CH 9 - 10

Chapter 9: Repeated Attempts

A loud bang reverberated, causing the entire house to shake three times.

"What's happening, young master? Are you inside?" The old butler urgently knocked, shouting from outside the room.

"Grandpa Du, I'm fine," coughed Xiao Qingyang, spitting out the ashes from his mouth in response.

However, the old butler remained concerned. Without seeing the young master safe and sound with his own eyes, he couldn't put his mind at ease. Thus, the knocking persisted.

"Young master, please open the door."

Helpless, Xiao Qingyang walked over and opened the door to reassure the old butler.

Upon seeing the young master still lively and energetic, the old butler barely had time to breathe a sigh of relief before being taken aback by the young master's new appearance.

"Young master, what... what are you doing?" the old butler could hardly believe his eyes.

At that moment, Xiao Qingyang sported a disheveled jet-black explosion of hair. His once fair face now had black and white patches, and his clothes were tattered, as if he had just rolled out of an ash pile.

"Grandpa Du, I'm fine. I just... just wanted to make something, but it unexpectedly exploded," Xiao Qingyang said somewhat embarrassedly.

Explosions were quite common during the process of alchemy. When he first started learning alchemy, his face would often be blackened by explosions, sometimes making him unrecognizable even to his own parents.

Even as he became more skilled in alchemy later on, there were still times when explosions occurred. Therefore, this explosion didn't bother Xiao Qingyang or dent his confidence. Instead, it motivated him even more even though  there was no professional alchemical equipment in this place and had many things that were absent in his previous world, such as a combustion device that could control temperature.

Controlling fire temperature was crucial in both alchemy and pill refinement. It was also one of the most challenging steps. Yet, in this world, it seemed effortlessly resolved, like a godsend for alchemists and pill refiners.

Hearing this, the old butler glanced into the room and indeed found numerous broken bottles and jars. However, most of them were now in pieces.

"It's too dangerous here. Young master, please leave first. I will clean up," the old butler said with concern.

Xiao Qingyang touched his nose, aware that he had worried the old butler. He didn't refuse the suggestion and pondered on which step he had done wrong, leading to the explosion.

The potion he was attempting to make was called the Gradeless Healing Potion. The ingredients used were the lowest-grade and most common spirit plants, resulting in a very poor healing effect. It could barely accelerate the healing of small centimeter-sized wounds, failing to even reach the primary level. It could only be considered as gradeless.

The value of such a potion lay in allowing novice alchemists to practice and boost their confidence. Apart from that, few people would be willing to spend money on purchasing these ungraded potions.

The steps for making ungraded potions were relatively simple, which was why Xiao Qingyang chose it as his first practice potion. However, he didn't anticipate it to fail.

He diligently followed the strict steps provided on the Star Network, with the only difference being that alchemists on the Star Network used spiritual power, while he used magic power.

He noticed that the process of potion-making in this era was somewhat similar to alchemy, albeit with relatively crude refining methods. The main distinction was the use of spiritual power and magic power.

As Xiao Qingyang lacked spiritual power, he had no means of comparing or understanding the differences and possible connections between spiritual power and magic power. His only option was to conduct more experiments.

The old butler efficiently cleaned up the room, restoring it to its previous state before the explosion.

To prevent the old butler from being startled by another explosion later, Xiao Qingyang decided to give an early warning. "Grandpa Du, I want to make something, but I'm not very confident. There might be another explosion, but it won't be dangerous. Please don't worry."

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Chapter 10: Healing Potion

"What do you want to do, Young Master? Let me help you," the old butler said, still clearly uneasy.

"Grandpa Du, really, it's okay. I'll show it to you first when I make it, okay?" Xiao Qingyang said, acting a bit spoiled.

The old butler was taken aback. It had been a long time since he had seen the young master act this way towards him. The person in front of him seemed to overlap with the lively and adorable young master from his childhood, causing his eyes to moisten slightly. He nodded repeatedly and said, "Okay, okay."

After coaxing the old butler away, Xiao Qingyang tidied up and retrieved a set of glass equipment, preparing for his second attempt.

Since he wasn't sure about the difference between spiritual power and magic power, Xiao Qingyang was extra careful this time while making the potion. However, despite his efforts, he still...failed.

"The dosage is correct, the steps are correct, why did it still fail? Can't magic power really replace spiritual power?" Xiao Qingyang muttered to himself, reflecting on his failed experience.

He made five or six more attempts afterward, but they all ended in failure without exception.

"Is it because my equipment is too crude?" Xiao Qingyang finally looked at the shattered glass pieces on the ground and said helplessly.

The equipment he had made was based on alchemy equipment, relatively simple, but given his current situation, he couldn't afford to customize professional alchemy equipment.

According to the healing potion recipe in this world, using alchemy to make potions was obviously not feasible. If he could make the healing potion according to their alchemy recipe, maybe he would succeed.

However, some of the spirit plants required for the healing potion in alchemy were still missing, and he hadn't found suitable substitutes for them. There were similar spirit plants with similar effects, but he didn't know if they could be used as replacements.

"I don't care anymore. It's all failure anyway, so let's give it a try first," Xiao Qingyang encouraged himself inwardly.

Subsequently, Xiao Qingyang reorganized the required spirit plants in the order specified by the healing potion recipe in alchemy and found alternative spirit plants, starting a new attempt.

This attempt took an entire night, accompanied by frequent sounds of explosions. Fortunately, there were only him and the old butler within a hundred miles, or else the sound of "firecrackers" going off from time to time would have surely attracted neighbors to come and complain.

As luck would have it, after trying more than a hundred times, Xiao Qingyang finally managed to concoct the new healing potion recipe.

This healing potion recipe differed from both the healing potion recipes in this world and the healing potion recipe in alchemy. It was a combination of spirit plants and refining methods from two different worlds.

Gazing at the orange-yellow potion in the medicine bottle, Xiao Qingyang, who hadn't slept all night, felt refreshed and as if he could fight another three hundred rounds!

"I did it, I finally did it! Haha... I truly am a genius," Xiao Qingyang proclaimed, quite self-obsessed.

However, he didn't know the effectiveness of this new type of healing potion. It would be great if someone or some animal could try it out for him.

On this planet, superhumans could transform into beasts, and the healing potion was effective for both humans and wild animals.

Apart from him and Grandpa Du, there was no third person on this planet. If he wanted to test the effectiveness of the healing potion, he could only find an injured animal.

"Grandpa Du, I'm going out for a bit. I'll be back soon." Xiao Qingyang quickly left the residence with the healing potion and headed towards Forest Number One.