The VILLAIN's online Lover

Epoch 🎐 29

The bank of the healing spring was a cool and cold place, it was not an ideal suburb for performing alchemy for one needs to have a warm geothermally heated region for performing perfect alchemy. 

But beggars can't be choosers. Titania was pressured and in an urgency to create the so-called legendary raring golden elixir which was said to even bring the dead back to life. She had read about it in the ancient alchemy texts and old books provided by her previous mage tower. But even those books could not teach her of the real methods to actually creating such a miraculous life saving elixir. It was once more, Eganius Cline's extensive teaching and vast knowledge which he had casually imparted to her that she could confidently stand here today and declare in front of this mighty divine beast that she could actually concoct such a wondrous pill formula without bending her back.

Titania threw away any distracting thoughts inside of her head and emptied her mind as she sat cross-legged in front of her trusted old cauldron and lit a spirit fire with her mind's eye to refine the greatest pill concoction of her life.

Normal alchemists who belonged to the third lowest realm had to use spirit fire made out of atmospheric mana, but only those alchemists who belonged to the upper realms knew of the method of lighting a spirit fire from the mind's eye. It was a secretive method of those of the higher realms which would have never been imparted to those puny mages of the lower realms if not for Eganius Cline ratting it out to Titania quite casually as always. 

Whereas little Titania was still unaware of the miracles she was unknowingly performing right in front of the wide eyed dragon who was staring at her with now impassioned fiery eyes, it's demeanor infectious with a kind of profound meaningful gaze.

Because Titania had still not reached the third tier level in her alchemy which would freely allow her to use her mind to concoct the pill which gave an alchemist the greatest accuracy during pill concoction, she had to manually make the pill. She also did not dare to make such a marvelous ancient pill directly as concocting unknown elixirs could sometimes be dangerous if one were not aware of the end resulting side-effects of the pill refining process. Sometimes some elixirs while they were being refined would give out poisonous gases which could not only be fatal to the alchemist but also be detrimental to those around him. Titania was also weary because she had a weak constitution and did not have enough magic power to evade if a disaster suddenly ensued. Her only solace was the extraordinary healing spring at her foot. If the situation were to suddenly go south, she would just mindlessly jump into the healing spring to keep her little life in the end.

And with such a thought, Tania started separating a few low-level spirit grasses, and began to refine the first tier raring golden pill for hand training.

Right off the bat, her old cauldron turned into a ravenous vortex, sucking in infinite amount of mana from the atmosphere. A great alchemist's worth was known by the amount of mana his or hers cauldron absorbed while he or she were concocting elixirs. The lesser mana the cauldron absorbed, the more talented an alchemist is deemed to be for he or she can refine more elixirs utilizing less resources. 

However, in the case of Titania, her cauldron would always turn into a gluttonous black hole whenever she concocted any pills, leaving her with the nickname 'The pig cauldron Keeper.' 

The obsidian dragon who was silently observing the situation, if one were to keenly perceive him now, they would see the corner of his eyes twitching from time to time as he tried to keep a neutral face on.

"Puff! Puff!"

The swirling concoction inside of the old cauldron suddenly blew up in a wild puffing gas which indicated the failure of the refining process definitively. 

Whereas Titania, without a moment's breath, decisively jumped into the cold spring with a loud splurge. 

After about a minute's time, she sheepishly reared her head out of the water and gave the still staring dragon an embarrassed smile as she patiently explained, "Haha… you see, it is my first time refining an ancient pill recipe. So, I was not sure if there would be any dangerous outcomes or side-effects during the pill refining. So, to save myself from any unknown phenomenon that might be harmful, I had to... Ahem! take refuge in the healing spring. After all, we do not want my untimely demise now, do we? Haha…hahaha!" 

The dragon who was intently watching the farce that Titania was publicly displaying, could not help but want to slap his forehead while not knowing whether he should laugh or cry. 

Abashed so, Titania slowly got out of the water and walked back to the shore and once more sat in front of her old not-so-trustworthy cauldron and gingerly started from the top once more.

Not long after, there was another sound of "Puff! Puff!" And the sound of splashing as Titania to another dip into the healing spring after another unsuccessful attempt.

Soon, this kind of vicious cycle became a norm in front of the bewildered obsidian dragon, and he could not longer sit back and watch.

With a loud sigh while eyeing a hangdog drenched Tania, he slowly opened his mouth and mouthed out in a grumbling tone, "Don't plunge anymore. Your failure is not poisonous."

"!!!" And Titania stopped paralyzed in her tracts. 

'Did… did the black dragon just speak!?'

"You are too hasty in refining the raw golden krypton ivy. Start slowly, put one twig of the ivy at a time. The Golden krypton ivy is a herb of the middle realms. So it is near impossible for an alchemist of your level to successfully refine it even if you spend a hundred years of your lifetime." The obsidian dragon gruffed, "But there are always loopholes through which someone of even your tier could succeed in concocting elixirs with the krypton vines. Listen carefully….."

However half way through, the dumbfounded Titania became distracted and could not pay enough attention to the dragon's teachings as she became preoccupied with another bizarre finding. 

'This voice…. where have I heard this voice before?'

~ ••• ~