If the castle was the capital of Purgatory Island, then the Alchemy Tower was equivalent to the palace of the capital.
On this island with strict hierarchy, Heinz was the supreme king, Andrew and Pierre were his civil officials, Lancelot was his general, the puppet warriors were his soldiers, the servants were his civilians, and the apprentices were his knights.
This was a typical representative of the middle class.
At this point, it could be said that Gong Hao had already crossed the most difficult level for him. This was because it was a step in the hierarchy. It was much more difficult to go from a servant to an apprentice than from a servant to a servant.
The next morning, Andrew announced a new appointment. From today onwards, Shuiglaire would enter the Alchemy Tower to take over the work of Apprentice Neil. He would work until the Freedom brought them a new apprentice.
In addition, Shuiglaire would continue his original job, but he would be relieved of his position as head servant. Andrew would choose another head servant to work with Gong Hao.
From today onwards, Shuiglaire would be able to enter and exit the Alchemy Tower freely.
This was perhaps the best description of a frog turning into a prince. Gong Hao's improvement made all the servants jump in joy. They seemed to have seen a hope of promotion, so they worked extra hard.
"Congratulations, Glaer. From today onwards, you are an apprentice. You will learn the most mysterious and powerful alchemy spell on the continent.”Andrew patted Gong Hao's shoulder and said.
Gong Hao replied respectfully,"I believe that you must have contributed to this matter." I still remember that it was your decision to promote me to the position of Chief Servant. Now, it's all thanks to you.”
" I did say something for you," Andrew said with a smile." But in the end, it's all because of your hard work." Teacher admires you very much. I believe you won't disappoint him.”
"I will do my best, my lord."
"Yes." Andrew looked around and said softly to Gong Hao,"But you have to be careful of Pierre. After you enter the Alchemy Tower, he will be your new supervisor. This guy is not a good person. Other than being good at pleasing his mentor, he is also very scheming. He even suspected that you were the one who caused yesterday's incident. If Lancelot did not testify for you, he might have…Anyway, Hughie, don't let him find any evidence against you. That won't be good for both of us. After all, you were once my man.”
Gong Hao's heart skipped a beat. He looked at Andrew and said,"Sir, I thought I was always your man.”
Andrew was stunned. Gong Hao had already said,"Aren't I supposed to be replacing Neil until the new apprentices arrive from the Freedom? Since that was the case, I was still a servant and not an apprentice. Since I'm a servant, I'm naturally still under your jurisdiction. Why should I listen to Lord Pierre? It's just a change in work location and content, but it doesn't mean that I belong to Lord Pierre, right? Unless he makes it clear that I'm an apprentice of the Alchemy Tower and doesn't intend to use a new apprentice, I'll still be your servant.”
Andrew narrowed his eyes. He thought for a moment and nodded in admiration."You're right, Xiu Yi. You're still my servant and my man. I don't think Pierre will give you a clear apprentice status. After all, once you've been given an apprentice status, you can't easily withdraw it, especially if you haven't made any mistakes.”
"In that case, I will have to ask Lord Andrew to take care of me in the future.”Gong Hao bowed to Andrew and begged.
"Of course." Andrew replied proudly.
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From Andrew's words, Gong Hao understood two things:
First, Pierre had doubts about him.
Secondly, Andrew was dissatisfied with Pierre.
The former represented danger, while the latter represented opportunity.
Gong Hao could not help but admire his quick-wittedness at that time. He immediately switched his identity between a servant and an apprentice to trap Andrew. Without Andrew's support, it would be difficult for him to deal with the situation.
When dealing with people, sometimes, not only did one have to do a good job, but one also had to know how to be on good terms with their superiors and use their strength. To put it bluntly, one had to know how to find a backer for oneself. Before he reincarnated, Gong Hao had some understanding of office politics. To be able to do things, one had to be able to behave. This was the only rule of survival in the workplace.
On Purgatory Island, this situation was even more direct. If he didn't do well, he would die. Gong Hao had no room to retreat.
Therefore, under such circumstances, Gong Hao immediately chose to continue following Andrew. This was the only way to protect himself.
Of course, among the three big shots in the Alchemy Tower, the one whose words carried weight was Padrick. Heinz, Andrew, and Pierre were only equivalent to two department heads. One was responsible for technology and production, and the other was responsible for human resources and logistics. It seemed that the position of the technical director was higher than that of the logistics director, which was completely in line with the standard of the first-tier status being higher than the second-tier status in the enterprise. Therefore, it was impossible for Andrew to fight against Pierre alone. The one person who needed to be grasped was Heinz, the general manager.
