"Do you need help, Leona?" Anna asked, equally shocked upon seeing these instruments.
However, even more than shocked, she was delighted—delighted that Leona would be able to save her eye.
Leona was beautiful, yet God had taken away one of her eyes. It was truly unfair.
"Very much so," Leona said, nodding earnestly.
Although her strength had reached nine points, Anna's physical strength was much greater than hers, making certain tasks far more convenient to carry out.
She handed the Silver Cup Grass, pearls, and Full Moon Stone to Anna, then retrieved a mortar and a whetstone from the tools.
"Anna, I need your help grinding the petals. Also, scrape some powder off this stone, and as for the pearls, just crush them one by one," Leona instructed, delegating all three steps to Anna.
Anna happily agreed.
"Also, Anna, please help me move that small furnace under the moonlight." Leona pointed to the largest piece of equipment, and Anna quickly complied.
The small furnace was made of silver and weighed over ten kilograms, but it wasn't very large. Anna quickly placed the furnace beneath the moonlight just as Leona instructed.
Leona didn't idle either, selecting a few tools from among the instruments. She was about to perform the most complex step of the entire process—distillation.
Obtaining pure water here would likely be somewhat difficult. Morning dew would be fine, but if using stream water, she would need to distill it twice to obtain water with minimal impurities.
As to whether it would affect the result, Leona wasn't sure; she would only know after trying.
Anna's tasks were simple, and by the time Leona finished gathering her instruments, Anna was already fully prepared. Standing under the moonlight, Leona began her very first experiment in this otherworldly realm alongside Anna.
Under Leona's direction, Anna spread the stream water across a fine linen cloth, filtering it over and over again.
In truth, well water had fewer impurities than stream water, but the pure water used in alchemy had to be bathed in sunlight; well water, dwelling perennially in darkness, was the first source to be ruled out.
After about a quarter of an hour, the two finally finished this step. The living water became clear and clean, resting quietly inside the glass vessel.
Flames rose inside the small furnace. Distillation wasn't hard, but it was tedious. Time trickled away second by second as wisps of white steam rose, occasionally brushing against Anna's face.
Anna leaned behind Leona, using Leona as her protective shield.
Leona didn't mind, patiently watching the drops of water fall one by one into the receiving bottle below.
"How much longer will it take, Leona?" Anna asked, sitting half-upright with her hands cupping her chin.
Having stayed up yesterday so Leona could get a good night's sleep, her eyelids were now fighting to stay open.
Noticing this, Leona covered her mouth and giggled. "You should go back to sleep first. Staying up late isn't a good habit."
"Is that so? Back when I was all alone in the palace at night, I rarely slept peacefully. You'll never know that kind of loneliness; fear keeps you from sleeping." Anna slowly shifted her body closer to Leona's side, opening up about her troubles.
The white steam curled past her face and gently drifted down onto Leona's shoulder.
"Then all the more reason for you to get a good sleep now. This is one of the rare times you have someone by your side," Leona advised.
Anna beamed with delight.
"That's true. Croll, Milan, and everyone else in the palace vanish into the night. I don't know about other kingdoms, but only you and I are left in the palace. Even if it's just the two of us, I really don't feel lonely anymore."
She reached out her right hand as if trying to catch the moonlight, turning sideways to look at Leona, whose earnest expression was truly enchanting.
"You're mistaken about that. I'm not the only outsider here. We aren't the only ones in the palace now," Leona analyzed rationally.
Anna gave Leona a look of exasperation at her mood-killing response, her rose-tinted glasses shattering in an instant.
"You're not like them!" she huffed.
"I suppose you're right. But our goals should be the same—we both want to escape from here. If loneliness makes it hard for you to sleep, Your Highness, you really should get a good rest while I'm still around. Perhaps in a few days, I'll be gone."
As Leona rambled on, her shoulder suddenly slumped under a heavy weight.
Taking Leona's advice, Anna had fallen fast asleep. Leona didn't move an inch, sitting quietly. Since Anna had given her a good night's rest, she had to let Anna sleep peacefully as well.
The first distillation took over an hour, while the second took even longer, lasting more than two hours.
Most of the bucket of water was consumed, leaving only pure, pristine water inside the bottle.
Leona gently propped Anna against the wall, extinguished the flame, and removed her cloak to cover her.
Now, she could finally focus completely on performing the final step of the alchemy process.
She placed the prepared ingredients into a test tube one by one. The color shifted from colorless to the light blue of an iris, deepening further once the Full Moon Stone was added.
"And now, the final step," Leona murmured softly, looking at the bottom line of the open leather-bound book on the table: Add light (your blood)
Leona had no idea why her blood would be connected to light, but she complied nonetheless. She bit her finger, squeezed out a drop of crimson liquid, and watched it slide down the inner wall of the test tube into the mixture.
Under the bright moonlight, the liquid reacted violently, boiling vigorously like rolling water as it danced inside the test tube.
The liquid gradually turned murky, its blue darkening until it was swallowed by blackness. Once completely consumed by black, Leona noticed her drop of blood—it still hadn't dissolved!
Only now did it slowly blend into the liquid, spreading outward.
Yet what spread out was not a blood-like red! It was a brilliant color, as bright as Leona's own eyes.
The transformation lasted for a minute until a vial of golden liquid emerged, shimmering with dazzling brilliance under the moonlight.
"Is it ready?" Leona asked, unsure.
Of course, no one was around to answer her right now.
After waiting a few more minutes, Leona could no longer contain her restless anticipation. The liquid glugged down her throat into her stomach.
"What a strange flavor," Leona couldn't help remarking.
It tasted like peppery mint.
No sooner had she spoken than an intense surge of pain struck again, stimulating every single nerve. Her vision blurred, and her remaining eye lost its sight as well.
She felt a swelling ache, as if something were trying to grow inside her eye. She immediately unwrapped the bandage around her eyes, and her vision finally returned to normal.
She looked into the mirror she had prepared in advance. Her left eye socket, which had lost its eyeball, was still empty.
Leona instinctively reached out to cover her right eye—yet the vision remained crystal clear.
"What is that?" She suddenly spotted a speck floating in the air, and her attention involuntarily shifted onto it.
The world before her suddenly shattered like a dream.
She saw it.
On the crimson soil, she witnessed the complete process of her transformation into a monster.
It maintained a human outline, with most of its body seemingly merged into the surrounding darkness. Its facial features were blurred, its skin drained of color, save for the crimson veins glowing with bloody light across its body and the cross of light flickering on its back.
And lying in a pool of blood at its feet was Anna's corpse.
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