Study Monster Cultivation System

Chapter 134 - 133 makes up ___ out of thin air for you

Shen Yiyun looked at Shi Yang, who was gradually entering demonization, but her face showed a look of great annoyance. She turned to Li Zheng and asked, "Do you know what the scoring rate was for this question last year?"

Upon hearing this, Li Zheng hurriedly held down his own qilin arm and said, "Well… if you follow the steps, you should be able to produce 1 gram, right?"

"You wish," Shen Yiyun glanced at Li Zheng, lowered her head, and the sharp gaze shot out from the angle between her glasses and her eyes, "Sixty percent of the students ended up with a final product of 0."

"???" Li Zheng felt a chill run down his spine, "And these are the people who made it to the final competition, so all 40 points are gone?"

"Yes, and by the way, I only scored 45 points on the experiment myself when I took it, and that was enough for a gold at the nationals." Shen Yiyun adjusted her glasses and, imitating her mentor’s pretentious manner, explained coldly.

"Although the steps for this experimental question are given to you, there is still room for improvisation, requiring candidates to judge phenomena and adapt on the fly."

"A slight carelessness can trigger side reactions."

"If too conservative, it can result in inadequate yield."

"Therefore, conducting an experiment is not just about learning the procedure; it’s a dual test of theoretical foundations and on-the-spot experience."

"Merely being an exam expert will invariably result in failure here."

"Even with 99 points."

Li Zheng, keeping his gaze steadily on Shi Yang, agreed strongly with this.

This question specified the doses only for salicylaldehyde and diethyl oxalate, leaving the catalyst, reactants, and operations merely broadly described.

Like a recipe calling for "a dash of dark soy," "half a spoon of sugar," "stir-fry on low heat for a while."

And this is where it gets crucial to be creative.

Not only do you need to control the right dose as a cook, but you also have to improvise on the spot, adjusting your technique according to the cooking situation.

A slight mistake, and you end up with a ruined dish.

In chemistry, you also have to consider factors such as acidity and alkalinity, temperature, reaction, excess reaction, side reaction, and catalyst reaction; one error, and the final product could be completely different, leading to utter defeat.

While in thought, Cobalt God had already turned on the oil bath pot switch and started heating for reflux.

An oil bath pot is a heating device similar to an oven, used to carry out reactions that require heating in experiments.

But such reactions can cause evaporation, leading to experimental losses.

Hence, a condensation tube needs to be placed on the beaker to allow the vapor to condense into droplets and reflux back into the bottle.

This process usually takes over half an hour, and the experimenter only needs to set the knob on the oil bath pot to a temperature to proceed with other tasks.

But Cobalt God didn’t do that.

He gripped the knob with his right hand, slightly lifted his glasses with his left, and stared intently at the liquid inside the beaker.

Time ticked by, second by second.

The test liquid soon showed a tendency to boil.

Only then did Cobalt God carefully twist the knob to lower the temperature.

But after it stabilized a bit, he adjusted the heat again.

Li Zheng’s eyes widened.

Isn’t this like the cooks at Quanjude who roast ducks?

In the midst of controlling qi, Shen Yiyun commented softly, "He’s racing against time."

"How can you tell?" Li Zheng asked, eager to learn.

"Let me ask you, what happens if the temperature is too high and the reflux is intense?" Shen Yiyun posed the question.

"Boiling over," Li Zheng, having memorized the entire cookbook, quickly replied, "It would cause liquid pooling, then reduce the efficiency of the reaction, and might even trigger side reactions."

"Good, hence in this experiment, it’s recommended to perform the heating reflux at around 80° to keep the reflux rate within a safe range," Shen Yiyun said with a smile, "But Shi Yang is obviously playing with fire, pushing for the boiling over point, to complete the reaction as quickly and efficiently as possible."

Li Zheng nodded in assent, "It’s like boiling noodles on high heat, thinking you can control it just enough to not scorch the pot."

"That’s a good analogy…" Shen Yiyun narrowed her eyes, also lifting her glasses, "but they’ve all scorched it."

"Hush," Cobalt God raised his hand in a gesture to be quiet.

"Uh…" Shen Yiyun clenched her teeth and glared.

I understand the pursuit of perfection.

But you, you overconfident fellow, you’ve already made a big mistake just now.

Let’s see if you can still smile when the final product comes out!

Li Zheng wasn’t burdened with so many thoughts; he was just focused on absorbing the Academic Fortune.

In the following time, Cobalt God, like Li Zheng working through exam questions, was completely focused, not uttering a half-word.

Crystallizing, filtering, washing with ethanol, recrystallizing… adding Sodium Hydroxide, heating for reflux again… pouring the reactants into concentrated hydrochloric acid water…

Each of these processes was endowed with artistic beauty, chemical fervor, and the Shi Clan’s flair.

Even if he couldn’t absorb Academic Fortune, Li Zheng would have undoubtedly watched intently without turning away.

Three hours just passed by like that.

After repeated crystallization and filtration, they finally entered the drying process.

In the end, they obtained a large clump of white chunky crystal granules.

After placing the product in the tray, Cobalt God let out a devilish smile, took half a step back, returned to his Shi Yang state, and raised his hand, saying, "Please."

Only then did he notice that Shen Yiyun had disappeared.

Turns out, she had fallen asleep leaning on the table next to them.

