Felix separated the necessary ingredients. Activating his qi, he measured proportions accurately, distributing them according to the standard formula. He used the mortar to grind mind-clearing leaves into a paste by mixing them with some water. He then added three different types of powders that were known to help with anxiety, focus the mind and grant energy in proportions of 1/5, 2/5 and 2/5. He used his qi to bring the cauldron to the appropriate heat before mixing in the ingredients.

This first part was relatively simple and while those with less concentration and control over their qi might make minute mistakes, a flawless execution was expected from talented apprentices. The next part was where the art and difficulty of alchemy was showcased. While exercising control over the flame to ensure perfect temperature, Felix had to fully concentrate on the pill and use his qi to activate or control various ingredients. Some ingredients diluted more quickly than others leading to the possibility of them burning. For this reason, not only did the ingredients need to be added at the right moment and in the right order, but sometimes qi had to be used to control the heat, at times focusing the heat inwards while keeping the ambient temperature lower or vice-versa. Advanced flame control techniques could even isolate certain ingredients from the flame, allowing them to still be present and have an effect on the rest of the mix without burning them.

All-in-all this was a process that required three main things, control over qi, knowledge, and intense concentration.

While the process was a difficult and eventful affair for the participants, all an outside observer would see was several students standing in front of their cauldron, eyes closed.

Two spots to the right of Felix, a young man named Lance was focusing on his cauldron.

‘This is my time to shine,’ he thought to himself. ‘I have been following young master Jordan for a while and have learned from him and his father. I will impress everyone and stand out as the strongest candidate of the year’.

Lance was a rather skilled and efficient alchemist apprentice, which was why after an hour he was the first to complete his pill. A quiet pop was heard as three translucent turquoise pills with a light murky green interior were seen emerging from his cauldron.

‘Success!’ he thought, ‘these are all uncommon grade pills, and the clearest is even nearing the rare level’.

One additional reason the mind-clearing pill was used as a tutorial and benchmark when teaching alchemy was that it was easy to distinguish the level of a pill by eye. Most pills did not have visual distinctions between their various levels and needed an expert to examine them before being able to determine their level. The mind-clearing pill however simply got clearer with every level. A common pill would be translucent with a strong murky green interior. The boundary between common and uncommon was when the murky green element was less than the size of a pea. The boundary between uncommon and rare was when the murky element was the size of a mustard seed. A perfect pill would be completely clear, resembling a precious gemstone more than a pill.

Lance was quite happy because his pills all had a murky element somewhere between the size of a pea and a mustard seed. He stored two pills in a small container that was present on the table and walked up to the examiner who was charged with inspecting the complete product.

The examiner took the pill, face impassive, and examined it, twisting, and turning it under his careful eye. He then took out a magnifying monocle to examine the interior. Finally, he closed his eyes and used his qi to examine the pill. While not usually necessary for a pill such as the mind-clearing pill, this step allowed the examiner to know the makeup of the pill as well as it’s age, in order to prevent cheating.

“Examinee Lance Abbott submitted a mind-clearing pill of uncommon grade with 4 milliliters of impurity. You may now return to the resting area and await further instructions.”

A proud smile made its way onto Lance’s face. A rare pill required 2 milliliters of impurity whereas an uncommon pill required 8 milliliters of impurity. This was quite a good success and should make him a candidate for top apprentice of this year’s batch of recruits. He turned around and held his head up high, expecting some people or perhaps some girls to be admiring him. He was rather disappointed however that what greeted him was a bunch of apprentices with closed eyes staring at cauldrons. Finishing first sounded like a good thing but when it came to showing off, it wasn’t, since no one was currently paying attention to anything other than their own cauldron. In the end however, what mattered was the opinion of the examiners, Lance thought he would have plenty of other occasions to show off.

As time passed, more and more examinees finished their pill. All of them had at least reached the common level, but so far, the lowest number of impurities was still the 4 milliliters of Lance, most people hovering around 6 to 7 milliliters.

At that moment Coraline opened her eyes as three pills made their way out of the cauldron.

‘Two uncommon pills and one verging on the edge of rare, not bad,’ she thought. At a glance her best pill seemed to have impurities the size of a mustard seed, but accurate measurements would have to be taken to determine whether she had reached 2 or less milliliters of impurity.

