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Aiden sat cross legged in front of his turtle shell cauldron settling down his emotions before starting. This was a pretty volatile recipe and he needed to be in his best state before attempting it. He took one last deep breath before opening his eyes.

The water was poured in and began to boil, it was now or never. He first grabbed the Jade Moss which had been ground into paste and tossed it into the cauldron. Jade Moss was a wood element herb, for this recipe it was the base and would provide the fuel for the fire elemental herb later on.

His mental strength rapidly dissolved the herb leaving only the glowing green essence behind. Next, the Coal Pepper was thrown in. When it was dissolved he immediately moved it over to the green essence. The fiery red energy of the Coal Pepper began to voraciously devour the green energy and grew like a small fire.

As this was happening he squeezed out the Swaddlegrass bulb into the brew, the wind energy whipped the fire essence into an even larger frenzy. The cauldon seemed to glow bright red due to the strong fire energy within. Aiden's hands flew as they formed the seals of the Rising Phoenix Palms containing the bursting energy.

The next step was the most dangerous, adding the Black Spark Rock. He had already ground some into powder and used his mental energy to move it carefully into the cauldron. Black Spark Rock was a lightning element material, its role was to be the catalyst for the explosion.

At the same time he added the roots of the Swaddlegrass, dividing his mental power to dissolve them at the same time. This was much easier after his practice this morning. As soon as they were dissolved he moved the Black Spark Rock essence over to the raging inferno, with the Swaddlegrass right behind it.

As soon as the lightning energy met with the fire energy it began to violently react. Before it could blast his cauldron he used the Swaddlegrass roots to suppress the energy. The roots of the Swaddlegrass was where the most stable wind energy was found allowing it to suppress the violent energy without buckling.

With the concoction in a tenuous balance Aiden began to merge the properties of the herbs into its final state. With the movement of his hands, something strange occurred within the cauldron. The fused essences began to separate off into small trembling clouds.

These were the pill embryos, the beginning stage of forming a pill. Forming pills was actually the most difficult stage of pill recipes. The alchemical materials were in a state of instability and the slightest mistake would scrap the pill embryo resulting in the pill failing to form.

Aiden tried to sharpen his focus to the utmost, his hands mimicking the flight of a Phoenix as he struggled to balance and condense each pill embryo. He couldn't leave a single one unattended, otherwise it would crumble apart. So he had to condense them all at once.

The aura above the cauldron began to accumulate. With one final wave of his hands, the aura rushed into the cauldron vigorously pressuring the pill embryos and evaporating the water. Among the sound of rushing steam a faint ting ting ting was heard. Aiden waited with baited breath for the steam to clear before he could see what lay in the cauldron.

Three small red pills. Aiden used his mental strength to bring them to his palms. They were far from perfect, their color was dull and they weren't round. But his fingers trembled in excitement. His warm amber eyes were glued to the small little pills in his hand.

Among the three Alchemy paths, pill making was the most difficult to get started on. Although at higher levels they each had their own quirks and required great skill to master, pill making was the hardest for beginners. That was because forming the pill had such a high rate of failure.

In fact, if another Alchemist in the kingdom were to know that Aiden had succeeded on his first try they would probably vomit blood at the injustice. Alchemists were very rare in the Golden Lion Kingdom, but what Aiden didn't know was that most of them were only capable of a few potions and elixirs. Pill Masters were held in high esteem and afforded respect even among the noble families and clans of the kingdom. Due to their scarcity, pills were almost untouchable and thus extremely valuable.

Aiden's mind wasn't on that point at all. He was actually thinking about how these could help him hunt for meat. Although he had only ever tasted the Mud Snapper, he felt that meat was the most delicious thing in the world. Not to mention the practical benefits of magical beast meat. After spending a few moments imagining all the delicious meat he would be able to eat, he gently placed them into a bamboo container. He was going to need to build a shelf to hold all of these containers.

Next he sat down to meditate, the effort of crafting the pills had tired him out. He needed to rest and ponder over the recipe. There had actually been seven pill embryos, but only three were able to form pills.

Combing over the process in his mind, he settled on a few points. First, when he used the Swaddlegrass roots to suppress the violent reaction when the Black Spark Rock was added, there was a bit of energy leakage. He suspected that this leakage damaged the medicinal efficacy and weakened some of the pill embryos resulting in them failing to form.

Second, when was controlling the pill embryos his mental energy was a little strained and he felt his control over some of them slip slightly. That probably led to some of them being unstable. Third and final, his last gestures were not perfect which caused the aura to not be evenly distributed among the pill embryos. When he tried again tomorrow, he would work on those points. Hopefully, he could form more pills.