After a period of thinking, Forus started to write the expected property of the evil potion. Because its main ingredient was a dead infant, there would be the Death Aura involved in the refinement process, causing the quality of the pill to diminish down. Although the amount of Death Aura wouldn't be able to cause permanent damage to the consumer, it might still cause a drop in their sorcery cultivation.
He needed to change the way to concoct the medicine to get rid of the lingered Death Aura and substituted other rare ingredients with something more general. The methods from the early period would use the standard components from the old time, whether the modern era would use the common ingredients in the modern era.
As for the base ingredient that was the blood and the corpse of an infant, Forus could only increase the range of the suitable age of the remains. The younger the remains, the purer the vessel for the medicine, resulting in better quality pills.
About the consequences of refining and consuming such pills, the alchemist must deal with the resentful spirit of the parents, infants. They also needed to purify all of the blood to rid it of the trace of the previous owner before injecting it into the infant corpse. Otherwise, the mark of the former owner might clash with the current body and polluted each other, making the body withered away.
There were many limitations to the pill. They could only heal the internal wound that didn't hurt the soul and caused by the sorcerer apprentices. The purity of the elemental power would be too high for the pill to cleanse and might even increase the power of the lingering elemental waste and further harmed the body.
Forus casually smiled as he read through the procedure of the ancient pill. With the pill's foundation, he could potentially create the pills that stored condensed Death Aura and used it to help increase the firmness of his foundation and speeded up his cultivation process.
Although he could try to create the new pills at that moment, he decided to not give up on the bet of the Coruscare Family. If he lost the gamble, the Ninguis Family wouldn't help him, and he would suffer the wrath of the Coruscare Family. On the other hand, if he won against the Ninguis Family, although he would face the wrath of the Coruscare Family, he would have the protection of the Coruscare Family.
With that thought in mind, Forus decisively chose the best path for himself. Although in the end, the path contained many life-threatening crises, it was the best course of action for him. His power and intellect weren't enough for him to find the solution to this problem in a short amount of time.
While Forus was carefully remodelling the recipe, others were also doing their job as well. The female in purple had been trying her best to recreate her pill to perfection. She hoped to use her masterpiece to thoroughly shatter the calm face of Forus and won the favour of the Ninguis Family.
She hated the fact that an unknown person within the alchemy circle got chosen by the sorcerer family to compete with her. She felt that this man wasn't decent enough to compete with her. The red-robed man who was popular among the group would be a suitable match.
The red-robed man, Mabilis Sagunien, was the second son of the Sagunien Family, one of the influential force outside of this city, the Flamedouse City. To gather forces to help him in his battle against the first son for the right to inherit the Sagunien Family, he had travelled to the Flamedouse City to quickly absorb the small factions to help him spread his influence before his rival did.
With the backing of the Steel Cauldron, his path towards the successor of the Sagunien Family would become a lot easier as the support from the alchemy community was very prominent. They could bring forth numerous people who yearned to help the alchemists and gave the lasting impression to gain small favour from the skilled alchemists, hoping for them to one day accepted their requests.
Such was the power and strength of the alchemists. It was not without reasons why the alchemists sometimes looked down on other sorcerers or those with lower skills and abilities.
Although the lady in purple wanted to crush Forus thoroughly to reveal her talents, she couldn't do it as she wished. If she had angered the Coruscare Family by humiliating their future successor, although the Steel Cauldron would help her by deterring them on the surface, the world of the underground circle could still find their way to her.
She would only cause Forus to lose his cool and created doubt in his abilities, causing his mental state to become unstable, making it more difficult to cultivate and practice his sorcery. His humiliating defeat must not tarnish the reputation of the Coruscare Family, but it would smash the illusion of expert that Forus had.
Time flew fast for some yet slow for others as if time itself was not absolute and eternal, but a fragile layer of illusion originated from the limit of their senses.
In the blink of an eye, many hours had passed, and the end of the test was near. The examinators announced the remaining time as the participants panicky checked their answers to look for the unnoticed mistakes or to hope for a sudden inspiration to improve their procedures.
In a moment, the sound of the bell rang across the exam ground, signifying the end of the writing exam. The examinators would take the modified methods of concocting the pills and potions to examine and gave judgements about the effectiveness of the designs.
"The following section of the examination would begin shortly. Please prepare yourself." The examinators spoke as they led the participants out of the testing ground before instructing the servants to bring the ingredients. They would provide the components according to the procedures that they got.
Inside the honourable guest chamber, many distinguished guests were talking to each other as they enjoy the treatment of the Steel Cauldron. Most of the topics would relate to the upcoming bet between the two sorcerer families, the Ninguis Family and the Coruscare Family.
