Chapter 181: The alchemy test
Another month passed since the activation of Enki’s second core, and Percy hadn’t stopped working on the regeneration pills in that time.
Now that the boy was free from the arduous task of clearing his channels, Percy had asked him to pay attention to what he was doing. After all, observing a trained alchemist at work with one’s own body was a unique learning opportunity. Enki would benefit a lot from feeling the mana flowing through his channels, getting used to the visual cues informing him of when he was meant to increase the heat on the concoction and so on.
Of course, Percy’s fumbling attempts with his shoddy equipment weren’t the most ideal teaching aides, but they would still save the boy years of study down the line. Something that was of paramount importance if Enki truly wanted to work as an alchemist after he was gone.
‘Is this going to be enough for the test though?’ the boy asked one day.
Percy’s success with the pills had been quite mixed. He had managed to brew them many times over, but his results were anything but consistent. Sometimes, he would end up with a pill nearly twice as large as what was needed, indicating a yield approaching 40%! In fact, he got really lucky once, retaining enough of the moss’s properties to split it into two pills of acceptable quality!
Then again, there were plenty of times when he failed the brewing process entirely, not even getting to 20%. If this happened during the test, they’d miss their opportunity. This was unavoidable, as he was brewing blindly, so a lot of it ultimately came down to guesswork and luck.
Still, Percy was satisfied with the experience. While he didn’t know if they would achieve their goal in the end, his practice here was bound to pay dividends down the line.
Back on Remior, he mainly relied on his eyesight to predict the concoction’s reactions during the brewing process. According to what Orin had told him, the best alchemists learned how to combine visual cues with information they glimpsed through Mana Sense, to act with even greater precision.
Now that Percy was forced to rely on Mana Sense alone, he had no choice but to master this auxiliary skill at an accelerated pace, which should have a positive impact on his yield in the long-term. Still, he wanted the Decree too.