She made her way to the examiner who had just finished examining a common pill. She handed her pill to him and waited. As the examiner looked at her pill, his impassive face relaxed a bit and he seemed pleased. He repeated the same process as he had for every pill, starting with a visual examination, followed by a closer look with a magnifying monocle and ending with a qi examination.

“Examinee Coraline Purdue submitted a mind-clearing pill of rare grade with 1.9 milliliters of impurity. You may now return to the resting area and await further instructions,” he said with a warmer tone than usual.

Small expressions of surprise and satisfaction were heard from the other examiners. Most years had no candidates who could concoct a rare pill and having at least one candidate that was at that level indicated a successful recruitment. This was good news for the sect.

Meanwhile, the two old men who were watching the procession yet remained unseen to everyone else were openly smiling.

“This year is indeed very interesting,” said one of them.

Coraline made her way to the resting area with a small spring in her step, visibly satisfied with her performance. As she arrived at the area, she saw that a couple of students seemed to be fawning over one of the other students.

“Coraline! Have you heard? Lance was able to concoct a pill with only 4 milliliters of impurity,” said a rather plain looking girl who had spoken to Coraline a bit prior to the pill concocting section of the exam.

“I am ashamed of my performance,” said Lance, with fake humility. He had seen Coraline talking with Felix before and had taken some interest in her due to her pretty face and bright personality.

“Congratulations on a successful concoction,” replied Coraline. She was not impressed whatsoever by either the concoction or his attitude, but she remained polite. “If you will excuse me, I want to gather my thoughts,” she continued before sitting down a few steps further and closing her eyes to meditate.

‘Perhaps she is concerned that her performance was subpar, I must make sure to appear humble, not everyone is as talented as I,’ thought Lance. ‘If she makes it, I can always offer to give her advice, this will be a good way to get to know her.’

Back at the testing grounds, the remaining few examinees were mostly finishing up, including Felix. Certain people had taken their time getting set up and while everyone had the same ingredients, various factors that could not be controlled could influence the time required to concoct a pill. It was part of the difficulty and the fun of alchemy that no two pills were ever exactly the same.

A small pop was heard from Felix’s station and three pills emerged from his cauldron.

One of the examiners in charge of monitoring the students during their concoction process felt a certain sense of austerity looking at the scene. ‘I must have imagined it,’ he thought.

Meanwhile, the two old men were also looking at the scene, this time genuinely surprised.

“How many years has it been since we had such talent?” asked one of them, “to think an examinee would cause serene aura to appear during his concoction.”

“It has been too long, no one has done so since Martial Nephew Trelos. Perhaps this is the shining star that will restore our sect’s reputation,” answered the other one.

“I pray it is so old friend,” was the reply.

The subject of discussion, Felix who was bathing in the serene aura had not even examined his pills, so focused was he on his mental state. The usually ardent flame had calmed down and while still present seemed almost affable. The sense of purpose was still there but positive emotions that had previously been consumed by the flame were now present and somehow seemed pure or holy. This was a peaceful state that seemed superior to any Felix had ever experienced. It did not last long, and the flame returned to its previous vigor.

Refocusing on his initial purpose, Felix examined the three pills. Two of them had a minuscule murky element whereas one seemed to be completely devoid of impurities. Felix chose that pill and closed his eyes before examining it with his qi.

‘Sure enough, the perfect level remains elusive’, he thought, feeling an element of murkiness that had been imperceptible to the eye.

He brought the pill to the examiner. As the examiner received the pill and looked at it, this time a small appreciative ‘oh’ escaped his lips. He repeated the three-step process as he had for every pill submitted to him. This time the qi examination lasted for a noticeably longer period of time.

“Examinee Felix Green submitted a mind-clearing pill of rare grade with traces of impurity. You may now return to the resting area and await further instructions,” he said with some excitement present in his voice.

Traces of impurity was the technical termed used when the amount of impurity was too small to be measured in any significant manner, which was an amount less than 0.1 milliliters.

