The Silly Alchemist

After a short period of time, the alchemists were unable to wait anymore and said: “All right, little Ye prince, we will first take this box to study it, and we’ll stop hindering your and Princess Qi’s birthday celebration.”

“Study the box? For what? Is it fun?” The little prodigal son was very puzzled about this.

“No it’s not fun at all. This is not for playing. We want to open up the box to obtain Ban’s notebook.” The alchemists said solemnly.

“Notebook…are you talking about this book?” A book suddenly appeared within the little prodigal son’s hands.

“Yep, it is exactly this alchemy notebook……EH?! That’s not right……You, you……” The alchemists all pointed at the little prodigal son while their eyes were opened so wide that it was as if their eyes were going to pop out. That was an expression of shock, and they were not able to believe what they saw.

“Ah……” At this moment, everyone’s mouth was widely opened, as they looked at the little prodigal son while being astonished, and they were not able to let out any kind of sound.

“There are still more books, one, two, three, four…… five books, there are five books in the box.” The little prodigal son took out one book after another, and everyone present was still staring blankly in a daze.

“Are you all certain that you guys did not bluff me just now? Is this box really that difficult to open?” The emperor and others were starting to suspect that those alchemists deceived everyone, and that they were not able to open the box because they wanted to be the first ones to have a look at the notebook.

But,  everyone present also knew that, this probability was close to zero.

All the alchemists immediately made a solemn vow and denied: “We didn’t, we definitely didn’t. Your majesty, how could we possibly deceive you? This box indeed really requires a lot of skill, requires a lot of difficulty to be able to open it. It’s just that……”

“Just that, why was the little thirteenth prince, a 10 year old child, able to open the box so easily?” The emperor looked at the little prodigal son, with an expression of puzzlement, and oddness.

That’s right, the box which all of these top-notch alchemists were unable to open just a few moments ago, was opened by our little thirteenth prince, and what’s more, it was opened very easily, without any hinderance at all, even to the point that no one was able to notice him opening the box.

This made everyone feel both uncertain and astonished to the point that they even suspected that they had seen wrongly, though the very scene before their eyes was absolutely true.

If it was any other children, they would perhaps say that the child was a genius. But, the little thirteenth prince was however not even as good as an average person, how could he possibly be a genius.

“Perhaps, he is an alchemist genius.” Although they felt that it was impossible, an alchemist still suggested this possibility.

‘This is impossible. He has never learnt  alchemy before. Such a dangerous thing, we never let him have contact with it.” Long An Qi immediately denied this possibility. As a mother, she was clearly aware about the matters of her son, at the very least, she knew about this matter.

“That’s right, young master doesn’t know alchemy. He has never even looked at an alchemy book before.” Tigress at the side also nodded her head.

If it was said that Long An Qi’s words alone were not sufficient enough to make others believe that the little thirteenth prince did not know about alchemy, then by adding Tigress’s words, it would be more than sufficient to disperse any doubt. After all, everyone knew, that in these past few years, Tigress has always been at the little thirteenth prince’s side. Whatever the little thirteenth prince did, who else but Tigress would be most clear about it?

“Since he doesn’t know about alchemy, how was he able to open the box, could it be that it was yet another coincidence? This little brat is indeed under the care of the G.o.ddess of luck, this is just too mystical.” The emperor and the others started to discuss it, and they were only about to use the little thirteenth prince’s mystical luck to explain how he was able to open the box.

At this time, Princess Qi opened her mouth and asked: “Ye Lang, how did you open this box?”

When princess Qi asked this question, everyone present suddenly thought; why were they guessing at the side for, isn’t the person involved right in front of them, just ask him directly and clear this whole thing up.

It was just that, everyone was however worried about an issue, which was that, the person involved himself may not necessarily be able to clearly explain how he opened the box.

“What? How did I open it? I just opened it like this ah, what is so difficult about this?” As expected, the little thirteenth prince’s answer was complete nonsense and it did  not explain this matter at all.

“Seems like it was just luck, this cannot be explained any other way.” Everyone laughed bitterly and thought to themselves, if this kind of luck appeared, no matter how hard the problem was, it would be of no difficulty to solve.

It was just that, was this really just luck?

“All these alchemy formations, I am certain that I have not seen them before, but why do I have such a familiar feeling to them?” The little prodigal son looked at the alchemy notebook and muttered to himself. Afterwards, he made a decision which caused everyone to go into a daze.

“I want to learn alchemy, I want to take a look at all these books.” After he finished saying that, the little thirteenth prince placed the 5 alchemy notebooks within his s.p.a.ce ring and the alchemists at the side were not able to prevent him from doing so, as they had no time to react.

“About this, little Ye prince, could you give the 5 alchemy notebooks you just put in your s.p.a.ce ring to us, we still have many books here, we can make an exchange.” The alchemists at the side said while taking out many books. These books were from their own collections, normally they would not be willing to take them out, even if they were begged to do so, but right now, they did not care about them.

After the little Ye prince kept all those books, he said a sentence which made everyone collapse.

“I want all these books, but, I’m not exchanging!”

“……”

All the alchemists wanted to cry but had no tears and looked at the emperor with pleading gazes. Right now, they just hoped that the emperor would help them, and think of a way to get the 5 alchemy notebooks.

Actually, even if they did not ask for help, the emperor would also think of a way, because he knew that if those 5 alchemy notebooks were to be placed in the hands of the little prodigal son, there would be no effect whatsoever. Only by handing the alchemy notebooks to the Imperial Household’s alchemists would it be of any help to the empire.

Finally, after discussing, the little thirteenth prince handed over the alchemy notebooks, however, he only loaned it for 3 days. For 3 days, the alchemists are to write down a copy of the alchemy notebooks.

Don’t forget, these alchemy notebooks are only just Ban’s notebooks and not profound alchemy goods. So long as they copied down the contents of the notebook, it would be the same as having the original.

This idea was also suggested by our little thirteenth prince. All of them thought too complicated and completely forgot about such a simple solution, this caused everyone to blush with shame.

Sometimes, the key to solving a problem is a very simple solution. It was just that, many people don’t try to think in the most simplest terms and only think more and more complicatedly, which in the end causes the problem to become more and more troublesome.

“Little Ye prince, could you first give back the books which we had just given you? We will make a copy for you……” The empire’s imperial household’s alchemists all asked weakly. Since there was this solution, they of course thought of this aspect.

Letting the little Ye prince take those precious books was indeed a too wasteful. If it was possible to take them back, then of course they would. Right now, they were not able to deal with their own faces, for their treasured books, they were already throwing caution to the wind.

“Can!” The little thirteenth prince answered very straightforwardly, it was just that there was still another sentence after where he just said: “You all must make a copy of every book you guys have for me too!”

“……”

Was this little brat really as the rumors said, a mentally deficient and silly child? Why is it no matter how I look at him, he just doesn’t look like that and instead seems more like a little sly fox, is he pretending?

At this moment, many people were suspecting, however, it was only just for a moment. As they did not believe that a person was able to pretend like this, and moreover pretend since they were an infant.

The actual fact was that, the little thirteenth prince did not pretend at all, it was just that, he seemed to be lacking a certain something which caused him to be weaker in some aspects, but in other aspects, he was however very strong, for example his memory strength and the alchemy which he is going to learn next.

Perhaps this could all be contributed to a certain point, his luck.