Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy Chapter 63: The 7 Elements

Ma Rong started explaining the different elents and the elental synergy between them.

"So, the first thing you need to know is the 5 normal elents and the 2 higher elents."

Alex was listening to her very intently, his eyes focused on what she said.

"The two higher elents are Yin and Yang. Yin is the elent associated with dark, cold, or moon. Yang is the elent associated with light, heat, or sun. These two elents on their own are quite powerful, and maybe dangerous if not taken care of properly."

"When together, based on what the alchemist can do, the Yin and Yang can cancel each other out, and make a pill neutral, or help each other to beco even stronger, and make a pill with highly volatile energy. You should always think twice if you have to deal with either of these elents in a pill, especially if they are together."

Ma Rong was teaching Alex about the elental affinity and alignnt of an alchemy ingredient and how that would make or break a pill.

"The 5 normal elents are Wood, Fire, Water, Earth, and tal. These, similar to the 2 higher elents, can cancel overwhelm another elent or make it stronger. These are the hardest thing to keep track of in a pill-making process. You have to know how each ingredient's elent interact with each other."

"For example, if you put an ingredient with the fire elent in it and another ingredient with the water elent in it, then the resulting pill will either be a low fire elental strength, or a low water elental strength. This is because when water and fire elents mix together, they fight each other, and the stronger enemy remains. The water seeks to extinguish the fire, while the fire seeks to evaporate the water."

"On another example, if you put an ingredient with the fire elent in it and another ingredient with the wood elent in it, then the resulting pill will always be of a higher fire elental strength. This is because when wood cos in contact with the fire, it feeds the fire, making it stronger."

"There are 5 ways these elents can interact with each other. They can either 'Empower' the other elent, 'Control' the other elent, 'Overwhelm' the other elent, 'Weaken' the other elent, or 'Ruin' the other elent."

"Just like wood 'Empowers' fire by feeding it, water can 'Empower' wood to make it grow. Earth can 'Control' water by absorbing it. tal can 'Ruin' fire by taking its heat away and de-energizing it."

"All 5 elents do sothing to one of the other elents, in all of the 5 different categories. Knowing what does what, and which ones you can use is very important when making pills with higher harmony."

Ma Rong reached into her bag and took out a piece of paper. It was a small talisman, which she then handed over to Alex. Alex caught the talisman and quickly scanned it with his spiritual sense. He soon realized what it was.

Ma Rong continued, "That paper has all the knowledge I know of about the different elents and their interaction with each other. Make sure to read that when you have free ti."

"Just rember, there will sotis be ingredients with no elents, but those are incredibly rare, and the easiest to deal with. They get along with every other ingredient.

She then moved on from the current topic and started going into the original one.

"Now, on to the main topic of our lesson. The 3 things I ntioned to you cauldron, ingredients, and elental synergy, while they are important for making pills, they aren't controllable."

"Even two different ingredients picked out from the sa plant can differ in terms of age, energy level, and sotis even in their elental affinity."

Alex looked at his own new cauldron wondering how good it was to use.

"Sotis, the recipes itself may be flawed. Maybe the alchemist who made the pill wrote sothing wrong, which is why the pill never reaches 100% harmony."

"What I am trying to say is, even though you might do everything right just as the recipe dictated, and still end up with only an earth-grade pill. And that is the very first lesson you need to learn when you are trying to make pills. You will never make the perfect pills. The reasons are beyond your control and you need to be satisfied with what you end up with."

"Now, let's talk about recipes. How many recipes do you know?" she asked.

Alex thought for a second, and said, "more than 200". Ma Rong was surprised to hear that. "Where did you learn so much?" she asked.

"The library's top floor." He simply answered.

"And you were able to rember all of the 200 recipes in the library? You should have only had a night to rember all that." She was still surprised.

Alex smiled a bit and said, "Master, with the spiritual sea, we also get eidetic mory. So, I pretty much rembered everything I read."

"Do we?" Ma Rong tried to see if she could rember things and realized he was correct. She too had eidetic mory now.

"Okay, what pill was it that you made before?" she asked.

"Uh, the Qi Improving Pill?" he asked. That was the first and only pill he had made till now.

"Yes, take out the ingredients for it, and make a pill. I will see what you do," Ma Rong walked over to his side and sat down beside him.

Alex looked into his bags and quickly found all the ingredients required for the Qi improving pill. He had already made this pill before and was super familiar with it.

This ti, since he had spiritual sense, he decided he didn't need to go into focus mode to get more ti for handling the ingredients. Now, he could split his attention between 5-6 tasks. If he were to do that to the different aspects of making pills, he was sure he could most certainly end up as an earth-grade alchemist by the ti he had to go to the Tiger Sect.