Vampire's Slice of Life

Drip.

A drop of sweat trickled down Liz's cute face and dropped on the ground.

The room had an orange tinge to it as flames erupted from the furnaces and reached all the way up towards the open ceiling.

Lith's expression was tense as his hands worked to stir two giant pots above the furnaces. An extra pair of invisible arms held materials beside him and moved at his discretion.

Giving Liz such a big handicap was taking a toll on him. He had no experience in alchemy and was currently making the pills based on the instructions provided.

Proper precision and timing was required to create these pills and even milliseconds delay could lead to the destruction of the pill.

Taking on such an arduous task was not on Lith's agenda today, but here he was.

'Just a bit more… hold it a bit more…'

Lith was sweating as he held a stalk of runny grass in his real left hand and stirred the pot.

Runny grass, as the name read, was literally grass that was trying to run, escape, vanish. It took a lot of strength to hold it still and use it to stir the contents within the pot.

The stalk of grass was living and felt pain. It was the main ingredient used to make a low level [Soul Cleanser] pill.

The pill was used to cleanse all the damages done on the soul. Since it was of a low level, it would only be able to take away minor cuts on the soul.

While it sounded cruel for the grass, there was nothing that could be done about it. The strong devoured the weak and that's how the food chain usually worked.

Normally, plants did not have pain receptors and weren't in a proper living state like animals or sentient beings. One would thus not feel anything while cutting them down, but what reaction the runny grass stalk was showing was what other plants would show if they were given pain receptors and the ability to scream.

Trying his best to ignore the stalk, Lith stirred the pot vigorously.

Two seconds later, it was time to add the white lotus root.

Lith willed the invisible hand holding the lotus root to throw it in the pot. It did as asked and…

POOF!

A puff of smoke arose. It was white initially, then turned charred black.

"Cough! Cough!" Lith let out fits of dry coughs as the smoke burnt his nose and back of his throat.

"Shit… cough!"

Lith exclaimed as he saw the pot. It was a failure again.

This was the second time he had failed in making the [Soul Cleanser] pill.

'Where am I messing up?' Lith thought to himself while throwing away the pot and adding a new one in its place with fresh ingredients.

The runny grass had withered out in his hands. He had to hold a new stalk and try again.

'Such a hassle!'

Even a genius like Lith messed up. Despite having infinite potential, it required time, effort, and energy to reach the peak states of mastery in different fields.

Alchemy was the easiest to start in but the most difficult field to become a master in.

Lith was supposed to make four pills and he succeeded in one of them, but three were still left. He had messed up four times by now in making those three pills.

If he did not hurry, Lizbeth would finish making the [Smooth Foot] pill. The embarrassment he would suffer then would be way more as he would be seen as someone who's all talk and no substance.

'Where am I going wrong? Hurry… find the issue…'

Lith's eyes glowed a bright purple as he channeled his spiritual power into them to see better.

His brain worked in full capacity and with the help of thoughts acceleration spell, a thousand thoughts were going on his brain in the span of a second.

On the other side, Lizbeth was taking her time to make the pill. Not because of pity for Lith, but due to the amazing ingredients and recipe she was getting to work with.

There was a shard of glass in her hand that she was examining. It wasn't glass, it was a living algal creature that grew under the clear blue sky during warm summers of the Elven Continent.

Being dirt poor, Lizbeth had no way of coming across such materials. Even getting to look at them was a luxury as she didn't even have time to go to the major market places and see them.

This shard was the main ingredient of the [Smooth Foot] pill. It worked in stripping off the groovy prints on the bottom of the feet, making them smooth as silk.

"And this one here… it'll help even the ground! So amazing!"

Lizbeth said as she looked at a prickly black ball that looked like a sea urchin.

This was the carcass of a porcupine species found in the deserts of the Werewolf Continent.

Lizbeth had read about it in a book. To think that there would come a day when she would be able to hold it…

'Oof… is this heaven?'

Lizbeth was in bliss.

She knew she had to make the pill but the materials here were too amazing for her to ignore. They would turn into a small pill in a bit so she was taking her sweet time examining them.

On the other side…

Boom! Boom! Boom!

