Tang Yue doubled down and busied herself with work for the next couple of weeks.
Forging higher grade materials was essentially not that different from forging lower grade materials.
The main difference was the method of removing impurities.
When working with higher-grade materials, impurities can only be removed by hammering mana into the metal.
And there was no secret method to accomplish this. Everything about smithing was rather straightforward.
The mid-grade and the high-grade metals were typically purified using the Hundred Bangs refinement technique and the rare-grade and above materials required a similar Thousand Bangs refinement technique.
The technique itself wasn't too mysterious either. It was only a small variation of directly hammering out the impurities.
But sometimes, the simpler a method, the more complex it is to execute.
Tang Yue now understood why the dwarves had never bothered to hide any of the smithing techniques or at least make them more difficult to acquire.
The issue was… even if one acquired the technique, it was still tremendously difficult to accomplish anything without years and years of training and practice!
Tan Yue started with the Hundred Bangs refinement technique and tried it for a while, before her mana and mental strength were sucked dry within minutes.
Xander knew what she was attempting to do, so he didn't say anything and just silently observed her.
Charlotte, however, worriedly asked. "Are you ok?"
Tang Yue sighed and nodded with a smile. She knew that the task at hand was clearly above her limits but she was not ready to give up just yet.
She wordlessly stood up and took a peek inside to make sure that the drunkard was still sleeping.
Tang Yue then settled down in a meditative pose and took out her alchemy cauldron and a bunch of herbs.
Charlotte had never seen Tang Yue practice alchemy before.
In fact, she had always thought that Tang Yue didn't have any real talent in alchemy and simply did everything to gain the Crown Prince's affection.
But she was not stupid enough to think the same even now.
Charlotte had a much deeper grasp of Tang Yue and her capabilities, so she only curiously observed what she was doing.
Xander didn't even need to observe.
He saw the set of herbs that Tang Yue had taken out and he already knew what she was about to do.
The man wryly chuckled and shook his head. This girl was once again going to blast through her shackles!!!
Tang Yue was about to concoct Devil Awakening pills again!
The woman calmly and steadily handled the herbs and processed the ingredients one after the other.
She then materialized several tongues of flame in her hand and quickly started the concoction process.
Tang Yue didn't even need to summon Little Plum anymore, to help her with the pill concoction.
Thanks to her rigorous training, handling both earthen and fire elemental essence these past few days, her control and mana manipulation had increased tremendously.
This was also why she wanted to concoct the Devil Awakening Pills now.
Tang Yue's mental strength was currently in the Emperor realm, more precisely at Silver- tier.
Thanks to the several hours she had recently spent forging weapons one after the other, she could clearly feel that her mental strength was nearing a bottleneck now.
So before proceeding further with the more complicated higher-grade materials refining, she first wanted to cross over this bottleneck.
Tang Yue had already used these modified Devil Awakening pills once before, so she was not sure just how effective they would be.
After all, they were merely a diluted version of the original formula that the system provided her with.
But considering that she was at a bottleneck, Tang Yue was somewhat confident that she would be able to break through to the next level with the help of the pill.
Once she started the concoction process, it didn't take long for Tang Yue to finish the entire batch.
This time her concoction speed was exponentially faster than before.
By the end of the day she had 3 bottles, each with 5 Devil Awakening Pills.
She looked up tiredly and handed over one bottle to Charlotte.
"Yue, what is this?" Charlotte asked in confusion.
"A special version of Devil Awakening Pills." Tang Yue smiled and said as a matter of fact.
Charlotte's seductive dove-shaped eyes immediately widened.
"Wait a second. Is this the pill which created so much commotion back then?" She gasped in shock.
"Yes. Yes. That bastard swindled it all right out of my hands and didn't pay me even a dime for it." Tang Yue bitterly smiled.
And of course, the 'bastard' who she talked about slightly coughed in awkwardness.
In reality, Xander had already given her about one-half of that payment in the form of gold coins in multiple spatial rings, but Tang Yue had conveniently forgotten about that.
Charlotte gulped and immediately returned the glass bottle back to her. "No. No. No. Sorry, I can't accept something so valuable."
"What are you talking about? Don't be an idiot." Tang Yue shoved the bottle back into her hands.
"Consider it as fees. I am going to take one of the pills now. Please help me and make sure that no one disturbs me."
Tang Yue smiled and popped a pill into her mouth, without waiting for Charlotte's response.
Her eyes immediately flickered and the captivating emerald color changed into a dull translucent white.
Charlotte sighed and silently wiped the froth off her mouth.
She had heard about how this pill was supposedly more safe and easy to use, but still, she was worried.
Devil Awakening Pills induced an extremely traumatizing nightmare.
Xander as well worriedly looked at the woman.
The previous time he was able to stay right by her side and assist but now he could only watch over from a distance.
It was extremely frustrating for him.
But in the end, no matter how much logic prevented it, he knew that he would discard his disguise in an instant if it meant that the woman was in danger.