Proposition (1)

Kai heated the furnace to the temperature described on the Beginner cultivation notes. He then carefully put the ingredients into the furnace.

His first result wasn't as he expected. Instead of the mixture turning into a bright green liquid as described, it turned into a foul-smelling purple liquid. Kai knew it was a failure and cleaned out the furnace to try again. Kai had been prepared to have failures seeing as this was his first time, so he simply started again.

An hour passed and Kai was rapidly using up his ingredients. "I've used almost half my ingredients and still have no successes...do I not have the aptitude for alchemy?...or maybe it's this crappy furnace?..."

Kai didn't know the reason for the constant failures but he knew that he was wasting a lot of resources and needed a better way of doing this.