885 Through the Pain
Alex continued making more and more pills, without any mistakes, but he was still only making 54 pills an hour.
By the time 4 hours had passed he had made exactly 216 pills. If this continued, with about 7 more hours of this remaining, he would certainly fail without a doubt.
He need to do something else, he needed to improve the process this late into the game.
But how? Should he really make 12 pills? But then what about the mental fatigue he would have to suffer?
Should he even be caring about that at this point?
Alex finished making another set of pills and put them in the formation to the side to prove that they were indeed all above 50% in harmony.
After they were all tested, he cleaned the 3 cauldrons with his Qi and started heating them up again.
Suddenly, he paused as a thought came to him. He was wasting about 6 minutes an hour doing just this. This which had nothing to do with making pills was taking up 10% of his time.
But then, was there a solution? It wasn't like he could make up a formation or scripts to automate this at all.
'Wait, I can automate it,' Alex thought.
"Pearl! Whisker! Come out," He said at the same time.
"Meow!" Pearl meowed the moment he sensed the external spiritual sense on him, and Whisker looked at him curiously.
At the same time, Alex brought out 3 more cauldrons and placed them on the other side of the formations where one could perform alchemy as well.
He didn't use them as he stuck to the 3 he had in front of him and started making pills. At the same time, he gave a mental command to his beasts to help him when the time came.
Alex focused his everything on making the 9 pills. He finished powdering them, replacing the energy with them.
However, when it came time to form the powder into pills, he moved away.
He didn't form them into pills at all. Instead, he left that task for Pearl to complete.
Since it was only separating the powder in small clumps and then making a small sphere out of the powder, Pearl could do that easily.
After having watched him make pills for years on end, Pearl too knew the process behind alchemy.
Alex immediately moved on to the next 3 cauldrons that he had previously taken out. These were cauldrons that were perfectly heated up to the right temperature as that was what Whisker had been doing this entire time.
Without wasting a single moment, Alex put 9 ingredients into them and started making more pills.
In the meantime, Pearl and Whisker together did what Alex considered a waste of time for himself.
They pulled out the pills, tested them, and then proceed to clean the cauldrons afterward. After they were clean, Whisker started heating them again as per the recipe for the next set of pills that were going to be made next.
When Alex finished putting energy back into the powder, he left Pearl to handle it again and started making the next 9 pills immediately over on the other 3 cauldrons.
Alex was improving his time by a lot, but he was also spending more Qi than he could afford to.
In just 4 and a half hours, Alex had ended up using all the Saint Qi he had in his body, and at the rate, he was going he would use up his True Qi in just the next 2 hours.
After the 6 and a half hours were done, he would be forced to cultivate again.
Alex sighed, but he had no choice. He continued making the pills. By the time the fifth hour had ended, Alex had made exactly 63 pills using the new technique.
He realized that because he was saving himself something close to 2 minutes for every single pill he made, he was now able to make pills 15 times in 2 hours.
So, without hesitation, he continued. When the 6th hour ended, he made 60 pills as this was one of the hours where he had to switch the pills, and thus had to do half and half for one of the turns.
However, the new few hours would be smooth sailing as he was going to have to make this one single pill for a while now.
But, he had to stop around 40 minutes later because he had run out of Qi. Not only that, even his head was aching rather badly this time around as the pill he ate for mental stability had lost its effect already.
Alex would have to eat another one, but that wasn't going to have the same effect as the first one.
Alex stopped and started cultivating, but even as he did that, the thought of losing time made his heart hurt.
So, he decided to do something risky. Something that would generally be considered a very bad choice because of the high chance one had of going into Qi deviation and destroying their own meridians.
While cultivating, Alex started using his Qi and continued his alchemy.
He ate the pill for his mental stability, but with one more very important thing to focus his mind on, it wasn't very helpful.
Still, it allowed him to make 9 pills every 8 or so minutes, and that was something Alex had to thank it for.
By the time the 7th hour had ended, Alex made another 63 pills.
His mental ability to concentrate was going down more and more as time went on, but he still continued.
By the time the 8th hour ended, Alex made about 63 pills, with 6 minutes remaining.
In the 9th hour, Alex made about 69 pills.
However, around this time, his mind was getting so bogged by all the different things he was concentrating on that his ability was lowering more and more.
As such, he was forced to give up on the most important thing he had been concentrating on, that being his cultivation.
Having constantly used his Qi, his cultivation had barely helped him gather any Qi. However, it was still enough for him to last the next 3 hours.
Or at least he hoped so. With one less thing to concentrate on, Alex found some levity which he used to continue making pills.
As he did, Alex realized that he was slowly running out of Qi again. He hadn't gained as much as he had hoped.
He wasn't sure if it would even last 3 more hours. However, now was not the time to think about that.
Actually, now was not the time to think at all. Any brain power he put into things that were not making pills only increased his mental usage, thus increasing the fatigue in the already fatigued mind.
By the 10th hour, even as Alex made another 63 pills, he was feeling empty in both mental power and Qi.
Having sat there making pills, even his body was starting to feel the pain.
Still, he kept going. He continued making pills for another hour and ended up with another 69 pills.
In the final hour, for what felt like an eternity, Alex pushed his body to the limit, using every single drop of Qi and mental power to make the pills.
He made it once, then once again, and then once again.
His mind hurt like someone had used a rather strong spiritual attack, and his meridians hurt from not having any Qi to push out anymore.
Still, he found any little Qi he had and pushed it out to make the pills one more time.
The next time was a struggle as there was nothing to use in himself. Still, with a head that felt like it would burst open, Alex started cultivating once more to gain back just the tiniest bit of Qi to continue.
He put in the ingredients, processed them, and after using the last bit of Qi to put them into the powder, he left for the other ingredients.
Pearl quickly formed the pills and started testing the pills, while Alex barely focused himself to look at the 3 cauldrons in front of him.
He tried to push his Qi, but he was a still step away from fainting.
'No, I have to continue, just a little longer,' Alex thought. The 12th hour hadn't ended yet. He needed to continue.
Just then, the door burst open the moment Pearl finished testing the pills which were all surprisingly good, despite Alex's condition.
"Stop!" the elder shouted.
Alex's heart sank. Was it time? Did he fail? Had the elders left already?
"N-no! I can keep going," he barely managed to speak up and tried to focus back on the cauldrons.
"I said stop!" the elder said again and used force to pull him away from the cauldron.
"Elder, please let me go. I promise I can make some more," he said.
The elder looked at him with pity in her eyes, and obvious shock at what he had shown her today.
A smile formed on her face as she brought him to his feet. "Stop. You don't have to make any more pills. You already finished your job."
Alex paused for a moment. "I… I did?" he asked.
"Yes, you made all 1750 pills as per Elder Xuan's request," the elder said. "Congratulations, you passed the test."
Alex was stunned for a second before he started counting all the pills he had made. "I… I did it, I really did it," he said.
By the end, before the 12th hour was even over, Alex had made exactly 1755 pills.
