Eternal Life Starts from Tai Chi-Chapter 154: Selection of Pharmacist’s Assistants, Learning is Endless
At the Medicine Hall’s assessment area.
Yang Chan wore a strange expression. Of the Pharmacist’s Assistant candidates participating in the assessment this time, more than half were women—four women and two men.
This reminded Yang Chan of Zhao Yi’s words, and he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It turned out that among these candidates, the women had indeed performed better in the assessment.
Regarding the 1,253 commonly used medicinal ingredients, they mostly had no issues. Although there were minor errors in some of the details, it didn’t disqualify them from becoming a Pharmacist’s Assistant.
Yang Chan also questioned them in great detail on other related knowledge, such as pharmacology, judging Medicinal Properties, analyzing medicinal effects, determining the age of ingredients, and classifying them by school. Although the questions weren’t as difficult as the ones he had been asked, he was now completely at ease conducting the assessment.
As he listened to the candidates’ answers, his expression remained unchanged. He didn’t comment on whether they were right or wrong, simply letting them finish explaining according to their own understanding before he recorded his notes.
The entire assessment took more than four hours because he was very thorough, and also because the candidates had all basically met the requirements.
Yang Chan had the candidates’ information in his hand. Four were Noble Family Disciples, while the remaining two were ordinary Official Disciples.
’It seems this position is still very attractive.’
Yang Chan thought to himself.
After Medicine Hall Master Gu An returned to the Cyan Yuan Sect and met with him, it signaled that Yang Chan had become one of Gu An’s people. Furthermore, he was clearly valued by Gu An. Because of this, many people had tried to get on his good side recently, and their attitudes were all very friendly.
He naturally understood the implications. Therefore, he needed to be extra thoughtful when selecting his Pharmacist’s Assistants, or else it could lead to trouble. The one thing he disliked most was trouble, so he naturally wanted to avoid it beforehand.
For his Pharmacist’s Assistants, he directly chose two ordinary Official Disciples, one man and one woman. He didn’t pick a single one of the Noble Family Disciples. This demonstrated his stance: he had no intention of getting involved in the struggles between the Noble Families.
With four Noble Family Descendants, he either had to choose three of them or none at all. Even though one of them was fair-skinned, beautiful, and had a curvaceous figure, Yang Chan had to let her go.
Otherwise, he would become the "vulgar person" Zhao Yi had spoken of, which was not a good thing.
Besides, the female disciple among the ordinary Official Disciples, though she wore no makeup, was still quite striking overall.
Her bone structure was even more outstanding than her skin, and her answers had been the most satisfactory to Yang Chan. She had given the best responses among all the candidates, so naturally, she became his priority choice.
The remaining candidates were all more or less the same. However, to avoid any potential trouble, Yang Chan directly chose the male disciple. As for the last Pharmacist’s Assistant, he could just pick one later.
Entrusting these two to Han Bingyu would be enough to keep her busy for quite some time. If he had picked all of them at once, it would have added to Han Bingyu’s workload.
Yang Chan was just that considerate of others.
After announcing the assessment results, he told the two of them to report to the Medicine Hall and Pharmacy the next day, which happened to be when he was on duty.
He didn’t have many tasks on his end, which would give these two plenty of time to learn the skills a Pharmacist’s Assistant needed to master. This was a much better situation than when he had started, where he was immediately put to work preparing medicine packets.
These two would have time to study. Back then, Yang Chan had to learn on the job, which was far busier. He had to constantly record all sorts of knowledge, the locations of medicinal ingredients, and a pile of other things he needed to master, all while not making any mistakes. It naturally required much greater ability.
And Yang Chan had overcome it all.
Now, these two new Pharmacist’s Assistants would have a more relaxed schedule, which was the normal process for most assistants.
Previously, Yang Chan had directly become an Intermediate Pharmacist’s assistant, so what was required of him naturally surpassed that of an assistant to a Basic Level Pharmacist. The knowledge he needed to master was greater, and the tasks were naturally more difficult.
After assessing the two, Yang Chan didn’t return directly to his residence. Instead, he headed to the Medicine Hall Collection Pavilion. He had already finished reading the *Pharmacopoeia* he had, as well as most of the other books related to a Pharmacist’s advancement, so he naturally needed to exchange them for a new batch.
As the saying goes, learning is a lifelong process. Even he had to keep studying and mastering more knowledge to continuously improve—aside from allocating points, of course.
Right now, most of his energy was focused on improving his Martial Arts Cultivation, so he could only spend a portion of his time on his Pharmacist skills. After all, the First Revolution Nourishing Viscera Pill was very tempting, as it could save him a great deal of time.
To successfully refine the First Revolution Nourishing Viscera Pill, besides relying on his own feel for Alchemy, he needed to use these books to study records and insights on the medicinal effects of various ingredient combinations.
The insights from Refining elixirs, in particular, could provide a great deal of inspiration.
Yang Chan understood this, so he went straight to the Medicine Hall Collection Pavilion. He went directly to the second floor, which was the highest he could go to borrow books. The third floor required the rank of Intermediate Pharmacist to enter.
However, the second floor contained information on the First Revolution Nourishing Viscera Pill that Yang Chan needed. Because this elixir was a stepping stone to becoming an Intermediate Pharmacist, many people had recorded their experiences Refining it, and these records were kept on the second floor of the Medicine Hall Collection Pavilion.
Yang Chan had already read some of these records and found them beneficial. Now, after having personally attempted Alchemy, he was going to read the remaining books.
Reading these books again after gaining practical experience gave him a much stronger sense of connection to the material.
Previously when he read the records, he had simply memorized the process: the refining duration, when to add water as the Medicinal Qi changed, when to place the ingredients, and other related knowledge. He memorized the changes, but when it came to actually refining the elixir, the situations that arose were far more numerous than what was written in the books.
Take the most direct problem: the changes in the heat of the Earth Fire. The books only mentioned it in a few sentences, stating that heat control relied on personal feel and didn’t go into detail—because it was impossible to detail.
Yang Chan had gained a profound understanding of this point even before he began Refining.
There were plenty of other variations and problems as well.
These problems only appeared during the actual process of Refining an elixir. Yang Chan himself had encountered many situations not recorded in the books. If he were to write them down, he could add many scenarios not currently documented in the Library Pavilion. This was perfectly normal.
After all, even the slightest deviation could lead to a multitude of problems.
It was like there was only one path to success, but countless paths to failure. A person had to make all the right choices to reach the end. The other paths would either lead one astray midway, send one backward, or even lead to utter and complete ruin. All were possible.
Of course, these paths of failure also served as warnings. By studying the accounts of both failed and successful attempts at Refining the First Revolution Nourishing Viscera Pill, he could gain many insights and thus refine it successfully much faster. This was precisely why Yang Chan had come.
It was also a way to reduce the number of failures. After all, the materials for Refining the First Revolution Nourishing Viscera Pill were rather expensive. He couldn’t afford to fail repeatedly. It might even affect the daily dosage of medicine he took, and that was not a result Yang Chan wanted.
His daily income of Potential Points could not be allowed to decrease.
