can still keep going."

"No, you think you can, but any improvement we make today will be minuscule. What you need to do is go back to your room and cultivate while thinking through what you did today," Alex told her. She had ended up using a bit of her spiritual energy while making the pill, so he couldn't have her continuously making pills. She wasn't aware of her own limits and he didn't intend for her to find out anytime soon.

Not until she could make better pills.

Alex looked at the 7 pills she made and smiled. She wouldn't be making many common pills as she would very soon become a True realm cultivator. Still, he decided to keep them as a sort of memorabilia.

'Well, now that I am done with teaching Momo, I should get back to things I need to do on my own,' Alex thought.

Alex had decided to take a bit of a break from searching for the ingredients. It wasn't going to be a very long break, just a week-long break where all of his time would be spent on making pills.

Both he and Pearl needed pills so they could continue their cultivation could reach the Immortal Origin realm.

Alex couldn't wait to use the Provenance Duality: Replication technique when he finally reached that realm. Not to mention, there was that talisman that Bai Jingshen had given him, asking him only to read it when he reached the Immortal Origin realm as well.

'Can I break through before its time for the next competition?' Alex thought. He didn't feel as though he had any major fears holding him back, so the Inner Demon would be easy to deal with too.

"Making it in time for the next competition might be a bit difficult, but I can surely make it there after that," Alex thought. "If Pearl and I can break through around the same time, that would be great, but I might end up being ahead of him."

Pearl had only broken through recently, so it was bound to take him some time.

Alex ignored thoughts of breakthroughs and began preparing the ingredients he would be making pills with. As he prepared, his mind wandered into thinking about what he was going to do to find the rest of the ingredients he had to find.

White Ascension Flowers were not easy to come by as far as he knew. They weren't even that easy to search for. He knew where they could grow, but he wasn't sure if those locations would have it.

The Seven-Colored Angel Rose blossomed once a year, which would be in the Whole Rose Garden. He just needed to figure out the correct time when they would blossom or else he would miss out on them entirely.

As for the remaining 3, those ingredients belonged to insects and animals, especially ones in the Immortal realm. It wouldn't be so easy to come by. He would have to search around in more places than just the gardens as the Immortals could be anywhere. n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

"Let's focus on one thing at a time," Alex told himself. "The rose will have to do for the time being. Once I've found the roses, I can move on to other things."