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89.75% Learning To Live As A Cultivator / Chapter 289: Chapter Eighty Nine - I haven’t made these in a while

Chapter 289: Chapter Eighty Nine - I haven’t made these in a while

An alchemist battle was not like a normal battle; most Alchemists couldn't use weapons and they couldn't go around just throwing pills at each other.

Jian Juren; I beg to disagree!

So in the centre of the mage field, a platform had been placed just for this rarely seen challenge. On top of the platform were three tables and on two of those there were alchemy stoves, simple cauldrons, kettles, pestle and mortars and bowls as well as a jade plate on each. On the third table was an array of various herbs both common and uncommon, their refreshing scents caught on the wind and teasing the senses of observers even from their distances.

Standing behind one of the tables, Leon felt very uncomfortable; so many eyes were staring down at him. He felt as if the heat from each their eyes increased his core temperature by a half degree, the accumulation of such was burning him to a crisp. With reddened cheeks, he pushed his glasses up his nose as he tried to listen to what the Teacher was saying.

This Teacher happened to be from the alchemist school, but mostly taught inner school students. She, as well as a Teacher from the scholars school, was replacing the Teachers from the martial arts and beast tamer schools just for the alchemy competition. The mage judge remained; this was taking place on mage school grounds after all.

"Jude from the outer alchemist school has challenged Leo also from the outer alchemist school to a battle of alchemy and Leo has accepted. In this challenge, Leo, as the challenged, will be asked to blindly chose a pill from their recorded repertoires. After being informed which pill they will be creating, they must gather the correct herbs from the selection in front and begin the process of making the pill. They are given a maximum time in which to complete this of thirty minutes. They can make as many attempts as is necessary in this period and can chose the final product for the judges to consider. We will then declare a winner between the two. The loser must give the victor ten points as is usual amongst these challenges. Do both parties understand?"

This last part was spoken without the aid of vocal enhancement spells and just to the alchemist students. Leon nodded, while Jude sneered in his direction though he covered up his expression when glanced at by their Teacher. "Yes, of course," he said, politely.

"Then Leo, if you could select from this box," the woman told him, bringing forth a small, lidded trunk with numerous folded pieces of parchment inside. This sort of blind selection was not unfamiliar to Leon having seen such things in school and on television more than a few times. He felt it was even a bit amusing as he carefully picked a slightly buried piece of parchment out of the box and passed it to the Teacher, who smiled as she grasped it. Passing the box to a student beside her, she unfolded the parchment. As it was sealed with a special wax, this wasn't something that others could tamper with ensuring that the challenge was fair.

She showed the words written on the parchment to the other Teachers who nodded in confirmation before declaring the type of pill that they would be creating.  "The Seven Steps Pill!"

The Seven Steps Pill was an enhancement pill and a combat pill used to increase the speed of the one who consumed it for a period of time.  Leon had investigated this pill as Leo, even made numerous attempts to create it before successfully developing one.  Had to be noted that this type of pill was not easy to make for an alchemy student of primary stage.  This was as their inner-seas were generally small and their control over their spiritual energy was not great.  However Leo had probably succeeded as his control and concentration (unchanged as Leon) was good as was his patience.  Still, this had been just before the accident and Leon, who had regressed thanks to his lost memories, hadn't formed this pill since.  Thankfully, by this time his memory had mostly returned...

Both youths approached the table with the herbs upon it.  As it was winter, some of the less hardy herbs were not exactly fresh, there was even some purposefully dried herbs amongst the batches.  Despite this, their aromas were still quite good.  Leon glanced over them, seeking what they would need for the Seven Steps Pill.

Probably not coincidentally, the Seven Steps Pill required seven herbs.  Jude beside him identified them quickly, grabbing what he required before hurrying back to his cauldron.  The person who finished first with a qualified pill could gain favourability from the judges.  Leon didn't hurry, frowning as he noticed the False Nettle herb beside a few other types of Nettle, but as it was the snowy jade Nettle he required, he was not fooled by this.  The snowy jade Nettle had pale green leaves, but also hardened stalks that looked as if they were made from white jade.  The blood red taint that gave away the False Nettle's identity would be too easily seen if it attempted to mimic the other plant.

Leon took a stalk that was particularly lustrous, for no other reason than it looked good as well as some purple spirit grass, wise fools folly (a succulent herb with a backstory, not unlike the concubines jade beads), wyrm's breath, twilight grass, ice rose for its amber and umber spike moss.  He chose the freshest looking herbs with the exception of the ice rose stalk.

