Chapter 16: is incomprehensible, but it equals 2.7.

The Alchemical Workshop, as the name suggested, was a place where alchemists worked. It contained the most basic equipment to allow alchemists to refine potions more conveniently.

In this era, the refinement of alchemical potions pursued precision. It was not something that could be achieved through vague, intuitive operations like “I think,” “by feel,” “appropriate amount,” or “just a little.”

Precise ingredient ratios, strict temperature control, and various complicated extraction steps all served one goal: standardization of the potion so that it could be faithfully reproduced afterward.

Only alchemical potions that could be reproduced could truly be called potions.

Those that could not be reproduced could only be called miracles.

Building a workshop was extremely expensive, and maintaining one was equally costly. For an ordinary alchemist to own some professional instruments was already impressive. Owning a personal alchemical workshop would qualify one as the founding ancestor of an entire alchemical school.

Therefore, alchemists generally did not speak of which school they belonged to. They only said they were from a certain workshop.

When Shu Yue was first led inside, she looked at the equipment with eyes full of envy.

The things her bald-headed master had were all antiques. Many measuring tools had obvious deviations, and he relied entirely on his own senses. Whether adding a little more or a little less would succeed depended entirely on miracles.

As a wild alchemist, Shu Yue really liked this professional atmosphere.

This was what you called professional!

She turned to the people carrying the dragon blood and pointed to a spot.
“Alright, just put them all here. You may leave.”

After setting the containers down, although they were curious, none of them dared to ask questions. They left the workshop in silence.

Shu Yue closed the heavy iron door. Now she was alone inside. She could do whatever she wanted.

Although the workshop provided by the Guild was definitely not top-tier and the space wasn’t particularly large, the alchemical instruments were of decent quality. They were still basic tools, without any particularly high-end equipment. Shu Yue had heard that this world had devices similar to centrifuges, but she had no need for them here.

Her alchemy was very simple: throw things into the fire and burn them, and what she wanted would come out.

The Guild probably wouldn’t install surveillance devices inside the workshops, but to be safe, Shu Yue still checked carefully. After confirming there were none, she turned her gaze toward the batch of fresh red blood contained in rows of glass test tubes. The giant dragon bloodline within was stirring her desire.

Right now, a strong urge to devour it flooded her mind. Fortunately, she could still control it.

Sub-dragon magical beasts were different. They attacked and devoured each other to seize one another’s power. This was the desire for aggregation originating from the giant dragon bloodline. After countless years of inheritance, it had been engraved into their genetic instincts. That was why sub-dragons were always powerful and violent.

Looking at it this way, dragon blood was indeed more tempting to Shu Yue than Winnesa.

Besides, if Shu Yue wanted to look at a pretty little sister, she could activate her bloodline power, transform into her dragon maiden form, and look at herself in the mirror however she wanted. She could even touch herself freely!

Could Winnesa do that?

Seeing the several baskets of dragon blood, Shu Yue’s mood improved greatly. This was much faster than hunting sub-dragons outside. Although it cost quite a bit, it was all Lia White’s money anyway. She couldn’t take that much with her when she ran, so she might as well spend it to turn it into her own power.

To be safe, she first activated a layer of Veil. This was one of her applications of alchemy.

The Quenching Star Art was extremely practical. Although a single item could only produce one trait, it was enough for Shu Yue to treat alchemical potions like skills. She could refine spells and fuse them with liquid, temporarily storing a spell skill. When needed, she only had to break the bottle’s seal.

Veil was a spell skill that concealed prying eyes. It was one of the techniques Anna cultivated.

After the hazy black curtain covered everything, Shu Yue took a deep breath and extended her palm toward the dragon blood. These had already undergone the first purification, so their purity was more than double that of raw blood. It was like moving the decimal point forward, an enormous improvement.

“Fire Calling Art, Ignite… Quenching Star Art.”

A fireball the size of a chicken egg ignited in front of Shu Yue’s palm. The orange-red flames constantly shifted shape, emitting light and heat. The moment she uttered the words “Quenching Star Art”…

The originally orange-red flames instantly transformed into a bright yet non-blinding silver glow.

Every time she saw this conversion, Shu Yue felt amazed. The name Quenching Star Art came from the Heavenly Book Slate. She didn’t fully understand its meaning, but she had some vague guesses.

Back on Earth, she knew that true alchemy in the real world involved supernova explosions or neutron star collisions, using terrifying energy to forcibly fuse heavy metals like gold.

Artificially creating gold in a laboratory required enormous energy to produce just a tiny amount. The cost and return were completely disproportionate.

Could the Quenching Star Art be on that level?

Perhaps it really was possible…

Shu Yue pushed the silver fireball in her hand toward the dragon blood. The moment the fireball touched the baskets, it adhered to them and spread rapidly, burning the baskets, glass test tubes, and dragon blood together.

