Chapter 46: Alchemy

After the successful partnership with Liberty Firm, Ain eagerly returned home.

Due to the small outing this morning, he decisively cut down his meditation time to only an hour as noon took over.

It was summer, and today was a rare cloudy day, sparing the city’s residents from the sweltering heat. A cool breeze provided relief to those still under the clouds, but all this had nothing to do with Ain.

At the moment, he was seated on his creaky old chair, with all his attention focused on what was before him.

On the table across from him was the alchemy set he had just purchased. There was a microscale with a weigh boat, a test tube rack filled with special glass tubes, a small burner with a crystal beaker hovering over it with a clamp, a few pipettes, and many similar instruments, all to assist him in alchemy.

All these tools had an ethereal luster to them, easily differentiating them from normal tools. They were synthesized from Rank-1 and higher materials and resources, especially for alchemists.

In some of the test tubes, there were liquids of different colors and viscosity, emitting luminance and spirit energy fluctuations. There was some powdery residue in a grinder nearby, and the crystal beaker was releasing green fumes which magically dissipated after a few centimeters away from their origin.

Ain was focused on a mechanical thermometer, closely monitoring the temperature of the mixture in the crystal beaker. He adjusted the flames in a timely fashion while strictly following the pill formula for the Rank-0 pill.

As the most basic medicinal pills, most Rank-0 pills could be produced with some common techniques, requiring minimal use of specialized tools or spirit energy. Ain only had to imbue spirit energy into the mixture once before the heating process began, and a normal flame was sufficient to catalyze the process.

This wasn’t the case for the majority of the medicines out there, as they not only required more tools, but also specialized alchemy techniques and spells. Ain had yet to learn Telekinesis and Spirit Combustion, so this medicinal formula was just right for him to practice.

While Ain stared intently at the boiling mixture, the timer on his hololink began to robotically count down, “Ten, nine, …, six …, three, two, one, beep!”

As soon as the timer sounded, Ain swiftly extinguished the flames and used a gloved hand to hold the crystal beaker before shaking it in a swirling motion, keeping the liquid inside flowing.

He moved to a thin metal tray, akin to a baking sheet, and poured the contents of the crystal beaker onto it.

The emerald, green liquid was viscous like honey, as it flooded out of the beaker. But unlike honey, there was no residue left in the beaker when Ain was finished pouring.

After settling on the tray, the translucent green liquid quickly turned opaque before transforming into a milky green pudding. Soon after, the pudding-like consistency hardened as its color shifted to a dirty white.

All these changes occurred in less than ten seconds, after which Ain released a sigh of relief. The difficult segment was over. As the thin, chalky block cooled down, he moved the soiled grinder components to the sink and thoroughly washed them before drying them with care.

A few minutes later, Ain returned to the table and used a small mallet to break the white blocks into smaller pieces and placed them in the grinder.

Soon, he moved the grinder away, and a bowl of white powder appeared in its stead. Ain’s hands didn’t stop moving and retrieved one of the test tubes from the rack before adding its contents to the bowl. He then used a spatula to fold in the liquid before repeating the same process with all the remaining test tubes in a predetermined order.

After he finished the folding process for the final time, what appeared before Ain was a moist paste, its color still resembling the dirty white, chalky block from before.

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‘Almost done,’ he thought as he moved to a toaster-sized device on the side. Ain poured the paste into the device and began fiddling with the screen on its side. To finish it all, he pressed the green “Start” button on the screen before leaning back into the chair.

Buzz!

Faint mechanical noises sounded from the device as small, uniform, and round pills were periodically dispensed into an attached container.

Without waiting for the device to complete its task, Ain retrieved one of the pills and placed it in a petri dish. He used a pipette to measure out another solution from a separate flask and poured it onto the pill. As soon as the pill came into contact with the solution, its originally dirty white hue morphed into a slightly more yellowish-white color.

Ain used a key to compare the pill’s color before smiling in relief, “Success.”

He moved his gaze towards the device that was still dispensing the Rank-0 Spirit Recovery Pills. This was Ain’s first attempt at alchemy, and it had been overwhelmingly successful. Although the formula described all the steps in detail, his familiarity with lab techniques, accurate spirit energy control, as well as meticulous timing had played vital roles.