The heated discussion to determine the victor also caused the man in red who was resting to mess up his train of thought before he quickly suppressed his emotion. For that unknown man to get a place for the Coruscare Family, it was very humiliating for him.
However, because of this reason, the man in red, Mabilis Sagunien, felt the air of mysteriousness from Forus Ander. From his eyes, Forus must have an unusually mysterious background or a notably ancient alchemy technique.
His mouth curled into a faint smile as he looked toward the woman in purple. She would be the first person to clash with Forus, competing with him in the art of alchemy. She was the tool that Mabilis will use to correct information about the unknown faction that was Forus.
If he could find any lead to weakness of trail of Forus, he might be able to bring Forus under the banner of his. With a capable assistant, his path towards the successor of the Sagunien Family would be a lot smoother.
After a moment of silence and solitude, the sound of the bell echoed the entire hall, signifying the start of the latter part of the test. The participants would have to use their modified procedures and concocted the pills or medicines that they adjusted within the time limit.
The test was about the courage and steadiness of the participants. Within the eyes of others, they would have to remain calm and collected without losing their focus, or else the concoction would fail and created an inferior result.
"Don't fail me, Falsus." A sudden voice that travelled into Forus' mind disrupted his thought. The speech carried a trace of spiritual power, progressing into his body unrestrained.
Although the spiritual could potentially cripple him, Forus didn't do anything against it. He knew that Ocelia wouldn't do anything strange as many others were observing the event, including the higher-ups of the Steel Cauldron.
When the spiritual power entered his body, it didn't linger around but instead quickly moved towards the exotic seed on his disabled eye. The string of power immediately tried to repair the unusable eye and aided the Death Aura to erase it.
However, the mysterious seed came from the strange spell of a genuine sorcerer. It wouldn't go down quickly, especially when said sorcerer was stronger than Ocelia herself. She could only stop the ever-increasing rate of invasion of the seed, but couldn't restore his eye.
Although Ocelia couldn't restore Forus' eye, he felt that it was better this way. If she could dispel the exotic seed and repair his eye, he would have an immense headache. It would mean that the current Ocelia would be mightier than the mysterious female sorcerer who could kill him with a thought.
"You must defeat her, Falsus." The receptionist girl whom Forus registered with also whispered her encouragement to him. She truly wanted him to win against the female in purple, both for her benefit and his.
Towards the encouragement and the command of others, Forus remained unmoved and wouldn't ever go all out. His objective was to draw or win by a small margin. Making too big of an event would result in many eyes being fixed on him, causing major disadvantage.
After receiving his required ingredients, Forus quickly checked the condition of the dead infant and the freshness of the elemental blood. Marking the different of quality in his mind, Forus tried to adjust his recipe to create a more suitable pill.
Although he could make the recipe even better, due to his unique identity, he wouldn't gather attention unless necessary. Exposing his character wouldn't just cause the Ninguis Family and the Coruscare Family to go after him, it would bring that mysterious female sorcerer to locate him as well.
Against the unknown power that, with a single thought, could easily annihilate him, Forus had no chance to fight back yet. He needed to gain strength to combat against the enemies to achieve his goals.
The sudden fluctuation of the temperature caught Forus in his thought, making turn his attention towards the origin of the variation.
The woman in purple, Abicel Pingre, was using her delicate control over flaming elemental particle to enchant the quality of the fire in the cauldron. She waved her hand and caused many different exotic herbs to fly out and surround her.
She then used her remaining fire element to envelope the impured herbs and plants, slowly yet steadily burnt away all the unneeded parts and the imperfection of the ingredients. She had produced better and more suitable ingredients from the previous inferior ones.
Her way of controlling fire element was very taxing for the ordinary alchemists. If she lost her focus even for a moment, she could cause the flaming particle to accidentally burn the good parts of the ingredients, causing their quality to drop.
Her spectacular performance created the attraction force that guided everyone's attention towards her figure. The cleansed herbs and plants that flew freely around her while the blazing flame erupted in beautiful patterns according to her thought. The scene illustrated the grand talent of Abicel, showing her ability that helped her built her reputation on the circle of the alchemists.
Seeing the excellent execution of Abicel, Glacies Ninguis felt his pride exploding into the sky, filling him with delight. He secretly glared at Ocelia and found that regardless of how good Abicel was, she would never invoke any emotion from her icy face other than a faint smile.
The thought of this possibility caused him to lose all his excitement, making him envied Forus even more. He found that when Ocelia looked at that insignificant man, she would let out a hint of emotion.
It was as like Forus was something Ocelia couldn't get over with, as if his fate and hers connected with other.
