New Recipe

"What do you mean?" 

"What if we added some other ingredient to fortify the skin, allowing it to survive the heat?"

"Interesting, though I'm not sure of such an ingredient." Siar said while rubbing her own chin, running over some possible choices.

"I've already got something in mind, the wax of the Firewood Tree, add a little bit to the surface of the Blood Root and we may have something." Minos interjected.

"Possible, very possible!" Siar said excitedly, haven't having felt this passion for discovery in a long time.

Despite it only being a One-Moon Pill of little value, the feeling of pioneering was still invigorating, filling her up with motivation.

"Hold up, I think I've got a few Firewood Tree branches in my storage room, let me go get them." Siar said, before quickly running off.

After a short wait, Siar came back out of the storage room, in her hand a couple of deep-red branches that were warm to the touch.

Placing them on the table, Siar delicately cut them open before she began scraping away at the wax that was hidden inside.

After she had enough, she pulled out another Blood Root and gently rubbed the Firewood Tree wax onto the surface, covering it completely.

With the wax applied, Siar was ready to toss the Blood Root back into the furnace to prepare another Blood Root Base, but Minos stopped her right in time.

"Hold up, the wax hasn't been absorbed properly. Tossing it in now would be no different from before." Minos said, having discretely used his Omniscient Eyes to look deep into the Blood Root.

"Oh? Then what should we do?" Siar asked, unconsciously giving control over to Minos.

"Let's give it a cold bath, should help the two ingredients fuse."

"Cold bath? But both of these plants are fire-based, won't that be counterproductive?"

"Not necessary, after all, yin gives birth to yang and vice versa." Minos explained.

"Hmm, I suppose that's true. Well it's not like these ingredients are that valuable, so it's worth a try."

After agreeing to Minos's plan, Siar quickly prepared a small bucket of ice-cold water before placing the Blood Root inside.

This was completely new to her, so she had no idea how long to leave it in, instead looking towards Minos, clearly waiting for him to give the signal.

Normally Siar wouldn't pay so much heed to an amateur of Minos's level, but he had long since proven himself extremely talented, so she didn't question him, and was even willing to listen to him.

After about five minutes, Minos nodded towards Siar, causing her to quickly scoop the Blood Root out of the cold water, gently placing it on the table to dry.

After letting it dry completely, she finally got to work creating the Blood Root Base, Minos watching closely from behind to make sure everything went according to plan.

As the Blood Root slowly melted and combined with the other liquids within the furnace, the skin didn't burn immediately like it normally did, rather it was slowly absorbed along with the rest of the Blood Root.

Looking at this, Siar was ecstatic, but having yet to create the final pills, she quickly calmed herself down before getting to work.

Just as she was about to toss in another Blood Root, Minos stopped her just in time, reminding her that it was no longer needed.

"We don't need the Blood Root anymore, remember?"

"Oh yeah, my bad. It's just I'm so used to tossing it in, I guess it's become muscle memory by now." Siar said as she gently slapped her forehead.

"It's to be expected." Minos smiled, continuing to watch Siar finish the remaining steps.

Without having to add the Blood Root, the usual 50 minutes it took to prepare the final concoction dropped to only 40, a full 20% faster!

That only was impressive enough, but as Siar prepared the final pills and took a taste of it, she was shocked to find out the medicinal power had also improved by a similar amount.

"Amazing! Here, have a taste." Siar said, not even bothered to explain the finding, rather letting Minos experience it himself.

Taking the pill, Minos quickly swallowed it before using his incredible senses to feel out the new medicinal power.

After a quick comparison, Minos found out that the difference between the two was about 23%, which was a massive improvement for a pill that had long since been thought perfect.

"Looks like we've just done something incredible here." Minos said with a smile.

"We? This is all you." Siar quickly replied, not feeling like she deserved any credit.

"Don't be like that. It's your room, your furnace, and your ingredients, not to mention you're the one who taught me everything I know." Minos responded firmly.

Still not feeling like she deserved it, Siar tried arguing some more, but Minos shot down each one of her points, forcing her to take credit even if she didn't want it.

"Fine, I'll take credit, are you happy?" Siar shouted, her eyes rolling.

"Very." Minos laughed.

"Anyways, now that we've created a new pill, what do you want to do with it?" Siar asked.

"I'm new to this, so what do you suggest?" Minos said, throwing it back to her.

"In my opinion we should sell the formula to the Alchemist Guild, that way we'll get 30% of the profit of all future pills made using it."

"30%? Not bad."

"More than not bad. You may not know this, but the Blood Mending Pill is one of the most popular among low level cultivators, and thousands are sold everyday."

"Let's say five thousand pills are sold everyday, considering each is worth 10 Nux Crystals, of which we'll get 3, multiply that by five thousand."

"15,000 Nux Crystals divided by a hundred, that'll be 150 Nux Stones a day, all in passive income."

"Not to mention that our Blood Mending Pill is about 20% stronger than the usual one, so we could easily raise the price to 12 Nux Crystals, which would end up giving us around 200 Nux Stones a day."

"Impressive." Minos said, his daily income being around that much as well.

Of course that's just when he worked casually, otherwise if he truly pushed himself he could easily earn 10x that amount.

"I'm not finished. As a Five-Moon Alchemist, I get 50% instead of just 30%, meaning we'll get 300 Nux Stones." Siar bragged, her nose held high.

"Even better." Minos said, though he didn't really care about such an amount.

After all, once his Rovo plan was fully accomplished, he'd be earning an ungodly amount, enough to make 300 Nux Stones look like nothing.

"Since you're the one who made this formula, you can have the earnings." Siar added.

"Didn't we already agree to share credit?"

"Credit is one thing, money is another. Besides you must understand my circumstances by now, 300 Nux Stones a day is nothing, so just take it." Siar said forcefully, clearly not wanting to argue.

Realizing that she was serious this time, Minos decided not to push his luck, simply accepting the 300 Nux Stones with open arms.

"Well with that decided, let's get back to making pills!" Siar said happily, excited to see what other ideas Minos would come up with.

Like that an entire month flew by, Minos and Siar holed up in her alchemy lab spending dawn to dusk making pills.

With Minos's incredible talent, he only needed to be taught a pill once before fully mastering it, sometimes even being better than Siar herself.

Siar was slightly envious of his demonic talent at first, but as she realized the massive gap that existed between the two of them, envy just turned into admiration, Siar even beginning to look up to Minos.

With his innovative ideas, plus his access to Siar's massive library, Minos improved a few other pill recipes, and while none of the pills were as popular as the Blood Mending Pill, they still fattened up his daily earnings even more.

Since Minos didn't want to expose his talent, he and Siar agreed that she would take all the credit on the surface whereas he would get the money, which was beneficial to the both of them.

It was also in this timeframe, with a little help from Minos, did Siar finally breakthrough to the Sixth-Moon level, finally capable of refining Six-Moon Pills.

"I did it, I finally did it!" Siar shouted joyously, jumping up and down like a little girl on her birthday.

Using her Nux, she slowly pulled the fat-white pill from the furnace, gently dropping it into a special vial before sealing it off completely.

Compared to Three-Moon Pills and below that could be mass-manufactured, those above the Four-Moon required a completely different process, and one was lucky to get more than a single pill from a furnace.

"Congrats." Minos said with a smile from the side, his voice quickly calming Siar back down.

"It's all thanks to you, without your thoughts and ideas, it would have likely taken me a few more years before crossing this gap." Siar said genuinely, reaching out and hugging Minos tightly.

"I'm happy to help." Minos smiled, returning the hug.