Under the silver flames, there was no residue, only one hundred percent pure extract. This was the first part of the Quenching Star Art. The later parts on the Heavenly Book Slate were missing, so Shu Yue didn’t know the specifics.

But even just this first part was already a dream technique that all alchemists longed for.

One hundred percent pure extraction — something that only existed in theory!

Yet Shu Yue had achieved it with the Quenching Star Art. She actually didn’t feel much about it and even thought it was normal. After all, she had always been able to do it, unlike others who would find it impossible.

The silver flames directly burned away the baskets, then the glass test tubes. The dragon blood gathered at the center of the fireball.

Shu Yue had already begun controlling the flames with both hands. Her expression had never been more serious.

Her spirituality was draining rapidly!

Spirituality was the term for soul energy. People used it to drive mana, which showed how important it was. The Quenching Star Art consumed an enormous amount of spirituality. The higher the entropy of the thing being refined, the greater the spirituality Shu Yue had to expend. Fortunately, like mana, it was recoverable.

Fine beads of sweat had already appeared on Shu Yue’s smooth forehead, wetting her bangs and sticking them to her skin.

She desperately maintained the Quenching Star Art, afraid that failing to refine the dragon blood would ruin everything.

Watching the silver fireball shrink from the size of a large water vat to a washbasin, then from a washbasin to the size of an apple, she had already used up half her spirituality, and then another half of what remained.

Yet the dragon blood still wasn’t fully refined. Shu Yue could not relax.

She looked at the gradually shrinking silver fireball and the red blood continuously diminishing within it. She couldn’t help but smile bitterly.
“I got a bit greedy this time. Feels like I’m about to be squeezed dry…”

From apple-sized to chicken-egg-sized, then to pigeon-egg-sized, and finally to the size of a bean.

The color of the blood also changed from red to gold, and it emitted a strange, oppressive aura that made ordinary mortals feel fear and caused the bloodline within Shu Yue to stir restlessly.

The refinement was complete…

Shu Yue’s spirituality was left with only one-tenth. Her head felt extremely heavy, with a dull pain throbbing inside.

It was probably similar to staying up for two full days without sleep — dizzy and eyes swollen.

She quickly took out a small bottle she had prepared earlier. Inside was a tube of transparent liquid. She caught the bean-sized blood bead. After entering the liquid, the bead did not disperse and remained clumped together.

She sealed the bottle, held it in her hand, and felt how heavy this tiny bottle of medicine was. She really wanted to drink it right now and let the giant dragon blood fuse with her own bloodline, but reason stopped her hand. If she drank it now, her bloodline would definitely be activated.

It would take Shu Yue at least twelve hours to revert from her dragon maiden form. She couldn’t stay here for twelve hours. People outside would think something had happened to her. If they opened the door and found that the person who went in was Lia White but what came out was a silver-haired, golden-eyed otherworldly being…

Shu Yue would have no way to explain. This was the Alchemists Guild. She wouldn’t even have a chance to escape before being pinned down by the powerful experts stationed here and sent off to be dissected for research.

Having her blood drawn and scales pulled would be considered light. They would rip out her bones and dig out her heart…

Only alchemists understood the cruelty of alchemists!

Shu Yue endured the urge to swallow it and tucked the item into the small hidden satchel inside her clothes. This was one of the few legacies left by her bald-headed master — a small bag with its own space that could store many things far larger than its appearance. It was made from the stomach pouch of some magical beast.

After finishing all this, she found a spot to lie down for a while and waited for her spirituality to recover naturally.

Recovering spirituality took time. Unlike mana, it could not be quickly replenished with medicine. After all, this concerned the soul, and the soul was usually the most fragile part of a person. The body could still be healed after injury, but if the brain was damaged, one would become an idiot!

Despite being extremely exhausted, Shu Yue was still very happy.

“It looks like this clump of dragon blood is about 0.07 milliliters, roughly one and a half drops. I’ll absorb it tonight when I get back. It should push my physique to the peak of first-tier combat power. If I liberate my bloodline power and transform into dragon maiden form, I might even reach second-tier combat power…”

The concepts of first-tier and second-tier were a bit hard to understand, but there was a simple formula that made it very clear.

If an ordinary person was counted as 1, then an entry-level apprentice equaled 1 + 2.7. Novice and formal apprentices each added another 2.7 on top of the previous level. In other words, a formal apprentice was roughly equal to nine ordinary people.

But after the apprentice level, everything changed. First-tier equaled 9 × 2.7, and second-tier was 9 × 2.7 × 2.7.

As for third-tier combat power, Shu Yue had never seen it yet.

However, she was certain that third-tier was fundamentally different from second-tier and could not be calculated with a simple formula.

Why 2.7 exactly?

Shu Yue didn’t know either, but the number was 2.7…