The door wasn't even locked—she really wasn't afraid of thieves...

Celitia sighed as she walked in, and after fumbling in the dark for just two steps, she nearly tripped over a figure lying sprawled on the floor.

"I say, Florence."

Celitia bent down irritably to grab Florence's collar, "No matter how messy the workshop gets, there should be some limits, right?"

Before she could touch the woman sleeping ungracefully on the floor, Celitia caught a whiff of thick smoke and had to pull her hand back.

In that instant, Celitia had the urge to throw Florence out onto the street to get some cold air and sober up, then give her workshop a thorough cleaning.

Kicking Florence's arm with the tip of her foot in disgust, Celitia called out again:

"Hey, wake up, Florence. Even if you want to sleep, you can't sleep in a place like this, right?"

Florence covered her head with both hands and let out a wail:

"Sigh, disturbing someone's sleep so early in the morning? Even if you're a beautiful girl, big sister can't forgive you!"

"Get up!"

Celitia paid no heed, "The time was arranged long ago. Can't you have some sense of punctuality?"

Florence hugged her arms and rolled over, stubbornly turning her back to her.

Celitia simply bent down, grabbed Florence's earlobe in one swift motion, twisted it half a turn, and pulled upward with force.

"Ow, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts—!!" Florence let out a series of screams, "Let go, let me go quickly, can't I get up?!"

Celitia released her hand as requested, crossed her arms in front of her chest, and watched Florence painfully crawl up from the floor with a mix of anger and amusement.

The orange-red short-haired woman clutched her bird's nest-like hair and said resentfully:

"You're making me remember very bad memories! If there's a next time, big sister's going to get angry!!"

Celitia's lips couldn't help but curve slightly upward, though a trace of melancholy quickly flashed through her eyes.

During her youth, she had occasionally forced Florence awake like this too. She hadn't expected her to still remember.

Although Florence would always lose her temper, with her thick-nerved personality, she would forget everything completely within half an hour.

"Who told you to sleep sprawled at the entrance? The weather's so cold, aren't you afraid of catching a chill?"

Celitia couldn't help but complain, "And you didn't even lock the front door. Leaving such an important workshop wide open for anyone to visit—isn't that too embarrassing for an alchemist?"

"I'm in great health and don't get sick easily. Do you think everyone's as fragile as you?"

Florence didn't fall behind when it came to retorts. She stood up lazily and casually dusted off her coat.

"The workshop is covered with defensive formations everywhere. Whoever comes will be unlucky—what do I have to fear? You didn't trigger them because I added an immunity check for you, otherwise you'd have been hanging from the ceiling long ago."

Celitia couldn't help but pause: "You trust me that much?"

For every alchemist, the workshop was undoubtedly the most important place, and they would never let people enter easily.

Florence smiled mischievously and reached out to lift Celitia's chin: "After all, you're my little beauty."

Accompanied by a "smack," Celitia mercilessly slapped away Florence's hand:

"Go wash up. Come back and act crazy after you're clean."

"Oh..."

Knowing the girl was a complete germaphobe, Florence obediently turned around and went to the depths of the workshop to wash up.

Celitia sighed and pulled open the workshop's curtains.

Sunlight streamed through the window, falling on the wooden table and illuminating a stack of papers scattered across its surface.

Celitia casually picked up the papers, her gaze scanning line by line through the messy handwriting on them, reading carefully for a long time.

"It's all because of that sudden whim of a research topic you proposed that I studied so late."

Florence's voice came from behind her as she stretched and let out a big yawn.

"Unfortunately, I hit obstacles everywhere in my research. In the end, I was so sleepy I couldn't keep my eyes open—even smoking couldn't keep me awake."

Seeing that Celitia was still focused on reading what she had written, Florence snatched the papers from Celitia's hands and slammed them all down on the table with one palm.

"Don't look anymore, don't look! They're all drafts! A drug that could instantly give someone enormous power—how could such a thing exist in this world?"

Letting Florence take away the papers from her hands, Celitia glanced at her sideways:

"Didn't you call yourself 'this century's greatest genius alchemist'? How can there still be topics you can't handle?"

"That depends on what the topic content is, doesn't it?" Florence shrugged, "No matter how you think about it, it definitely can't be done with normal methods, right?"

"Is that so? So you also think it's impossible to succeed with normal methods."

Celitia actually hadn't expected to get any breakthrough from Florence, and couldn't help but sigh.

"So, we need to use 'abnormal' methods?"

Hearing Celitia's words, Florence scratched her hair, making the already messy short hair even more disheveled than a bird's nest.

She pulled out a chair and sat down at the wooden table, worriedly tapping her forehead with her hand.

"I've always thought I was crazy," staring at the papers covered with writing, Florence sighed, "but I never imagined there could be someone even crazier than me?"

Celitia also sat down at the table.

Her back was straight as a tailor's ruler, her hands quietly folded on her knees, even her nails trimmed round and neat. From the outside, she looked completely well-behaved and proper.

Only those smoke-purple eyes were shrouded in misty haze, concealing that rebellious defiance growing in reverse, with just a bit of stubborn starlight flickering, never retreating.

"I wouldn't call it crazy—just wanting to seek a bit of hope for myself in this world where fairness doesn't exist."

Celitia said slowly, "I guarantee this won't affect our cooperation, but you can start keeping your distance from me now, Florence."

"Keep my distance?"

Florence laughed instead, propping her chin on her hands and staring at her with intense curiosity.

If she wasn't interested in what Celitia had proposed, Florence wouldn't have studied so late.

"How could I bear to give up my cute little beauty? What's more, teaching you alchemy was a condition we agreed on from the beginning.

"If I were stumped by a topic proposed by a student, where would I put my face as a genius alchemist?"

Celitia muttered: "That's self-proclaimed. I never agreed to be your student."

What a joke—reborn for a second life, would her generation have to be one level lower than hers?

Celitia expressed her firm refusal to accept this.

Florence pretended not to hear her complaint, her fingertip casually sliding across that stack of notes, lightly tapping the ink marks on them.

"I've never heard of this 'Shadow Space-Time' you mentioned. But I know that corresponding to the widely known 'magic and fighting spirit,' there exists another kind of 'forbidden power' in this world."

"Forbidden power?" Celitia's eyes lit up, "What exactly is it?"