Ice Rose amber was a part of the herb the ice rose, but it was an accidental by-product found inside the stalk.  Some said that it was a hardened blockage of golden coloured sap which built up inside the lower part of the stem, but Leo had discovered in his own curious way, that the more wilted the ice rose, the larger the amber and that the amber contained in a rose that had budded but not bloomed before dying was usually more pure.  The stem he had chosen was weak and on the dry side, it's closed bloom black and without life.  Sure enough, amongst the uneven bulges in the lower stem, there was one quite decent in size.

With a provided knife, he swiftly cut open the stem as water boiled in the kettle on the stove.  As was his usual habit when making tea based concoctions, he thoroughly boiled the water before using it in the recipe.  Inside the stem was a translucent, amber stone, which he placed in a bowl to one side before preparing the other herbs, crushing the plucked spines of the moss, which were shaped as small balls and juicing the succulent pods.

Others would toss the herbs in together to make the tea brew, it wasn't necessary to separate them.  But the wyrm's breath flowers weren't needed for the tea, so he frugally cut them off of their fine array of stems before cutting the stems into pieces and adding them to the purple spirit grass and the black and blue blades of the twilight grass into the boiling water to seep.  Placing the kettle to one side, he put the cauldron onto the stove.  This was part of the recipe that needed his concentration the most.

At the bottom of the cauldron, he placed the amber before quickly reaching into his innersea for his spiritual energy in order to deftly control the flame.  In order to melt the amber, the flame needed to be white hot, but as soon as it had melted to a thick goo, the heat needed to be reduced vastly or it would continue to melt to a watery consistency, becoming spoiled. 

Leon suddenly paused.  As he stirred to life the small galaxy of stars within his inner sea, he noticed something was not quite right.  There seemed to be one sparkling glint that was acting contrary to his spiritual energy, weaving in and out against the natural flow.  It even seemed to hop over another star!  He wanted to watch it further, but snapped out of the notion recalling that he was in the midst of a competition and had limited time.  Generally, a Seven Steps Pill would need the majority of this time in order to be completed!  Also, it wasn't causing the flow of his energy to falter in anyway, so he decided to let it be, examine it later and focus on the challenge for now.

His spiritual energies stirred, they rushed forward to fuel the flames condensing the heat in addition to further enhance the fire.  The flames were visibly white under his control and the amber began to melt.  At the point he recognised the amber was sufficient, he reshaped his energies to lower the temperature of the flame and cauldron, allowing the amber to retain consistency. 

He then slowly added the tea, stirring it with a split section of his energies and kneading the liquid into the amber goo until the amber was swollen with the tea.  Of course it was not complete yet, he needed to also add the mixed juices of the succulents and the crushed spines of the moss balls.  But first, he needed to combine them together quickly.  This was another test of the alchemist's abilities, multitasking.  The powder and liquid could only be mixed together for a short while or the powder would dissolve and lose its qualities.  But neither could be added to the amber separately; the powder would thicken the amber too much, the liquid would ruin the even consistency.

Leon was able to do this second task while preventing the amber from burning without much difficulty.  He also mentally kneaded the second combination into the amber without losing any of the efficacy of the herbs.  He couldn't help but wipe his brow after this step was done; all of those cauldron explosions Leo had caused thanks to this recipe really were worth it in the end.  Finally, he used his spiritual energy to form four golden coloured pills, before removing the cauldron from the heat and withdrawing his remaining spirit.  The four pills he placed into the dish were all equally of good quality, so he didn't feel it was too much of a big deal to hand one to the Teacher at random to be judged.


Chapter 290: Chapter Ninety - It comes down to the small details

Jude had also completed making a cauldron of Pills, though in his case he had produced six pills, just that while three were good, two was so-so and the last was poor. He had succeeded in completing the formation of the pills almost three minutes quicker than Leo and could only hold his breath while Leo finished his. Those three minutes had been a little agonising for him, for while he was certain that he was the better alchemist, there were no one hundred percent certainties in this life. If Leo managed somehow to create a high or even perfect quality pill by some miracle, he would lose this challenge. So only when the four good quality pills were displayed upon the small jade plate in front of Leo did he exhale in relief.

He'd won. Although their final pill products were equal in quality, he'd produced more pills and in a faster time period than Leo, this would count to his benefit. True Leo had produced more good quality pills, but his two average pills still counted as being of use and the poor quality pill was not trash. He just smiled gleefully as he waited for the Teacher to announce him as the victor, glancing up at the stands where he believed Miss Maimai was standing.

