Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy
chapter-2178

Alex thought for a moment about how to go about what he was planning to do.

There were two sets of ingredients before him, one for a pill that improved one's cultivation speed and another that was a regular healing pill. He thought for a while, preparing his Intent as he waited.

Memory sat in front of him, the spirit within it a little stronger than before since Alex had refined every single useless item he had within his Soul Space. The spirit was stronger, but it was still nascent.

Alex wondered if he should bisect the space inside of memory in half. He thought about making the split vertically so he could make the two pills at the same time on either side of the cauldron.

However, when he further thought about it, that was just not possible. Unless he performed some mind-numbing shenanigan like teleporting the ingredients around the cauldron when they reached the edge of the space they were in to appear back on the other side, it would not work.

A vertical split separated the cauldron into two, but it only gave half a usable space. What Alex really needed to do was split it horizontally, so the cauldron had a top and bottom half.

Doing so horizontally meant that the ingredients could make circles around the entire cauldron without him having to teleport it around to not enter the other pill's territory.

Alex thought for a bit and realized this was the better idea.

He took a deep breath and used not just his Dao of Space along with his intent to separate the space within the cauldron. If it was just his Intent alone, it might have been difficult to keep the two spaces separate, to stop the energy from meeting each other.

But with Space Dao, it was so much easier.

With the cauldron split into a top and bottom half, Alex began.

Two ingredients teleported inside of the cauldron. One arrived at the top half, the other at the bottom half. As soon as they appeared, Alex began controlling them to refine them as their recipe demanded. The main thing here was to have Memory be at different temperatures in different spots.

The upper half had to be hotter than the lower half. Alex could do that, but maintaining it was much more difficult than he anticipated it to be. Metal naturally wanted to transfer heat from one side to another, so Alex had to use his Dao of Heat Conduction to stop it from happening.

It was a bit of an issue, but he felt Memory trying to help him as well, separating the heat from passing all throughout it. "Thank you, Memory," Alex said and continued.

The rest of it wasn't very difficult for Alex at all. As someone who had made pills in 7 separate cauldrons already, making two different pills was a simple task in terms of how he needed to focus on it.

This was no different than having 2 separate cauldrons in one. Having to control his Dao of Space added a bit to the hurdle and the issue with the heat was certainly a frustrating one. But, that was nowhere near close to having to control 5 extra cauldrons.

Compared to that, it was easy.

Alex couldn't help but wonder if he could make more than just 2 pills in the same cauldron. Maybe 3, or even 4? That was something he would have to try later.

For now, he just needed to make the pills.

The ingredients disappeared into the pill one after another, quickly refined until they turned into powder and the energy escaped them.

Alex noticed that due to the space in the cauldron being half as much as normal, the energy inside of it was quite cramped. It didn't affect how the energy reacted in the end, but he still made a mental note to have Memory be larger for later on.

Just in case.

With the two separate spaces, the two pills formed quite quickly; one below, one above. Once they were made, Alex let go of his control and the dividing space disappeared.

The pill on top fell to the bottom, and Alex brought both of them out.

Having learned his lesson previously, Alex always had Memory absorb a slight bit of energy from each pill to not form Pill Cloud accidentally.

He looked at the two pills, each with harmony in the high 90s. That was more than enough for Alex to ascertain what he had done as a success. He had successfully made two different pills in the same cauldron.

Alex didn't stop there and tried to see how many he could add.

He managed to make 3 pills at the same time without much difficulty. For 4 pills, he realized that he couldn't keep the heat as separated as he wanted to. There were no sections in the cauldron for him to clearly keep the heat from mixing into the other side. That made his pills have slight issues with the final energy, making a few of them be in the low 90s.

As for 5, there was just too much Alex needed to control at once, and while he did make the pills, they ended up all being in the upper 80s, with none of them crossing the 90%.

Alex quickly determined that 4 was the most he could go for now without losing a lot of energy. If he needed to make pills quickly though, this was the way to go.

This was all Alex started focusing on since then, using all of his free time to try and train himself and Memory to keep the heat separated from entering the other territory.

Alex had no doubt he could improve on it, so long as he continued doing so. He got better and better with it as time went on and before he realized he could make 4 pills at once, with none of them below 95%. That was the biggest milestone Alex managed to reach before he had to stop.

Silvermist was incredibly excited when he learned what Alex had accomplished. "This is amazing," he said. "When you said you could make 2 different pills, I was still suspicious. But now you've made 4 in total, and all of them great."

Alex smiled. "Thank you, master."

"Space Dao, huh? That is incredible indeed. We can keep the energy separated using Intent alone, but I can't imagine that is as efficient as separating the space itself. You don't have to worry about the energy or powder mixing into other sections, do you?"

Alex shook his head.

"I'm having trouble with the heat conduction though. Is there a technique or do I just keep brute forcing it with my Intent?" Alex asked.

"If there is a technique, I'm not aware of it," Silvermist said. "My one suggestion would be to make your cauldron large and only heat a small horizontal circular strip of metal where you will refine the ingredients. The gap between those spots can act buffer for the heat."

"Hmm, specific heat zones, huh?" Alex thought. "I can try that."

"Try it later," Silvermist said. "Go rest for now. We will be heading to Molten Hearth Continent the day after tomorrow."