93 Pill Merging

Allen took out the Dew Knife grass from the bag, but rather than placing it inside the furnace, he put it onto the cauldron and filled it water almost to the brim.

"Wait, aren't we going to create pills? Why does it seem like we're making a potion?", Edwin curiously asked.

He had no knowledge over subjects such as alchemy, but he was sure that to create a pill, one has to use a furnace to do so.

"If we use the furnace right away, a lot of the medicinal properties of the plant will be wasted. Most people and a lot of rookie alchemists will likely put it inside the furnace first, but they don't know that their actions will destroy many valuable nutrients coming from the ingredients that were used.", Allen explained as he injected internal energy to the cauldron.

The cauldron was a specially made tool just like the furnace. They have a special mechanisms inside them that could allow internal energy to flow through, and with them the alchemists could use their said energy to catalyze the medicines.

Such tools also had their counterparts which could allow mana to catalyze the ingredients, but they make up the minority of the percentage; even though in terms of numbers, magicians or mana users are a lot compared to internal energy practitioners in the kingdom.

Ironically, the reason for why internal energy tools for alchemy are more abundant is due to internal energy is easier to trigger than mana.

The cauldron began heating up, and when smoke rose up, Allen chopped and added a few more ingredients such as the common ginseng and other herbs.

The color of the water changed each time new ingredients enter the cauldron.

"Pass me the metal rod." Allen didn't let the cauldron be unsupplied by his internal energy for a long time and immediately placed back his hands on it.

At the same time, Edwin gave Allen a metal rod.

"This is too short, give me a rod that is slightly taller than the cauldron's height.", Allen passed back the rod.

Edwin followed Allen's instruction and passed him a metal rod which was the size that the latter requested.

Using the metal rod, Allen stirred the contents of the cauldron. Even the metal rod was no ordinary tool. He could inject internal energy into the said object to keep catalyzing the liquid in the cauldron.

As minutes passed, the liquid turned gooey and its volume became smaller and smaller until it was only near the bottom of the cauldron.

Allen scooped up a small portion of the remaining liquid and smelled it. Without even getting closer, Edwin sensed the smell of the gooey medicine from afar.

"It's so fragrant.", Edwin remarked.

Meanwhile, Allen started to pour in the liquid inside the furnace. He didn't just stream it into the furnace, he only let it flow to what it seemed like veins of the upper compartment.

After pouring all of the contents of the cauldron into the compartment, he closed it and placed his hands on the furnace. He chanelled his internal energy throughout the furnace and noticed every single changes occurring within it.

With the heat coming from the lower chamber and with the help of Allen's internal energy, the liquid on the veins started to compress towards the central part of the upper compartment where they were shaped into solid pills.

However, even after the pills finished shaping, Allen's internal energy deformed them back into their sticky form and let them reform again; but even after they solidified for the second time, he crushed them again with internal energy like a nutcracker.

Crushing the pills, letting them reform, and crushing them again and so on has been repeated for many times already and only stopped after half of the firewood was burnt out.

Allen then used a tool to retrieve the pills from inside the furnace and moved them on top of a plate.

There were 4 pills which were still releasing smoke because of intense heat. There were originally 13 of them inside the furnace, but as Allen pulverized and shaped them up again and again, their quantity shortened.

However, the quality of the pills rose up which could be seen from their glowing hue.

"Why don't they smell so fragrant unlike when it was in their liquid form? I don't actually smell anything.", Edwin asked.

"Most of the time, if your medicine emits a smell, its quality would be lower than expected. The stronger the scent, the lower the quality.", Allen clarified.

Edwin: "Huh, then doesn't that mean your medicine is perfect because it doesn't even smell?"

The healing pills that Allen made were indeed perfect for a low-graded pill; that doesn't seem important but it's actually harder to make a perfect low-graded pill than a low-quality medium-graded pill.

He already mastered how to concoct perfect pills even if it was only low-graded pills before he passed the age of 18 years old; a feat that the other older and senior alchemists regarded him as a once in a century talent.

