what happens if I glue pills to the box, are they one item now? and if they are sewn together? if if the box is shredded and reglued, do I gets shreds, shreds + glue or intact box? what If I recycle a new box from the fibers of the original and add the pills in it, can I duplicate the pills now?
That's a good question and I guess you'd have to try it and find out. I'd personally allow it if the person claimed that the glued-on pill was a decoration or something and therefore part of the box now. Trying to get around the rules for its own sake is a no-go, but if you make a plausible effort to sell it I'd say it's acceptable.
I think they're only duplicating the new shoebox pill.
The initial shoebox is filled with all the pills from list, including a new shoebox pill and a new duplicate pill.
In fact the duplication pill is reduant so long as you always use the new shoebox pill to get another box of pills.
The duplication pill is still good to make backup shoebox pills. You don't want to rely on the one and accidently use it on something else, breaking the infinite loop.
Oh yeah, I forgot that the shoebox pill can essentially summon anything that actually exists in it. HOWEVER, I would take the "take 2" instruction as a kind of wish limiter, meaning that any other duplicated pills you took after the first 2 wouldn't work. Ixnay on the wishing for more wishes! But take shoebox pill, wish for shoebox full of something valuable, take dupicate pill, duplicate shoebox would be smart.
That's also a valid interpretation. The spirit of it is that you have to choose 2 out of a bunch of effects, though, so I'd stick with that. But if these pills are a limited resource, I would accept the shoebox dupe trick being a method to give 2 of these pills to an large number of people as long as a lot of them kept taking a shoebox one and wishing for more pills.