Although Heinz seemed to have a good impression of him, this man was obviously an alchemy maniac. It was understandable that he could stay indoors all day and lock himself in the tower, doing nothing but alchemy. There was only one way to win the favor of such a person--
In the end, Gong Hao realized that he still had a backer, and that was the daughter of the chairman, the little princess, Avril.
Oh, right, there was also the department head in charge of purchasing, Lancelot, who was the commander without any troops. He would undoubtedly stand on his side.
It seemed that the one who was truly alone on Purgatory Island was Pierre.
At least for the time being, he didn't have to worry about Pierre. However, sooner or later, he had to solve this problem.
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The above thoughts were only long-term plans. Gong Hao didn't think he could kill Pierre now. If something happened on Purgatory Island, Heinz would definitely suspect him, no matter how clever he was.
There were two pressing matters that needed to be resolved immediately. Firstly, he had to immediately familiarize himself with the work of the Alchemy Tower so that he could get started as soon as possible and not drag others down. The other thing was even more important-no matter what, they couldn't allow new apprentices to be sent to Purgatory Island.
Gong Hao did not want to be beaten back to his original state because of a new apprentice after entering the Alchemy Tower with great difficulty.
This matter would most likely fall on the golden-armored warrior who had bought him back then. Damn it, he hadn't made much of a connection with Beckley in the past year. He had only made secret deals with Bailey.
Well, maybe Bailey had a way to solve this problem.
However, if he wanted these greedy guards to make a move…it seemed like he had to let them know that an acolyte who could make a deal with them was far more valuable than a servant who could make a deal with them.
Thinking of this, Gong Hao understood what he had to do.
The job of an apprentice was not that complicated.
The apprentices on Purgatory Island had two main jobs.
One was production, which was to produce alchemical products that had already been mastered. It was mainly done according to the list sent by the empire every month. The list included potions, scrolls, magic weapons, and magic puppets. Since the technique had already taken shape, the apprentices only needed to follow the steps.
The other was to research new alchemy. This part was mainly carried out by Heinz, Pierre, and Andrew. Heinz was in charge of the most difficult part, Pierre was in charge of the middle part, and Andrew was in charge of the lower part. The apprentices 'task was to assist these three people and complete the work according to their requirements.
After Gong Hao entered the Alchemy Tower, he said that he was replacing Neil's work, but in fact, he definitely couldn't do that. It was much faster to start with the known alchemy than to delve into the unknown.
"Shuiglaire, from today onwards, you will be working here.”The acolyte who was responsible for leading the way was Ivo, who had sent Lancelot flowers.
"Yes, Wizard Ivo." Gong Hao replied respectfully.
Ivo smiled." There's no need to call me mage. You're considered half an apprentice now. Just call me by my name."”
Gong Hao realized that when they weren't killing people, these acolytes were quite cute.
"I understand, Ivo."
This was a room on the second floor of the Alchemy Tower.
The first floor of the Alchemy Tower was mainly used to store some extracted raw materials and finished products. In addition, there was also a library.
The second floor of the Alchemy Tower was mainly used to make potions.
Different rooms were used to make different potions. From the second to the fourth floor, there were two apprentices and ten puppet assistants on each floor. On the fifth to seventh floor were Heinz, Pierre, and Andrew's experimental floors. Andrew was on the fifth floor. Heinz had two assistants, while Pierre and Andrew each had an apprentice assistant and ten puppet assistants.
The puppet assistants were invented by Heinz to assist in alchemy experiments. Their intelligence was higher than that of the puppet warriors, but they basically had no combat power. They could only do some simple and heavy work according to orders. Moreover, they did not need special talismans to command them. They just needed to wear apprentice robes.
The second floor of the Alchemy Tower was for potion production, as well as some blank magic scrolls. The third floor was where magic was added to weapons. The fourth floor was used to make known magic puppets, such as puppet warriors.
According to Gong Hao's estimation, the research on that mo matrix was very likely at the sixth or seventh level, while Mo Ling was probably at the sixth level. Andrew was not on the fifth floor often because he had to focus on managing the servants. It was estimated that the fifth floor was mostly empty. From the analysis of the materials that he already knew, he could see that Andrew's level basically did not need anything. From this, it could be inferred that he could not contribute much.
For Heinz, the alchemy maniac, this might be the main reason why Andrew's status was not as high as Pierre's. And this should be the place where he had the best chance of entering the main body in the future.
At this moment, the room Ivo brought him to was filled with bottles and jars. They were covered with notes, indicating the names of various potions.
On the other side of the room, there were various materials provided by the servants. They were placed together in a mess. In the middle were many types of cauldrons that could be lit up with magic flames at any time.
This place looked dirty and messy.
"Actually, the greatest mystery of alchemy lies in the unknown. For alchemy that has already been mastered, it's not that complicated.”At this moment, Ivo explained to him what he was going to do.
