Examining his pill cauldron he wanted to get familiar with it before he actually used it. It was pretty basic, just a bronze type cauldron with a tripod base. There was a small hole on the bottom left and right to insert qi into it.

The interior of the cauldron had a small rack built into it to rest the finished pills on it. However, in Kael's opinion that would be a terrible waste. If the pill was still hot and touched ash it would be contaminated and the quality would drop.

Taking out the recipes he purchased and the ones his father had purchased for them he started to review what he had to work with.

Body Strengthening pill - Helps strengthen the body of someone shedding mortality.

Body Cleansing pill - Removes toxins and dredges 20% of the medical residue left by mortal medicines.

Qi Boosting Pill - Absorbs 3 days of Qi in two hours.

Qi Cleansing pill - Dredges 10% of the impurities in one's Qi.

Marrow Washing Pill - Dredges the impurities in one's root bone, enhancing innate perception.

Meridian Washing Pill - Dredges the impurities in one's meridians, enhancing innate talent.

Tiger’s Strength Pill - Grants a short duration boost to attacking efficiency.

Turtle’s Defense Pill - Grants a short duration boost to body resiliency.

Roc’s Flight Pill - Gives a short duration but large boost to movement speed.

Looking over the recipes he decided since he had not refined a pill before and only had a basic idea of what to do, that he was going to start practicing with the Roc's Flight pill. Taking out 5 sets of the herbs he examined them one by one to be sure they were the best for the recipe.

Flameburst, two portions of Sundew, and two portions of Beast Garlic. Thinking, It's kind of strange, the garlic is bridging herb to help two opposing herbs bind. That shouldn't happen with the primary herbs here. Screw it, I'm just practicing, once I can make one, I'll consider changing it.

Separating the herbs out and checking to be sure they were not damaged, he was ready for his first attempt. Putting his left hand on his cauldron he slowly released fire qi. Running the flame through the hole and into the cauldron he made the top flatten out, so it looked like a geyser. Lighting the lid, he placed the Flameburst into the cauldron.

Catching the herb with his fire qi as it dropped into the cauldron, he quickly wrapped it up with his Qi. Remembering what his mother said about burning off the skin of the plant before reducing the internals into a liquid, he began to slowly increase the heat. A few seconds later he got a notification in his mind.

Error, soul failed in refining Flameburst, material damaged by 80%.

Waste reduced by 50% due to talents, 40% material saved.

Opening the cauldron a huge cloud of smoke and steam was released. Followed by a notification saying his refinement failed. Not caring for the notification he looked down at the remains of his herb. It looked like as soon as the skin was burnt off the entire thing just went up into ashes. He knew his mom was not an alchemist, so he had to assume she had it explained to her in extreme layman's terms.

Firing the remains of his herb to ash, he dumped the cauldron out, cleaned it, and started again. This time trying at a lower temperature.

Error, soul failed in refining Flameburst, material damaged by 75%.

Waste reduced by 50% due to talents, 37.5% material saved.

He continued to try over and over again reducing the heat as he went. After his 5th attempt, he took out another 10 Flameburst herbs. On his 8th attempt, he had gotten it down to 40% before his talents. He still felt something was very wrong though.

Taking out another herb, he held it in his hand as he released his fire Qi. Watching the herb carefully the entire time, he realized that burning the skin was the exact opposite of what he needed. Altering the heat slightly, he tried to figure out how to melt the interior, then fire off the exterior. Although he was successful, his waste was still 40%.

Not sure what he was doing wrong he sat down and fell into a meditative state while considering it from multiple angles. After an hour, he came to the conclusion he is a dumbass. The skin was a part of the herb, it had absorbed its energy over the course of its life, there is simply no reason to destroy it.

Trying again with the herb sitting on his hand, he seemed like he could feel his alchemy skill begin to work this time. He instinctively knew the exterior skin he needed to remove wasn't the plant, it was going to be a layer of impurities. Alternating the heat from his Qi, he could feel his alchemy skill urging him to sink his Qi into the plant itself. Doing so, he could see the plant slightly deform, like it was deflating. finally, the skin started to break down. As the skin broke down he could see black flecks of impurities bubble up and cover the now liquid herb. He finally finished the refinement with only 20% waste.

