Learning To Live As A Cultivator 55 Chapter Fifty Five - I Expand My Repertoire

Having heard talk about other pills, Leon wondered if he hadn't been a little slack with his own. Of late, he generally had stuck to what he knew he could make with ease and those he could sell to the apothecary. Of course, the better strength of pill required more uncommon herbs, which were not given freely; they were earned by way of the request board or given by Teachers to personal apprentices. He did have one or two uncommon herbs in his garden, but they were not ready for harvest as yet.

However there were still many basic pills that used common herbs that he had not tried forming yet. He exchanged several bottles of burning energy pills and clear spiritual pills for herb bundles and returned to his hut to sort through them.

If he recalled correctly, he had once been told by Caprian that Leo had created a 'not so simple' beast calming pill. A beast calming pill was a basic pill that was not for human consumption, but for beasts. If a weak beast consumed the irresistibly scented pill, it was then easier for a beast tamer to create a bond and tame it. But just as many pills contained a side effect that caused problems for humans, the beast calming pill could actually morph into a weak poison within a beast, not only causing it to become enraged, but weakening it to point of death in worst cases. This happened in one in five cases, so was only used when the risk was considered worth it, perhaps when the beast was uncommon or rare or when the creature had too strong a will despite being categorised as weak.

However, according to Leo's notes, his improved beast calming pill reduced the chances of the medicine altering to poison, the risk was only one in ten. Also he claimed, though Leon wasn't sure whether he had tested his theories like he had with other pills, that the 'poison' would never be fatal, that the sick beast would recover in two or three days at most. Seeing as the pill had paved Caprian's entry into the inner school, Leon could only a.s.sume that some if not all Leo's points were true.

Leon did not want to make the improved version; he did not want it to appear in the wrong hands and cause him more problems. So he chose to create it just using the written method, which required the leaves and stalks of the northern gemweed plant, and the stalks of honeyvine and fragrant beasttails. Even this took him several tries as the stalks of the three herbs needed had to be slowly heated within the cauldron at first, so that their juices were released until pooling together at the base before the succulent leaves of the northern gemweed were added and the fire increased to boiling temperatures. His spiritual energies then helped the pills to form. Once he had the hang of it, the cauldron produced a batch of three, green pills.

He filled three jade bottles, each containing five pills before he was satisfied that he had the hang of this particular pill. He also learned how to make hidden mist pills, which hid a Cultivator's scent from many types of weak beasts for a while (not all, as certain beasts were famed for their enhanced sense of smell) and first fort.i.tude pills. He had more success creating the latter than the former as Leo had written notes along the diary entry for this recipe recording ways to not only increase chances of success making it, but an improved version as well.

Leo's notes tending to be more detailed and researched in pills that he had been interested in than those he hadn't. For instance, pills that helped him and kept him safe were ones he had expressed interest in, whereas ones that benefited others, but not him, he was not. Why he had experimented with the beast calming pill, that was explained in the diaries and had been on a whim.

Tired and feeling slightly drained of spiritual energy, he decided that he would call it a day and take a bath. He placed the jade bottles into one of his inters.p.a.cial bags before entering the small 'bath shed' and realising his mistake. His soiled change of clothes were still to one side, stained in the muck he had expelled from his now smooth skin and the bath was filled with cold, murky water. He sighed and rolled up his sleeves, beginning the ch.o.r.es that would take him until the sun had disappeared beyond the horizon.