Pill Refining

"Listen up, kid." Elder Bai put on his strict face. "I'll be going back to the capital already."

"Eh?" Lu Ciel was surprised with his master's announcement. "Your from the capital?"

Hearing his disciple's question, he can't help but misunderstood if this disciple of his was messing with him. Thus, he only nodded as he took out four piles of books and three other thicker books on top of the book piles.

"So many.." Lu Ciel was amazed as he can tell that these were skill books. "What skill books are these?"

"These are the elemental manipulationarts and Pill Refinement Art for [Rare] and [Epic] ranks. Once you have maxed out the level of the said skills, you will need these for you to rank up the skills which are in [Common] rank as of now. And, the thickest book is the Pill Recipes of up to [Epic] rank pills." Elder Bai simply introduced.

"Oh, I see." Lu Ciel finally understand why his skills were not leveling up anymore. He took one of the books in the pile and look at it.

EARTH MANIPULATION ART [Rare]

TYPE: Passive

Requirements:

• Level 9 (maxed level) Earth Manipulation Art [Common]

• 25 Wisdom

Would you like to learn the skill?

[YES // NO]

Definitely, Lu Ciel chose yes, and the book faded as it integrated in his System. With that, another system window popped.

You have learned Earth Manipulation Art [Rank].

Seeing this, elder Bai only nodded as he expected for Lu Ciel to max out the [Common] skills. "Continue with learning the [Rare] skills."

With the instruction, Lu Ciel complied. While his disciple was learning the skill books, elder Bai continued. "Kid, I don't have much time left. I would have left for the capital two days ago already if I was able to get hold of you on that day."

"Keep the other books for now." After learning the last ninth skill, elder Bai instructed as he took out a pile of small wooden boxes. "These are the herbs which were used for refining up to [Rare] rank healing pills. I know that you will be going into the dungeons later on. Hence, you will be needing a lot of pills for additional rate for your survival. Before I give this to you, I want to know if you will really be able to refine a pill."

"Thus, I'll demonstrate how to refine a pill for you to get a gist of how to process the refinement." Elder Bai put the cauldron back on the furnace where small flame silently burning.

Hearing his master's instruction. Lu Ciel nodded as he focused himself on his master that was about to start refining.

Elder Bai stood beside the cauldron so that Lu Ciel can see the cauldron, the movements of the flame and his work. After that, he took a deep breath as his aura composed. "First, always heat up your cauldron to the point that the cauldron is burning red."

"Flame." As elder Bai casted the skill. The flame that was silently burning in the furnace suddenly burst covering the whole cauldron in fire. With the intense fire burning, the cauldron turned red in a matter of a minute only. "Second, cover the herbs in water globs and place it inside the cauldron."

"Water." Elder Bai casted which caused the pond to freely flow in the air, covering the necessary herbs for the pill that he was about to refine. While processing that, he continued with his instructions. "You can deactivate the fire manipulation art and focus on the water manipulation art to segregate the impurities of the herb away from the essence of the herb. Do note, the purer the essence that you've extracted the easier that you combine it with the other essence of different herbs and the higher the grade of the pills that will come out."

Hearing this, Lu Ciel fully noted everything what elder Bai have said so far in his mind. Seeing this, elder Bai was glad that his disciple was giving more than a hundred percent with paying attention to what he was doing and saying.

"In your case, as you are still in the Apprentice Realm, you can only activate the skill one at a time. So make sure that the cauldron is glowing burning red so that its intense heat can last til the end of your refinement." Elder Bai adviced seeing how disciplined his disciple was.

Consciously, Lu Ciel only nodded as he take note of his master's advice while focused on the process of segregating the impurities of the herb. With that, elder Bai nodded as well, approving with his disciple's attitude, as he got back with his work.

After segregating the impurities, elder Bai willed the water with the impurities out of the cauldron for Lu Ciel to see and continued with his instruction once more.

"This is what impurities look like." The water was charcoal black.

