Anyway, the second oddest plant was the Bitter Root of Thwarted Arrogance. This spiritual plant looked a lot like a white carrot morphed into the form of a ‘beautiful’ arrogant face (it was still a plant so don’t expect much). A face that was filled with bitter regret. There was a whole mythology around this plant as well, but it was a bit long so the TL;DR of it was... A white carrot was stuffed with the divinely punished soul of an arrogant young master.

I didn’t believe it was true myself, but if it was... then I certainly did my part in helping the soul receive its punishment and reincarnate faster.

But what was important about this spiritual plant in this recipe was that it had the weird ability to shrink volatile reactions while having the solution keep its potency. Almost as if the soul of the bitterly regretful young master was trying to at least stop one thing from getting out of hand... But that was just a fanciful thought.

It was just a root. A weird root, but still just a root.

And since it was such a useful plant, it needed to go in when the reaction neared its worst but before it actually blew. This would be a quarter away from the last plant I’d add.

Now that I was done mentally going through the steps, and ensuring that I had everything ready I stood and began prepping the plants I could ahead of time.

I first scanned each one. There was a fantastic-looking Vibrant Dual Serpent Weed, that I had really lucked out on. And that Scalding Yang Fire Peony needed a little extra work to get it ready, but it would still do...

Oh, shit!

That was not a Fire Poisoned Stinging Lily.

It was in my box filled with them, and even looked like one, but it was definitely not one. It had an extra line of fiery orange on its petals.

This was a Yang Fire Infused Stinging Lily.

If I had used this, even with my skills, poor Old Smokey would have been blasted into detritus. But what was insidious about this little herb, was that, not only was it extremely volatile, it was stealthily volatile. It built up and compressed its energy, hiding until it was too late to do anything about it.

This Yang Fire Infused Stinging Lily, while definitely of the same family as the Poisoned version, was only given to alchemists at the middle of Golden Core or above because of the danger involved.

It was a good thing that it was placed in my box instead of one of these young alchemists who might not notice a single extra line on a lily.

I took out the correct flower and set the box aside so I could explain the mistake to the employee when they came round to pick up the boxes. Then I finished my scan of the plants and began the hard work of prepping them.

For this round, that entailed, cutting off useless extras, twisting a blade of grass into a knot, and weirdly breathing on the roots of a flower before slicing them off. Frustratingly, even though I researched it, I didn’t know why that last one had to be done that way, I just know it worked.

Then I turned up the heat and added the Frozen Yin Ice Grass. Old Smokey shuddered on his three legs. At this point, I was positive that if I hadn’t taken the time to repair him, then I’d already be down a cauldron.

Since I knew that grass wouldn’t melt without a paired herb, I threw in the Fire Poisoned Stinging Lilly. The two herbs clashed but they both melted like they were supposed to.

With the first hard step done, I counted breaths until the next one. After 24, I threw in the next flower then waited for 30 breaths, and threw in the next grass. The cauldron seemed to groan with the strain. Admittedly, it was difficult to keep everything together at my low cultivation level, but I managed it.

When I reached a little over halfway through the recipe, vibrations rocked the room.

That... was not supposed to happen. I spread an unobtrusive divine sense out beyond my isolation barrier.

Someone’s cauldron exploded? Ah, poor kid. But the others wouldn’t be affected by a little explosion like that.