Forming Grade-1 Pill

We strolled through the mansion, showing Grace her new home. She was in awe of the sheer size of the place.

"I get to live here?" she exclaimed, still in disbelief.

"Yes, and Ian will show you the best part," Augustus replied, signaling Ian to lead the way.

Ian led us down to the basement, which was transformed into a state-of-the-art laboratory, complete with advanced equipment and machinery. While Augustus and Ian seemed unfamiliar with the technology, Grace was fascinated by everything she saw.

"Is this a distiller machine? It's so unique compared to the one I used before," she said, pointing to a machine.

"And this is a Refinement Cauldron? It's much better than the one we have at home," she added, examining the cauldron closely.

To help Grace in her pill refining, Ian had hired a grade-3 Alchemist as her assistant, who looked quite old and experienced, although he was grumbling about having to work with someone so young.

"I was told that I would be working with another grade-3 alchemist. But she's just a kid?" the old man complained, eyeing Grace suspiciously.

Ian quickly came up with a solution. "Why don't you both refine a grade-1 pill and we'll be the judge?" he suggested.

Augustus nodded in agreement. "I think that's a great idea. Grace, you and the old man can compete in refining the pill, and we will judge based on time and quality of the pill."

Grace was hesitant. "I'm not sure how to use some of these machines," she said, looking at the unfamiliar equipment.

The old man reassured her. "Don't worry, we'll use pre-prepared ingredients and I've already set up the basic components beforehand. You just need to refine the pills in the cauldron."

With that, the competition began. The old man quickly grabbed some herbs from the boxes and tossed them into the cauldron, using his qi to create fire and start the refining process.

Grace watched intently as the old man worked, studying her opponent closely. Augustus couldn't help but ask, "How is he? Is he good?"

As Grace watched the old man who's refining the Pill, she couldn't help but feel a twinge of envy.

The man's control over fire was incredible, and he was able to turn his own Qi into fire element, something Grace couldn't do as she still haven't got the chance to properly cultivate and increase the capacity of her qi.

"He has his own fire but I'll have to rely on stove fire to refine pill." Grace said to Augustus.

"But can you beat him in refining pills?" Augustus wanted to get confirmation from Grace.

"I don't know," Grace admitted. "Judging from the current scene, he's still struggling to form the pills. He should've used more Vitality Ginseng and balanced it out with a little bit of deer antler and astragalus."

"So, you can beat him in refining grade-1 pills, right?" Augustus asked excitedly.

"Hmm, probably yes?" Grace replied hesitantly as she's unfamiliar with the cauldron so she can't guarantee anything.

"Yep, that's what I want to hear," Augustus said with a chuckle.

An hour passed, and finally, Old Sheng finished refining the pills. "It's finally done. Vitality Boosting Pill, the most basic Grade-1 pill learned by most alchemist, formed by using basic ingredients that you can find on earth," the old man announced proudly.

He handed out the pill to Ian to be judged. "It's probably at Mid-grade quality. Forging two pills at once, that's impressive, Old Sheng. This is worth at least ten spirit stones per pill, but you probably just used five hundred dollars worth of materials," Ian commented.

"Thank you for the praises," the old man replied with a smile. However, he wasn't entirely satisfied with the result. 'I could do better. I made some mistakes just now. If not for that, it should've been at high-grade quality.'

"Now let's watch how a little girl like her could form a pill," Old Sheng said, referring to Grace. He was quite curious about her and hoped that Ian didn't disappoint him.

"I'll start now too," Grace announced, going to the cauldron and standing beside it. But she was too short to refine the pill properly, so she went and grabbed a chair to increase her height.

As Old Sheng watched in disbelief, Grace cutely dragged a gas can containing natural gas propane and used it to start the fire in the cauldron. "This should be fine. Now let's set up some fire," she said.

Old Sheng shook his head and tried to cover his eyes, muttering to himself, "She's trying to cook..."

"Next are the ingredients," Grace continued, grabbing another chair to stand as tall as the table, as well as a sharp knife, grinder, and a chopping board.

She chopped the ginseng into small pieces, ground the deer antler into powder, and left the astragalus root as it was. "Phew. My ingredients are ready," she said with a sigh of relief, finally combining them into a bowl and carefully carrying it over to the cauldron.

As she climbed, she almost stumbled over, but thankfully, she didn't fall.

Both Ian and Augustus watched with worry as Grace attempted to refine pills.

Augustus couldn't help but feel anxious as Grace appeared to be clumsy. She even dropped half of the ingredients on the floor while chopping it.

She definitely needed help while refining the pills with her small body.

"Brother August, you are sure she's the right person, right?" Ian asked, mirroring his Augustus' concern.

"I don't know," Augustus whispered back. "It's my first time seeing her refine pills."