Knowing he was onto something now, he tried to fire the impurities off the top by increasing the heat. Unfortunately, he turned the entire thing into slag. Trying again, this time he attempted to use a strand of wooden qi to scrape it off, but once the wood qi touched the fire qi, the fire lit up in a huge burst of flame. Once again turning his herb into slag. On his third attempt, he decided to make a second small geyser under his flame ball, then open a hole in the bottom of his flame ball to let the liquid herb drain. As the majority of it drained through he tightened up the hole until it closed as the liquid drained out.

Congratulation, you have successfully refined the herb, Flameburst.

First refinement wastage of 18%(8%) (Firing)

Second refinement, Purification, in progress.

Thinking, Shit, I can't set aside the liquid and do each one by one. Mom was right in that I will have to hold the extra liquids with wood qi while I work on the others.

Beginning to alternate the heat in his flame until he found one that brought the liquid to a slight simmer. holding it there for 15 minutes, the liquid had evaporated and was floating near the top of his ball, while a pile of impurities were roasting on the bottom. Once again draining it out, this time, he had to think of a way to transfer the gas, so as it cooled it was safe.

Creating a large bubble around his fire qi with his wooden qi, he stopped the fire qi, then closed off the bottom of the wooden qi's bubble. When he had it entrapped he heard another notification.

Congratulation, you have successfully refined the herb, Flameburst.

First refinement wastage of 18%(8%) (Firing)

Second refinement wastage of 10% (5) (Purification)

Error, no other materials present, medical ingredients wasted.

Thinking, Well, I got the hang of it, but without real training, it is going to be rough.

Before starting a real practice run, he spent some time testing the refinement of each herb in his hand. After burning through three of each one, he decided to start. Using his Qi to warm the cauldron for a few minutes he started putting herbs in. Holding each one in wooden qi while refining the next was seriously taxing. Also, since he could not see inside the cauldron, he had to use the location of his Qi as a way to guess where things were.

After getting everything melted down, he finally got the notification he was waiting for.

Congratulation, you have successfully refined the herbs, Flameburst, Sundew, and Beast Garlic

First refinement average wastage of 14%(7%) (Firing)

Second refinement wastage of 8% (4%) (Purification)

Third refinement, combining, in progress.

Listening to the prompt he brought all the qi bubbles together into one. His new problem was now that the liquids were there, but not mixed. Deciding a cyclone worked well for purifying his qi, that is what he did with the herbal liquid. Transforming the bubble into a cyclone he ran into another problem, there was no real heat. Turning the cyclone of his now mixed liquid into a bubble, he reversed his transfer technique and put the liquids back into fire qi, then started a very low heat cyclone again.

After another 15 minutes, he heard he succeeded in combining and needed to move on to splitting and polishing the pills. Not really sure how to split the liquid either, he made an ice cube tray looking thing out of wood qi, and drained the liquid evenly across it. As he needed more space he would just add more cubes. When he was out of the liquid to drain, he turned all of the cubes into bubbles again and began spinning the qi spheres rapidly. Not sure why, he thought that was the finishing touch, but so far his instinct had not failed him.

Congratulation, you have created a new object: Roc's Flight Pill.

Mortal tier alchemy production, total pills available for creation, 5.”

First refinement average wastage of 14%(7%) (Firing).

Second refinement wastage of 8% (4%) (Purification).

Third refinement wastage of 0% (Combining).

Item creation, initial potency of 210. Potency wastage of 23, remaining potency of 187 (Perfect refinement failed, no bonus material granted).

Remaining potency of 187. Base pills of 5, overall potency 42(-50% due to talents =21) potency per pill. Converting 187 potency, remaining 9 pills.

Each pill value of 21 experience, soul granted 189 experience to the alchemy profession.

Excited, he opened the lid of the cauldron and took out the pills. With nothing to put them in, he just stored most of them. Examining the last one he got its statistic.

