There was no alarm, so it wasn't until the flesh in the vat began to die that he noticed that something was wrong.
But by then, it was already too late. He had to start another batch.
After recalibrating the sensors, nothing went wrong during the next two stages. So he was able to begin the fourth stage of transforming the life pill to the third mortal coil in less than a week of work.
He had to stop at this point to consider what he wanted for Roar. He had to make a decision in regard to what element he wanted Roar to have.
Roar is not an elemental beast. If he were, he would be smarter. This is because mana requires a powerful mind to control.
Most dumb beasts don't control elements. They only cultivate their body and their life force.
There are some oddities in which certain smart beasts exist because of the influence of their bloodline. But it is certain that every beast that controls the elements and manages to establish their foundation with the energy-refining path will be smart.
Some of those smart beasts even go further to transform themselves into a humanoid shape. The potential for this and many other future capabilities must be settled at the foundation establishment stage.
Roar is not smart, but he can change that. He is not sure about making Roar capable of transforming into a human like Princess does, and he is not even sure about how to go about it. But at the very least, he is sure that he can make Roar capable of wielding an element.
The element he has in mind is the light element. He chose this element because he wants it to make Roar faster and because he wants to preserve Roar's golden visage.
He can't just pick any element to bestow, though. First of all, Roar must be compatible with the element. Secondly, the natural wonder Roar fused with must have the attribute of the element he wanted.
If these two conditions are not met, the only result during the foundation establishment will be death. This is one of the leading causes of death for beasts in the wild who attempt to advance to the third mortal coil after stumbling onto a natural wonder.
Roar won't be in danger of death because he won't be undergoing the foundation establishment directly. His life pill will be undergoing the foundation establishment in his place. But these two requirements still have to be met, or the life pill will explode.
Even after the two requirements have been met, it is best if the beast has cultivated a technique that is based on the desired element. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case for beasts in the wild.
It also isn't the case with Roar. He is dumb and has never cultivated any light element cultivation technique, so there will be some compatibility issues that might cause the life pill to explode when he tries to fuse the natural wonder with it.
All of these considerations mean that he can't rush the next step. He has to make some tests and engrave new formations for the next stage.
He could have made things easy for himself by picking a natural wonder without a requirement for elemental affinity. He could also have decided to use a lot of life essence to see if he could bestow the potential to advance naturally onto Roar.
These alternatives would have been more expensive, but they would have been easy to achieve. But he didn't want them because he wanted Roar to advance with the energy refining path. He wanted Arthur to become smart, so he chose the difficult option.
This preparation took the bulk of a day. Then he began working on the next stage.
The next stage was met with failure many times. Not one of the ten life seeds that he had prepared survived the process.
This wasn't a problem on his side. The chances of success for Roar to survive an assimilation process with the natural wonder were just too low.
Arthur had to go and take more portions of Roar's bones to prepare another batch of life pills. Roar didn't like it one bit.
Arthur said to him, "At least what you have to give up now is your bone. You don't have to risk your life directly, so you should be thankful to me, not complaining."
Roar wasn't consoled. The poor dog complained, whined, and cried at every opportunity he got. The only time he wasn't acting pitiful and complaining was when Arthur gave him something to eat.
His mouth was too busy while eating, so he couldn't complain. But once his mouth became free again, he would begin whining pitifully as if Arthur were maltreating it.
Arthur ignored his whines and returned to work. He thought long and hard about how to increase the compatibility, but the best he could come up with was to find a way to help Roar cultivate the path of energy refining in order to increase his compatibility with the natural wonder.
He thought to himself with frustration, "Maybe if he cultivates, I will be able to use a man-made wonder tailored to his cultivation technique in order to improve his chances of surviving foundation establishment."
Currently, using natural wonder is the simplest and most straightforward way. Unfortunately, it hasn't been simple for him because of all the failures he has been experiencing lately.
These series of failures have made him consider trying to fuse the two options that Roar had to set his foundation with his own life pill art.
That is, he wants Roar to undergo the first half of the operation in which his life seed is forcefully infused with the mana of a cultivation technique.
After this stage of the operation, Roar's flesh will be taken to create a new set of life pills that he can use to establish a man-made foundation for Roar. This will be tailor made to fit his existence, so it will have a lesser rejection reaction than a natural wonder.