2022-11-28 17:46:59"Wh - Wha - What happened?" Chen Tu removed the rice crispies by using the scooping tool provided. Everything was happening too quickly and ended before he could react.
"How can the ingredient burn that quickly? I didn't purchase the fake product, I hope!" Chen Tu's heart was in pain for wasting the portion of Five-Colored Spiritual Grains. Although it only cost him half a Spiritual Coin for that portion, it was still a lot to Chen Tu.
The mistake also causes a hint of anxiety inside Chen Tu's mind. Of course, the effect was insignificant for now... But there's no guarantee that it wouldn't worsen from accumulation.
Still, the failure in his first tryst made Chen Tu give his ingredients and the Pill Formula another check. And after he adjusted the flame slightly, Chen Tu began with the second attempt.
Even after being careful, the Five-Colored Spiritual Grains lasted just fifteen seconds before they exploded into another pot of rice crispies. This result would be amazing if Chen Tu wasn't refining pills but cooking.
Of course, that wasn't the case here.
This failure made Chen Tu find it hard to accept the fact. And without reviewing the Pill Formula again, he started his third attempt. Naturally, the flame intensity is reduced once more to prevent the accident from repeating itself.
It is still a failure.
"Again!" Chen Tu continued with the fourth set of ingredients. To his disappointment, the fire was too weak to remove the grains' impurities. The flame he used was far from qualified to be labeled as intense.
Naturally, it was another failure on Chen Tu's side. The fire was too intense or soft, and the Five-Colored Spiritual Grains were too sensitive. But this time, Chen Tu could properly grasp the fire control.
**Boom!!!**
Of course, learning to control is one matter, and the chain reaction is another. The cauldron is again filled with rice crispies, but it gave Chen Tu confidence in his fifth set of ingredients.
Chen Tu finally purified the Five-Colored Spiritual Grains in his fifth attempt. This success allowed him to discover the radiant and lively colors of the Spiritual Grains. As for the thin husk that once protected each grain, they're now burned into ashes.
But another failure followed once Chen Tu started with the following step.
According to the Pill Formula, the step after removing impurities was cooking both ingredients simultaneously.
The procedure explains that the Hundred-Year Mountain Yam should be added after cutting the root into thick slices. Using gentle flame, both ingredients shall be cooked until they secrete their starch droplet into a pool of concoction.
This was the record written on the second part of the Pill Formula.
But in Chen Tu's case, the concoction didn't appear. Instead, he was greeted with a lump of unappetizing gruel that not even his Crimson-Tailed Pheasant would look for the second time. Needless to say, this was how he failed on his fifth set of ingredients.
After throwing the failure aside, Chen Tu took out the sixth set of ingredients. This time, his mistake comes with a higher cost. With both ingredients used in the second part of the process, each failure equals forfeiting a Spiritual Coin.
With his carefulness, Chen Tu continued. This chain of failure doesn't seem to be easygoing to Chen Tu. It took him five attempts to discover the correct method of collecting the pool of starchy concoction.
According to the record for the third step, the concoction should be allowed to boil gently until the water content separates. Once this step was achieved, it would be considered mature to be divided into individual portions.
But the continuous failure made Chen Tu hesitates to begin the third step.
(Would I continue with the mistakes? Is there no way to go except seeking success through an unaccountable number of failures?)
There was a hint of helplessness hovering around Chen Tu. Although thirty Spiritual Coins were enough to purchase thirty sets of ingredients, Chen Tu had already used a third in the name of practice.
Furthermore, he was just in the middle of the entire process. He couldn't help but somewhat doubt his skill and how many more until he succeeded in his first pill refinement process. Could it be another ten more sets?
Or perhaps, the remaining twenty sets were hardly enough?
Even if he succeeded, he still had to refine the rest before bringing his outcome to be evaluated. There could be a few outcomes on this part.
First, it was a failure if the pill quality was below the requirement. And second, the rating was enough to be graded as a Regular Grain Pellet. A pill of this level had the effectiveness of half a day, and if Chen Tu managed to refine a Two-Star Grain Pellet, that effectiveness would be doubled to one whole day.
Their price was naturally half a Spiritual Coin for the regular Grain Pellet and one full coin for the Two-Star version.
Chen Tu could only hesitate for less than half a minute. If he delayed the third step too long, the concoction would be wasted. After all, this wasn't a pool of watery concoction. Being left or cooked too long would destroy all its medicinal value.
He immediately made up his mind to continue. But it was already too late to continue. The concoction had started to lose part of its medicinal value, and even with effort, it could not thicken properly.
This ended up as another waste. But with one success, it fueled Chen Tu's conviction to continue. His eleventh attempt also turned out to be another failure.
On his twelve's attempt, Chen Tu finally progressed safely through the second part. He ensured that he was well prepared and continued without delay. And to his surprise, the challenge was absent on the third and fourth steps.
By following the instruction on the Pill Formula, Chen Tu proceeded past both steps and came up with three and a half pills worth of thickening concoction. And after waiting for ten or so minutes, his work is finally done here!
(What actually happened here? Even I can't believe that the third and fourth step written in the Pill Formula is that easy to overcome!)
Chen Tu was unsure of what feeling he should have while removing the three complete Grain Pellets from the Pill Mold.
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