Chapter 45: Pill refining
Now that he finished the preparation he started the process of refining his first pill.
First he used his mana to from a sphere which held one set of ingredients. This sphere would replace the normally used pill furnace. It was quite an elegant solution to the problem of a missing furnace, besides the problem that it used up way to much mana to be used under normal circumstances.
Besides the set of herbs he added a bit of water from the pond. Then he used some more mana to create a small flame.
In theory one could use any flame for refining, but the only other source of fire he had available would be a wood based fire which would be much harder to control. So even though his mana flame used up lots and lots of mana it was much more suitable for refining.
He then used the fire to heat up the ingredients until they split up into their medical components, which was the first step of pill refining. He then quickly checked his mana and saw that he had already used up one tenth of it.
The next step was to use mana to separate the medical components and then select the ones he needed while discarding the others. This step was called purification and was one of the hardest parts since even though the herbs had already split up into their medical components, these components didn't just separate on their own but intermingled. He had read that good pill refiners could remove around 80 percent of the impurities. Of course he was far away from that and he could only hope to even manage to remove 20 percent, since that was the lowest purity where the pill could still successfully form.
He carefully used his mana to pull out the impurities from the mixture and let dem evaporate through the sphere. When his remaining mana was less then a quarter he had to stop the process or he would be unable to form the pill.
Now he went on to the next step wich was forming the pill. Using the mana sphere as a container made this process quite easy. He just needed to shrink it until only a hard little pill remained. During the shrinking process the pressure on the medical components remaining would fuse them together. Of course this was a very primitiv way to do pill formation but it was good enough for low grade pills.
Since the components resisted against the merger he had to use more mana on the smaller sphere than the bigger one but he managed to slowly shrink it until it had a diameter of less than two centimeter. And the pill had reached a solid state.
Once the pill became solid he removed the mana sphere, which he couldn't keep up anyway since he had run out of mana, and the small pill dropped down on his hand.
It had a dark murky color and looked more like mud than anything else, but it had a solid feel to it which was a good sign. Ivan didn't dare to be happy just yet since it was highly unlikely that he was successful on his first try.
<< Failed Small Pill of Detoxification, Unranked
A failed product. It was supposed to be a Small Pill of Detoxification but it ended as a undefinable mixture. Consume it to find out it's effect.
Remark: Trash produces trash,
>>
Inspecting the pill gave him the answer. It was a failed product. Of course the remark was ignored since he had gotten used to them.
What surprised him was that even though it was a failed product there was still an unknown effect. Of course he wouldn't take the pill just to find out what it was, after all it just might be a negative one.
But he wasn't disheartened by his failure to create the Small Pill of Detoxification since it was only his first try. Instead he was full of eagerness to try again. Sadly his mana was depleted and he had to wait for it to replenish again. Since this would take at least a hour he went over the process of his refining in the hope of finding out why he had failed.
He did try another two times which all ended in failure before deciding to stop for today and instead go to sleep. After all it was already late and he had to go out hunting tomorrow.
As soon as he lied down in his sleeping bag he fell into a deep dreamless sleep.
The next morning he awoke when the sun shined in through a small gap between the curtain and the wall at the entrance of the cave. Even though the floor was rock hard he had been able to sleep well which could surely be attributed to his exhaustion on the day before.
Once again he ate some rations as breakfast and then went down from the cave.
Below the cave there laid a valley through which a small stream flowed. On one end was a waterfall while the other was open and was where he did come from.
After taking a bath in the stream which sparkled in the morning sun and was ice cold he then got ready to continue with his mission.
Yesterday he had found some more marks made by the claws of Steelback Bears near the entrance to the small valley so he was hopeful that he would be able to find some in the surrounding forest.
As such he didn't remove his things from the cave but instead decided to keep them there. He then created a marker on his map so he would easily find his way back before taking out his sword and leaving the serene valley.
Now that the terrain was much more mountainous there weren't as many high trees anymore and the sun was able to reach the ground a lot more which lead to a great difference in the atmosphere as Ivan felt much more relaxed than in the dim light of the forest at the plainer terrain.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone