Lanqi and Talia Have Zero Chemistry

In Boss Cat Restaurant, in the room at the very end of the second-floor hallway. Today's aromatherapy was an intertwined fragrance of lavender, sweet orange, and vetiver. Lavender promoted sleep and eased anxiety, sweet orange boosted the mood, and vetiver deepened relaxation. This blend helped relieve the stresses of the day and encouraged deep sleep. Ever since Hyperion had moved into Talia's home, Talia noticed that Hyperion slept poorly, so she always switched the house's aromatherapy to a more soothing blend. However... For the two individuals inside Talia's home right now, their minds were nowhere close to settling down. Accompanied by a violent, sulfurous blast, silence returned to the spacious workbench. "Why did it explode again?" Talia fixed Lanqi with a death glare. "Come on, bro..." Lanqi averted his gaze, looking somewhat aggrieved yet hesitant to speak out. "Go on, tell me. What are you trying to say?" Talia tapped the desk and demanded. "...I think you're being a little funny." Lanqi pouted and mumbled under his breath. "Say that again." "I'm not saying another word." Talia gave Lanqi a one-sided reprimand from across the table. Lanqi felt an urge to talk back, but didn't quite dare. It was already three or four in the afternoon. Boss Cat watched the two beside the table. By now, it was no longer startled by Lanqi's exploding cards the way it used to be at the start. Perhaps it had simply grown accustomed to Lanqi, or perhaps it had watched him craft cards beside him so often that it had become second nature. Tata, on the other hand, had always exercised demon-instructor-style strict discipline over Lanqi's card crafting. She would never permit him to blow up cards recklessly—especially in her own home. Boss Cat lay on the floor just like that, listening to the two conduct their post-mortem review. The glass skylight near the slanted roof beam flooded the room with warm afternoon sunlight. A few simple potted plants and a stack of books rested on the windowsill. Outside, the lush trees and the stepped, mountain-like street architecture seemed to form a tranquil watercolor painting. The drowsy weight of Sunday's siesta hour made Boss Cat yawn. It had no idea why these two could still be so energetic, or why they always seemed to possess boundless vigor whenever they were together. "Meow." The two had begun attempting collaborative card crafting this morning. After heading downstairs for lunch at noon, they had returned and resumed work. And yet... In their collaboration, they had barely managed to clear the second step of card crafting even once. Aside from preparing the materials, which went reasonably smoothly, every subsequent step could hardly be blamed on bad luck. To put it plainly, their paces and rhythms were completely out of sync; whenever Tata thought of going east, Lanqi was invariably thinking of heading west. Seeing that the two hadn't made the slightest progress all afternoon and were instead finding it even more grueling, Boss Cat couldn't resist standing up from the floor and walking over to their feet. "Last time at the amusement park, how on earth did you two have such great chemistry, meow?" Boss Cat looked up in confusion and asked. "Who knows!" Lanqi and Talia answered in unison. "..." Boss Cat could tell both of them were growing a bit irritated. Neither felt they had made any mistake at any step; it was entirely the other person causing a mess. *What gives? I'm just a little kitten.* "How about having some afternoon tea before continuing, meow?" Boss Cat suggested. The planned collaborative card crafting was turning out far harder than they had imagined. They were utterly like fire and water. "Or maybe go for a walk outside. If you keep crafting cards like this, I'm worried you two might end up fighting, meow." Boss Cat continued in its youthful, tender voice. Although it found it hard to imagine Lanqi truly getting angry, whenever he was around Talia, Lanqi risked generating emotions strong enough to be influenced by the Poet of Great Love. The two fell silent before the desk for a moment. "Let's take a break. I feel like that's enough for today," Lanqi pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head and muttering to himself. "If you escape like this, what results can you possibly achieve? Weren't you full of confidence this morning?" Talia looked at Lanqi with utter disdain. She detested Lanqi's lax attitude during card crafting. The guy always liked to relieve his own pressure, and it was precisely because of this that his crafting success rate remained so low. "But if we keep going like this today, I'm afraid we won't even produce a single card," Lanqi retorted somewhat meekly. Although he had only attained his current skill level by enduring Talia's hellish training, he finally understood that once Talia stepped into the arena herself, she was several times stricter than