Chapter 111: Chapter 74 Precious Pill Record! The Qi-Blood Pill is complete! _2
“To think one can fathom the art of alchemy with just a book? What a fool’s dream! I have barely grasped the basics of alchemy, even with my grandfather’s personal teaching and guidance since childhood!”
Sun Yun laughed mockingly to himself as he walked.
An accomplished alchemist needs not only theoretical knowledge but also a wealth of practice and experience, spending money like water. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so few alchemists in the vast Ink Forest Prefecture City, all of whom are members of great clans, possessing the means and resources to build an experienced alchemist!
Therefore, in Sun Yun’s view, Su Changkong’s attempt to learn alchemy from a book wasn’t likely to succeed. He imagined Su would give up after a few days of trying, facing several setbacks, and suffering heavy losses.
Su Changkong, of course, didn’t know what Sun Yun was thinking. He carefully put away the Precious Pill Record and headed back to the estate he had rented in the west side of the city.
“Let’s take a look at this Precious Pill Record.”
Su Changkong took out the Precious Pill Record and began to read it carefully.
Su Changkong was quite confident that he could learn alchemy. His potential value was as high as 15 points, and both his talent and comprehension were unmatched by ordinary people, and not only effective in martial practice.
For example, Su Changkong’s forging skill reached an enviable level within a few years because of his potential value!
Su Changkong read the Precious Pill Record word for word, growing more astounded as he read.
“This alchemy really is a skillful craft, even more complex than forging. Alchemy is the art of using techniques primarily involving heat and water to refine various medicinal herbs and materials into pills, which brings out their utmost and even exceeds their limits!”
“Heat methods include calcining, refining, baking, smelting, distilling, sublimating, sealing, while water methods include dissolving, leeching, encapsulating, boiling, simmering, fermenting, and so on…”
Su Changkong was somewhat mesmerized by what he read. The Precious Pill Record wasn’t some grand accomplishment in the way of pills. In fact, if it had been a work of a grandmaster of alchemy, Su Changkong, without any foundation, wouldn’t have been able to understand it.
But the Precious Pill Record was the effort of an old alchemist’s decades of experience in the basics of alchemy, which indeed was very suitable for beginners!
Su Changkong spent an entire day and night reading through the Precious Pill Record, gaining a general understanding of alchemy.
“No matter how extensive theoretical knowledge is, it’s only paper talk. I need hands-on experience, learning from practice and failure to accumulate experiences and lessons.”
Su Changkong decided to get hands-on experience and start alchemy himself!
However, alchemy isn’t as simple as having just a pill furnace.
Alchemy requires a plethora of tools: distillers for distillation, grinders for grinding, pill furnaces, pill tripods, cooking pots are indispensable, as well as pumping devices, and so forth.
Su Changkong immediately set out to purchase these tools. Thankfully, these tools are available for purchase if one has money. He spent two days arranging a specialized pill refining room within the estate.
“Let’s start by making the Vivid Qi Pill recorded in the Precious Pill Record.”
Su Changkong flipped through the book, which listed several common pill medicine recipes, including the Gold Recovery Pill and Vivid Qi Pill.
The Vivid Qi Pill, in particular, speeds up the recovery of one’s strength and is effective for martial artists to restore physical energy and True Qi, making it quite a practical pill medicine!
“The sawwort requires prolonged simmering, while the Live Blood Flower needs to be baked until all the moisture is gone and then ground into powder.”
Following the steps from the Precious Pill Record, Su Changkong began preparing the materials for pill refining. These materials were quite common, purchasable with money, yet not cheap!
Su Changkong busied himself for two hours before he finished preparing and processing the materials. Next came the actual pill refining.
In front of Su Changkong was a pill furnace half a meter in diameter and about one foot high, with a dark silver appearance and beautifully crafted. He had bought this Silver Wire Pill Furnace from Wanling Pavilion, the most expensive among the tools, costing him a whole 500 taels of silver.
Su Changkong began to light a fire, using top-quality coal with high density and carbon content, which is smokeless and releases high heat.
Whoosh!
The flames rose beneath the pill furnace. As the furnace heated up, Su Changkong poured clear water into the outlet, then added various ingredients, one after another, over ten kinds of medicinal herbs in total.
“Increase the heat!”
Su Changkong worked the bellows, stoking the flames under the pill furnace.
The most crucial aspect of alchemy is, of course, the pill refining process itself, requiring perfect control of the temperature and exact timing for opening the furnace—not too early, not too late!
With his experience in forging, Su Changkong was very patient, occasionally adding water through the outlet of the pill furnace.
Above the whole pill furnace, misty vapor rose from the exhaust vent, with a medicinal aroma permeating the air.
“Crack!”
Everything seemed to be going very smoothly, but as time passed, after an hour, there was a faint cracking sound coming from the furnace, accompanied by a smell of something scorched.
“I failed…” Su Changkong’s face showed a hint of helplessness, knowing that his first attempt at alchemy had ended in failure.
Indeed, when Su Changkong opened the lid of the furnace, he saw scorched substances sticking to the walls of it. This attempt at pill refining was akin to throwing nearly a hundred taels of silver to the wind!
Fortunately, Su Changkong was prepared for this. He cleaned out the interior of the pill furnace and washed it in a small pool, then started his second refining attempt.
“Last time, I didn’tcontrol the heat well enough,” Su Changkong reflected on his experience and lesson.
Alchemy (Entry Level 17%)
After a day of hard work, Su Changkong had not succeeded in producing a single Vivid Qi Pill, spending several hundred taels of silver. However, the effort wasn’t entirely fruitless, as another skill—Alchemy—had been added to the skill section of his attribute panel, next to Forging.