Grace threw all the ingredients into the cauldron, including the bowl itself.

"What the..." Old Sheng muttered in frustration as he watched. "Why did she throw the bowl into the cauldron? Who will clean up the mess inside? There will be impurities inside her pill."

However, to Old Sheng's surprise, Grace carefully separated everything as soon as she threw the ingredients into the cauldron. She used her Qi to separate the ingredients into three different sections, and then slowly began combining them, forming pills with each ingredient she had thrown in.

"Oh, she's capable of doing that. That's magnificent Qi control, to be able to separate the ingredients that have been mashed up into powder and chopped into pieces," Old Sheng observed, now seeing some hope.

After a few minutes, all the ingredients were combined, and Grace managed to make twelve pills. She carefully retrieved the pills with her qi and placed them on a cooling tray she had prepared on another table. "That fast? Girl, you need to refine it more. The pill is not ready yet," Old Sheng advised.

"I know, I'm preparing more ingredients," Grace replied, grabbing other ingredients that are rarely used in Vitality Boosting Pills, Cordyceps, and Rishi mushrooms. She chopped them into pieces and again threw them into the cauldron.

After a while, exactly twelve more pills were formed. However, this time, they looked messier than the previous twelve pills. Grace put them all together into a huge bowl again, and as expected, the whole thing was thrown into the cauldron once more.

"Three bowls have been broken..." Old Sheng could not imagine the mess at the bottom of the cauldron.

At this point, Grace began combining both sets of pills directly on the fire, causing Old Sheng to flinch. 'This is a failure... There's no way a pill can be formed. I'll eat my own fist and never become an alchemist again if she forms a pill from that junk,' he said in his thoughts.

Ten minutes passed, and Grace finally finished refining her pill. "I have finished," she declared.

The pills that she retrieved from the cauldron, they were pitch black. Old Sheng couldn't help but shake his head fervently. "Ian Chen, I'm disappointed in you. This is not funny at all. This old man may be afraid of the Chen Family, but I will not tolerate such jokes. I'm leaving."

"But you haven't seen my pill yet," As Grace said to Old Sheng, she carefully drop the pills into bowl of water and rubbed her fingers on the pill, and the black outer shell came off easily, revealing a bright golden pill inside.

Grace cleaned one of the pills and threw it to Old Sheng.

"This…is your pill?" Old Sheng carefully examined the golden pill in his hand, then his hands slowly trembled.

'This is perfect-grade quality, only then it's golden-colored but there's no way this is true. I've only seen perfect-grade in the Martial Arts Dimension, formed by a master alchemist that's way beyond grade-5 alchemist.'

'Did she slip some food coloring or something?' Old Sheng couldn't believe that a young girl had created this pill, so he ate the pill for confirmation.

As soon as the pill hit his mouth, it dissolved into pure extraction, and he could feel himself getting younger. There was also an abundance of qi inside the extraction.

'This is a hundred times more potent than a normal-quality Vitality Boosting Pill. It can even boost your cultivation. Such a wonderful pill shouldn't exist but she refined twelve of them at the same time.'

Normally, a Vitality Boosting pill was only used to boost one's strength temporarily, as the name suggested. It boosted one's vitality, making them more energetic and younger.

'I feel like I can continuously refine pills for hours and hours without feeling tired at all, as if I returned to my youth when I first learned Alchemy with a free body.' Old Sheng continuously praised the pill in his thoughts and fell into a trance for minutes until he heard someone calling his name.

"Old Sheng, are you okay? Is it poisoned or something?" Ian was worried for Old Sheng as he stood there, eyes closed for ten minutes straight.

"Master Ian!" Old Sheng suddenly became polite again. "Please let me guide her. I would like to be her assistant. I don't mind if you don't pay me either. Please, I apologize for my rudeness."

"No! Young miss! Please accept me as your assistant." Old Sheng knelt with respect. He didn't care about his honor as an elder or anything. He was just reminded that he had an opportunity to improve his ability as an alchemist as well as live longer under the grace of the Chen Family and Grace.

"Calm down, Old Sheng. There's no need for you to be like this. You're the only grade-3 alchemist we can find, so there's no way we would reject you." Ian carefully lifted Old Sheng from the floor.

"I'm sure there are tons of alchemists on earth that are willing to work for her for free. I'm just lucky to meet Young miss and Young master here." Old Sheng continued to humble himself.

"Okay, I'll accept you as my assistant, but you'll have to help me carry my things next time. I'm too weak to carry everything," Grace said to the polite old man.

"Thank you! Thank you, young miss. I'll be your arms and legs, just entrust me with everything," Old Sheng replied gratefully.

Augustus realized that he had been worried for nothing. He shouldn't have doubted Grace's ability, especially since he already knew the future.