"I have my apricorn, now to be able to turn them into PokeBalls they have to be dried first.
For this, the apricorn has to be cleanly cut in half and then hollowed out.
The pulp of the apricorn has to be kept because it is needed during a later process.
I have containers just for this purpose.
After hollowing the apricorn it has to be dried at a constant temperature and humidity.
The drying station in my working space is perfectly suitable for this.
After it has dried, it has to be smoothed.
Next up comes the blood.
Modern PokeBalls use technology to create the space inside the ball and all its functions but handcrafted PokeBalls achieve the effect through the materials used during its production and "formations"/patterns and symbols painted with a mixture of blood and other substances into its inner walls as well as its surface.
I don't know why those patterns and symbols do what they do, yet.
Those are the work/product of another occupation.
I only know that ball crafters use them for their effects and that they don't seem to care about why it works, just that it does.
As long as they create and maintain the space as well as its other functions most Pokeball crafters ignore the why.
They only know that they have to be able to apply them cleanly and precisely without any mistakes, the rest is not important for them."
Mikail became contemplative after he went over this.
"Seems interesting.
It appears to be something like the Runecasters/Artificers from western fantasy and the Formation/Array Masters from eastern fantasy stories.
I will have to look up that occupation sometime but for now, I have other things to focus on."
Mikail nods to himself.
"Where was I?
Right, the blood.
The source of the blood differs depending on what type of ball you are trying to create.
Whether the desired class of the ball is possible, depends on the stage of the blood source and the class of the substance used for the mixture.
The lowest class a successful ball should have is identical to that of the apricorn used for its production.
So, if the apricorn used is 'E'-class, then the resulting Pokeball should not be worse than 'E'-class.
Producing 'F'-class Pokeballs is considered as much a failure as being unable to produce a Pokeball at all.
For 'E'-class Pokeballs iron-stage blood is the minimum requirement but bronze-stage blood would be better.
For 'D'-class Pokeballs bronze-stage blood is the minimum and silver-stage blood would be better.
'C'- and 'B'-class balls seem to follow that trend as well but I do not know if it is the same for 'A'-class and higher.
For the Common Ball, the blood of a pure Normal-type Pokemon is ideal.
Dual Normal-type Pokemon blood is no problem as well and pure Water-type or pure Grass-type Pokemon blood can be, reluctantly, used as well, but in that case the failure rate and difficulty increase."
Mikail paused here for a bit.
"Well, shit.
It seems I have to get myself some Rattatas if I want to practice my ball crafting without making it even harder for myself than it already is.
This time I will use some Magikarp blood.
Some of the sidelined ones are at the iron stage, so their blood should do.
Now moving on.
The mixture also contains materials.
Let's see what I need to produce a Common Ball.
If I use pure normal-type blood, then adding a single portion of a normal-type material together with Leppa-berry juice is enough.
For dual normal-type blood 2 or more portions are needed and for pure grass- or water-type blood 4 or more portions are needed.
It would be better if varied materials were used instead of a single one."
Mikail nodded at this.
"Makes sense to me.
Okay, that was for the mixture that I needed for the inner walls, and also for the outer surface.
The patterns and symbols at the outer surface are what allows the handmade balls to open and close as well as to shrink and expand.
Afterward, it needs to be treated, and the apricorn pulp that was kept aside for this.
You take the pulp and mix it with oran- and leppa berry juice as well as one normal-type substance.
After mixing them you slowly heat the mixture and use it to glaze the outside of the dried apricorn.
This is done to assist the absorption of energy by the Pokeball to maintain its functions.
The PokeBall has to be left to dry again after the treatment."
Mikail looked thoughtful after going through all steps.
"It actually sounds pretty easy if you simply go over the steps like this, when in actuality it isn't.
If you are not careful you can fail at every single step.
It takes a great amount of practice and precision to successfully produce a Pokeball and the Common Ball is the simplest of them.
I am not afraid of wasting time or materials due to failure but there are warnings inside my knowledge that some of the balls can have dangerous reactions in case of failure.
Luckily the Common Ball simply does not work in case of failure instead of exploding or something like that."
Mikail contemplated his next step.
"It is not possible to try to craft a Common Ball today, because the drying of the white apricorn takes between 30 to 36 hours and without the dried apricorn I can not start.
What I can do is preparing all components for the crafting process.
The first step is to perform an even cut right at the middle of the apricorn."
Mikail went to a cabinet that had access to the stored berries and apricorn and took out 20 White Apricorns that he levitated behind him while walking towards the sawing station.
