*THUD!*
Huang Zihuan set both of them down on the beach not far from Bai Fanxian. Li Xinmei still looked regretful. For ordinary people, flying through the air was a dream almost everyone had at least once.
Even cultivators pushed themselves toward Grandmaster level partly for that: the experience of true, unrestrained flight.
"Leader, is it really impossible for me to cultivate?"
Chunfeng asked, trying to keep the hope out of his voice. His eyes were still on the cleared ground where Bai Fanxian had moved a forest in a few gestures.
"It's not that it's impossible."
She murmured. That alone was enough to bring him a step closer. "You're serious?"
"But I don't recommend it."
He went still. She continued: "Your body can still generate a qi core. But the meridians in your arms and legs are completely severed. Even if you force yourself to cultivate, I think the chances of success are less than minimal."
"..."
"So I'd point you toward something called magic instead. Which is why you came today, isn't it?"
"But magic is..." He couldn't honestly say he didn't believe in it. Chunfeng had worked in the government's special unit long enough to know something like this existed.
The difference between magic and qi, though, was that people who could genuinely use magic were nearly nonexistent. Not just in this country. Even if you searched the entire West, the odds of finding a real magic user were practically zero.
So he had heard of it. He had never encountered it.
"You know the military was holding someone at the Eastern Base."
Bai Fanxian was referring to Barbatos. Chunfeng knew about it, at least in broad terms.
"What you probably don't know is that I extracted mana from that man's body. And refined it into a type of elixir."
"...You what?"
Chunfeng stared at her. She stood there with the same expression she might use to describe what she had for breakfast, as if extracting mana from a person and turning it into medicine was a perfectly ordinary afternoon's work.
It occurred to him that he had forgotten her title. Because in all the time since they'd met, she hadn't done anything that matched it — not in front of him.
The Alchemy Empress.
Bai Fanxian's most remarkable quality had never been her appearance or her overwhelming power. It was this — the alchemical art that had made her name in the first place.
"Could I see it?"
The question was out before he thought about it. Then his expression shifted, because he realized what he had just casually done. In the alchemist world, a person's formulas and elixirs were guarded as carefully as their lives. Asking to see one this offhandedly could get you permanently cut off by some alchemists.
"Here."
She showed not the slightest offense. She simply tossed the pill to him without a second thought.
In his palm sat a clean white elixir pill with pale blue mana currents drifting around it, glittering faintly like a scattering of stars. He stared at it for about five seconds before he noticed everyone was looking at him.
"That's still an experimental version."
"...I see. That's a shame."
Chunfeng moved to hand it back. She didn't take it. Instead, she said the same thing again.
"That's still an experimental version..."
"Yes, I understood you the first time." He nodded slowly. But something was clicking into place as he caught the flat, patient stare Bai Fanxian had fixed on him — the look of someone waiting for the obvious to sink in.
Or was it —
"...You want me to be a test subject, don't you?"
"Those are your words."
She didn't confirm it. She didn't deny it either. Whether inviting Chunfeng to the island had, from the beginning, been partly about testing this newly refined elixir. That was something only she knew.
"What does it do?"
He wasn't about to be swayed by how it looked. He kept his expression level and asked.
"Hard to say. Maybe it'll leave you unable to move for a few days..."
She shrugged as if the elixir was none of her concern. Then came the next sentence, and everyone on the island went wide-eyed.
"...Or maybe it'll let you use magic."
"..."
An elixir that let you use magic.
It sounded like something out of a story. But hearing it from the woman called the Alchemy Empress, it felt, somehow, entirely believable.
"Chief..."
Li Xinmei had a feeling her chief was about to walk into something. That strange glowing pill did not look like something safe to eat.
"Understood."
Chunfeng took a breath, nodded once, and swallowed the pill without hesitation. Even Bai Fanxian looked faintly surprised at how quickly he had decided.
The moment it went down, heat came surging up from somewhere deep in his stomach. His abdomen felt like it was on fire. Sweat broke out across his face in large drops. It was like he had swallowed a ball of molten iron.
"...Urk—!"
He had endured more pain than most people could imagine. Losing all four limbs had not broken him. But the heat that felt like it was tearing him apart from the inside made him retch anyway.
"Chief!"
Li Xinmei rushed forward. The moment she got close, she could feel something scorching radiating from his body even through her own skin.
Chunfeng was like a sun on the verge of going nova. The energy around him turned volatile. The air warped. He dropped to his knees, head bowed, breathing in ragged pulls.
*HISSSSS...*
His mechanical arms and legs, meeting sudden extreme heat, began to overheat. The cooling systems kicked in audibly. White smoke poured steadily from both his elbows.
"...My lady."
Huang Zihuan looked uneasy. He turned to Bai Fanxian, who stood watching in complete calm, as though this were proceeding exactly as expected.
She hasn't moved. So it must be fine.
That conclusion was enough. The elderly butler reached out and gently lifted Li Xinmei away from Chunfeng — whose condition was becoming dangerous to anyone nearby.
"Is he going to be alright?"
Li Xinmei was still frightened, but when she remembered what these two were capable of, she managed to steady herself. She turned back and asked with cautious hope.
"..."
Bai Fanxian didn't answer. Instead, she walked toward Chunfeng, who had begun to sink toward the ground. The strain visible on his face made it clear. Whatever was in this pill was not something to be taken lightly.
"Mm..."
She murmured, as if turning something over in her mind. Then her fingers rose and pressed gently to the center of his forehead.
A bright white light bloomed in the same instant. It expanded outward, enclosing his body in a luminous shell. Huang Zihuan, standing nearby, felt the pressure radiating from within like something vast pressing outward against its container.
"...!"
Through his connection to the Border, the old man could sense clearly what was building. He watched the white light shoot upward in a pillar toward the sky. From somewhere in the center of it, he heard a sound like something being unmade and reborn.
"HAAAH!"
The shout came up from deep in Chunfeng's chest and broke through the air.
Then silence. The white light began to scatter. It fractured like glass and came apart in glittering fragments that caught the sunlight as they fell.
Chunfeng stood at the center of it, eyes closed. Like the main character of a scene written specifically for him. The stillness in his expression said he was holding onto this moment for as long as it would last.
But then —
"...Chief?"
Li Xinmei noticed something wrong. More than two minutes had gone by. He still hadn't moved.
She stepped closer. Her hand reached out —
*THUD!*
Chunfeng fell backward, stiff as stone. His eyes had rolled back, barely open. A thin line of foam had appeared at the corner of his mouth.
"Chief!!"
"..."
Li Xinmei crouched beside him immediately, checking his condition with the conscientiousness of a good subordinate. Meanwhile, Huang Zihuan turned to look at his lady — who had somehow produced a notebook and pen from nowhere.
"...Mm. Sample one — failed."
Bai Fanxian made a note on the page with perfect composure, paying no attention to her butler's expression.
"My lady..."
Huang Zihuan smiled dryly. Something in her manner suggested she had already guessed it might go this way. She didn't look surprised. She looked exactly like someone whose suspicion had just been confirmed.
And then —
"Judging by his state, he should wake up in three days... Now, how do I coax him into taking sample two?"