before. "..." Seeing Lanqi's pitiful look, Talia began to wonder slightly whether she was being too harsh. "It's true that I have no real experience in collaborative card crafting. Even when collaborating with my younger sister, we rarely succeeded. Why don't you ask the dean of your School of Magic Engineering if there are any tricks to collaborative card crafting?" She looked away from Lanqi, leaned back against her chair, and folded her arms. "That's true enough." Lanqi had Boss Cat fetch the communication magic card and placed a call to Professor Borao. Even though it was the weekend, Professor Borao was likely still occupied with magic engineering work; no one answered for quite a while. "Speaking of which, did you and Miss Efatia lack chemistry as well?" Waiting for the communication to connect, Lanqi glanced at Talia. "It was okay, but our magic affinity wasn't good. I am Mind, and she is Curse," Talia murmured. It was only when she tested her compatibility with Hyperion using [Demon Fusion] this morning that Talia realized with certainty: her compatibility with Efatia probably wouldn't be high either. Even if Hyperion possessed half-human blood, the half-demon bloodline she inherited from Efatia should theoretically have had a very high and harmonious compatibility with Talia; it made no sense for it to be a mere ten percent. She didn't know whether to feel more disappointed or relieved by this result, though she had long harbored faint suspicions and doubts deep down, just as the great demons had always questioned. "So you are primary Mind, secondary Curse, while your sister is primary Curse, secondary Mind? Your fighting styles look very similar on the surface, but are actually completely different?" Lanqi asked curiously. In this world, aside from [Fate] and [Basic], there were thirty-one attributes that governed trait enhancements and mutual counters. Any living being capable of possessing innate magic would have an innate attribute identical to that of their innate magic, because innate magic only arose from the attribute one was most proficient in. For instance, Talia's mind-reading gift belonged to the [Mind] attribute, Antanas's barrier informatization was of the [Barrier] attribute, and Pranay's Clairvoyance belonged to the extremely rare [Divination] attribute. Apart from that, the vast majority of living beings also possessed an acquired attribute, determined by the quality and quantity of magic mastered through learning and binding magic cards. This was similar to the Poet of Great Love's [Mind] and [Wood] attributes. "Correct. Back when I tested your attributes, I told you that determining an enemy's innate attribute is crucial. If you only look at their acquired attribute, you'll misjudge their true system and strength," Talia looked at him and said, "For example, imagine fighting High Priest Loren for half a day, only to realize that his [Wind] was merely an acquired attribute, and that he had never once used his innate attribute against anyone. That would be quite a terrifying horror story." She used the strongest person Lanqi knew to provide an easily understood example. "Indeed. I have deep personal experience with that," Lanqi nodded. A year ago, he hadn't grasped the significance of those words. Not until Old Sang taught him with his life. "Meow." Boss Cat felt that Lanqi was recalling that legendary Sealer once again. Yet ever since receiving the legacy, Lanqi seemed to be drifting somewhat down the path of becoming 'Old Qi' himself. "Hello, hello? Lanqi, what is it?" The communication magic card suddenly flashed with a glimmer of purple light, accompanied by static, followed shortly by Professor Borao's voice. Although Borao deeply disliked being disturbed during research, his tone softened upon realizing it was Lanqi. "Professor Borao, are there any tricks to collaborative card crafting?" Lanqi asked hastily. He could hear the roar of machinery in the background, meaning Professor Borao was clearly in the middle of a project and being interrupted. "Card crafters capable of collaborative crafting require an extraordinarily high unity of thought and tacit coordination," Professor Borao answered succinctly. "I understand the theory, but..." "Explain the specific situation." "It's like this: I have a friend who wants to collaborate on card crafting with a girl, but their paces are completely out of sync, their opinions constantly clash, and every attempt blows up. Is there any way to quickly boost their chemistry?" Lanqi glanced up at Talia, then spoke into the communication magic card. "Go on more dates. You two just don't go on enough dates." "Goodbye, Professor!" Before Professor Borao could finish speaking, Lanqi hastily bid farewell and abruptly severed the communication. "..." When Lanqi lifted his head to see whether Tata had heard, he saw Talia keeping her head down, saying nothing, the silence in the room terrifyingly dense.