"And this is what the essence looked like." Elder Bai willed one of the herbs' essence out of the cauldron for his disciple to see and willed it back in right away in cauldron. It looked like a very dense fluid which can be percieved as glowing.

Once the essence was back in the cauldron, elder Bai spread his arms and his fingers and clapped them right after. "Combine the essences. Once combined, divide the combined essences into exact portion and solidify."

"Take note, the more portion that the combined essences were divided, the faster your pills sill solidify. However, this can be a factor that can make your produced pills have a lower grade than you expected." After giving its final instruction, elder willed the refined pills out of the cauldron. Three pills came out of the cauldron with exact round sizes however, the color of each pill were paler than the other. The pill between the other two pills was eye catching though as it was transparent with a green and red color that looked like a nucleus.

"Wow." Lu Ciel can't help but marvel with the result in front of him. Looking at the pill in the middle of the other two, he dazedly mutter, "It looks perfect."

"Haha!" Elder Bai looked at his disciple, amused, as he told, "That's because it is a perfect-grade [Common] pill. The other two are high-grade and mid-grade. Can you tell which is which? If you can tell me which is the high-grade, I'll give you that pill as this pill is what your butler needs."

"Hmm.." Lu Ciel pondered. "I'm guessing that the paler one is high-grade."

"Are you certain?" Elder Bai raised his eyebrow.

Seeing elder Bai's reaction, Lu Ciel nodded in certainty.

With that, elder Bai smiled as he commented, "Smart, kid."

Elder Bai took out a tiny vial, placing the high-grade Body Rejuvenation Pill and handed it to Lu Ciel. Receiving the pill, Lu Ciel gratefully bowed. "Thank you so much, master."

"Now as an official alchemist and the number one special candidate to boot. You were awarded with a low-tier [Epic] Cauldron. However, if you are able to refine a high-grade pill right now, I'll replace this low-tier into a high-tier." Elder Bai directed to the point to his very reason why he demonstrated his pill refining.

Hearing this, Lu Ciel can't help but laugh awkwardly as he really does not expect to refine a high-grade pill for the very first attempt in his alchemy career. Heck, refining a low-grade pill might be fifty-fifty.

Looking at the reaction of his disciple which portrays low self-esteem, elder Bai can't help but frown and somewhat displeased. "My criteria for you to continue to be my disciple though is for you to refine a mid-grade pill."

Hearing this, Lu Ciel got stunned. A moment passed by before he can react in an aggresive manner. "Hey..hey, old man. I mean master. Are you for real?!"

"Hmph!" Elder Bai only snorted towards the attitude that his disciple's showing. "Take note, you are only refining a common pill, kid. I was even able to refine a low-grade pill for my very first attempt in my alchemy career. No one even provided me instruction and demonstration on how to refine, and I'm not an offical alchemist to boot. It was all theoretical application. Compared to you, a special alchemist with a proper guidance on how to refine a pill. Thinking about it, I'm actually being generous."

Hearing this, Luciel can't help but have cold sweat pouring on his back as he observed that his master was becoming agitated. However, elder Bai deeply sighed, calming himself down as he looked back to his disciple. "I'm spoiling you too much, kid. I'm changing my condition. You will refine me a high-grade pill for you to continue to be my disciple, and if you can refine me a perfect-grade pill, you can have a high-tier [Epic] cauldron instead of the low-tier that was awarded to you, plus the perfect-grade that I've refined. Time limit is one hour."

"What?!" Lu Ciel can't help but be pissed with how crazy this old man can be. It took him a long moment to contain the anger that was welling inside him.

"Hurry up, kid. You have already wasted two days of my life. I'm supposed to be almost halfway to the capital today already." Elder Bai was urging his disciple as he really had no time stay here in this place.

Lu Ciel can't do anything about it. If he can't continue to be elder Bai's disciple then, so be it. His foundation were somewhat setup completely already anyway.

With that thinking, Lu Ciel gritted his teeth as he plab to give his all. "Fine. Lets get on with it."