Kyon went down to the library and took out the enemy trophy, Yegorka’s ring. He found a shiny gift box with an aromatic pill inside. It piqued his interest... The instructions read:

{Soaring Angel. Increases the speed of development…}

Kyon knew right away that something amazing had fallen into his hands. Yegorka must have spent a fortune to buy it. Development medicine wasn’t cheap in this world. There was nothing of the kind in the Stones’ treasury...

Kyon resolutely swallowed the pill.

A moderate heat ran through his body, concentrating around the keys. It penetrated the channels and went straight to the soul. Kyon closed his eyes in pleasure. It was like soaring in the sky. Rapid development could never hurt. He wished it would last forever.

He would see the effect in the next three months. At the moment, Kyon had to study the section of alchemy. He needed to find the best way of creating his unique body and lay his individual foundation.

He had an aversion to the unique bodies from the Stone heritage and the same attitude to the ancient ones. Although all of them were incredibly valuable - the whole families were destroyed for the sake of A-rank unique bodies - none of them was fit for his purpose.

None of the bodies he studied (an “A” rank only) was perfect, which greatly depreciated their value in his eyes. Kyon was going to do everything himself, using them as a tryout for his future creations.

He appreciated only the strange nephrite sphere he found in the tomb. It had strengthened his attribute of light by half and granted an additional grade.

The morning was over before he knew it.

Kyon finished studying all the books on alchemy in the library and gained comprehensive knowledge. All he needed was to confirm and hone it in practice.

Taking advantage of Juno's “connections,” Kyon took an alchemist's kit from the treasury and brought it to the library. It consisted of flasks and tubes; filters and distillation mechanisms; stove and elemental containers; containers for energy where money and keys should be placed.

To create the pills, he had to understand alchemy, the elements, and instructions. The process also required talent, necessary ingredients, spheres, and keys. The last two items get converted into vaporous energy, the main component of the pill creation. It’s too expensive to create something. It takes resources that not everyone can afford. But it was none of Kyon’s concern... He had kindly borrowed the ingredients, money, and keys from the Stones’ rich treasury. The day would come when the theft was revealed. Then he would have to act according to the circumstances. But now his main goal was to ensure his successful future, and the Stones were an ideal springboard for it.

…

The afternoon was over.

Kyon had deeply immersed in theory and practice. Now he knew how complicated alchemy was, how demanding it was to the alchemists, to their skills and knowledge, to the ingredients and other parameters:

1 – Only one person can create each medicine. Otherwise, it will be incompatible due to the difference in the alchemist’s energy frequency.

2 – The number of elements limits the alchemist's ability to create medicine. The alchemist can be an expert only on those types of medicine that are within the range of the elements they bend.

3 – Every ingredient has unique qualities that can significantly change depending on the way of extraction, storage conditions, production method, and age... Age determines its saturation with purer energy, the power of its properties. A thousand-year-old herb will be hundreds of times more effective than freshly plucked.

Every ingredient belongs to one or more than one element. For example, a flint petal has the essence of fire inside. It helps to create relevant medicine. If the alchemist doesn’t bend the element of heat, there is no way they can create any medicine where this ingredient is involved. Each component interacts with different elements. It’s important to consider when creating medicine. Also, the ingredients regularly conflict with each other. The skill of combining ingredients is fundamental. You won’t get anywhere without knowing the principles.

The alchemist doesn’t only combine the series of ingredients in the correct way, they must change the internal energy memory.

The unique body pill doesn’t contain exceptionally valuable ingredients, such as a phoenix feather or a qilin horn. It does not even require an advanced grade of elements. All it takes is understanding alchemy as such.

Instead of fuel for the stove, Kyon used the element of heat, completely eliminating any inaccuracy. First of all, he decided to create a pretty common unique body.

Kyon took the ground skin of the purple viper and put it into the container. He poured clean water over the powder and added the necessary ingredients: some hairs of the big-horned buffalo, and blue citrus juice mixed in a special way with the pure energy.

Gradual heating changed the color of the mixture from gray to blue, then to green and purple at last. At the same time, Kyon added to the container 150 spheres of the basic grade and five keys of pure energy transformed into energy fog.

At the crucial moment, Kyon released a stream of electricity that instantly amalgamated the energy and the brew into a bright purple ball.

He had created a pill of Motley Purple Snake on his first try. Its purity was 55%. Not every alchemist can boast that their very first attempt was successful, all the more at creating a unique body pill.

The purity of unique body pills does not affect its properties. The degree of its assimilation depends on it, and that’s where problems with growing the unique body usually arise. A lot of bodies have certain requirements for the alchemist, from talent to some character traits or physical parameters. The purity of the pill greatly increases the chances of successful assimilation.

There is a chance of an uncontrolled failure in the process of creating a pill. However, after Kyon’s detailed analysis of the process, it was out of the question.

Kyon decided to hone the ways of cleaning and integrating the ingredients. Otherwise, his potential would be greatly limited. Ideally, he needed to create his own method of cleaning and integration. He was a little annoyed by the fact that the ingredients with the nature of fire and cold, darkness and light were incompatible. Being the master of all the nine elements, he couldn’t wait to create a unique body that contained all of them, but... The fundamental principle of alchemy stated it was impossible, which was like a stake in the heart.

