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Luo Xiao focused on the process of merging the herbs. When it came to this specific paste, it was the Yin and Yang Bellis that held everything together, considering from the start it had always had the dual property. However, that did not mean it would have been easy, as much as he wished it would have been.

As his first attempt at merging started under the extremely watchful eye of Jiang Yao, Luo Xiao focused his spiritual energy even more in the space of the cauldron, gently, and carefully moving the droplets closer to each other.

From what he could tell from the instructions Overseer Zhu had given him, the young man had to merge the two contrasting extracts with the one with dual properties at the same time. When the two would come in contact with the Yin and Yang Bellis extract, their properties would equalize instead of self-destruct, which typically happened when novice alchemists first tried the merging process.

In other words, timing was the key, and Luo Xiao had to follow it to the dot.

That did not mean he was successful on the first try.

In fact, the exact opposite happened. At first, when he finally started merging the three different liquids together, he felt quite a lot of resistance. It turned out that the dual nature of the most crucial ingredient was actually mutually resisting the other two, instead of accepting them as he had expected. That in turn made him push them closer a bit more forcefully than he wanted.

The moment he felt the extracts touching each other, Luo Xiao realized it would fail, especially considering the concoction started heating up like crazy in the span of a millisecond. His eyes opened wide. He grabbed the lid of the cauldron and slammed it on top of the poor thing.

Bam! A soft explosion came from inside, shaking the whole cauldron. Even with Luo Xiao\'s hand holding the lid down, some foul smoke found its way to the outside.

"Ouch… How come the essence from flowers like these smells so bad?" He wondered out loud, clearly forgetting that Jiang Yao had been watching for the whole time with his usual smile plastered on his face.

"Well, the smoke coming from burning wood doesn\'t have a nice scent either, does it?"

The prince chuckled, startling Luo Xiao momentarily before the other frowned and turned around to raise his eyebrows at him. "At the very least, I\'m trying not to create smoke,unlike you."

The young man paused after saying those words, taking a moment to measure out whether or not to continue his sentence. Jiang Yao didn\'t need any confirmation to snicker at his lovely Xiaoxiao. He was truly growing to have a sharp tongue and a sharp mind, and it could be felt even in his non-aggressive remarks. The Seventh Prince chose not to say anything more as Luo Xiao\'s face slowly grew redder and redder, even if it amused him.

Noticing the sparkle in his lover\'s eyes, Luo Xiao huffed once before turning away, and once again pretending he didn\'t exist.

Frankly, to pretend that the infamous Seventh Prince wasn\'t in the room was harder than it looked. There was, however, a reason Luo Xiao had to do it - besides not admitting to what he hadn\'t said in that last remark of his.

To merge the liquids required extreme precision and concentration, and his blushed face at the moment was not a welcome addition. As much as Jiang Yao probably would have loved it to be.

In order to cool off, Luo Xiao worked on airing out the cauldron, and removing any leftover black sludge from the incinerated failure. Interestingly enough, when the plants themselves had burned out, they turned into simple ash and smoke. When it came to the extracts, they clearly had a far more potent effect, and as such, the toxic waste left was way worse. The poor cauldron lid was also affected, there was some of the sludge splattered on it as well.

It took him about ten minutes to thoroughly clean it out, and by then, thankfully, he had already stopped thinking about the prince behind him. His hands, once more, prepared the plants to refine them again, this time with a somewhat expertly feel. Not in the same manner as Overseer Zhu, but Luo Xiao was getting used to refining and preparing materials.

This time, the refinement took even less time than before, yet the merging process failed time and time again. He tried and failed at least a dozen of times, slowly running out of herbs, but improving and getting even more efficient than before with each attempt. However, every attempt resulted in a failure, no matter how precise he got the timing. It always ended up fizzling out during some part of the merging process, and exploding in black sludge.

It was on his fifteenth or sixteenth attempt that he finally managed to succeed. As the liquids finally combined at just the right time, the energies within them fizzed and mixed, aided by the Yin and Yang Bells extract, before finally balancing out completely and turning the liquid a dark deep green. Aided by Luo Xiao’s spiritual energy, it floated in the middle of the cauldron. After a moment of repause, which he used to take a long breath, he finally made it rise up above the cauldron, and then pour itself in a small crystal vial he took out of his storage bag.

“First success!” Luo Xiao smiled to himself as he looked at the green liquid. Although he could already notice impurities and defects in it; it was still a success. But it wasn’t a perfect one, and it only showed how much he still had to learn. Nobody was perfect on their first try, and Luo Xiao wasn’t either, but he wasn’t going to worry about that at the current moment.

By the time he had finally made his first Essence Gathering Liquid, at least ten hours had passed, and he felt exhausted from the concentration required. He wasn’t really in need of a sleep, since he could recover his energy just by meditating, but he could already feel Jiang Yao’s eyes on his back.

Luo Xiao finally stood up, putting the vial away, for now, before turning around to smile at Jiang Yao. The prince had, quite tellingly, laid himself out on the bed, obviously waiting for the younger man to join him for whatever was left of the night.

And that was what he did.