"Hey, this proctor..." Shi Yang then turned his gaze to Li Zheng.

This guy, however, was watching with rapt attention, still eagerly breathing heavily.

Shi Yang then walked around the experiment table and approached to advise, "Bro, you can’t smell it, and besides, it’s not good to inhale too much of this stuff."

"Oh, is it over?" Li Zheng finally closed his eyes, taking a brief rest.

The harvest was fruitful.

It was not just experimental skills, but also many profound insights; it felt as if he had watched once and obtained a lot of experimental inspiration, overall very itching to try.

Seeing Li Zheng’s reaction, Shi Yang also smiled, "There are many types of coumarin, like this coumarin-3-carboxylic acid; it’s not really necessary to do it this way. I can probably think of seven or eight methods to make it, and there are a lot of reagents in our experiment that could be replaced with others.

If it weren’t for the limitation of reagents, I could make several types of perfume for you on the spot."

"Amazing," Li Zheng couldn’t help but exclaimed, "Where do you get all these ideas from?"

"Heh, there’s really nothing new, it’s like playing with LEGO, you know. Play with it enough, and you can build anything," Shi Yang gesticulated, "When I first saw chemistry, it was all colorful, solid, liquid, gas changing back and forth, sometimes exploding, very interesting. But when I really started doing it... I found out that I was playing with elements and molecules, bonds and rings."

Shi Yang then waved his hands dismissively, "Ah, talking about this stuff isn’t that interesting. I’ve tried several times to talk to the girls in our class to bring some into the Chem Competitions circle, but they all ran off..."

"Talk, talk, I’m listening, I love to hear it," Li Zheng started to inhale deeply again.

"You’re already in the circle..." Shi Yang looked a bit disdainful, "And you’re not a girl..."

"Damn it, don’t be so biased towards beauty over friendship," Li Zheng cursed on the spot, "We share a bond as deep as a shared sheet of toilet paper; can a girl do that with you?"

"That’s... true..." Shi Yang ultimately couldn’t refute, and thus continued with his gestures, "The fun part is that, in the microscopic world, combining and disassembling these tiny parts at will, assembling them freely, and every time you assemble something, it’s different.

There are also things that theoretically can be assembled but no one has succeeded yet, even things that theoretically shouldn’t be assembled but somehow come into existence, it just feels like a lifetime is simply not enough."

Li Zheng said blankly, "Does it feel like becoming a creator in the microscopic world?"

"Hehe, I felt a bit like that as a kid, but the more I understand, the more reverence I have," Shi Yang suddenly become shy, wiped his nose, and gave a silly laugh, "It’s more like being an adventurer."

Hearing this, Li Zheng, while absorbing Academic Fortune, sighed, "It’s embarrassing to say, but I’ve never had the experiences that Brother Shi talked about, and I don’t know if it’s a difference in talent or in realm."

"It’s not your fault, it’s all because of the textbooks," Shi Yang immediately exclaimed, "Look at the high school textbooks, are they even written for people? They start by making you memorize, things like the idea of producing alcohol without water..."

Shi Yang then began to stammer.

"Alcohol dehydration forms alkenes," Li Zheng awkwardly prompted, "Sulfuric acid to ethanol in a three-to-one ratio?..."

"Damn it... You’ve gone all out just to memorize that stuff," Shi Yang continued cursing, "To learn chemistry, you first need to appreciate the charm of chemistry. It’s like you are forced to study music theory without ever listening to music, having to memorize scores and such, what’s the point in memorizing that."

"Quite reasonable," Li Zheng murmured, "So how does one come to appreciate the charm of chemistry?"

"Hehe~" Shi Yang laughed without answering.

Li Zheng felt a bit apprehensive, "Even if there is enough sodium, the latrine wouldn’t be sufficient."

"Just joking, doing experiments is the right way to go, preferably not prescribed experiments, but those where you can let your creativity fly," Shi Yang said more excitedly, "For example, I could use the equipment and materials in this room to make shit for you out of thin air, believe it or not?"

"I... I believe..."

Watching Shi Yang’s fervent demeanor, Li Zheng gradually felt that maybe what drove his study of chemistry was not any charm of the subject, but rather an obsession with certain substances.

That luck, damn, it’s too frightening to steal.

Meanwhile, Shen Yi Yun finally woke up from the noise, squinted at her watch.

"Ah! There’s no food left in the cafeteria!" She then hurriedly got up, hastily put on her glasses, came over, and pretended to be a teacher, "Oh... is it finished, hmm... did you wait long?"

"No problem," Shi Yang immediately shifted away from Shen Yi Yun’s gaze, radiating a confident smile, raising his hand commandingly, "The volatility doesn’t matter, it’s sufficient."

"Whether it’s sufficient or not isn’t for you to say," Shen Yi Yun tried to perk up, walked around to the front of the experiment table, and looked at the dish of white crystals.

Her expression also became frantic.

Why is there so much?

She raised her glasses and asked, "For the follow-up experiment, did you add more salicylaldehyde?"

"No," Li Zheng said, "I haven’t closed my eyes the entire time, not a single drop of salicylaldehyde or diethyl oxalate was touched again."

"Hmm... then... let’s weigh it..." Shen Yi Yun put on gloves, carefully picked up the dish, placed it on the electronic scale, then crouched down to look at the display.

Immediately after, she shivered.