With Ophelia's help, Klein's experiment went smoothly.
The windows of the third-floor laboratory were half-open, the afternoon breeze carrying the scent of freshly cut grass from the manor's lawn, rustling the manuscript pages on the table.
Klein freed one hand to pin down a corner of the paper while the other steadily held a distillation flask, his eyes fixed on the changing liquid level, his blinking slowing down.
Ophelia stood to his right, responsible for controlling the heat of the alchemical furnace.
Calling it "control" was actually an understatement. An alchemical furnace was different from a kitchen stove; adjusting the heat required precision down to the last tick of the dial, where a slight slip could ruin the entire batch of potion.
Back when Klein did experiments alone, switching between temperature control and distillation observation was enough to leave him frazzled. There was a specific chapter in alchemy textbooks titled "Why You Need a Reliable Assistant." He had thought it was an exaggeration when he was self-studying, but after doing it himself, he realized the chapter was actually quite understated.
So he had intended to give her a few instructions.
But when he turned his head, he saw that Ophelia had already steadily kept the heat right on the line he needed.
A knight having steady hands wasn't unusual.
What was unusual was that she had even mastered the rhythm of the temperature fluctuations.
Every time the furnace temperature was about to rise, she would preemptively reduce the heat by half a degree, timing it perfectly.
Ophelia hadn't even looked at the thermometer.
Klein raised an eyebrow, holding back from praising her.
Given her personality, if he praised her, she’d likely respond with a "What's so hard about this?" and continue with an expressionless face—all while her ears turned slightly red.
He had seen it a few times; it was quite amusing, but now wasn't the time to tease her.
“Pass me those two powders.”
Ophelia leaned over to pick up the powder jars from the workbench. The lab bench wasn't wide; as she turned, her shoulder brushed against Klein’s arm, creating a light breeze.
Klein didn't move, only shifting the distillation flask half an inch toward himself to give her room to turn.
Two small porcelain jars were handed to him, positioned and angled perfectly—right within reach of his right hand, mouths facing him, lids already loosened.
Klein glanced at the arrangement of the jars but said nothing.
But he noticed.
This was the herbal powder Lyra had processed. He pinched a bit of the moonseed flower powder and rubbed it between his fingertips; it felt delicate and was ground evenly, quite usable.
Then he looked at the soul-quieting grass powder; the color was pure, without any impurities from stems or roots, clearly sorted with care.
“Good job,” Klein said, referring to Lyra.
“She’s a fast learner,” Ophelia added. Her tone was flat, but being willing to speak well of someone was an attitude in itself.
Klein poured the two powders into the distillation flask according to the ratio and stirred slowly with a glass rod.
A faint azure glow rippled across the liquid surface—a normal reaction of the weak magic residue in the moonseed flower powder precipitating under high heat.
This glow was known in alchemy as the "dissolution resonance," a key indicator for judging the quality of the potion base—the more uniform the glow, the more complete the dissolution.
He stared at the diffusion speed of the glow, muttering calculations for the dissolution time.
“A bit to the left,” Ophelia suddenly spoke.
Klein blinked. “What?”
“Your stirring center is off. There’s sediment on the bottom right that hasn't dissolved.”
Klein looked down—the flask wall was frosted, making it impossible for him to see the bottom from his angle.
He skeptically adjusted his stirring direction, and sure enough, the glass rod bumped into a small clump of undissolved powder at the bottom right.
“...How did you see that?”
“The glow refracted by the flask wall is uneven. The right side is a shade darker than the left.”
Klein stared at the frosted glass for three seconds before giving up.
With the naked eye, he couldn't see anything. The frosted surface itself scattered the light, and with the interference from the furnace fire, he couldn't even distinguish how many layers the glow had.
“A shade?” he repeated, mulling over the word. “You can distinguish the shade differences in alchemical glows with your naked eye?”
Seeing his expression, Ophelia paused. “Is that not normal?”
She was genuinely asking.
Klein opened his mouth, then closed it.
He turned to look at the crystal spectroscopic prism on the workbench used specifically for spectrum analysis.
Then he looked back at his—matter-of-fact—wife.
Fine.
Even without using battle qi to enhance her vision, the precision of her eyes could rival alchemical instruments. He had witnessed it for himself today.
“Those eyes of yours,” Klein tapped the distillation flask with the glass rod, sighing in admiration. “If you had been born twenty years earlier, the optics department of the alchemy academy would have been fighting to offer you a professorship.”
“Is it that impressive?”
“Yes, very,” Klein looked into her golden eyes, his tone devoid of any jest. “Most alchemists can’t reach your level in an entire lifetime.”
A brief silence followed.
Ophelia looked away.