He put them on the table, took out measuring instruments, and started marking all of them in the middle.
After he was done with that he levitated the instrument back to their spot.
Keeping the working space neat was important after all.
He started the saw blade, took one of the apricorns, and began moving the apricorn aiming the marked line at the rotating blade.
He fully focused on this task.
Keeping his hands steady Mikail rotated the apricorn completely once while making sure the saw only touched the marked line.
He checked to see if the segment was even and to make sure there were no cracks along the cut.
Once he saw that he had done a good job he sighed in relief.
"That took more concentration than I expected but it's a good start.
It would be awesome if I manage to cut all 20 apricorns like this, but 15 would be considered a job well done already."
He put the two halves on a tray for successful cuts and took the next apricorn.
Mikail did not manage to succeed with all 20 apricorns.
Hell, he did not even manage to succeed with 15.
He ended up with 9 successful cuts and it took him more than an hour to finish with all apricorns.
His first failure was because he couldn't keep his hands steady any longer, so he started taking short breaks between cuts to relax his hands and mind.
Of the 11 failures, 2 were because his hands twitched and completely ruined the cut.
4 were turned out uneven and 5 of them had small cracks along the cut, which probably happened due to him trembling a bit at some point or something like that.
The failures were put on a separate tray as well, Mikail did not plan to throw them away.
No, he was going to use them as fodder.
There was no reason to waste them when they were still perfectly edible.
Since he felt that 9 wasn't enough, he decided to keep going until he had 12 successful pieces.
Another 2 apricorns were wasted but he achieved his goal.
Mikail put away the tray with his failures and focused on the tray with his successes.
He took a specialized scooping spoon in one hand, one half of an apricorn in the other, and started to carefully hollow it out.
Since the shell wasn't allowed to be damaged, he did it slowly.
It took him nearly 40 minutes to finish with them all, and he only needed to replace an apricorn with a new one a single time.
One of the halves got damaged and he had to replace the whole thing, so he had to cut another apricorn to use as a replacement.
The pulp he removed was put in a container that was kept ready for this purpose.
A high-pressure water cleaner was used to clean the scoop and he put it back to its spot.
Mikail also cleaned the saw blade before he focused back on the tray with the now hollow apricorns.
Afterward, he levitated the tray to the drying station where it was put into a specialized heater.
He adjusted the temperature and humidity inside the heater to the necessary setting.
Now the only thing left to do with the apricorns was to wait for them to dry.
He returned to the container with the pulp to begin preparing the mixture he was going to glaze the dried apricorn with.
"I need oran berry and leppa berry juice as well as a normal-type material to create the mixture.
I should start with the berries."
Mikail took out 12 oran berries as well as 12 leppa berries and squeezed out their juice into a container.
The leftovers from the berries were added to the fodder tray.
After that, he took out 4 portions of raw normal gemstone and ground it up.
He took the apricorn pulp and mashed it before he mixed the berry juice as well as the normal gemstone powder into it.
The resulting mixture was deposited into a new container, while the old ones were cleaned and returned to their places.
The heating step would have to wait until the apricorns were ready to be glazed so he took the container with the mixture and placed it into a storage area where it would stay fresh.
"I have the pulp mixture ready so only the blood mixture is left.
I currently don't have any pure or dual normal-type blood, so I will have to use Magikarp blood instead.
According to the knowledge, I will have to use 4 portions of normal-type material to offset this and it would be better if the portions came from different materials."
Mikail became pensive at this.
"I don't have so many different kinds of normal type materials, I have only one, and using so many portions to offset the usage of water-type Pokemon blood seems to be a waste.
I still have to wait for more than a day for the apricorns to dry.
I am sure I can either politely invite a Rattata into my space or find another way to get my hands on enough Rattata blood during this time.
I could try to exchange the remains of a Rattata from one of the fights that keep happening.
Naturally, that is only possible if the winner doesn't want to eat it.
Alternatively, I could wait until the winner left and take the carcass for free.
This alternative is not only 'cheaper' but also safer because I won't have to approach a Pokemon that just fought to the death."
He nodded to himself, satisfied with his new plan.
"That's what I will do.
Rattata blood will result in a better mixture and I won't have to waste my materials.
There is nothing left I can do right now and I have already spent more than 3 hours doing all this.
It is high time for me to sleep."
He made sure once more that everything was clean and tidy before he left his space, thanked Natu for keeping a lookout, and went to sleep.