"Alchemy of the Lost Ones" By Navy Alchemist Pharaon

Many people, when they think of alchemy, view it as simple pill concoction. Young readers, remember this, an Alchemist is so much more. True alchemy is the study of matter, what it consists of, what its properties are, and how it changes. Matter is anything that has ma.s.s and takes up s.p.a.ce, that is, anything that is physically real. An example is the book you are reading now for example. Because of this, alchemy has its hands in just about everything.

The simplest form of alchemy is cooking. Being able to describe the ingredients in a cake and how they change when the cake is baked, is alchemy in its earliest form. Alchemy is a branch of cultivation, the process in which we learn about the natural universe by observing, testing, then generating models that explain our observations. Because the universe is so vast there are many unique types of alchemy.

I"ll simplify the process for now to give you an understanding of what Alchemists accomplish. The beginning of every pill concoction begins with the creation of a pill core. When you make pill cores, it"s all about creating alchemical reactions. You add your alchemical ingredients into your alchemy furnace or cauldron, you then mix them and heat them so they start reacting with each other. As an Alchemist, your job is to control this reaction!

If they react properly a stable pill core will be formed and you will be able to take your pill core and form pills, potions, injections, or whatever you think is the best way for your consumers to take this medication. If not, you"ll probably end up with wasted materials, an explosion, or in the worse case death by your own design. We, as Alchemists, are the creators of life, who deliver medications to the poor populations who do not have the pleasure of learning this Dao themselves.

Some wayward alchemists even like to use suppositories as their preferred method of delivering medication. If you are unfamiliar with the term, a suppository is a medicine delivered straight up the bottom. We should not pa.s.s judgment on these Alchemists on their strange fetishes as alchemy is a personal journey. As an Alchemist, it"s your job to make your medicines most effective to your consumers. If sending them through the rear works for you then, by all means, shove your pills straight up your customer"s a.s.s.

Now back to alchemy. Creating a stable pill core is what separates the levels of alchemy. Pill cores change colors according to the level of the core formed. The pill colors I have experienced in my life are as follows:

Tier 1- Light Violet

Tier 2- Violet

Tier 3- Dark Violet

Tier 4- Blue Violet

Tier 5- Light Blue

Tier 6- Blue

Tier 7- Dark Blue

Tier 8- Blue Green

Tier 9- Light Green

Tier 10- Green

Tier 11- Dark Green

An alchemist is ranked by the highest color of pill core he can form. Even though our profession is so much more, creating pill cores is the most fundamental thing to define an Alchemist. Every subsequent color of pill core requires a better understanding of the Alchemy Dao to be created successfully. Alchemist ranks for your pleasure:

Tier 1- Orchid Alchemist

Tier 2- Violet Alchemist

Tier 3- Grape Alchemist

Tier 4- Indigo Alchemist

Tier 5- Ice Alchemist

Tier 6- Blue Alchemist

Tier 7- Navy Alchemist

Tier 8- Cyan Alchemist

Tier 9- Lime Alchemist

Tier 10- Green Alchemist

Tier 11- Forest Alchemist

As of this writing, I have reached Navy Alchemist, so as a beginner you can almost take my words as law. But when you reach the higher levels of alchemy, you should be confident enough to use your own judgment as an alchemist.

I only met one Forest Alchemist in my lifetime. His mastery of alchemy was so great he shocked the entire Lost World. He"d even have to fight back powerful Heavenly Tribulations whenever he created forest pill cores.

Many things affect the final pill core formed during pill concoction. Every pill core created by an alchemist is unique. When an alchemist starts their pill concoction, they start with a pill embryo. A pill embryo is formed by your own innate qi or essence, this makes every pill unique; depending on the type of qi or essence used to form the pill embryo.

After creating an embryo, comes the process of core-forming. A litany of things will decide what color core is finally formed after the pill core concoction is complete. Alchemists master these steps to ensure the best core is formed on every attempt.

The most central things to master when concocting pill cores are the type of ingredients used, the quality of ingredients used, The order in which the ingredients are added to the embryo, how the ingredients are heated during core forming, the quality of your alchemy furnace, your fire source, and your control of your fire source.

These are just a few things that can affect the pill core formed during pill concoction. But mastering these few things can lead to the most improvement to successfully creating pill cores.

