The Evil Lord's Wife Has Spirit Blood-Chapter 197

With the stains washed off her body, Michelle glanced at the lizard skeleton, thinking about why she had failed to make the antidote. She didn’t know whether she had made two small mistakes or just one. And she had to figure it out if she wanted to succeed next time.

If the failure was caused by two problems, one would be her control over the flame while creating the layers of the pill, and the other would be the temperature of the flame when she tried to fix it. Maybe it was too high, which caused some problems.

Michelle summoned a piece of cloth from her spatial ring and wiped the water off herself. Then, she took out some new clothes and changed, still deep in thought.

If the failure was caused by just one mistake, it was either her control over the fire, and when she tried to fix it, the damage was already too great and she failed—

Or there was a problem with the moose blood, which acted as the carrier of the pill’s ingredients, preventing proper mixing.

To prevent the next failure, whichever the case, she needed to increase her control over the flame and also check the moose blood. Maybe the moose Kieran and Ivona had killed was sick. Or maybe it was just something that looked like a moose.

Before walking back to the cauldron, Michelle bowed her head to the lizard skeleton once again.

"I’ll try not to disturb your peace again, Senior."

With that, she walked away, not noticing something white slithering between the skeleton’s bones.

Back in front of the cauldron, Michelle picked up the bottle where she kept the moose blood and opened it to take a sniff. But she couldn’t make out anything useful.

She was used to the smell of human blood. From it, she could sometimes tell if someone was sick, even though it was hard. But with moose blood, which she had never really been in contact with, she was completely helpless. She could just tell it didn’t smell like human blood.

Closing the bottle again, Michelle walked out of the cave, telling the rest she would be back later.

Using her Shadow Spirit Steps, she quickly found a pack of wolves, a smile spreading across her lips. They could help her tell if something was wrong with the blood.

Silently sneaking closer, she poured some blood into the snow and picked up a rock, throwing it at the nearest wolf. The next moment, she used her Shadow Spirit Steps to get further away.

For a while, she watched from afar as the wolf snorted around until it caught the scent of the moose blood.

The wolf quickly approached and sniffed it. The next moment, it turned away and started scratching with its back paws, throwing snow over the bloodstain.

Seeing that, Michelle was sure her assumption was correct. If the wolf avoided the blood so obviously, something must have been wrong with it. But that didn’t necessarily mean it had affected the brewing process.

So Michelle took off to conduct further investigation.

It took her a long time, but she found the place where Kieran and Ivona had killed the moose. Since it was snowing, the bloodstains were nearly covered, but she could still see them in some spots.

Storing away all the bloodstained snow, she went to look for a moose herd.

When she found one, she discreetly placed the bloodstained snow nearby and hid again.

She expected the moose to move away if the blood was bad, but they completely ignored it. Some even dug under it to find grass, as if the blood was never there.

Watching the moose closely, Michelle noticed that some were moving strangely, limping as their legs seemed weak.

Was that caused by an infection spreading among the animals?

After getting a bit closer, Michelle saw that even their eyes were hazy. Something was clearly wrong.

With a frown, Michelle left the area and went to search for another herd.

When she found it, it was in the same state as the first one.

And so were the third and fourth herds.

It seemed the moose in quite a large area were in a terrible state.

Michelle had confirmed that something was wrong with the blood, but she doubted it was enough to make pill-making completely impossible. She knew it would be harder if that was the cause of her failure, but she still believed she could succeed if she had enough skill.

So, when she returned to the cave as the sun began to set, she went back to the cauldron and sat down next to it.

The whole night, she leaned against the wall, keeping a black fire dancing on her palms, her eyes fixed on it. She tried to make it as intense as possible, while also as small as possible.

Slowly, she was able to shrink it, but the bottom of the flame still covered her whole palm. She reached a point where, when she tried to make it smaller, it extinguished.

But she refused to give up and continued, just moving her soul energy slower.

The result was the same. The fire died down on her hand.

A flicker of frustration, and maybe even annoyance, flashed through Michelle’s eyes, but she contained it. She knew that to achieve great heights, she needed patience. A lot of it.

It was quite ironic. She was a Pill Maker Master, a God among Gods, but she couldn’t make pills because she didn’t have good enough control over fire as an ice-element Spirit Master.

That was probably why there were no Pill Maker Masters who were only ice-element Spirit Masters. They always had a mix of other elements or masteries alongside it. And even those were rare.

Most Pill Maker Masters were of the fire element. They had the best control over flame, so it was easier for them to make even complex pills.

Still, Michelle wasn’t someone who gave up. She had her Everfrost Mantle to keep herself cool, and the black fire to work the cauldron.

In other words, she had everything she needed to brew pills. She just needed to increase her proficiency with fire—so she wouldn’t lose control even for a second.

When the first sunrays of dawn entered the cave, Michelle retracted the black fire. She had shrunk it to the size of her palm, a quarter of its original size.

She could tell her control over it had increased fourfold, though that only sounded majestic. In reality, it still wasn’t much.

To make proper pills in the future, she would need to make the fire the size of her fingertip. Otherwise, all her pills would explode—or at least that was her guess.

Returning to the cauldron, she decided to try the whole pill-making process all over again. She was fairly certain she would fail and get blown away by another explosion, but she didn’t care.

By starting the brewing process again while thinking about her past mistakes, she’d have a higher chance of realizing what went wrong—and how to fix it.

So when the sun came over the horizon, another violent explosion filled the cave.

And a smile spread across Michelle’s lips. She was closer to success.

Without even changing her clothes or washing up, she went to try again.

But she did something quite unexpected—something all seasoned Pill Maker Masters would call reckless and dangerous.

The whole time, she let the fire rage around the cauldron without any control, at its highest intensity.

Naturally, when the pill she was making exploded, she was blown even farther than before.

But she was satisfied. Because she could see the difference between when she controlled the fire and when she didn’t. It showed she was on the right track. If she could increase her control even more, she’d be able to bypass the problem with the moose blood—assuming it was the cause.

A day had already passed since she had told Kieran she needed three days before they could go to the Sloan family. That didn’t mean she needed three days to make the antidote. She just needed three days until she could do it. The real brewing would be done at the Sloan family estate, as guests.

Until then, she had all the time in the world to do what she wanted.

Well—within the next two days, at least.

So the next day, Michelle didn’t move an inch. As a cultivator, she didn’t need to eat or drink. She remained in place, training her control over the fire.

Every few hours, Ivona, Kieran, or Anastasia would come to check on her. And each time, the dreadful black fire on her palm looked a little smaller. The changes were in millimeters, but over hours, they became visible.

As night fell, Michelle was able to reduce the flame’s size by a fifth. That wasn’t much, but at least it no longer covered her whole palm—just four-fifths of it.

When morning came, the flame covered only three-fifths of her hand, and Michelle decided it was time to start brewing again.

Even though she knew there was no way she would succeed.

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