The Task of an Aid

"What was your name again junior brother? Yu Ming?" Kong Yuhan asked. 

Alex was surprised. He didn't remember ever telling him his name. He replied with a shocked expression, "That's right, brother Kong."

Kong Yuhan saw his shocked expression, and asked, "Why do you look shocked junior brother? Did you think I wouldn't recognize you just because I only saw you once? You brought me a very important ingredient. You are a benefactor to me, and this Kong always remembers his benefactors."

"Ah, no brother Kong. I was just surprised you somehow figured out my name. Even though I didn't remember you asking for my name." He replied honestly. 

"Hmm. You didn't? Then I must've read it in your nameplate. Anyway, that doesn't matter right now. Are you working as an aid right now, junior brother Yu?" he asked.

'Oh! The nameplate. Of course.' Alex felt stupid for not realizing that. 

"Yes. I am waiting for someone to pick me as an aid." 

"Do you want to come with me?" Kong Yuhan asked.

Alex's eyes brightened. 'Finally' he thought. 

"Yes, brother Kong. I would love to." 

Kong Yuhan walked into the hall and brought Alex along with him. The inside of the Alchemy Hall was not what he had been expecting.

The inside of the hall looked like catacombs. It had a relatively narrow path that went straight for a dozen or more meters before splitting into 3 paths. Each of the paths had multiple rooms on each side of the path. The doors themselves were made of stone, similar to the walls. 

Lanterns hung on the wall to light up the pathway. At the very entrance of the hall, there was a big white rock embedded into the walls. There were many small boxes that either lit up with red lights or green lights. 

Alex looked at the carvings and immediately realized that this was the internal map of the Alchemy hall. Similar to all the other stones, and boards he had seen around the sect, this was also constantly changing forms, going from red to green, or green to red. 

Kong Yuhan looked at the map once and saw a clump of green lights in an area. "Come on junior brother Yu. Let's go find ourselves an open room." 

Kong Yuhan knew the path very well, so he simply walked straight through the maze-like hallway and reached an open room. He walked into the room and waited for Alex to enter. 

Alex walked in and was surprised to see the room. The room was bigger than his cottage and had a giant hole in the middle. The steady fire was burning inside the hole, and on top of it was a black cauldron, ready to be used. 

Kong Yuhan took out his nameplate and placed it in a carving on the wall next to the open door. Suddenly, a massive block of stone came down from the open door and blocked it entirely. 

"Let's start junior brother. The room costs me 5 contribution points every hour, I need to take advantage of it." He said. 

He took the cauldron on top of the fire and set it aside at a corner. He then took out his own cauldron and put it on top of the fire. His cauldron seemed to be made of a dirt-like brown color, but more polished than the black cauldron. It was without a doubt better than the other cauldron. 

He waited for the cauldron to heat up and took out his storage bag. He then handed to storage bag to Alex. 

Alex was confused now. What was he to do with the storage bag? He looked inside and saw a bunch of alchemy ingredients, including the dwarf berry. He decided to ask.

"Brother Kong, what do I do with this?" 

"Huh, why are you asking? You should know this as an aid already." Kong Yuhan was surprised at the question as well,

"This is my first time working as an aid brother. I only joined the sect yesterday." Alex said as he laughed wryly. 

Kong Yuhan frowned. "This is bad, brother. You should have let me know it was your first time. If you mess something up, I will be in big trouble." 

Alex got a little worried as well. 'I should have tried to find out what an aid does before coming here as well.'

"What does an aid do brother Kong?" he asked. 

Kong sighed, "The job itself is very simple, junior brother. You just have to give me the ingredients when I ask you to. The problem is that Alchemy requires near-perfect timing. So if you were to hinder my process by not being able to find an ingredient in time, I will fail in making the pill." 

"And this pill is very important to me. I only have one set of ingredients, so if I mess up here, I won't be able to break through to Meridian Tempering realm. I'm just worried that you won't be able to recognize what ingredient I ask, and be slow at delivering it."

Alex's eyes perked up when he heard this. "If it's just recognizing ingredients, then I am confident in being able to do that, Brother Kong." 

"Very well then junior brother, I shall trust you. The room already took my points, so there is no going back. Familiarize yourself with the pill ingredients and recipe in the bag," Kong Yuhan said as he closed his eyes and started meditating. 

Alex looked inside the storage bag and found out there were 13 different items inside. 12 of them were the ingredients, while the last one was a talisman. 

Alex took out the talisman and started to read it. 

<Congratulations, You have learned the recipe to [Spirit Enhancing Pill]> 

"Oh wow." He was surprised. He didn't expect to learn the recipe the moment he read it. 

'This must be because of the feature of [Alchemy God's Knowledge] that says I can learn all recipes instantly.' He thought