The wind from the window happened to blow in, lifting a strand of golden hair by her ear. As the strand brushed against her earlobe, Klein caught a glimpse of her ears turning a faint shade of pink.
He didn't press further and refocused on the experiment.
But he couldn't quite hide his smile, so he lowered his head, letting the steam from the flask mask his expression.
The potion gradually cleared. After the azure glow dissipated, the liquid in the flask took on a transparent amber hue.
Klein turned off the alchemical furnace.
Just as he picked up a silver needle to perform the final test, Ophelia tilted her head slightly.
“The color changed,” she said.
“Hmm?” Klein looked down—the amber liquid looked exactly as expected, with no abnormalities. “Where did it change?”
“The bottom left. Near the base.” Ophelia’s golden eyes narrowed slightly. “There’s a hint of... a very faint blue.”
Klein frowned. He leaned close to the flask wall and looked for a long time but saw nothing. However, he had learned his lesson and no longer doubted his wife's eyes.
He took the crystal spectroscopic prism from the workbench and adjusted the focus on the bottom of the flask.
In the spectrum refracted by the prism, there was indeed a very thin, abnormal peak in the blue wavelength.
Klein fell silent for two seconds.
“What is it?” Ophelia asked.
“A deep extract of soul-quieting grass.” Klein’s expression shifted from surprise to contemplation. “Normally, this component would be completely decomposed during the high-temperature phase. For it to remain means...”
He paused, his gaze landing on Ophelia’s hand that had controlled the furnace—her right hand.
“Means what?”
“It means your temperature control was too precise.” Klein set down the prism, a meaningful smile playing on his lips. “Precise enough to perfectly preserve a trace component that is usually destroyed by excessive heat.”
He picked up a charcoal pencil and quickly wrote a line in the margin of the manuscript, then crossed it out and wrote it again.
“If this component can be stably preserved...” he muttered to himself. “It should be even more effective at suppressing Karen’s hallucinations. But that’s only if this temperature curve can be replicated every time.”
He turned to look at Ophelia.
Ophelia looked back at him, her expression as calm as ever.
“Are you saying,” she said calmly, “that from now on, every time you do an experiment, I have to be here to mind the fire?”
Klein blinked and gave a perfectly justified smile. “I think that is a very reasonable request.”
“...”
Ophelia didn't respond. But she didn't refuse either.
Understanding her silence, Klein lowered his head to continue the testing. He picked up a hollow silver needle, took a drop from the flask, and placed it on the test paper.
Three concentric rings slowly appeared on the edge of the paper—half a ring more than the standard product, and that half-ring was a very faint blue.
“It’s done.” He straightened his back and stretched his stiff neck. “The base liquid is fine, and it’s even half a grade better than expected. All that’s left is bottling and secondary purification, but there's no rush for that. We'll wait for it to cool naturally.”
He casually placed the silver needle in the cleaning basin and turned to Ophelia.
“Thanks for the hard work. You were a huge help.”
“I didn't do anything but adjust the fire.”
“Adjusting the fire is the most critical step,” Klein corrected her earnestly. “Sixty percent of failures in alchemy are due to heat control. If you had been my partner sooner, I could have saved at least half the materials I wasted over the last two years.”
He thought for a moment and added, “No, probably more than half.”
Ophelia glanced at him, seemingly wanting to say "You don't need to exaggerate," but in the end, her lips only twitched slightly, and she said nothing.
The faint herbal fragrance from the cooling amber potion drifted through the laboratory, mixing with the scent of grass from outside, creating a soothing atmosphere.
Klein leaned against the workbench and began reorganizing the manuscripts that had been scattered by the wind. He flipped to one page and added a few lines of notes in the corner regarding the dissolution temperature and optimal ratio for the moonseed flower powder.
Halfway through, he paused to think and added a small line of text next to it:
“Grinding standard for soul-quieting grass—refer to Lyra’s current batch.”
Then he started a new line below:
“Temperature control conditions—requires Ophelia’s assistance. No alternative solution.”
After writing this, he looked at it and felt that the words "No alternative solution" were a bit too businesslike.
So he crossed out the word "temporary."
Ophelia leaned over to take a look.
Her gaze first fell on the line about Lyra, lingering for two seconds. Then it moved to the line below and stayed there for another two.
“...‘No alternative solution’?” she read aloud, her tone so flat it didn't sound like a question.
“Just stating the facts,” Klein replied without looking up.
“Those things just now... Klein, you could have done them using magic, right?”
Ophelia asked.
“Ophelia.”
“Yes?”
“Sometimes, seeing through someone isn't necessarily a good thing.”
Klein chuckled.
The sound of clattering dishes came from downstairs; it seemed Raymond had already prepared dinner.
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