Felix nodded, satisfied, and made his way towards the resting area. This was not the first time he had produced such a pill. While the difference between less than 0.1 milliliters of impurity and no impurity seemed quite minuscule, it was in fact a larger rift to overcome than the difference between a pill with 8 milliliters and 0.1 milliliters of impurity. This was already the best result he could hope for. Somehow, he felt that the key to producing a perfect pill lay in the mysterious state he had experienced earlier. Hopefully he would be able to receive some guidance regarding it. He had never read about anything similar, and his father had not told him anything regarding such a state. Perhaps it was the first step towards the third stage of mental absorption.

He made his way towards the resting area. He looked around and saw a group of people chatting. He looked some more and saw that Coraline was resting alone a bit to the side and decided to sit next to her.

“How was it?” she asked.

“Can’t complain,” he answered smirking. “And you?”

“Can’t complain,” she replied with a smirk of her own.

They held eye contact for a little while before bursting out in laughter. It seemed that the both of them had had an excellent result.

The sounds of laughter interrupted the ongoing conversation the rest of the students were having, and they looked to the source of the noise. A flash of anger passed through Lance’s eyes before he restrained his expression, and a smile made its way back onto his face.

As he was about to inquire about the reason for their laughter, a harrumph was heard from the head examiner who had made his way to the resting area.

“It seems that you are all having a good time,” he said. While there was no note of disapproval and no wrongdoing had been committed, the atmosphere died down and both Coraline and Felix felt chastised. “Out of 68 examinees, 11 have passed”.

The atmosphere turned tense in an instant and the examiner started listing off names, starting with Lance.

“… Coraline, Garrett and Felix. Congratulations you have passed, you will be guided shortly to the admissions office. The rest of you have failed and are welcome to try again next time. That will be all from me.”

From those who had not passed, most of them drooped their shoulders sighing. A few of them burst into tears and some of them even started protesting.

“My pill was correct and had only 6 milliliters of impurity, I know some of those who passed barely concocted a common grade pill with 7 milliliters of impurity, I demand to know the standards,” said one of the flunked examinees. He was dressed in noble clothes and had a rather haughty attitude.

“You demand?” said the examiner, with a raised eyebrow, emitting killer intent. The surroundings immediately quieted and some of the examinees with a weaker will shivered in fear.

“I… I would like to know sir,” the examinee correct himself.

“I suppose it is a fair question,” said the examiner, releasing the pressure he had been emitting with his qi, “the reason is simple, being able to go from 7 to 6 milliliters of impurity is much easier than raising your mental arts talent. Those who passed were selected using the results of both examinations.”

Not bothering to reply to any of the follow up questions, the examiner left.

A short time later, only the 11 successful candidates remained, mostly quiet. It felt wrong to celebrate their success after witnessing the pain those who had not passed went through and the mood was rather somber.

A young woman who seemed to be two or three years older than them appeared wearing the loose-fitting white robes with turquoise lining of a Green River Sect disciple.

“Junior Brothers and Sisters, I welcome you to the sect,” she said with a smile.

“We greet Senior Sister,” replied the group. At that moment the mood turned brighter. They had made it through and were now official disciples of the sect. Their path ahead was bright, and their heads were filled with dreams and ambition.

“We shall go to the Admissions Office. On the way I will explain the rules of the sect to you, you will also receive a written copy and will be expected to memorize them before the day is over. You will receive your robes, be assigned a living quarter, and assigned a rank. You will then be allowed free time to see your families one last time before entering the sect. Make sure to say everything you need to because it will be at least a few months if not longer before you see them again, though I am sure you already knew this,” she explained carefully.

“A rank?” asked one of the new disciples.

“Yes, each month you will be ranked in accordance with your performance, starting with your performance today,” she replied cheerfully using emphatic gestures, “this is meant to breed healthy competition between fellow disciples and small rewards will be given to the top five performers! Of course, even if you do not rank in the top five, none of you will lack resources for proper learning.”

“Senior Brother Lance, I think you will take the first place,” said the plain looking girl who had been fawning over Lance this whole time.

“What Senior Brother? We are entering the sect at the same time Kayla, please just call me Lance. My skills are meager and if I make it into the top five, I will already be satisfied,” replied Lance.

“Hehe, it is normal to call the top student Senior Brother,” replied the girl.

Contrary to his words, Lance did not seem to mind being called Senior Brother. He glanced over to Coraline and Felix, but they were engrossed in conversation, not paying any attention to him.

‘Just wait a short while, the ranks will soon be announced and then you too will look at me.’