An oil lamp cast flickering shadows across the modest alchemy room.
The bitter smell of scorched medicinal herbs lingered in the air, a stench that had refused to fade for years—the smell of failure.
Lin Yue sat before the cracked medicinal cauldron, his eyes bloodshot.
All his savings, all his hopes of advancing to a Third-Rank Alchemist, had now been reduced to the tiny crystal bottle on the table.
Inside it, a deep-yellow flame the size of a fist hovered quietly.
"Frauds... Everyone says the Yan Mansion are frauds..."
"But I... have no way back anymore!"
A reckless thought overrode all reason.
Lin Yue gritted his teeth and carefully poured the "High-Grade Beast Fire," priced at one hundred thousand gold coins, from the bottle into the medicinal cauldron.
Hum!
The flame surged upward.
It wasn't violent or difficult to control, as he had expected.
The moment the deep-yellow flame touched his spiritual power, it became as docile as a thoroughly tamed lamb, without the slightest resistance or rejection.
The flame's core was as steady as a boulder.
Its heat was perfectly contained within the cauldron, not a trace escaping.
Lin Yue froze.
He had tried refining Beast Flame more than ten times. Every attempt was like trying to ride a wild horse that had bolted; the violent energy drained his spiritual power until barely any remained, and the slightest mistake would end with an exploding cauldron.
But this flame before him...
It... it was so obedient!
An unprecedented sense of absolute control over the flame, as if it were an extension of his own arm, flowed through the link with his spiritual power and into every part of his body.
Lin Yue's heart began to pound uncontrollably.
With trembling hands, he dropped the medicinal ingredients he had prepared one by