Meanwhile, Allen didn't pay attention to the remark and readied the cauldron again.

Edwin: "You're making more medicines again?"

Allen nodded and replied, "The same medicines."

After creating the medicinal paste, Allen poured it inside the furnace and repeated all of the actions he did earlier.

He did those steps for a few more times until the fifth batch was made.

Now, there were a total of 15 perfect-quality low-graded Healing Dew Knife pills on top of the plate.

"You're done?", Edwin asked.

"Yes.", Allen said, but he ignited the cauldron's fire for the sixth time which surprised Edwin.

Noticing Edwin's slight startle, Allen said, "What will I do next is the most important part."

This time, Edwin paid more attention to Allen's next moves.

While waiting for the water in the cauldron to boil, Allen retrieved a potion from his satchel and trickled out some few drops from it to the heating water.

"This is a special molding potion.", Allen said to Edwin.

When the water started to boil, he picked up a Healing Dew Knife pill and placed one inside it. The pill immediately sank after under the water.

Afterwards, he carefully placed two more on the boiling water which also submerged.

Allen began to stir the water with a metal rod and didn't stop until a pill floated back up at the top. He snatched the pill and examined it.

"Do you want to check it?", Allen asked.

"Yes.", Edwin nodded; after which, Allen passed the pill to his hands and the former began to scrutinize it.

"Why do I feel like there is a new layer... and it became a bit brighter?", Edwin closely inspected the pill and voiced out his thoughts.

"Good observation. There is indeed another layer over the pill. The new layer was formed after the other two pills merged with the first one I initially placed.", Allen explained.

"Oh, what's the difference now?"

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"Its medicinal strength is stronger, it's actually even stronger than most weak medium-graded healing pills. But even though it's as strong as a medium-graded pill, it is safe to use even if your body isn't suited to take in the said grade of pills.", Allen said.

Allen: "I call it Pill Merging."

There were risks for people with weaker bodies or having inadequate experiences on consuming pills that were too much above their level, instead of helping them recover, it could worsen their injuries or even kill them.

That's also what made the 'Pill Merging' advantageous. It could make a low-graded pill into the same strength of a medium-graded pill without the dangers associated with the latter grade of pills to weaker people when consuming them.

But the higher the grade of the initial pills to be merged, the harder it was for a successful merging.

"Huh? How expensive is it now then?", Edwin asked.

"I don't know, but we'll know it by tomorrow. Now give me back that pill, I'm still not finished merging all of them.", Allen took the pill from Edwin's hand and placed it on the cauldron, which sank down again.

Next, he placed all of the remaining pills on the cauldron. This time, the waiting took much longer which lasted for a few hours due to Allen meticulously supporting the molding with his internal energy.

There are two ways to do Pill Merging, one was to constanly merge of the pills with the same number of layers, which would be longer but safer; or putting all of the pills at once to merge, much riskier but faster compared to the former.

As stated earlier, there is also a risk of failure when it comes to Pill Merging, once the merge failed, the pill that was used would be wasted and would become unusable.

After merging all the remaining pills, there are now five extra layers and its glow became even brighter than before. The glow was seemingly stabbing through the eyes of the observers.

"How come I have no clue about this merging thing at all?", Edwin doesn't have any experience nor knowledge with regards to alchemy, but he has been hearing about it by gossips back at Crescent Town and even in his recent travels with Allen; however, he didn't hear the word Pill Merging even once inside the Monarch Walls where there were a lot of alchemists.

And everywhere his ears would stick onto, most of the time he could only hear topics about alchemy.

"That's because- I was the one who created this method.", Allen said as he kept the five-layered healing pill into his satchel.

"Created?"

"Just go to sleep already, or else I'm going to make you stand on a pinky finger all day long under the sun while lifting a boulder with your feet.", Allen said.

-whoosh-

Without even wishing goodnight, Edwin rushed back to his room.

Allen looked around him and saw the messy room.

...

After a few minutes of cleaning up, Allen closed the windows and curtains and finally exited, while walking in the corridor.