Could she see now that there were better Alchemists in the school than that trash Leo?!

"And the victor of this challenge..." the Teacher began as Jude anticipated, "is Leo!"

"Wait, What?!"

There was some applause from the audience, particularly concentrated in one area of the stands, but reality was; the battle really was boring to watch. Nearly thirty minutes of seeing people cut herbs and stand staring at their cauldron. From this distance they couldn't see the minute changes of the flames turning what, the beads of sweat upon the two Alchemist students foreheads as they split their concentration again and again in order to create this particular pill. Some had chatted as they waited about earlier battles, some had laid small bets of copper coins upon the winner and loser of this match, a couple had even played rock, paper, scissors in a corner. Only those supporting Leo and Jude respectively actually paid much attention as well as an Alchemy Teachers who had higher senses and could 'see' just what was occurring with the flames and within the cauldron.

Leon didn't mind that there wasn't any thunderous applause or anything, just pleased that he hadn't let down the expectations of his lover and friends. Jude also didn't care, he was too busy trying to figure out why he hadn't heard his name when the victor was declared.

"Teacher, I don't understand!" He approached the female alchemist judge, who'd turned to congratulate Leon. As expected of Teacher Sagi's chosen student. They were seldom what they appeared upon the surface. She regretted that she had been amongst the naysayers at the time when Teacher Sagi decided to take the boy beneath his wing. She had no idea that interest in the boy had gone way past what she was aware of and that he had the eye of the Headmaster. As valued as she was, she wasn't one of the Institute's core Teachers and had not ever been a core Student. That part of the Institute, she was still unaware of. This incident would open her eyes and cause her to hop out of the well she was viewing things from the bottom of before. In a decade, she would finally gain the Headmaster's respect and become more aware, but that was a distance into the future and nothing to do with now.

Now, she had to pacify a sore loser. "What's not to understand?" She questioned, calmly and with no irritation in her tone. She could understand that from this boy's views, their pills were equal in value so their scores should have been untied with other factors.

Sure enough, he stated these very points.

The Teacher indicated the two translucent gold pills upon the table in front of the judges. They were of equal size, the colour at first glance seem equal in depth and shade, their scents were indistinguishable. However, the pill on the right somehow seemed more attractive and pure.

"You are correct in saying that the final pills were both equal in quality," the Teacher explained to the fallen youth, "however what won the battle was the amount of impurities within the pills." Seeing Jude frown, she continued to explain; "Leo's Seven-Steps Pill has two tenth less impurities than your pill, do you understand?"

"How can that be?" Jude muttered, then glanced at the array of fresh and dried herbs on the table in front. He'd grabbed what he needed without really looking at what was available and it had been down to luck that the amber within the Icerose was sizeable helping him to create a good number of pills. "Is that down to luck of ingredients? Were there bad ones mixed in with the good ones?" His hands formed into fists; he was unwilling to accept the consequences of his own actions.

The scholar judge sighed, but the amicable smile he'd been wearing all of this time did not fall. "Young one, herbs do contain varying amount of impurities and it cannot always be recognised which may contain more than others. Leo did spend more time than yourself when choosing his ingredients. Whether that was to his advantage or not remains unknown, but it is possible. However, Leo also took an extra step that you chose not to and that was to boil the water separately before seeping the herbs. In order to save time, you boiled the herbs with the water. Surely you were aware of the findings about this simple extra step, it has been a few months now." This step had been inadvertently discovered by young Leo, attributed to him via his Teacher. Any scholars interested in the theory of alchemy knew of this yet a student of alchemy was unaware?

Jude bit his lower lip, his eyes reddening in anger. He had heard about this in passing, one of his friends had mentioned this, but he hadn't realised it was such a big deal. If he could create a pill with better quality that Leo and in a better time, what did the impurities matter? If they were too much then fine it would make the quality of the pills worsen, but then, he wouldn't have picked that pill for judgement to begin with!

As if the alchemist Teacher could understand the thoughts running through his mind, she asked him; "If you were a martial artist seeking a Seven Steps Pill of good quality, which one of these pills would you choose? The ordinary one or the one that left his body in a better condition after consumption?"

Stated like this, Jude really had no choice but to accept his loss. He could only retreat quietly and reflect on what had gone wrong. He was unhappy, especially when he had to watch Leo return to Miss Maimai's side. He was jealous when she hugged him, when that tall martial artist pulled her away from Leo then kissed him soundly on the mouth... Wait, what??


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