Learning To Live As A Cultivator 114 Chapter One Hundred And Fourteen - I prove I have great control

The students were placing their cauldrons into the hollowed fire pits and preparing the herbs required for the pills so the Teacher could see their strengths and weaknesses for himself and provide support when necessary.  The first year who was complaining was not the only one to believe this, but was the only one to speak aloud.  They were all talented in regards to making pills; this generally meant that they had fire or wood related roots or abundant spiritual pools.  Their successes generally outweighed their failures, but their consistency was lacking.  Most students, though, were not too worried.  So long as they produced mostly good quality pills, then they were still better than outer school students whose pills were mostly average in quality.

They had both conceit and arrogance that remained due to the fact that they had been accepted directly into the inner school due to their talent and never considered the fact that the outer school produced more of the institutes pill requirements than the inner school.  So the outer school's importance to the overall institute was just as great as the inner school.

In fact, with the exception of the seniors and about a quarter of the first years, the rest only attended the lecture for a different reason; a female student who had transferred into the inner school from the outer school.

Miss Merylin sat at a central desk with a female friend and a senior, who happened to be earnestly attending the lecture as his control was very weak, causing him difficulties progressing to more complex pills. Miss Merylin herself was doing her utmost to improve her abilities so that she might appeal more to a certain martial artist. So she was quite surprised to see the obstacle in her path to becoming that man's personal alchemist (before stepping into the realm of lovers and perhaps even marital partners and dao companions in the future....) enter the classroom behind the Teacher.

She did not allow it to distract her, however, from listening to the lecture and learning from Teacher Sagi. Indeed, if it wasn't for his strange striped hair and thick glasses that hid his large eyes from view, the youth would have been far less noticeable in her opinion. She was most impressed by Teacher Sagi's resultant Pills. She, herself, produced pills ranging in good to high quality, with only the exceptional failure. Her control was not at all weak, but she was wise enough to understand that there was room for improvement, that her talent did not make her exceptional in this school and as a new practitioner, she was a speck of dust compared to alchemists who had practiced their craft for hundreds of years.

Despite her faults and tunnel vision when it came to a certain man, she had a wide view of the world and her place within it. Unlike some other students here.

The student who had verbally complained and those who had not complained out loud but wondered why they needed to bother with this control thing in their hearts, conceitedly offered the contents of the cauldrons to the Teacher (and assistant). Each cauldron contained numerous pills (many sought to impress with quantity and not the Teacher either) which ranged from defective to good even high quality. There was not one cauldron from this group of arrogant boys and girls that offered consistency.

The Teacher shook his head and sighed inwardly. "Leon, come sit at my stove and produce a batch of Burning Energy Pills if you will."

Leon looked at the stove, then looked at the fire pits. "T-t-Teacher, m-might I use one of those? I've n-n-never used a st-stove b-before." There were a few ignorant smirks, those who looked down on Leon for his speech impediment and white hair that spoke of spiritual deviation.

The senior next to Merylin offered his seat, curious to understand what this chosen disciple could do. Merylin was also curious about Jin Li's alchemist servant. Obviously, she had heard from others that he produced a lot of pills compared to some others, but that his pills were all of average quality, hence why she never saw him as competition. Yet Teacher Sagi had selected him as his disciple...

Leon sat down after thanking the senior and carefully prepared his ingredients to one side of him, placing his much loved cauldron into the hollow upon fresh firewood. Seeing the very clean, clearly cared for cauldron placed inklings of shame into a couple of seniors hearts, while others sneered again. It was only a cheap cauldron, why make such a big deal of it? Leon quickly settled into his memorised routine for this pill, placing the ingredients into the cauldron in a set order, rather than tossing them all in at once, the heat from the fire was obvious to those close by and the most sensitive amongst them clearly noted that there was no change in temperature by even a half degree in all of this time.

Their senior was utterly focused as well, any coughs or whispers did not enter his hearing nor disrupt his concentration and after he took the curious choice of adding a drop of purple spirit grass due at the beginning of pill forming stage, the observers could not help but anticipate the final results. Leon produced eight pills in that batch, a far cry from when he had first made Burning Energy pills and could only make one pill in his cauldron at a time.

However, each and every pill was of average quality.

Teacher Sagi smiled and nodded happily at the result. Merylin was disappointed and held an inward pool of contempt. Was this man truly the obstacle in her path? The loud first year muttered; "what's so much better about his pills that ours? They are average, not a good one in the batch."

The senior, who had given up his seat, passed Leon a couple of jade bottles and examined the pills carefully as the outer school student placed them into the bottles. And then he smiled brightly. The first years were frogs in the well, too foolish to see what the Teacher was trying to teach them. Leon had produced eight average pills, that was true, but each and every pill was exactly alike. This lesson was about control and there was nothing more impressive than the control it took to produce identical pills.

"I have much to learn from you, brother," the senior grinned and encouraged Leon to repeat his lesson. His words drew over a few curious and clever students.

Teacher Sagi nodded in complete satisfaction.

Chapter end