To be a great Alchemist, an Alchemist must learn to find and source great alchemical ingredients. Alchemists source the majority of their ingredients from herbs. However, pure herbs are rarely a part of pill core concoction. A great alchemist must learn to transform raw herbs into usable alchemical ingredients.

An example would be the Tier-1 ingredient Cabbage Hair, it is an alchemical ingredient created by the boiling and curing the common herb Sweet Cabbage. When consumed raw Sweet Cabbage grants a minor increase in strength to the consumer. By boiling and curing the herb, an alchemist separates the central part that makes Sweet Cabbage grant this strength.

By taking this Cabbage Hair as an ingredient and mixing it with other supplemental ingredients, an alchemist can then create a Tier-1 Light-Violet Core that has the properties of granting strength. After this core is created comes the finalization process. Pill cores are much too potent to be consumed after forming.

It"s the job of the alchemist to turn a pill core into something that is safe and effective to be used by consumers. This strength pill core can either be turned into a strength potion, strength pill, or whatever you think is the most effective way for your customers to consume it.

To form a pill, you would turn the pill core into a crystallized sediment called a slurry, the slurry is filtered to get rid of more liquid forming a crumbly dough. The dough is then dried into a powder, and the powder is then used for formulation or preparation.

After you have your alchemy powder created it comes time to add excipients. Excipients are substances included with pill manufacture not for their direct therapeutic action, but to aid the manufacturing process, to protect the pills, to support the active ingredient, or to enhance stability.

Solvents like water and binding agents are common excipients added in a mixing machine. The moist mix is then dried again in a fluid dryer until it becomes dry grains a few millimeters in diameter. You then add these dried grains to your tablet compression machine to press into pills.

If you wanted to create a potion, you would take the slurry and continuously refine it for purity, eliminating harmful dregs to create a strength potion. You could then add other excipients to this potion to modify the effect of the strength potion.

Every pill core created by an alchemist is unique, so the strength pill created by different pill cores will have varying effects. Pill core formulas are the lifeline to every alchemist. Alchemists guard their pill core formulas closer than they would guard their own lives.

Alchemists spend the majority of their time researching and discovering new types of pill cores. By creating new pill cores they not only increase their understanding of the Alchemy Dao but they also give themselves a substantial source of income. Since alchemists spend so much time researching, it is a very compet.i.tive profession.

A unique pill that is only 5% more effective than its compet.i.tors can allow an alchemist to corner the market. At 10% more effective, an alchemist can fully control the market in a pill. At 20% more effective, an alchemist will gain great renown for their skills. At 50% more effective, an alchemist would have made a breakthrough in the profession.

Everyone wants to be recorded in the annals of history, so alchemists work hard to be masters of their craft.

After looking over "Alchemy of the Lost Ones" I had a greater understanding of what it would take to become an alchemist. The only thing now was to experiment and find out where my talents lay in this profession. I closed to book and headed to Zat"s alchemy lab and was not a bit surprised by its thoroughness.

Everything I could ever hope and dream to form pill cores was right in front of me, available for my use. The entire lab was filled with different colored alchemy cauldrons and furnaces, all with labels and instruction manuals for their use laid out in front of them.

This was a very fair testing ground. If you couldn"t have any results here in your profession you deserved to be served on Zat"s platter for your incompetence. If I had a blacksmith shop like this when learning blacksmithing, I"m sure I would have already crafted a Viscount weapon.

After reading over the instruction manuals to several cauldrons and furnaces, I choose "The Champ" as my companion for the next few years. "The Champ" was a ma.s.sive beast of a furnace weighing in at over 1200 pounds. It was powered by fire jade crystals, with mechanical controls at the side.

I was in a rush to finish my task of becoming an Indigo Alchemist within 5 years. I didn"t want to become some phallus wielding Satyr"s midnight snack. Learning the hard way with a cauldron and properly controlling my fire essence would be much harder than learning to use a machine. Especially since I had to reach the cla.s.sification of Indigo Alchemist.

Right now my fire essence had not broken into Viscount. Without Viscount Fire Essence, there was no way to form a Blue-Violet pill core. If I could learn to control the fire essence created by this machine, there was hope for me to escape this death trial.

I headed towards the garden to pick up some Tier-1 herbs to start my quest in alchemy mastery.