"Why are there explosions!? There wasn't even any heat used!" Lith exclaimed while looking at a pot on his left side and stirring on the runny grass in a pot on the other side.

Lith kicked the pot away that had explosions occur in it and made a fresh one appear with the snap of his finger.

"Water from the Treant Ocean's bottom… cloud dust from the skies of the Demon Continent… flames of the burning hedgehog…"

Lith repeated as he added the materials in the new pot.

"…wait, flames?" He suddenly realized the problem.

"Wasn't this supposed to be extinguished flames? Wait… is extinguished flames even flames at that point? What the fuck…"

Things were getting confusing and it was everything was starting to become a mess.

Even with his brain working at full capacity, Lith couldn't avoid some errors.

"Fuck it! I'll make the pills one by one!" Lith kicked the pot away once again.

Instead of making his attention split to make four pills, it was best if he focused on one pill at a time. If he couldn't finish making them before Lizbeth, then so be it. At least he tried!

Lizbeth was a genius with years of experience under her belt. She was destined to become a great alchemy master, and now that she was with Lith, she was destined to be the greatest alchemy master out there! Losing to her won't be as bad.

'Still, I have no plans on losing to her right now.'

With such a thought, Lith went all out to make the [Soul Cleanser] pill. This time he gave it his complete attention.

On the sidelines, spectating Lith and Liz, Meryl, who was standing beside Fei in her humanoid form, commented,

"One is joyfully looking at the materials while the other is stressing. What a contrast. Right, Master?"

"Yes." Fei replied. "If Master messes up a few more times, he won't be able to beat Liz."

"You two, no need to be on the edge so much. Come have tea and relax yourself. He won't cheat." Lilith said softly from the side, seated around a round table.

She had called Qingyue to arrange for the table and tea so that she could watch Lith comfortably.

Fei gave her a small bow and accepted the offer. She gestured to Meryl to do the same, who did so without hesitation.

"Bitter or sweet?" Qingyue asked the two as they sat down.

"Sweet," Meryl replied.

"Bitter," said Fei.

"…" Meryl blinked with a worried expression, then shook her head and said, "I'll take bitter too."

Fei raised her eyebrow and looked at her, but then shook her head and focused on the tea.

Meryl took a sip of the bitter tea and immediately made a disgusted expression.

'Why is this so bad!?' She questioned and turned to look at her Master to see how she could even drink this.

Fei had a calm expression on her face as if she wasn't drinking bitter tea but hot water.

Meryl's eyebrow twitched and she then turned to look at Lilith.

Lilith looked back at her and smiled softly, making her heart skip a beat.

'She…'

Meryl looked away, then back at her black-colored tea.

'…she really is beautiful.'

As this thought crossed her mind, Meryl suddenly realized, 'Huh? Wait a second… why did I not feel any bad energy from her?'

Meryl looked back up at Lilith. The latter was watching her son start to gain an upper hand in the duel.

'How…' Meryl had a thought. 'How is she radiating even more than Master? Isn't she a Vampire? Haven't Vampires killed people?'

Lilith seemed even better than Fei, who had apparently never killed anyone. Such tremendous amounts of positive energy was not something a Vampire could radiate.

Then how come… how come Lilith was letting out just that?

'An illusion? A trick? What is happening…'

"Stop staring like that. It's rude." Fei gently slapped Meryl's thigh and said, breaking her out of her stupor.

"Sorry…"

Meryl went back to staring at the tea and pondered over how such a thing could be possible.

Meanwhile, on the other side…

"Aha! The [Soul Cleanser] pill is made! Just two more to go now!"

Lith exclaimed joyfully and kicked the pot away, holding a transparent pill with greenish dust within it.

"It's now time to make the [Cell Degeneration] pill!"

Lith said and put the transparent pill away, bringing in another pot on the furnace.

"I've failed making this six times by now."

Lith poured in the water from the Treant ocean again in it and the other materials one by one.

"With the experience from six failures and the successful concoction of the [Soul Cleanser] pill, I shouldn't mess up this time around."

Lith was brimming with confidence and threw in all the materials in the pot once again, then began stirring them.

A few seconds later.

Sizzle…

"Sniff… sniff… why is there a burning sme—"

BOOM!