This time, setting up camp was even worse than the conditions on the fjord’s riverbank yesterday.
The temporary camp on the fjord riverbank had relatively better conditions, and the tents and other supplies brought by the guards could offer a better camping experience. So, although conditions were tough yesterday, it was still bearable.
At least when sleeping, people with a certain status like the squad officers, knights, and Perfikot could still sleep in folding cots.
But today, the conditions were not as good. Everyone could only sleep in sleeping bags, and even Perfikot only got a single-person tent, unlike the fjord riverbank where she could enjoy a big tent alone.
After all, the camp on the fjord riverbank, although used tents, was built to the standards of a field camp. The guards would later build walls and more robust wooden houses, conditions naturally incomparable to their current wild camping.
Even in Perfikot’s world before crossing, where the material abundance was relative to this world’s technological level, outdoor camping was still a challenging task.
The richness of material conditions brings only better tents, more convenient fire tools, and easier ways to heat food and water.
Of course, if you insist that those who drive off-road vehicles, bring tables and chairs, and set up canopies outdoors, treating picnics as outdoor camping, that’s fine too, but such people can’t possibly spend the night outdoors.
Perfikot experienced genuine outdoor camping a few times before crossing, such as hiking across the desert and pitching tents on the grasslands. But that was before crossing, and she was an adult at the time, with a strong enough physique to handle the challenges of outdoor camping.
Now, she’s just a fourteen-year-old girl, her body isn’t fully developed, and even a whole day of hiking is already a significant challenge for her, not to mention camping outdoors.
During previous exploration points, Perfikot followed the exploration team just the same, but because those places allowed horse riding, she wasn’t as exhausted as she is now.
As a result, when she lay in the sleeping bag, the uneven and hard ground made her toss and turn, unable to fall asleep for quite a while. Official source is novel_fіre.net
Unable to endure it, she took out her staff, pressed her hand on the ground, and used alchemy to smooth the surface, finally feeling a bit comfortable.
Yet even then, the hard ground made Perfikot feel shoulder and back pain after sleeping for a while.
Though her sleeping bag was already thickened, a thick moisture-proof mat and large soft bear skin were spread on the ground before laying down the sleeping bag, and Foster had specially prepared a layer of soft leaves underneath, it was still somewhat uncomfortable for a little girl.
"At times , an inflatable mattress would be great!" Perfikot sighed slightly helplessly, but then quickly realized that she’s an alchemist and could use alchemy to make herself an inflatable mattress.
Pulling out the Golden Touching Rod embedded with another Philosopher’s Stone, paired with her staff, Perfikot lifted the bear skin and moisture-proof mat under her and began alchemizing the layer of leaves.
This was the first time Perfikot used the power of both Philosopher’s Stones, whereas normally she either used the Golden Touching Rod for alchemy experiments or carried her staff when going out just in case.
She hadn’t genuinely experienced alchemy with the staff expanding the range of her alchemy operations and reducing consumption while the Golden Touching Rod enhanced the success rate and replaced ritual materials.
But this time, with the help of both Philosopher’s Stones, Perfikot finally truly experienced this intoxicating feeling.
In this state, Perfikot felt like a Divine being, as under the control of alchemy, the pile of leaves transformed directly into a mass of black undefined substance.
This was the first step of genuinely using alchemy to craft a substance—blackification.
It symbolized the death and demise of all things—killing all matter.
Black symbolizes the initial state of chaos, or primordial material, with many alchemists regarding the blackification stage’s product as the prima materia, believing it can generate any substance.
In the eyes of alchemists, the substances of the world are compounds rather than singular materials.
Therefore, alchemy requires all raw materials to be broken down and killed, returning them to the primordial state.
This also represents the unity of all things into the one—a singular, formless, undividable substance, from which all originates and returns.
Following blackification of the prima materia, it needs to be compounded, a step known as whitening.
This means coloring the black prima materia, allowing positive and negative substances to compound through magical affinity, usually using elements like arsenic or mercury, through "enzymes" or "silver seeds" to fuse with the blackified chaotic matter.
Of course, for Perfikot, she needed not add any material at this stage, as the Philosopher’s Stone had already paid the price, substituting the material needed in this step.
Thus, she obtained the purest whitening product—a mass of white substance akin to silver.
At this point, gold can be added to the compound, leading to yellowification.
Sow "golden seeds" or introduce the "form of gold," drawing in the aura of gold.
This process is akin to fermenting dough, where golden seeds act as catalysts, removing impurities within the white substance, resulting in purification.
Realizing yellowification, the substance is then sublimated, the final step in alchemy known as redification.
Achieving this step, the substance is deemed to have completed the great transmutation. This is alchemy’s most mystical, challenging, and crucial stage, where the end of redification symbolizes the completion of the great work—the birth of the Philosopher’s Stone.
Consequently, for ordinary alchemists, they can only achieve whitening.
That is, obtaining a new compound after killing the matter.
More powerful alchemy masters can achieve yellowification, removing impurities from the substance, purifying it, and obtaining a finally stable product.
Since it’s commonly believed that gold is the most stable substance, yellowification is often termed the process of turning stone into gold.
Only the genuinely most powerful alchemists can achieve the ultimate sublimation of substance through redification, transforming it into the perfect Philosopher’s Stone.