Chapter Thirty-Eight: Affection Deepens with Residence (Part Two)

“Here, for you…” I handed a freshly made lens to Xian Ge Ya Yi with casual indifference, still marveling in my heart: this lens was so thick it might as well have been a roof tile—light itself could barely pass through.

Xian Ge Ya Yi closed his left eye, took the lens, and held it up before his right.

“Ah!” he let out a gasp unlike any I’d heard from him before.

“What? Still not thin enough?” I hadn’t noticed his change in demeanor, and habitually reached to take the lens back for further grinding.

“Wait…” He gently waved me off, stood up slowly, deftly avoiding the books, chairs, and broken experimental apparatus littered across the floor, and walked over to the open window, gazing out at the vast world beyond.

A thrill of excitement stirred within me, and I asked eagerly, “What is it?”

He closed his right eye, placed the lens before his left, and stretched out his other hand, splaying his fingers in front of him, examining them again and again.

“Jeff…” Staring at his own fingers, he called my name softly, his voice trembling with overwhelming joy, “…I can see. I can truly see. We…”

“We did it!” He cried out in ecstasy, arms open wide as he rushed toward me, intent on giving me a fierce, exuberant embrace—

Crash! Thud! “Ouch!” Without the lens to help him and overcome by excitement, our elven ranger failed to see the table leg, stumbled, and tumbled awkwardly to the floor in a wild heap.

Now that I had the first lens as a reference, crafting a second one was no longer a daunting task. After only three failed attempts, an identical glass lens was placed into Xian Ge Ya Yi’s hand.

The unexpected discovery ignited Xian Ge Ya Yi’s creative spirit. To make best use of the two lenses, he actually tore a sheet from Mr. Edgewell’s notebook and, dipping a quill into ink, began sketching a design. Unfortunately, his imagination and drafting skills seemed to grow in inverse proportion. At first, he tried valiantly to draw two perfect circles, but no matter how he tried, these so-called “circles” looked more like irregular polygons defying all known shapes. Then, with a straight line, he joined the two circles, adding two oddly curved lines along the outside.

“There, done!” He exhaled in delight, looking quite pleased with himself. “Well? Not bad, right?”

“Bras are sold in many general stores, and they’re not that expensive. Even if you insist on having one custom made, shouldn’t you find a proper tailor instead of an alchemist? I know a few, all skilled and reasonably priced,” I offered helpfully.

“Who said I was making a bra?” At my words, the elven ranger’s face turned all shades of blue and purple, his earlier pride vanishing in a puff.

“Even an idiot can see this is a pair of glasses!” He snapped at me in embarrassment.

Glasses? The novel term puzzled me, but it didn’t stop me from arguing my point: “A pity not every idiot has vision as poor as yours.” I took the paper, examined it carefully, and then, inspiration striking, I made a discovery that would excite any man in particular:

“Hm? Transparent bra? Bold design—I like it…”

“I’ll say it again—” Xian Ge Ya Yi snatched back the crude “blueprint,” looking as though he’d like to strangle me with his bowstring. “—these are not bras, they’re glasses! Glasses, understand?!”

He had to work hard to make me grasp his concept. According to his explanation, those bizarre polygons represented the two lenses I’d crafted, and the twisted lines were wires meant to hold them in place. He wanted me to use some metal pieces to fix the lenses together and shape them so they could rest on his nose for easy carrying. He called this contraption “glasses.”

After his explanation, I was left with a profound and inexpressible admiration for Xian Ge Ya Yi’s intelligence and imagination. His idea was truly brilliant—a stroke of genius, if you overlooked that wretchedly poor sketch.

My alchemy was not yet at the level where I could conjure things from pure imagination, but with a blueprint—even a terrible one—it was a different matter. As long as there was a standard to imitate, I could attempt to make it.

Good at imitation and learning, yet lacking in simple creativity—perhaps that was one of the greatest differences between myself and my Voidwalker friends.

Following Xian Ge Ya Yi’s vision, I embedded several metal pieces into the two glass lenses, securing them firmly, then soldered two sturdy alloy rods to the edges, thus completing what he called “glasses.”

Perhaps because they were so thick, unlike a “telescope,” these “glasses” were not an accessory but could almost be considered a helmet. Aside from offering a paltry two points of defense, they bestowed no other attributes; as protective gear, this creation, which had cost me nearly an entire day’s labor, was inferior even to the shabbiest ragged cap—a humiliation without equal.

Yet for Xian Ge Ya Yi, the significance was extraordinary. Thanks to them, our elven ranger friend could finally see; his archery would now reach new heights—a transformation no legendary helmet could ever provide.

Perhaps because I’d built these “glasses” from an original design, the experience I gained surpassed even that of making the telescope. My alchemy skill leapt from level seven, rapidly approaching level eight—a near-unimaginable rate of progress for someone whose studies had long advanced at a crawl.

“Can you… really see clearly now?” With those thick lenses, Xian Ge Ya Yi looked as though his eyes might bulge from their sockets, and with his grass-green ranger garb, he resembled nothing so much as a giant, upright frog. I found it hard to imagine he could feel comfortable wearing them.

“I’ve never seen so clearly in my life!” he exclaimed, looking every which way with delight, as if trying to drink in the entire world with his eyes.

“Well then, can you read that person’s name over there?” I remained skeptical, pointing out the window at a nearby minotaur named “Deep Devotion.”

Even with the glasses, the distance was still a bit much for Xian Ge Ya Yi. He stretched his neck out the window, squinted, and after much effort, pronounced slowly, “Erect… Tower…”

“Pfft… What did you say?” Whether Xian Ge Ya Yi was now completely blind with the glasses or could see things invisible to me, nothing could have surprised me more than this answer. His mistake was so absurd that my mind couldn’t even process the leap from one phrase to the next.

“Yes, those four characters,” he turned back to me with an innocent look, his big eyes magnified in rippling circles behind the thick lenses. He picked up the quill and wrote down what he saw:

“One, Stay, Passion, Add…”

Clearly, the “glasses” did help his vision somewhat, but…

“Idiot! Illiterate! You got half the characters wrong—you might as well go back to being blind!” I shouted, tugging on his long ears.

(Comrades, let us all applaud Xiao Xianzi for finally getting his glasses and overcoming his nearsightedness!)