Chapter One Hundred And Fifteen - I am also encouraged to improve

As it is said, those who wish to learn may learn well, whereas those who do not wish to learn will learn nothing and those who were wise to see beyond the quality of Leon's pills learned that one should never judge a book by its cover and those who were too conceited remained blind.

Leon felt as if this did not affect him in the slightest so did not let it bother him.  He still did not understand his own worth, so was not able to convince all others of it.  It should be noted that Merylin did not remain indifferent and although she refused to completely acknowledge Leon's talent (how great was it if those pills still remained so average!) she was not stupid enough to completely ignore it either.  She learned what she wished to learn from him.  Whether she could use this lesson to her own advantage would remain to be seen.

The following day, Leon demonstrated his ability of control again, but in front of the outer school students, which caused him to be a little embarrassed. 

The mentality of these students was a little different to the inner school students.  Both were first years, but there were a few more commoners here than nobles and their talents were not so great.  To enter the inner school or simply to graduate and be seen as a good alchemist, they needed to supplement their weaker gifts with that of hard work.  Not that this wasn't the path that the inner school students would find themselves on eventually, only the outer school students concluded this much sooner or forever be labelled as a waste.

Still, many had one thing in common with the inner school students; they wished to impress a girl.

Said girl was sitting very close to a demonstrating Leon right now while Teacher Sagi supervised the entire class.  This class was bigger in numbers than the one the day before and none voiced complaints that working on their control was too hard or thought it was pointless.  If they thought the latter, they might as well have packed up and went home directly.  However, seeing Maimai in rapt concentration as she tried to learn Leon's tricks, did sour the hearts of more than a handful, but only one cauldron went flying in response to uncontrolled emotions.

That student was reprimanded and instructed to practice make Burning Energy Pills for the next week or until they could do so without incident, leaving them feeling all the more unhappy.

After the demonstration, Maimai questioned enthusiastically every little detail and Leon patiently offered his insight, some of which belonged to the previous owner of the body rather than himself.  A tiny part of him wished he could indeed honour Leo and credit certain findings to him.  Such as the use of a little extra dew from the purple spirit grass to stop the potion drying out too fast at pill forming stage.

Teacher Sagi had never thought about this himself, his control had far surpassed the need for such tricks, however he definitely thought it was a useful thing for those still learning or without such great control to know.  He was exceedingly proud of his disciple and even more pleased with his decision to accept him as such.

Maimai adopted all of Leon's practices and tried her best to follow suit.  Granted, her overall control was still sloppy, but the fact that out of the three pills to form in her cauldron only one could be considered a dud, the other two of good quality was an improvement.  That and she did not lose, break or send flying the metal pot while creating them.  Teacher Sagi gave her a pleased nod of acknowledgement.

Having made many, many Burning Energy Pills over the past couple of days, Leon followed Teacher Sagi after the lecture to the Herb Hall to exchange them in return for a healthy bundle of pills.  However, instead of a random collection that Leon would have to sort himself before deciding which pills he should make with them, Teacher Sagi instructed the senior in the Hall to gather up herbs for two specific pills; the Still Mind pill and the Cloudy Spiritual pill.  He wished to test Leon on these pills which could be considered as slightly more complex than the basic pills and Blood pills he was known for producing en masse.

If pills had fixed levels, then these could be considered level two pills along side Blood pills, although Cloudy Spiritual pills were harder to make than Blood pills and Still Mind pills were considered to be somewhere in between the two.  The Cloudy Spiritual pill was a cultivation aid, a Cultivator of Secondary or Tertiary stage could take them to improve their cultivation more quickly, but like the Clear Spiritual pill, taking too many could actually block an advancement to the next stage of cultivation.  Still Mind Pills were usually taken by those who had just advanced to secondary to help still the fluctuations in the soulsea that could remain.  They were not always necessary, as both Leon and Sun could attest to, but they were still popular.  Not many had such smooth final transitions as the pair.

Teacher Sagi left Leon to wait for his herbs with instructions to practice these two pills over the next three days then see him on the sixth day of this week with the pills he had produced.  Leon agreed and Teacher Sagi retired for the day.

"S-senior?" Leon questioned as the herbs were placed before him for collection.  "Why are these m-m-moth t-tails a d-d-different c-colour than usual?"

The senior shrugged.  "This happens sometimes," the woman shrugged, not really caring about reasons.  Mothtails were just like that, the thick leaves coated in a fine fur and curled into loose spirals could be green or they could be red or they could be a mix of the two.

Leon thanked her and placed the herbs in his interspacial bag while his lips twitched into a soft curve.  He was thinking of another herb that had not only a similar name, but similar in disposition.  He wondered if he had time to experiment while he practiced...