Ivo took a bottle of potion from the table.""For example, a bottle of healing potion, the most commonly used potion. The required ingredients, the production sequence, and the things to take note of had all been recorded. The next thing to do was to make it according to the recorded content. Glaer, you've done it in the library and seen many records of alchemy. Do you know how this thing is made?”
Gong Hao immediately replied,"Yes, I know. It requires 17 kinds of demonic plants, six kinds of demonic beasts, and three kinds of demonic insects to provide the materials. It needs to go through at least 30 processes to complete." If he used a large crucible, he could make about ten bottles at a time.”
"But you've never done it before, right? There were many things that could not be learned just by reading books. I'll show you now. I hope you won't need me to teach you more than twice.”
"I will do my best to learn well.”
"Very good." Ivo began to explain to Gong Hao the problems that needed to be paid attention to as he worked.
He lit up a magic flame and poured a strange gel liquid into a small crucible.
"This is a liquid made from the stem juice of the snake grass and manatee glue, diluted with twice the amount of water. Heat it until pores appear on the surface of the liquid, then start adding the materials…"
"I remember that you still need to stir it properly?”Gong Hao asked.
"Yes, but the records won't tell you that you can only stir in one direction. You can't stir it left and right. Moreover, during the stirring process, one must pay attention to using even force. Otherwise, there would be signs of condensation somewhere. One must not let the liquid condense, or it would be equivalent to failure.”
"Yes, I understand."
"Pay attention to the changes when you throw in the materials. During the heating process, the liquid would become thick due to the evaporating of water. At this time, it was necessary to pay attention to adding a small amount of water. Otherwise, it would not be a potion but a medicine block. During the process of adding water, one must pay attention to let the water melt into the original solution. Otherwise, it would be meaningless. However, don't add too much at once just to be lazy.”
"Is it because of the temperature?"
"Yes, if the temperature is not high enough, the reaction between the materials will not be enough, and the desired effect will not be achieved. However, if the temperature was too high, it would destroy the medicinal properties.”
"Then how do we determine the temperature? Can I only use my eyes? I remember that there were many times when the visual results were not accurate, and not every drug would have a reaction.”
"Then we can only rely on our experience and deduce the heating time. Therefore, it was easy to learn how to make potions, but it was very difficult to make them well.”
Gong Hao smiled and didn't say anything.
It seemed that he still had a good chance here. It was not difficult to make a thermometer, and he did not have to worry about the problem of glass because alchemists themselves knew how to make glass. The Alchemy Tower did not lack glass, but it was obvious that they lacked the mature use of glass because the main purpose of making glass was to make some containers for holding liquids. For example, the bottles of healing potions were made of this kind of glass. Now, he only lacked mercury.
En, although there was no mercury here, there were items that could replace mercury. Gong Hao remembered that there was a type of Four Seasons Grass that had an obvious reaction to changes in temperature. Perhaps he could make his own thermometer. It didn't have to be accurate, and it didn't even need to be measured in degrees Celsius. It would be fine as long as it met the needs of the experiment. If that was the case, it shouldn't be too difficult.
"Hey, Glaer, you're distracted.”Ivo's cry called Gong Hao back to his senses.
"I'm sorry, Ivo. I hope I didn't miss anything.”
"It's alright. Anyway, I have to watch you get used to it before I can hand it over to you.”Ivo said.
"Then the amount of materials used can only be based on experience?”
"Of course. This was the biggest difference between an alchemist and an apprentice. Looks like my luck is pretty good. This potion has a high chance of success.”
Ivo's potion was almost finished.
Extinguishing the magic flame, Ivo gently took out the potion from the crucible and said,"
"The production of potions seems simple, but before perfecting the formula, it has to go through countless experiments by alchemists. The few things that needed to be taken seriously were: The control of temperature, the order and quantity of the materials. It had to be precise, otherwise, what you made might not be a healing potion, but a poison. Glaer, if someone asks me what the biggest difference between a servant and an apprentice is, I won't say that an apprentice is nobler than a servant. I will say that if a servant makes a mistake, he will only die. However, if an acolyte made a mistake, it was very likely that a large number of people would die. Therefore, according to the rules, every apprentice had to do a final inspection after completing their work.”
As he spoke, Ivo winked at Gong Hao."Do you know what to do?"
Gong Hao had an ominous feeling.
Sure enough, Ivo raised his head and took a big gulp of the potion that he had just refined.
Then, he turned to look at Gong Hao. If you find that there is a problem with the color of the medicine you made, or that the purity is not enough, you'd better throw it away immediately and refine it again. However, if you wanted to list a potion that didn't seem to have any problems as a finished product, you could only use the last method to prove that there was no problem with it, which was to drink a mouthful. Poison yourself before you poison others. This was the rule.”
