Rhea finally stopped laughing, seeing how serious Tristen was. Her brows furrowed in contemplation, wondering what's going on with Tristen, and finally decided to take a good look at the pill on his hands.
Before, she thought he was fooling her by showing her some dummy pill since she had never seen a pink-colored pill before.
However, when she inspected it, she felt a rich amount of medicinal aura emanating from it, proof that it was indeed a genuine pill with medicinal properties.
Still, she asked skeptically, "This pill...have you even tested it? What if it causes some unknown problems after I swallow this? What if it causes some side effects?"
Since the pill was related to beauty, Rhea was more concerned about its side effects. She knew that it was better not to take a pill made by a half-assed alchemist than take one from them.
She also never came upon a pill that could make one feel younger or more beautiful. If there was one such pill, all the women in the world would go crazy over it.
But now, here, her recently good-for-nothing son was able to pull out one from god knows where. How could she swallow it just like that without knowing anything about it?
"Then watch me take it," Saying this, Damien popped the pill into his mouth.
Rhea got anxious for a second, thinking that something bad might happen to Tristen because of his foolishness. However, seeing the confident smile on his face, which seemed different than his usual stupid smile, she decided to wait.
A few minutes passed, and to her astonishment, Tristen's skin seemed to have a charming glow that only increased his handsomeness.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})Not only that, there didn't seem to be any side effects, and he was completely alright, smiling at her face.
Since Tristen was already young, there was only so much the pill could do.
"This pill...it really works?" Rhea asked in pure astonishment and suddenly felt excited to take one.
Damien shook his head and said with a sigh, "You can't even put your faith in your own son? If you are really my mother, just take this pill instead of wasting time and see for yourself."
Feeling a bit provoked by his words, Rhea finally took another pink pill Tristen took out from his spatial ring.
She swallowed it, and after a few moments, she started to feel a cool sensation spreading from the inside of her body.
It seemed as if that cool sensation was covering her whole body and spreading all over her skin while giving off a pleasant and invigorating feeling inside her. She could feel the pores of her skin expanding while her body felt it was cleansing itself.
She felt as if she was aging backward. And when she took a look at her skin, she saw how her skin now had a radiant glow, making her skin look flawless.
All these sensations coupled together gave her a feeling as if she was in her twenties indeed. She now felt confident enough to stand out even among the young concubines of the emperor.
She looked at Tristen with a shocked expression and asked, "This...did you really concoct this pill?"
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})Damien shrugged, "Who else then? Do you think anyone else would give away such an amazing pill for free? It's because you are my mother that you get one for free," Damien flattered.
Rhea felt elated by his compliment but didn't show it on her face. She wondered when her son became this nice.
"But still, I never saw you earnestly concocting a pill before. Other than your basic training in alchemy, I never saw you pursuing it," Rhea asked in a puzzled tone after going through her memories a few times to make sure she was right.
She was sure if Tristen did something surprising as earnestly studying alchemy, she wouldn't forget such a sight.
Instead, she would have bragged about it to everyone else since not even every genius could be good at alchemy. Most of them are usually good at only cultivation, and fighting since those were the things that mattered the most and the reason for the 'genius' tag.
Damien said with a smirk, "Didn't I tell you that I have been secretly studying alchemy for the past few months? I then realized that I am a prodigy at this."
"Still...within just a few months on your own…" Rhea mumbled as if not feeling satisfied with his explanation since it seemed too astonishing. If her son was really a genius like that, why did he not show the same results when he studied alchemy for the first time?
"Fine, I will tell you the truth. But you can't tell this to anyone else, okay?" Damien said in a serious tone.
Rhea felt curious and nodded, "Of course. I wouldn't let out any secrets that belong to my son. Your secrets are mine as well."
Damien let out a sigh of relief and said, "Few months ago, on one of my travels, I came upon a dying old man. He was injured, and I helped him out, thinking that I might get some benefits. And to my surprise, my gamble paid off, and he seemed to be a senior expert in alchemy who also offered to teach me."
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})Damien continued, "I asked for his name, but he said that he wanted to protect his identity. I didn't probe him further since I was afraid he might leave without imparting some of his godly skills to me. I can confidently tell that I have never come upon an alchemy expert as good as him. Not even the best ones in our empire could match up to him."
Rhea was astonished at this whole revelation, wondering if her son had such good luck to come upon an old master who was willing to teach him.
She believed his story since that seemed to be the best plausible explanation for his surprising alchemy prowess.
"This is great! But why didn't you bring him back? Wait a minute...this expert...could he be the rumored Alchemist Azrael?" Rhea asked with suppressed excitement.
If her son was really taught by the best alchemy prodigy in the world, then that's the same as him being his indirect disciple.
She had heard about how Alchemist Azrael has only one personal disciple who was not only said to possess peerless beauty but also shocking talents in alchemy and cultivation.
From this, one could see how high the standards of Alchemist Azrael were for someone to be his disciple.
Even if she didn't want to, she had to admit that her son wasn't as special as Valentina. But now, she felt that her son might be able to rival her in alchemy at least.
After a long time, she started to feel proud of her son again, thinking that things were not too late.
Hearing her speculation, Damien wondered if he should be surprised and decided to play it vaguely, "I am not sure if he is Alchemist Azrael since that old man was wearing ordinary robes. I heard Alchemist Azrael always travels in his signature black robe with the badge of the Alchemist Society."
"He may have been traveling in casual clothes just as many experts do to avoid attention," Rhea justified since she hoped that it was indeed Alchemist Azrael who Tristen chanced upon.
But even then, she had no idea why Alchemist Azrael would travel around the Gale Empire.
Still, even if she broke this news to the emperor, she had no idea how he would take it. After all, most of the people in the Gale Empire heard about the conflict that happened between Alchemist Azrael and the Gale Empire's Eternal Zephyr Merchant Guild.
The authorities in the Gale Empire brushed off the incident as a misunderstanding, but Rhea knew all the details.
She knew the Dark Sky Guild had kidnapped Alchemist Azrael's only disciple by accident and thus incited his wrath.
Even the higher-ups in the Gale Empire knew that they were in the wrong and a senior expert like Alchemist Azrael reacting to it was completely normal.
Still, the Gale Empire was one of the powerful empires, and they had a reputation to maintain. They just couldn't bow down to an individual since that would be akin to the whole empire bowing down before him.
So, since they couldn't retaliate, they could only hold in this grudge and brush it off as a misunderstanding.
Still, Rhea felt that maybe in the future, Tristen could be the key to developing a close relationship with Alchemist Azrael and thus help their empire as well.
However, now, she was feeling more and more excited about Tristen's talent in alchemy since it was a complete shocker to her that he was already at the level where he could concoct pills like these.
"Tristen, other than this beauty pill, can you concoct any other amazing pills as well? Anything that could be useful to the empire?" Rhea asked expectantly.