The yellowish-white hue was representative of the pills’ quality. The pills Ain just produced were medium-grade pills, one grade lower than the ones he commonly purchased.

Medicines, including pills and potions, were divided into different grades based on their efficacy. The divisions were low-grade, medium-grade, high-grade, and perfect-grade. Low-grade medicines had a 60% efficacy, and each subsequent grade required a 10% increase in efficacy.

Since Ain produced medium-grade Spirit Recovery Pills, their efficacy was at least 70%, but still lower than 80%. This was also the lowest quality pills sold in reputable stores. Only the black market or some shady stores would stock low-grade pills.

This morning, Ain purchased twenty batches of materials for the Rank-0 Spirit Recovery Pills. In his first attempt, he used four batches simultaneously, resulting in sixteen medium-grade pills. This means that each batch of materials produced four pills.

Moreover, each batch cost him 60 star coins, and the pills were priced at 200 star coins per pill.

After doing a swift calculation, Ain realized there was a profit of about 3,000 star coins if he personally sold all these pills. With a middleman, the profit would decrease slightly, but the turnover was still great.

The entire process had taken about an hour, and he had yet to utilize the maximum amount of materials he could use simultaneously.

Although this couldn’t compare to his profit from hunting outside, that might change when Ain moved onto Rank-1 pills or higher.

It was unknown if it was the momentum from his success or the residual fumes, but Ain felt a sudden rush to continue with his alchemy practice. After this first attempt, he was confident in improving his technique and producing high-grade pills. Analysis could make sure of that.

Ain reviewed the formula as he used Analysis. A few minutes later, he moved with confidence and began his second attempt.

The results didn’t disappoint him. After pouring the testing solution onto a pill, its color remained unchanged. This was a high-grade Spirit Recovery Pill, priced at 300 star coins apiece. Furthermore, the time required for this attempt was slashed down to forty minutes.

Ain couldn’t help but smile upon another successful attempt. Ever since he awakened, he had been making constant progress, whether it be in his meditation, body tempering, spells, and now, even in alchemy. His life seemed to have pressed on the accelerator, exhibiting freedom and excitement, which was mostly foreign to Ain.

With the smile on his face, Ain continued to use up all the materials, producing a total of 15 medium-grade pills and 63 high-grade pills. The total profit was only around 6,300 star coins, which was incomparable to hunting, but the thrill of creation still elated him.

Ain wanted to attempt making perfect-grade pills but gave up soon after. He learned that high-grade Rank-0 pills were the limit of production without using spells and true alchemy techniques.

After adequately labeling them, Ain stored the pills away in special crystal bottles. These bottles were recycled from the pills he had purchased for his consumption over the past few weeks.

He glanced around the room and spotted Nox and the cat sitting on the windowsill, staring at the yellow, cloudy sky. It was already evening.

Ain followed their gaze and said, “It’s good weather for training.”

Hearing this, Nox and the cat turned around and replied, “Wooo…” “Meow.”

Ain smiled at their reply before making his way out towards the park. As usual, he began with some spell practice. It’d been a couple of weeks since he learned Shield and Spirit Blast.

He already reached mastery in Shield, so Ain only practiced Spirit Blast. As his only long-range spell, he wanted to master it before his trip tomorrow.

In reality, Ain actually spent equal amounts of time on both Shield and Spirit Blast, but the latter still lagged behind in mastery. The reason for that was the lack of a suitable practice target. The cat forbade Ain from using the trees in the park for practice, hence Ain had been practicing the spell by condensing it on his fingertip before dispelling it, subsequently decreasing his practice efficiency.

There was the option to go to the academy or a private training facility, but Ain opted not to. His spell practice was only a small part of his daily routine. He didn’t want to commute for an extended period of time because of it.

Since he was already very close, it didn’t take long for Ain to finally reach mastery.

‘Now, I’ve mastered all the spells I’ve learned so far.’ Ain thought as he consumed a Blood Refinement Pill. What followed his spell practice was always the body tempering training.