Roc’s Flight Pill (Average Quality)

Gives a short duration but large boost to movement speed.

Movement speed +40%, Weight Reduction 30%, 5 min.

Finally, He thought, It took 12 attempts, but I've got the hang of it now. Deciding to do 5 more runs before going to sleep, he took out a few more sets of herbs. Separating them out and checking they were still good, he sat down and prepared the cauldron. Heating it up and throwing in the herbs everything went smoother than expected.

Congratulation, you have created a new object: Roc's Flight Pill.

Mortal tier alchemy production, total pills available for creation, 5.”

First refinement average wastage of 0% (Firing).

Second refinement wastage of 0% (Purification).

Third refinement wastage of 0% (Combining).

Item creation, initial potency of 210. Bonus 50% materials.

No potency wastage, remaining potency of 210(+50%=315)

Remaining potency of 315. Base pills of 5, overall potency 42(-50% due to talents =21) potency per pill. Converting 315 potency, remaining 15 pills.

Each pill value of 21 experience, soul granted 315 experience to the alchemy profession.

Future creations will provide truncated information.

Clapping in excitement at getting the bonus materials, Kael stood up, bent over, and took the pills out. Examining one of them he got its information notification in his head.

Roc’s Flight Pill (High Quality)

Gives a short duration but large boost to movement speed.

Movement speed +50%, Weight Reduction 30%, 5 min.

With a "Fuck yeah", Kael continued to refine the other 4 sets. Finishing up he had made 84 pills and received 1,764 experience.

As his excitement started to wear off he realized he was pretty drained. His last set of herbs should have taken 10 minutes each to refine. Luckily his doubled up talents cut it down to 2.5 minutes. But that still meant 12 and half minutes were spent manipulating multiple threads of Qi. With the combining and splitting process, it took him about 20 minutes per set of pills.

After an hour and a half of wasting Flamebursts, another 2 hours of practice refining on the other herbs for the pill, and an hour and a half refining the last 5 sets, his Qi was tapped. Adding the hour of meditation, it was also extremely late. Putting away the remaining pills, Kael flopped onto the bed and fell asleep.

The next morning when he woke up he found Jessica sitting outside his door again. Sighing, they argued about how silly it was to do that for awhile before agreeing to disagree.

At breakfast, Kael asked, "Hey, can you check on the kids? For the next three days, all I really want you to do is check up on the kids once in the morning and once in the evening. Tell them that they should try to recruit some people too. They all need to be honest, but I need the total kids that are going to sell food to be 50. "

Jessica replied, "That's fine, but do you really think that those kids can do that much work? Between cooking and selling the food they will be up from before dawn until later in the night."

Taking her criticism into account, Kael agreed. He had built their schedule for him, not a normal kid. "Ok, you are right," he said, "Tell the kids to recruit up to a total of 50 children to sell food. Then tell them I want 10 kids who want to cook for the 50. Those 10 kids will take 10% of the profit from the people who are selling their food."

Nodding, Jessica agreed that his new plan was better. After they finished eating she took off to go find the children to discuss with them. Kael headed back upstairs to do some refining.

Now that he had plenty of time on his hands he decided to refine 10 of each of the pills. It was going to take a lot of effort to get his refining speed to pick up. At least he knew it would speed up as he became more and more familiar with the process.

Starting with the recipes he altered before leaving, he picked out the herbs for the body cleansing pill. Warming up the cauldron and separating the herbs simultaneously, he did anything that would save time. The actual refinement went incredibly smooth, which really surprised him.

Congratulations you have created a new object: Perfect Body Cleansing Pill.

Mortal tier alchemy production, total pills available for creation, 5.

Enhanced potency by 40

Item creation, initial potency of 180(220). Bonus 50% materials.

No potency wastage, remaining potency of 220(+50% =330).

Base pills of 5, overall potency 36(-50% due to talents =18) potency per pill.

Converting 330 potency, remaining 18 pills.

Each pill value of 22 experience, soul granted 324 experience to the alchemy profession.