Five days had passed. Marina visited him a couple of times, curious. She told him stories about Flitz and Juno, who had been unusually silent these days...

While he was practicing, Kyon ascended to the sixth stage of the base phase. It would have taken him a week without Soaring Angel. However, he was so obsessed with the process that he didn’t even rejoice at the boost in his development. His mind was absorbed in the process of inventing his own method of integration.

Kyon found it extremely exciting to explore and develop such an exciting science as alchemy. He adored everything complicated where he could challenge himself and make things happen. However, programming would always be his favorite hobby.

The next five days presented some unexpected challenges. Kyon kept making mistakes during the experiments. He burned seven alchemical kits, threw away a huge amount of valuable pills and as if that weren’t enough, he had used up too many spheres and keys. The patriarch was going to shed bitter tears when he found out about the loss.

However, Kyon was sure that he would never make the same mistake twice. After he finished the first pill, the second was getting better and purer. Once he had done something right, it would always turn out right.

He concluded that the ingredients were a whole universe that required a special approach. The finishing touch was a real art. He had to control all the separate processes to lead them to a successful conclusion and unify them in the right way at the same time. It was essential to estimate the exact amount of the spheres and keys, as well as consider their nature. The elements had to be used with perfect accuracy. Kyon managed the process inside each vial as if he was controlling the endless universe, combining and adjusting it to ever changing circumstances and requirements.

No wonder alchemists were so valuable and always in demand. In alchemy, development never ended because there were almost no limits. However, the practice required significant resources, something that not everyone could afford.

Kyon’s hair was disheveled, his eyes turned red. But he continued to "conjure" over the alchemical kit, making gestures with his hands, sending the energy of the elements.

In the evening, nine containers were emitting a multi-colored radiance. Two thousand spheres and fifteen keys had been turned into an energy fog and placed in the appropriate container.

Kyon seized the ideal moment when all the creating processes entered the active phase and activated pure energy. The liquid from the nine containers moved with lightning speed through the tubes into the central one. The energy of keys and money underwent a similar process.

~ Flash ~

A bright multi-colored rainbow lit up the library. A pill appeared in the container. Kyon named it "Mom’s pet."

The successful finishing touch made sure that the shiny, fragrant ball, blue like a bolt of lightning, was going to work right. It was rather impractical, though, created for practice only.

The point of this unique body was that the owner would die of pleasure after the first sex. An epic finale of no less epic body. The funny thing was… No matter what, the owner would always be in a state of arousal and experience irresistible attraction to the opposite sex.

«I did it!» - Kyon couldn’t hold back his delight. His method had worked. After numerous attempts, he had worked out the nuances of each attribute and found the way to create a chain that turned into a cycle. He called this method the Cycle of Creation. The name was fully justified.

His method had five huge advantages over the rest.

1. It was perfectly suitable for multitasking. The production process was simple and relatively safe, with minimal risk of being killed.

2. Multi-element capability. He could use any feature of the unique body and connect it with anything else. There was no conflict, no restrictions.

3. The Cycle of Creation is the environment that increases the ratio of the ingredients integration in ten times. It means that all the additional ingredients that serve as "bridges" can be removed.

4. Any property got enhanced about twice as much while the requirements dropped below. For example, the condition of the Divine Flower of Development, that he had found in the tomb, would expand to the 11-18 years range.

5. It became possible to combine incompatible ingredients, something that was contrary to the fundamental principle of alchemy. For such manifestation of ignorance, the alchemists tend to beat their students on the head with a large stick, sometimes to death.

Kyon had challenged the principles of alchemy and won. He proved to himself that nothing was impossible in this science. Any other method comprised a maximum four elements and was strictly limited. However, his approach could use all the nine elements at once. Moreover, he could adjust the structure of the pill at his will! It didn't only give him absolute power, with some effort, he could do what other alchemists could only dream of.

The ingredients of light and darkness, cold and heat are considered incompatible and reject each other. However, if the components of the remaining seven elements are arranged in a chain between them, the cycle closes, the opposite properties combine and multiply twice (as mentioned above), whereas the requirements reduce proportionately. That’s how Kyon’s Cycle of Creation worked, totally inconceivable for the rest.

Any master of alchemy would kneel before such a dishonestly powerful method that no one else was ever destined to use.

As for other skills... Kyon was at a different, more effective level of alchemy. It took him only some basic knowledge, five-day practice, and nine the elements to get there.

Any complex concept is only a multiplier of lots of simple ones. Kyon had already honed them to perfection. With his computing power, he could improvise and create complex concepts one after the other.

Here’s an analogy: he had mastered a course of basic mathematics and progressed to the next level. It was a matter of effort to get to the calculus from there.

Kyon was convinced that he was ready to bring any unique body to a new level. In other words, he could accomplish what others would never be able to do.

However, it was too early to rank him as a master of alchemy. Kyon had studied in detail the section on creating unique bodies. Nevertheless, he still lacked knowledge about other medicine. It takes a lot of practice and tests to create something new, as well as resources and time. And source codes.

Kyon hid the priceless and useless Mother’s Pet pill in the ring. He would hardly ever use it, but he did not want to throw away his first successful pill.

It was about time to analyze the source code that he was going to improve.