Alex had no need to take care of the newborn pill bugs himself. So long as he properly fed their mothers, they would raise the 70-odd pill bugs all by themselves.
As such, Alex was free to do something else entirely while the pill bugs were raised elsewhere. Now that the matter of the pill bugs had passed as well, he took his time coming up with a list of things he still had to do.
The thing he wanted to do immediately was start doing experiments regarding Unity. But for that, he would require a bit of preparation. He would either have to rip out his Spirit roots or make them not work for a small period of time.
For that to happen, he needed to make various pills. That would take some time.
Aside from Unity, he needed to complete learning Sun Fire. He was so close to it that it didn't make sense to put it on pause anymore. It would certainly take a decade or so still to completely learn it, but that could be the time he spent making the pills in preparation for learning Unity.
