Hou spent the day looking at alchemy books, encyclopedias on herbs and materials. The book told him what laws they had, so Hou looked at the storage room and looked at the corresponding material.
He looked at the laws stated in the book then scryed the actual material, looking to check what those laws look like. He assumed the most numerous or bright laws would be the ones mentioned first in the book.
For the next few hours he did this, getting through a good portion of the material there. There were few duplicate law materials. It seems many recipes can use any material if it has the required laws.
That was, however, just a general idea. Some minor laws might be conflicting and caused incompatibility in the recipe.
Hou finished his research and before he went to sleep he took out the Sun Crystal Orchid. He sat down in his room with the Sun Crystal Orchid in his hand, he closed his eyes.
He started to manipulate the qi around his body. The spirit stone filled with sun laws started to vibrate. It was resonating with the sun laws he was taking from the Sun Crystal Orchid. He could feel laws entering, the crystal was charging more.
It became more like a sun, the heat growing. Hou absorbed until the Sun Crystal Orchid was empty. It took a few hours, but finally he opened his eyes.
Looking down at the formally glowing hot Sun Crystal Orchid, it was now like glass. A fully transparent orchid left with no glow. Then in an instant, the glass flower shattered!
Shards of crystal exploded everywhere, without the sun laws, the form became unstable and exploded. It cut Hou's hands slightly, even one shard catching his face.
'That was close, if it hit my eye I could've gone blind. Not that Nine Clouds Purple Miasma probably couldn't heal that as easy as breathing. And if he couldn't, there was still the whole Nine Clouds Sovereign Sect.'
Hou discarded the few shattered pieces of the Sun Crystal Orchid onto the floor and rested. Hopefully his injuries would heal by tomorrow, or he could use alchemy to make medicine.
The next day, Hou was face to face with Nine Clouds Purple Miasma with cuts still highly viable all over his hands.
"I think I can see your meditation was useful yesterday, although looks painful. But this can be an opportunity, let's use this recipe!"
Nine Clouds Purple Miasma was in the alchemy room and picked up a piece of paper and brush. He dipped the brush into the ink block, then moved it deftly to the paper.
He started making nonsense scribbles but slowly Hou started to understand it. It was a recipe for something called Lower grade Sun-Cloud healing pill.
Before Hou could read it all, Nine Clouds Purple Miasma finished and picked it up.
"This will be your first alchemy test, make this healing pill. It's weak but uses sun laws which you have and is low grade. I will step back and only offer help if it is needed or I see fit."
Nine Clouds Purple Miasma handed over the paper to Hou, and he read it. Even though it was written in incomprehensible scribbles, it conveyed meaning somehow. Hou was interested in the technique since he first saw it but it was not needed right now.
Hou read the paper and looked at the steps he needed to do. To simplify it, he needed to combine to flowing but solid laws of cloud with the healing and growth of the sun. This used a lot more expressions and more complicated techniques than he's used before!
"And this is lower grade?!"
"Just try it, you can only get better by trying. Don't worry too much, you can do it at your pace. I'll just watch over you, your completely safe"
"Thanks..." Hou shook his head and looked back at the paper.
First, Hou went into the storage and got the ingredients he needed. He needed all the cloud laws and the other auxiliary ingredients needed.
The recipe was comprehensive in that it not only said what to do but also why. This let Hou into the secrets of alchemy a little.
Hou picked all the materials from their respective drawers and brought them into the alchemy room placing them on the floor arranged in groups.
To start refining the Lower grade Sun-Cloud healing pill he first needed to make a sun environment in the pill furnace.
"But master? Is this not external cultivation, how do I use my own laws if not by external cultivation?"
"In a way it could be said to be external cultivation but the laws are still contained. The laws will not affect the world in total. That is the difference between using the laws in this alchemical recipe and external cultivation."
"Hmm, I think I get it"
Hou disregarded his thoughts and begun the alchemy. He opened up the furnace and did as the recipe said to.
Before he started to use sun laws in the furnace, he needed to change his expression. He needed to think of the sun laws holistically, as a whole.
Instead of heat or light, he needed to fully visualise the sun as a whole, then distill that into his expression.
Hou sat down stumped at this level. Nine Clouds Purple Miasma looked by the side and shot out a couple of food pills.
"This should take a few days, I'll set him up with food he'll absorb while thinking"
Hou needed to make a new expression and that was just the first step, it would take days. Just the first step of this simple alchemy recipe was so complicated for Hou to do!
Hou spent five days in total, just in thinking. His focus was entirely on the process at hand, unwavering.
Then Hou jolted awake, the food pills around him fell. Nine Clouds Purple Miasma set up the pills to be absorbed only while he was in a state of deep thought. Once he awoke the food pills which were floating in the air, fell.
Hou didn't pay heed to the food pills or the time he was 'asleep', instead he immediately moved to the next step.
He started to body cultivate with this new expression, however his body started to completely burn up and pain hit him.
Hou flinched but continued, through all the pain he moved the essence of the sun through his body. He moved his hand over the open lid of the furnace and extracted a few drops of his sun laws, then he let go.
He collapsed, in the furnace three stops of pure sun laws were at the bottom, ready to be used.
"Good work, rest. I guess you won't need the pill anymore, you're already healed..." Nine Clouds Purple Miasma appeared and put Hou to sleep. Then he sealed the furnace and waited for Hou to wake up.