Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Silvermist had no more hand in what he could teach Alex. All he could do was wait for Alex to figure out what to do on his own. "I cannot tell you how to use Pills as an ingredient if you can't create the pill in the first place," Silvermist said. "I will be back in a while after you've managed to make the pill."

Alex nodded and watched his master leave. After he was gone, he simply looked at the Blueveined Orchid in front of him for some time while thinking of all the ways he could mix ingredients together to get the result.

He thought for a while, coming up with some that got close but not perfect. He knew what the Blueveined Orchid did, so coming up with a combination that did something similar was not that difficult. However, even after an hour of thinking, his mind was mostly blank.

He had come across a very fascinating problem that he needed to ask his master about. But as much as he needed to, he was stubborn and wanted to find the answer himself. At least, he had enough time to waste trying to figure this out on his own.

The issue he was having was one where he needed to find a way to get rid of elements inside of a pill that weren't present in the ingredient.

It was just a common bit of knowledge he had known about for some time now, perhaps since the day he learned the Five Elemental Interaction Dao, which was now the Seven Elemental Interaction.

The higher the quality of the ingredient, the less the amount of elements it had.

The Common grade ingredient had all 7 elements, with one major element and the other at a various amount. It included elements that Ruined, Weakened, Controlled, and Empowered the main element, while also having Yin and Yang as extra.

A step higher, the True Grade ingredient had 6 elements, missing the one element that ruined the major element of the ingredient.

Then a step higher, the Saint Grade ingredient had 5 elements, missing not just the Ruining element but also the Weakening Element.

The Immortal Grade ingredient had the Controlling element missing, having only 4 elements, one main element and one that Empowered the main element, along with Yin and Yang.

As far as Alex was aware, the Divine-grade ingredients simply had Yin and Yang along with the major element.

Since he was going to convert a bunch of Saint grade ingredients to form a pill equivalent to the Blueveined Orchid, even if he used only the ingredients that had Wood element as the major element and Water element as the Empowering element, there was still the Controlling element which would be Metal element.

Alex struggled to figure out how he was going to get rid of the Metal element in that instance. And that too was with hopeful thinking. The truth was, that he was going to have to use different ingredients with different types of elements to form the pill.

Even if they did not appear to be part of the finalized version, they would still be a complex combination underneath it all. Just because they were turned into a pill did not mean they were suddenly gone.

How was he going to get rid of Fire, Metal, and Earth energy?

"Do I use my Dao perhaps?" Alex wondered. He did have all the Dao that he would require. He didn't have Wood Dao, but since that was to be left alone, that would work out in the end.

But Alex didn't believe that was the case. One shouldn't need all the Dao to do this or his master wouldn't have told him to try. There had to be something else going on.

"Intent?" Alex wondered. Did it all come down to Intent in the end?

"If I force the Intent to get rid of the last 3 elements, would it work?" Alex thought. He needed to try. If nothing else, he would know one more thing not to do.

He quickly went through his mind to find the closest combination of ingredients he could find which would do the exact same thing as the flower before him.

Once he found it, he messaged Shi Quanli to bring him the ingredients. The beast woman came by a while later and handed him the ingredients.

Alex thanked her and immediately began making the pill. He didn't care about doing it right at the moment. He only focused on doing it. Even if the pill came out physically terrible, as long as he got the energy correct, he would be happy.

The ingredients turned to powder before his eyes and the energy coalesced in the cauldron, waiting for him to do something with it.

If he turned it into a pill right now, it would be an actual pill. It would be a minor cultivation pill of no particular note.

Of course, that wasn't the end result Alex wanted. He needed to condense it now.

'Intent,' he told himself. 'Focus your Intent on removing Fire, Metal, and Earth.'

He took a deep breath and began. On top of using his Qi and Intent to condense the energy, he used additional Intent on the removal process, which caused an additional strain on his mind.

Because it was only Saint ingredients, Alex didn't expect the strain to be much at all. However, to his surprise, it was quite a bit of strain. Subduing elements was not something he had expected to be this difficult to do.

He pushed against the elements, making them weaker and weaker, but even as he tried, it did not get rid of the element at all. Each time he pulled back his Intent, the subdued element would simply return.

To Alex's sheer confusion, he could not make it disappear at all. He continued wondering what could be done when something happened on its own.

As he condensed the energy on its own, there was a change in the elements. The first thing he noticed was the Earth element fizzling out. Suddenly, it was gone.

While he was surprised, he sensed Fire go out next. Alex didn't understand why it was happening, but it was happening on its own. The two elements were gone, with a tiny change in the amount of Wood in the end.

The Metal element disappeared next, fizzling out right within his senses. The Wood element lowered a tiny bit once again.

All 3 times, it was the amount of element that changed, not the overall energy. The overall energy in the pill was the same. In fact, it was stronger as it was condensed more and more. When all three elements were gone, all that was left was Wood, empowered by Water, along with Yin and Yang in negligible amounts. Alex felt the change and slowly let go of the energy.

It was completely stable.

"Did I… do it?"

There was only one way to find out. The powder clumped up in a ball at once and a vortex of Qi formed above it as it swallowed all of the energy into it.

Once the pill was formed, Alex pulled it out of the cauldron. The harmony was very low, but… he had done it.

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