Shi Da eyed me with fury as he stormed off to work with another furnace.
I paid no more mind to the foolish human and focused wholeheartedly on alchemy.
Time flowed like water.
After three months of hard work, I was officially a Violet Alchemist, able to craft every type of violet pill-core. My progress slowed considerably when moving to craft violet pill cores. I needed a lot more control when working with multiple alchemy ingredients during pill core refining.
Time and precision were essential to successfully craft violet pill cores. With violet pill-cores, it was no longer a simple matter of throwing in one alchemy ingredient. The minimum standard for creating a violet pill core was to have two alchemy ingredients mixed together.
Supplemental ingredients were strictly required in violet pill cores. Orchid pill cores could be formed without supplemental ingredients as long as your control was good enough, that wasn't the case with violet pill cores. Your knowledge of herb-lore came into full swing when working with these supplemental ingredients.
I had to learn the herbs in and out, knowing how they reacted under various temperatures and how they interacted with other alchemy ingredients. I now understood why every Alchemist picked up herbalism. It was an essential skill to the profession. Even though you could follow formulas, that was hardly enough. Many times formulas would never give you the full picture.
One issue I had was dealing with Ojo Root while crafting a violet cultivation a.s.sistance pill core. The recipe I called for the addition of beast skin, for my crafting I choose Hydra Husk. Ojo Root reacted differently with Hydra Husk than I had expected. It turned out Hydra Husk as a beast skin had an earth attribute within it.
Ojo Root was an air attribute root, so it didn't get along well with earth attributed materials. To make Ojo Root meld with an earth attributed ingredient required an additional supplemental herb to counteract the rejection.
I tried many herbs to counteract the rejection and eventually settled on Wild Cress, it was a stabilization agent that did well with balancing air and earth ingredients. None of these issues were even listed within the alchemy recipe. The only thing the recipe called for was Ojo Root with a corresponding Tier-2 beast skin. Everything else to finish the crafting had to be done with my own insight.
I now understood why alchemists held their pill-core recipes so dearly. The basic recipe to craft a pill-core was common knowledge at the low alchemy rank, however crafting a pill-core using the same core ingredient could be drastically different depending on the supplemental ingredients used.
I was quite sure I could even create my own pill core recipe with an entirely different core herb if I did a bit of experimenting. My curiosity had peaked once I thought about this. Sadly, I was in the middle of a trial so I couldn't devote myself seriously to experimentation.
During my time of practicing alchemy, Shi Da and I had actually become friends. He was a hotheaded human, but after spending so much time together we became unlikely allies. It was good to have someone to discuss alchemical knowledge with while learning this craft.
Both he and I understood this well, so we compared our insights while learning the craft. After getting over his initial fury of being tricked by me, and haphazardly failing to enact his revenge, he conceded to my superior prowess.
This young devil lord learned alchemy at a quick pace, so he came to me for guidance, eventually. Since I was a gracious and magnanimous senior I helped the poor boy. This young devil lord was happy to have a pill a.s.sistant to increase my supply of phallic points. I was a stage ahead of him, so it profited us both for him to work as my pill a.s.sistant.
I worked on crafting pill cores while he gained insight into herb lore, working as my pill a.s.sistant. It was a profitable partnership, I didn't take advantage of him. We got into a rhythm as time flowed like water. Before I knew it, an entire year had pa.s.sed within Satyr Castle.
Shi Da became a Violet Alchemist not long after our partnership started however, he still worked as my pill a.s.sistant. We eventually racked up over 25,000 phallic points, split 60/40. It was about time I attempted to break through to become a Grape Alchemist. I had gained all the insights I could within the Violet Alchemist realm.
I pulled out my Aphalla and asked about 'Basic Tier-3 herbs for learning alchemy'.
"Quartermaster is unable to provide Tier-3 herbs, for trial takers to gain Tier-3 herbs they must head to the Savage Land," said Aphalla.
"What is the Savage Land?," I said. This surprised me, but after thinking it over, it was not that surprising. When I went to the garden, I could not find any herbs above Tier-2. Obviously they were kept in another place.
"The Savage Land is a lower world containing rare herbs and savage beasts. The cost for entry to the Savage Land is 5,000 phallic points. For more information on the Savage Land please consider purchasing 'How to Survive the Savage Land' for 500 phallic points."
The picture showcasing 'How to Survive the Savage Land' showed a large black tome that I was sure was filled with much knowledge and information about this treacherous world.
I grumbled and purchased 'How to Survive the Savage Land'. There was no way I could head into a Lower World without more information. A Lower World could contain Tier-6 ent.i.ties, it was a step above Pocket Worlds. Unlike Pocket Worlds, Lower Worlds had no distinction at every Tier. Every lower world had the possibility of housing a Tier-6 ent.i.ty. I could ask around, but I had been a recluse for the past year so I didn't know many other trial takers.
Two hours later, PPS came to the door with an enormous package. Inside lay a grand black book. I opened up the book 'How to Survive the Savage Land' and was furious at what I saw.
The overly large comprehensive book I expected to find only contained two words on the first page 'Hire Seji', the rest of the grand tome was blank. This shameless troll had added such a despicable book to the marketplace. His shame knew no bounds. I immediately went to go find Seji to give him a piece of my mind.
It wasn't hard to locate the troll; as he spent most of his time around the arena. When I spotted the troll, I eyed him with daggers.
"Hey mon, why the long look? You're a valuable customer," said Seji with no sense of shame.
"You You You," I said, unable to even make a coherent sentence in my fury. This d.a.m.ned troll had scammed me out of another 500 phallic points!
~~~
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