Mage And Wolf
Chapter 144

Chapter 144: Chapter 144

I swear that brush is my Kryptonite. As soon as it touches my tail my brain turns to mush. It does make it easier to meditate though.

Since we’ve got visitors and we’re keeping the surviving Clergy dorms a secret we stayed in the Nanny’s suite upstairs. It’s a great room, nice big windows, but it lacks that cozy feeling of the basement reception room we were using. Maybe because it was just rebuilt?

Bacon, eggs and potatoes for breakfast, an eternal favorite to get me mentally ready to try teaching students. Why is this so much more frustrating than teaching things to Hui’Jin? Maybe just because they’re not as cute.

It’s impossible to be mad at the little Dragonewt. But these are grown adults.

Today we start work on the grade 3 Soul Condensing pill. It’s much harder than the grade 1, and requires actual mystic ingredients, so I’ve got the trainees digging through their supplies for as many as they’ve got.

Their Sect Masters sent everything they thought they might need, but not knowing what I’d teach them makes it a bit iffy. Luck is with us though, and they’ve all got at least a mediocre supply of everything needed.

I write the recipe up on the wall for them to copy and prepare to make it myself.

"Now, watch closely, grade 3 pills are much more complex, as you well know, and we’re limited on ingredients."

As before, they pay exceedingly close attention as I make the pill, narrating everything I am doing and why. It seems to be helping them at least a little, and they’re all experienced pill masters from their respective sects. They should learn fast.

"6 pills at over 95 percent purity. Follow those stages and even without perfect knowledge of the purity refining method you should be able to make something usable. If the refining at the end feels unstable, just condense the pills where you are instead of letting them fail."

"The Sect will thank us for every single pill we bring back after all" Green laughs.

"At the price of a grade 3 Soul Condensing Pill, of course they’ll be overjoyed" one of the guys laughs.

These pills take half the day to make, so they get only two attempts in before we call it a night, eating leftover fried chicken and a fresh potato salad Karl whipped up for us. We really do need to get some lights working in this place if we’re going to stay here a while.

By the end of the next day they’ve all mastered the pill to an acceptable degree, some even managing faint pill veins.

"Alright troops. Hit the baths. Tomorrow we begin the final stretch of your crash course. An introduction to grade 4 pills" much cheering sounds, this is what their Sects sent them here for.

But which pills do I teach them? Regeneration for sure, they need that one. But the other grade 4 pills need a huge amount of Soul strength to accomplish, only found in a rare few below Immortal. Perhaps I could teach them a grade 4 clear mind pill that makes breakthroughs much easier and cultivation more efficient? That should suffice to make the Sect Masters happy.

The grade 4 regeneration pill uses higher quality versions of the ingredients for the grade 2 and 3 pills with a longer process. 10 hours making them the traditional way. Elder Song’s memories taught me a shortcut, but without thousands of hours of experience in their memory, I don’t think anyone else could actually do it that way.

There is no day long demonstration today. I write the recipe, describe the process step by step and they get their ingredients out. If we’re lucky, half of the class will manage. So I’m moving them all to different rooms, so that failures don’t impact those around them.

Ingredients aren’t a problem for anyone, they’ve got enough to work at this for a week. I’m hoping it doesn’t take that long though. Later that afternoon, an unexpected guest arrives, waiting in the clearing. A full Priestess of the Green, God of Nature. An older Dragonewt, with small green wings visible on her back.

"Greetings Priestess, we are just teaching the acolytes grade 4 pill making right now. Would you like to come in for a drink?" I welcome here.

"Please. I just came to check on my acolyte, I worry about her. You’ve done wonders with this place I see."

"You’ve been here before?" I ask

"No, But I heard the stories about what happened here and expected it to be flat rubble with a few rooms restored."

Interesting, we’re still outside the barrier, so a full Priestess can see it where the acolytes couldn’t. Or at least I don’t think they could, and they didn’t do anything that made me think they could.

We sit down in the front room and Karl brings us coffee and cookies.

"Could you entertain our guest a moment? I need to go check on the alchemists." I ask and he smiles and introduces himself. She looks pretty surprised to know there’s two High Clergy here, the only ones on the planet at the moment.

Everyone is still going strong, entering the final quarter of their concoction. After an hour of chatting with Mica the Green Priestess we hear the first bang and cursing. I get up to go calm the man down and go over what went wrong, judging by the remains of his pill.

He’s set, with fresh notes for tomorrow and a solid attitude when the next explosion occurred. The Female alchemist is distraught, but the whole thing came down to a lapse in concentration that let the pressure build too high for her cauldron. It’s barely good enough to make these pills, but it’s the best the sect had, so it’ll have to do.

In total, 6 of the 10 fail. Green, the Acolyte that Mica is here to see made 6 passable regeneration pills at just under 80 percent purity.

"Congratulations, to you and your Master. Best pill of the day." I give her a big hug. "That deserves a reward. Ask for what you want and I’ll tell you if I can give it to you."

"This is going to sound really greedy, but can I have that pill you showed us the other day?" she asks, clearly meaning the cursed Soul Forging Pill.

"And why might you need that, before I agree to give it to you?"

"Mica is at the twentieth stage of Core Formation and lacking in Soul Strength to gain Immortality. She’s not young anymore and" That’s where Mica cuts her off.

"You don’t need to do such things on my behalf, I’ll get there if I get there." She smiles the smile of a woman who knows she’s not going to make it.

"Pick another reward. I’ll discuss the Priestess’s issue with the Priestess." I smile at Green. Such a noble disciple.

"Then can we have chocolate cake? I’m told you made a maple walnut chocolate cake at the Sacred Thunder Sect, and it’s my very favorite food in the whole world" Now that’s a worthy reward.

"Done and done. There will be cake after dinner."

I duck out while the others chat. Maybe I’ll recreate the Sect Master’s meals for everyone, as they’ve all heard the stories by now. Lamb Shanks over rice with salad and beef vegetable curried stew. Finished with a huge chocolate cake for dessert.

The creation spell of Karl’s is a life saver. I’d be down to bare essentials without it. I should have him enchant a basic version of it into the building kitchens. Like they did with the outposts.

Dinner is an absolute hit, everyone celebrating their luck at getting a meal only their Sect Masters were deemed worthy of last time. While everyone is distracted with talk of the meal, Green discretely stores half the huge cake away for later, making me laugh.