Okay how the hell do alchemist and apothecaries make shit into potions? Like in a fantasy setting or fictional setting. I don't know the exact steps, all i know is that nature or magical ingredients are required > you do some shit to it > and boom bam pow its a potion or pill that does something magical or unscientific. What i want to know is the 'you do some shit to it' part. The nitty gritty complicated shit that makes it so not just anyone can become an alchemist or apothecaries.
You make hand gestures... you regulate the fire intensity... you keep staring intently at the stove for hours on end, intimidating the ingredients into forming the perfect pill.
Same applies when you make medicines from herbs irl, you pick up some herb's and do some shit (crush it), voila medicine ready
It depends on the fantasy world. Its likely the ingredients itself have magical properties. Then alchemist or apothecaries just handle the power of the reaction. The other possibility is that the items act as a medium for the person for storing the healing spell like mode. It really depends on the world. Option 1- Person uses material to control the action that already exist. Option 2- The material act as a battery to store the healing spell.
Chemistry isn't difficult irl either, neither are any of its branches. That is, if you merely replicate. If you don't... well. And this isn't even THAT complicated compared to some other biochemical stuff. Complicated enough now?
TBH, I don't understand how the hell potion can be made... You put a lot of ingredient then walaaaa!! You got a nice potion without any waste residue in it.. Maybe in novel left the steps where those guy filter those residue from potion into a clean one At least, CN Dan/pill is better. You use fire to refine those ingredient. The less waste residue in pill the Better its quality
It comes up several times actually, each time more complicated as he learns to craft higher tier potions. Edit: here's the chapter where he makes revival medicine and here's the one where he makes yellow potions.
Point is: Its easy to craft a potion if you have a recipy. Crafting the one a person NEEDs or without a recipy, thats where the fuckery begins.
For potions, none of the stories I've read ever discusses what water they use and it bugs me. Did they get the water from a personal well or communal well, or did they just dip up some from a dirty creek? Do they use some sort of filter, then boil and distill the water, or just cast some purification spell on it? As for pills in cultivation stories, the writers just use the word "refine" to gloss over everything. When they prepare the ingredients by refining them, my impression is that they just heat/burn them to ashes, then continue even more until the ashes turn into powder. And the cauldron somehow must create a force bubble so none of the ingredients' essences evaporate or are burned away. Or maybe that's the refiner's ability. Who knows? I also assume the refiner tumble the powder within the cauldron's bubble to form the pill spheres (like modern candies are made).
In Warlock of magus world. Potion is made by putting ingredient into one beaker or flask or test tube. But it is mentioned, leylin often require to change temp. Which means, Everytime new ingredient is added. It required you cook/refine it at different temperature . Time when the ingredient is added also mean how fast you need to switch from temperature A to B , and how long you need to refine it before a new ingredient is added and require to switch to a new temperature for refinement
Either you copy how the usual jrpg isekais do it or you take the harder route of doing research and reading up a ton.