He realized that the information on the talisman was already on his head and that he didn't require the talisman itself anymore. So he kept it back in the bag and looked at the other 12 ingredients.
Once he thought about the recipe, he somehow knew which ingredients he had to put in, at what time, at what temperature. The recipe had even mentioned how to move the ingredients inside the pot while performing alchemy.
"This is quite thorough," he thought.
After a few minutes, the cauldron started to make sounds, signifying that it was ready for alchemy.
Kong Yuhan opened his eyes and took a deep breath.
"Are you ready junior brother, I will start asking for the ingredients one after another?" He said.
"Yes," Alex replied with a single word.
"Very well then. Horn root grass." He said.
Alex knew [Horn Root Grass] was the first ingredient and was ready for it. Without missing a beat, he took out the Horn Root Grass and handed it to Kong Yuhan.
Kong Yuhan took the ingredient and put it inside the cauldron. Alex wanted to see how he would now follow the recipe and move the ingredient all around the cauldron for 2 minutes.
Kong Yuhan simply moved his right hand in a circular motion without using anything to move the horn root grass.
'He is using his Qi to move the ingredient? That doesn't look like a technique. Does that mean one can normally use Qi to move stuff?' Alex needed to test this as soon as he could.
But now was not the time. After nearly 2 minutes had passed, Alex took out the next ingredient, ready to hand it to Kong Yuhan.
Kong Yuhan called out the name and took the ingredient. He then put the ingredient into the cauldron. This brought a reaction out of Alex.
'NO!!' he internally shouted. 'There were still 2 more seconds left before the 2 minutes were over. He put it in too early.' But he didn't voice his opinion out loud as that might disturb Kong Yuhan out of his concentration.
He then gave him the next ingredient, which looked like a wilted leaf. Kong Yuhan increased the temperature of the fire and put in the wilted leaf.
'The fire is 10 degrees lower than what it should be.' Alex once again found a flaw in Kong Yuhan's process.
Similar things kept on happening with Kong Yuhan's process. Either he put in the ingredients too early, or put them in too late. Sometimes the fire wasn't at the right temperature, other times it changed too slowly.
All in all, it looked like a disaster to Alex. 'Is he going to fail?' he thought.
He took out the last remaining item from the bag, the dwarf berry. Kong Yuhan was full of sweat, still concentrating on the alchemy and ready to put in the final ingredient.
He held out his hand and asked for the berry. He waited for the right moment and put in the berry.
'He timed it quite right this time.' Alex thought. He then looked as Kong Yuhan finally mixed his last ingredients in the cauldron.
All the ingredients had already lost their forms and turned into a bunch of powder by now. The dwarf berry was no different either and soon turned into powder.
Now came the final phase of the alchemy process, making the pill.
Kong Yuhan used a pill-forming technique and slowly brought the powders together to form a clump. He put Qi into the clump to slowly compress them into a ball.
After a few minutes, he had successfully formed a ball out of the clump, and thus successfully, formed a pill.
Kong Yuhan flicked his finger, and a small yellow pill flew out of it, into his hand. A magnificent burst of medicinal scents followed the pill.
Kong Yuhan looked at the pill with wide eyes. He was beyond happy to have succeeded.
Alex was also surprised to see the pill. He had expected Kong Yuhan to fail, given how many mistakes he had made during the alchemy process.
He focused his eyes on the small yellow pill. Suddenly a name popped up on the pill.
[Spirit Enhancing Pill]
He couldn't see its other information as he was not in contact with the pill. He wanted to ask Kong Yuhan to let him touch the pill but decided not to.
He walked forward towards Kong Yuhan.
"Congratulations, brother Kong. You succeeded in making the pill."
"Oh thank you, junior brother. I was quite skeptical about letting you be an aid, but you really helped me a lot." Kong Yuhan said with a big smile on his face.
"With this pill, I can finally break through to the Meridian Tempering realm. That would help me a lot on my path to becoming a better alchemist. Maybe it will even help me become a core disciple" Kong Yuhan started laughing a little.
"What are the requirements for being a Core disciple? If you don't mind me asking." Alex pried a little.
"Oh. Similar to how you have to make 10 different mortal grade pills for becoming an inner sect disciple, you have to make 20 different 20% harmony mortal grade pills for becoming a core disciple." Kong Yuhan said.
"Oh. That seems quite hard. Making 20 different near-earth-grade pills must be quite a task." Alex said.
"They sure are. However, there have been people that have made them in less than a month. That's how Wan Li became a core disciple too." He said.
'Wan Li, that was the name of the First place holder in the rankings, wasn't it?' Alex thought.
" Oh, then what is the harmony level of your current pill brother?" Alex asked.
"Ah, let me see." He focused on the pill for a bit and said, " well, it definitely isn't an earth grade. It's still a mortal-grade pill for sure. Let me check the exact numbers though."
He then reached into his storage bag and brought out a glass beaker with a metal plate on the bottom.