Alchemy: First Step

Next morning, Zhang Wuji woke up refreshed and energized contrary to his drowsiness every other morning. He thought back to the scene he had witnessed the day before. The stars, the moonlight and the girl, just picturing it made him feel peaceful. It wasn't the star filled sky, nor the moon nor the girl that was special. He felt the whole picture was just right, harmonious. It felt like all his doubts and worries were answered and there was no more conflict within him. He thought the harmony in the scene had somehow reflected in his mind.

With the same feeling, he got to his cultivation. There were no thoughts to give in to pain, no thoughts to give up midway. All his thoughts were aligned, the opposing voice that he constantly heard when he cultivated had disappeared. He could thus cultivate to the extent he had never before cultivated.

After class, he went straight to Lin Yingjie and enquired about the alchemy test.

"You are finally gonna do that huh? That's good news. To become an alchemist, you'll have to refine a grade one pill. And to learn that, the sect has an apprenticeship program where you are taught by an alchemist in exchange for helping them with their pill refining. But you can't help them without some basic knowledge which you are required to learn on your own. The test is for that. The questions are asked from four books. 10000 Herbs Found in and around Frost Swallow, A Compilation of Useful Beast parts, Methods of Extracting Herbal Essence, and Basic tools for Pill Refining." Lin Yingjie thought for a moment and answered in a single breath.

"10000 herbs?!" Panu was shocked and blurted out. Zhang Wuji did not look good. The inner peace did not last a second before that number.

"No no no, you only need to learn a thousand. Also some of those herbs are also discussed in the classes, so although it is still difficult it is not as absurd as 10000." Lin Yingjie said in a reassuring way.

'That's still not a small number. Who knows how long it would take me to learn all that.' Zhang Wuji felt hopeless in front of that number.

"Brother Lin is there any other way? Like a back-door or something?" He was hoping Lin Yingjie would know someone that could get him into apprenticeship.

"Hmph." he heard a derisive snort and looked at the source.

"You'll never become an alchemist like that. You might as well give up right now and not waste time." Wan Lin had a belittling smile on his face.

Zhang Wuji shook his head as if to shake away all the depressing thoughts from it. "You are right. I'll get started right away. I'll catch up with you guys later, I'm gonna be busy these days." He waved and left in the direction of the library.

The now stiff smile along with the puzzlement on the rest of his face gave a funny look to Wan Lin.

"Brother Lin look at his face." Pan Mu laughed in an exaggerated way and pointed at Wan Lin's face.

"Hmph. We'll see tomorrow."

"Yeah we'll see."

"Wanna bet on it?"

"You still owe me for the last three bets. Have some shame."

"I'll win it all this time. I'm sure. I think you know it too. That's why you are talking so much."

...

Zhang Wuji reached the library and took out the herbs book. The whole thing came in four volumes each four finger width thick. He took out the first volume which he thought would contain information about all the beginner herbs that he needed.

He looked at the contents. The book was divided into four parts with descending number of pages, each dedicated to a single tier from 0 to 3.

He opened to a random page in the middle. On the left page was a neatly labelled diagram of a plant. Bellow it, was the labelled diagram of its red tomato like fruit, to the right of which was drawn the insides of the fruit.

On the right page was the details about the plant. It was a tier one plant called Moon Persimmon. In the introduction, the flower's blooming to withering the whole process was said to look like the moon in its cycle which gave it the moon in its name. After a few lines of introduction, came the subject matter.

There were multiple headings. Element, taxonomy, location, cultivation, harvesting, treatment, pills and finally specific. Some of them had sub headings. But that's all he could read. The rest was abbreviated.

He flipped the book to find the list of abbreviations in the beginning. It was a huge list. There were tens of pages. There were headings in the list too. Location, cultivation, harvesting techniques, treatment methods and pills refining. Except for location, the expansion of the abbreviations under the rest of the headings was also beyond his understanding.

'There was no way I can read this book! Also there's around three thousand herbs in total. Which thousand do I need to read? Is it another volume?'

He took out the other three volumes. They were same as the first one.

'This is impossible! There's no way anyone can understand these without some prerequisite. This can't be the book for an entry level test. Right! That should be how it is. I'm so stupid. I should've asked for the details at the Pill House. Though brother Lin is knowledgeable, he never tried alchemy and must not have the right information.'

He hurriedly exited the library and walked towards the Pill House. He showed his token at the entrance and gave his reason for the visit. He was let in.

He steeped through the doors into a semicircular lobby with many doors that led further into the building. The furniture was scarce. There were few chairs, some pots with indoor plants and a reception table with a young girl around fourteen in green robes trying her best to fight off her drowsiness.

It was only when he walked right infront of her that she noticed him.

"How can I help you senior brother?" The girl smiled and asked. She had a cheerful voice. Combined with her cute face, one would immediately have positive attitude towards her.

Zhang Wuji asked his doubts.

"Yep, those are the books. Your friend isn't wrong." She answered energetically. Then she put on a fearful face and said "When my parents ordered me to prepare for the test, I was half scared to death looking at the size of those books and when I opened the herb book the second half also flew away." Then she looked out a window with unfocused eyes and sighed with great emotion "Senior brother, ahead of you is a long arduous journey, there is no mountain of knives but getting crushed by a mountain of books is nothing to be scoffed at either. There is no sea of fire, but the sea of characters that would haunt you starting today would make you wanna happily jump into the former."

Zhang Wuji was waiting for her to finish with this so that he could get his work done when suddenly she clutched his hands into hers and said with moist eyes "Senior brother you still have the chance! There is a colourful world out there! Go, live to your heart's content, breathe the fresh air devoid of the wretched smell of the herbs. I had no one to tell me of my folly. You have to run while you still can!" At the end, she was almost screaming at his face.

'What the hell is this now!'