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Alex was certainly not very good at using the sword as just a sword. He needed to use the various techniques, regardless of if they used Qi or not, to properly fight with a sword.

The one he used most of the time was Elusive Heavenly Sword. While it had 3 Qi-based attacks, its main purpose was that it was a style of sword fighting that mostly focused on the elusiveness of the fighter, rather than focusing on doing the most damage.

This certainly helped Alex a lot, but following simply this was also not a very good idea for him who wanted to learn Sword Intent.

So, he was going back to the basics once more. He logged out and looked online on how he could learn as a beginner in sword fighting.

The people online gave some instructions that Alex decided to follow.

To get used to the sword's weight, they had him simply try to hold the sword out straight in front of him without shaking it a lot. This not only helped in increasing the person's understanding of the sword, but it also helped him increase his wrist strength.

The wrist strength was something Alex didn't need to care about, but learning the weight was something that helped him a lot.

The second part that the internet suggested was to strike empty air in front of him. He would stand on one spot and swing directly in front of him.

He had to do that for hours and hours on end for days on end.

The final thing that the internet told him was to fight an imaginary opponent. Make someone in your mind, and fight them until you are sure you could.

This was like the famous shadow boxing, but for swords.

Once Alex was done doing these three things, he stopped for the day. It was around 8 pm when he decided to make his pills. He had a routine and he would stick to it.

Alex took out a few spirit stones and the fire furnace he had created. He dug a hole and started the fire. He then took out a black cauldron.

He was going to do test creations, so he couldn't use his normal cauldron.

While that was going on, he revised what he had learned so far.

'The direction of the motion of the ingredients inside the cauldron can, for some reason, play a huge role in how much energy a pill can hold.'

'The speed of the motion of the ingredients inside the cauldron can help in regulated heat transfer, so it plays a role in the speed of energy release. Also, same as the direction, it can also affect the amount of energy a pill can hold.'

'Finally, the temperature the ingredients are burned in also matters. Each ingredient burns at a certain temperature, so it is necessary one knew the exact burning temperature of every ingredient if they want to create a new pill,' he thought.

Normal alchemists that only followed recipes didn't have to worry about these things. However, if one wanted to create their own pill, they had to certainly learn this by heart.

That was why being an alchemist took such a long time. One had to go through and remember every scenario for every pill.

Or at least, that was what Alex thought. He still believed that there was a technique to forming pills that didn't require so much manual learning, but he would have to wait until he returned.

When he saw the cauldron was hot enough, he dropped the first ingredient. The first ingredient didn't really matter in how violently the energy was released from the cauldron. As long as there wasn't an explosion, they would be perfectly fine.

Still, Alex decided to follow through with the recipe he had made on his own.

As he did, he couldn't help but cringe at the many mistakes that were littered throughout the recipe. He could see many opportunities that could be improved a lot.

Since this was a test, he was going to have to do this multiple times. He remembered how the energy release rate was really good when he had done a single thing.

So he was going to follow exactly that. He restarted the process once again once the resulting pill was at 21% harmony.

Once the cauldron was hot enough again, he put in the first ingredient. The first ingredient turned to powder quickly and it was time for the 2nd ingredient.

When Alex remembered the different experiments he had done with this one, he chose from a small list of experiments that resulted in a rate of release of energy that didn't make it look like it would cause an explosion.

He did the 3rd and 4th. He was constantly changing things recipes with what he felt was proper. On the 5th one, he threw in the 5th ingredient.

However, by this time he could think of ways to use the 5th ingredient, he had already made the mistake of making too many changes without realizing what was going to happen again.

'Urghh, I forgot the energy isn't always what it seems," he thought. While the cauldron only showed a single or two energy output, it was hard to remember by just looking and feeling that there were other energies mixed into the resulting energy.

The cauldrons showed signs of unstableness, so Alex didn't hesitate at all and threw the cauldron far away.

An explosion ran in the distance. Alex was relieved that he was able to make such a quick decision.

"Urghh… I need to make small changes, one at a time, rather than all at once," Alex said. So, he got down on the ground, put out more ingredients, and continued making pills.

Only this time, he made a single change with each pill's outcome. Unfortunately, they didn't have a huge enough change for any of the pills to be useful.

So, Alex added 2 changes per batch and continued experimenting with his recipe for the rest of the night.