Congratulations, for perfecting a recipe you were granted 50 experience.

Stopping to examine one of the pills he was excited about the information that appeared in his head.

Perfect Body Cleansing Pill (Excellent Quality)

Removes toxins and dredges 35% of the medical residue left by mortal medicines.

Finishing the other 9 sets of herbs, he took out three ceramic boxes and stored them. During the time it took to refining them, he managed to get the total refinement time down to just over 7 minutes. He estimated that 5 minutes total was the fastest he would get. With the number of herbs sitting in his ring, he figured he had plenty of chances to practice.

Going back to refining, he decided to do 10 sets of the other 7 recipes before taking a break. About halfway through them, he ran into a snag, he was out of Qi. Thinking for a bit, he decided after he regains some Qi, he would make Qi Boosting pills next, then take those pills in halves, so he could chain refine without stopping.

9 and a half hours after he began his refinement frenzy, he finished refining 10 sets of each of the pills he had not refined before, and another 5 sets of Roc's Flight pills. He gained a crazy amount of just over 30,000 experience for all the pills. Enough to complete rank 6 and bring him to18,775/20,000 experience into rank 7. Happy with his gains, he ensured his pills were stored properly and the boxes were all sealed, the left to find his eating partner.

Extremely hungry he went to get Jessica before eating. Knocking on her door, as soon as she answered he invited her to eat dinner. His stomach was rumbling too bad to be polite.

Heading downstairs, Kael put everything else on hold while he filled his stomach. Eating two entire meals before he was finally satiated, he patted his tummy then looked up at Jessica. Seeing her disgusted face at his eating manners he just chuckled.

The two discussed the children, which were doing ok, and Kael told her about his plans to make the backpack boxes starting tomorrow. He also handed her a pill list and asked her to get the prices for them. Mentioning he needed the prices for high and excellent quality.

Telling himself, This is for research, you are not going to sell pills and get yourself in trouble. Kael convinced himself he was just curious. Promising himself to focus on his Chef profession until his parents showed up, he firmly placed the idea of getting rich off pills to the side. After eating, he went to bed, tapped mentally from all the pill refining he fell asleep quickly.

The next morning followed the same basic routine of eating with Jessica. During breakfast, she dropped a bombshell on him though. Giving him a list of pill prices for the city, she mentioned that high quality sold for 20% more and excellent quality sold for 50% more. Mentally crying a few tears of blood, Kael once again promised himself not to sell pills.

Leaving the inn, he and Jessica headed over to his building where he sneaked into the storeroom and started to make boxes. It was tedious and boring work. Jessica just sat on the side, alternating between cultivating and watching him.

After a few hours, she stopped Kael, asking him "Just what are you humming"

"Oh, it's a song called my favourite things."

Having never heard the song before she asked Kael to sing it, which he did. When finished she said, "That doesn't sound like anything you would sing."

Chuckling, Kael responded, "It's not, I have my own version that I am working on."

"Oh and what is that?" she asked.

Grinning a bit, Kael remembered all the random things since coming to this world then started to sing his version of the song.

Raindrops of potions and delicious roast chickens

Bright bronze cauldrons and warm baking ovens

Brown ceramic boxes and the gold that they bring

These are a few of my favourite things

High-quality powders of the whole kit and caboodle

Pork buns and prawn buns and meatballs with noodles

Shiney gold that rings with a crisp sounding ding

These are a few of my favourite things

Pills in glass bottles with red waxen seals

The aroma of money when I make large deals

Giant hog omelettes that are made for a king

These are a few of my favourite things

When the dog bites

When the bee stings

When I'm feeling sad

I simply remember my favourite things

And then I don't feel so bad

Laughing at the child, Jessica decided that version was probably more like his real home life. Deciding to help the child, she tried to help him with the boxes but was rebuffed with a, "Don't spoil my carpentry experience," by Kael.

Sending her off to get the leathers, and cut them in a way they could be nailed to the outside of the boxes. The next two days continued the monotonous rhythm, which seemed to be following the sound of a child's humming.