"Yes, I understand, Ivo, but is there no better way to test it?”
"Glaer, there are many things you can take advantage of, but there are many things you can't. Even if you have a hundred ways to prove the safety of the potion, you can't get away from this.”
"I understand. This is the simplest and most reassuring way, right?”
"That's right." As he spoke, Ivo pasted his name on the medicine bottle. If something went wrong with the potion he made, the dynasty would be the first to arrest the producer based on his name.
"Then Ivo, what if the acolytes spoil the potion?”
"This is not the servant area. It is common for alchemy experiments to go wrong. This is why we use different cauldrons. If you are not confident, use the small crucible. The loss caused by failure will not be too great. If you are confident, use the big cauldron. If you succeed, you will get ten bottles. If you fail, you will also suffer heavy losses. What a pity. I could have used a medium-sized crucible, but I thought that there was a high chance of failure if I taught you while refining medicine. I didn't expect it to succeed. If he had known earlier, he would have used a medium-sized bottle. That was five bottles at a time. Oh, right, before you have enough confidence, don't use the large crucible. If you fail, the amount of materials consumed will be quite shocking, and the difficulty will also increase. Usually, only apprentices or even masters with more than three years of experience would use it.”
Ivo gasped. He put down the healing potion in his hand and said,
"In alchemy, the consumption of materials is often ten times that of the finished products they can produce. If 80% of the consumption was used to research new alchemical products, then once they were finished, the remaining 10% would be consumed when they made mistakes. Therefore, alchemy allowed mistakes, but it did not encourage mistakes. 'Shuiglaire, you can make mistakes ten times in a row. After all, it's not easy to master dozens of processes, but if you can't improve, you won't be able to become a qualified apprentice, let alone an alchemist.”
"Yes, I will work hard."
"Therefore, there are two criteria for an apprentice to be outstanding. One, create a better product. Second, produce more products at a lower cost. These two points are very important."
"Understood."
"At present, there are 113 kinds of potions that have been mastered in alchemy, 32 of which are used for recovery, including mana recovery potions, mana stimulation potions, various healing potions, and so on. In addition, there were 20 poisons and 19 antidotes.”
"Nineteen antidotes?"
"Yes, there are nineteen types. There is a poison that has yet to be cured. Therefore, it is a forbidden drug, but here, we also need to make it. But don't worry, you won't be able to touch it in a short period of time.”
"I thought that as long as the healing potion was damaged, it would become a poison.”
" That's not a good idea, Glaer. Firstly, the cost is too high. Secondly, it's not poisonous enough. It might not even be poisonous. It might just cause you to have diarrhea for a few days. A real poison could kill instantly.”
"I was just joking." Gong Hao smiled.
Ivo also laughed and continued,"
"In addition, there are 11 types of buff potions and 11 types of curse potions. Their effects are also corresponding. Finally, there are 20 types of potions for other aspects. Your job is to produce all these potions according to the list sent by the empire within a month. Oh right, I'll do it with you. Of course, I also need to make some blank magic scrolls.”
As he spoke, Ivo threw a book to Gong Hao."Take this. From today onwards, meditate for an hour a day according to the book.”
Ivo had given him a magic book that recorded how to cultivate the ability to sense elements.
"Alchemists also need to meditate?”
"Of course, alchemists are also a type of mage. However, those who become alchemists are mostly smart, but they lack the talent to sense elements. The lack of elemental sensing talent did not mean that one could not learn magic. It was just that the effects would be much worse, and it was destined to have no future. However, we still have to learn to meditate. This was because many alchemical products did not only require materials, but also the support of spells. For example, those scrolls. Do you know why alchemy can only produce blank scrolls?”
"Because we can't use powerful spells.”
"That's the problem. Therefore, although magic scrolls were invented by alchemists, they could only produce some low-level scrolls due to the limitations of alchemists 'physiques. In the end, it evolved into alchemists making blank scrolls, while some mages who knew a little about alchemy made magic scrolls themselves. This could be said to be the greatest helplessness of alchemists. However, there was nothing they could do about it. If they could become mages, who would be willing to stay in the laboratory every day?”
Ivo's words fully explained his helplessness towards the Alchemist profession.
No matter how powerful an alchemist was, in the end, all the results could only be used to benefit others. Of course, perhaps, Padrick would be able to do so. Heinz didn't think so. Perhaps he was really crazy about this knowledge, which was why he could have such achievements.
Now, Gong Hao actually liked alchemy very much. Perhaps that was why he gave up on escaping and resolutely chose to stay here.
To Gong Hao, revenge might not be the best reason to take the risk. He should strengthen himself.
From that day on, Gong Hao could be considered to have completely worked in the Alchemy Tower. He quickly discovered that even in this new and unfamiliar field, he still had room to show off his skills.
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