Alchemical Fusion (Part 1)

"Will you just take them already? You have work to do and not a lot of time left to do it in. You will stay here for the next 2 days, then you can go home and gather what you need. Then I want you back here early before they get here there are a few more things I need to get rounded up for you." Feldman was realizing how much work he had to do in 2 days. There was still the issue of trying to disguise his Refinement Flame. That was going to take some work.

Evan started touching each item and pulling it into is storage space. Each item only took one slot of space, regardless of size. He gained a lot of notebooks that Feldman had written his personal experiences in, this would be great for practice in the later stages of his growth. He had also received 2 very nicely put together hard covered books. Both were simply named, "Personal Elixirs: 1" and the other book was titled the same just numbered "2" instead. And of course, the 2 wonderful treasures.

This was exactly what Evan needed so he pulled the book numbered "1" out and opened to the first stage. It was titled, "Low F Rank: Tonics". Tonics were any elixir, whether it be a pill or liquid, that was used to boost cultivation. The term covered things like energy gathering boosts, mental boosters, and basking elixirs. Basking elixirs were just made using large amounts of energy that would bask the body, this would make it easier to absorb spirit energy into the bloodstream at the moment of break throughs.

There was an entire list of different named tonics, with a detailed list of the materials needed, and the ratios for fusion. Evan quickly flipped through the pages of the book, that was thicker than the dictionary, and was surprised. It covered Tonics, Medicines, and Enhancers all the way up to SS Rank of the Advanced tier. He simply couldn't ask for anything better.

"Now that you have everything you need. You are free to practice here. One thing though, don't use the furnace while practicing. It will make the process to easy and will inhibit your growth. This is the time you should be using to fine tune your control." Feldman gave a few words of advice to Evan before he went off to practice.

"Yes sir." Evan wasn't planning on using the furnace. He wanted to test his own limits before controlling his level down to an appropriate point for his age.

Evan walked out of the farmhouse and sat down on the top step, looking through the book of recipes for something that he can create with the materials around the house. Evan noticed almost all of the recipes in the book required a material that he couldn't find. Mixing Sand, it was the blank slate that would hold the fused spirit energy from all materials. It was practically required for any elixir, with the exceptions of elixirs that contained stone materials, as the stone would be modified to contain all the spirit energy then either melted and mixed with the energy to create a liquid or dehydrated and pounded into a powder for pills. This was known as a vessel material. Mixing Sand just was unique and acted as a universal spirit pool, able to contain any kind of spirit energy without any conflict. It could be replaced in recipes with other stones only because there was no conflict between the materials, which is why it was needed in the first place.

This was a problem. How could he use any of these recipes without a vessel material? 'Okay, new problem just means I need to figure out a solution.' Evan was trying to figure out a solution to this issue. The absence of mixing sand didn't make the fusion impossible, he just needed to find a different spirit stone and then find a corresponding recipe that could use it instead. It would just take more time. The average person would probably spend a few hours looking for a stone capable of being refined and tempered to a ranked material, but Evan had a data tab.

He found a stone within just a few minutes of a stroll through the fields.

[Gray Stone- Unranked- Solidifying agent, keeps 1% of overall elixir enhancement permanently]

[Next rank- F rank- Effect Stone- 2% permanent effect of overall elixir enhancement.]

The next problem was trying to find a recipe that matched. There were plenty of enhancing elixirs that would use the gray stone, but Evan knew his body couldn't cope with a F ranked elixir right now. He is far to weak for that right now. Being an actual F ranked warrior wasn't simple. The requirements were actually pretty strict, you would first have to go through the ascension process. The ascension was something everyone would go through when they hit puberty.

Ascending was the process of the body integrating spirit energy into blood. This would happen after the body was strong enough to contain the energy in their blood, this would slowly strengthen the body more over time. Low F Rank Warrior's also had a minimum stat requirement, this would be decided by a specific series of tests at any official testing facility. The minimum amount required for a Low F Rank Warrior was a 50-base stat in the important stats. They considered the important stats are considered to be Strength, Speed, Stamina, and Spirit Pool. They didn't consider Defense, Intelligence or Agility to be terribly important because most warriors were basically all brutes, without much intelligence at all. The other stats were more focused on Creation Artists.

Being an official ranked warrior was all based about physical fighting, and the use of abilities. The average person would eventually become a ranked warrior simply due to the slow strengthening process. Rare cases did happen, like with Feldman. He was always so focused on alchemy that he never focused on training his body. So, when he went through his ascension, he was still quite weak.

He never trained his body after the ascension either. This caused the strength in his body to eventually stagnate over time as his body was eventually used to the spirit energy in his blood. By the time he would have become a natural F ranked warrior, he had already destroyed his pathways which made it impossible for him to become any stronger than he was. His strength slowly declined over time. He used to be much faster and stronger than he was now, but often gave himself too little credit. Such as when he thought Evan was as fast as he used to be. Evan was fast now, but not even half as fast as Feldman was in his prime.

Evan decided that with all of his options out of the way, he would attempt to make something of his own. He wanted to create a tonic. Tonics were elixirs used to boost cultivation. Evan couldn't do that yet, but he could boost the amount of energy he was able to absorb. This would at least help with his practice as he would be able to refill his spirit pool at a faster rate. Every time he tempered a material it would take 30 points of spirit energy from his pool. Refinement was even more at 50, and he didn't know how much it would take for fusion, but his guess was a lot.

Evan had never really thought of it before, and only had now due to some of the info in the journals about ranked warriors. He now realized that he had 4 times the amount of spirit that a Low F Ranked Warrior had. Sure, the average alchemist had more but most people don't become a ranked warrior or alchemist until around 16 or 17. He was 4, this difference was drastically different from the average person.

Evan was looking for materials that would be suitable for a low ranked energy absorption enhancement tonic. He had decided to use the gray stone for two reasons. One, it was all he had around him to use, and for two, the permanent effect would be great to have as it would be an overall help down the line.

He decided that the gray stone would be used in the unranked phase as he didn't want to risk injury to himself. He was still looking at other materials through his Data Tab but couldn't find anything suitable. The closest material he could find was a plant called a Jumping Bean.

[Jumping Bean- Unranked- Contains large amount of energy, used for basking elixirs.]

Evan had an idea though. If this bean contained a large amount of energy, wouldn't that mean that the stalk has the ability to absorb a large amount of energy. 'I wonder if it can be used like that?' Evan was wondering seriously. He didn't know if it had been attempted before but he wanted to try it.

He didn't temper any material that could be used on an unranked level, as he wanted to try to create something that his body could actually handle. So, he had picked 2 ingredients so far, the gray stone, and the jumping bean stalk. He still needed a main ingredient. This would be the prevailing strength of the elixir. He needed something that would cause a soft strain effect on the body but favor the abilities of the other 2 materials. It hit him out of nowhere. He had already worked with it before. Gum grass, it was the perfect material. It would add elasticity to his spirit pathways, which should make it easier to absorb the energy.