My Anime Shopping Tree & My Cold Prodigy Wife!
Episode-151

Chapter : 301

The frustration was immense, a physical, grating thing. He could feel the two powers within him, two vast, potent rivers running parallel, refusing to merge. He could channel the cool, creative energy of the left eye, but it remained ephemeral, insubstantial. He could feel the solid, tangible potential of his Steel Blood, but he couldn't seem to project it, to shape it, with his gaze alone. The bridge between the two, the alchemical fusion his mother had spoken of, remained tantalizingly out of reach.

He would practice until his head felt like it was about to split open, until his Void reserves were scraped so dry he felt light-headed and nauseous. He would collapse onto a pile of dusty training mats, sleep for a few fitful hours, and then wake to start the entire, frustrating process all over again.

His team at the factory, sensing his obsessive new focus, left him to it, communicating through brief, written reports delivered by a nervous Jasmin. The production of the Silken Bar was proceeding flawlessly. Mei Jing had secured three major contracts with powerful merchant guilds. Tisha had successfully quelled a minor riot at the gate caused by a rumor that they were running out of rosemary. The soap empire was thriving without him. A small, rational part of him was pleased. The larger, more frustrated part of him barely noticed, his entire being consumed by the single, maddening goal of making a single, stupid, non-ring-shaped object appear and not immediately cease to exist.

Even Rosa seemed to have adapted to his new, bizarre routine. He would occasionally return to the suite in the small hours of the morning, covered in dust and smelling of failure, to find her still awake, reading by lamplight. She would look up, her obsidian eyes sweeping over his exhausted, disheveled form with that same cool, analytical gaze. She never asked what he was doing. She never commented on his absence. But there was a new quality to her observation, a silent, almost academic, curiosity. She was watching him, studying his failures with the same detached intensity she applied to her ancient tomes. It was, in its own strange way, almost… supportive? Or maybe she was just gathering data for a future treatise on ‘The Predictable Patterns of Frustrated, Magically Inept Husbands’. With Rosa, it was always impossible to tell.

One night, after a particularly grueling, spectacularly unsuccessful session where he had tried to forge a simple steel spoon and had instead managed to create a brief, spoon-shaped cloud of angry-looking purple smoke, he finally broke.

He let the Black Ring Eyes fade, his head throbbing, a wave of bitter, hopeless despair washing over him. He slammed his fist against the cracked stone floor, a cry of pure, unadulterated frustration ripping from his throat.

“It’s useless!” he roared at the empty, dusty hall. “I can’t do it! I can feel the power, I can see the goal, but I can’t… I can’t connect them!” He leaned back against a cold stone wall, burying his face in his hands, the weight of his failure crushing. Was his mother wrong? Was the System wrong? Was he just… not good enough? Was this ‘once-in-a-generation talent’ just a fluke, a potential he was incapable of truly grasping?

It was in this moment of profound, absolute despair, his will at its lowest ebb, his frustration at its peak, that something new happened.

He wasn't trying anymore. He had given up. His mind was a blank, exhausted void, empty of intent, empty of desire. And in that emptiness, he felt it.

A whisper.

Not a sound, but a sensation. A faint, almost imperceptible echo from deep within his own soul. It wasn't his voice. It wasn't the cynical eighty-year-old or the frustrated nineteen-year-old. It was something else. Something ancient. Something… crimson.

The memory of his dream, the vision of the silent, featureless Red Man, flashed through his mind. The static. The desperate, failed attempt at communication.

But this time, it wasn't static. It was… a feeling. A concept. An idea, transferred without words.

Stop pushing. Start guiding.

The thought, clear as a struck bell, resonated in the quiet emptiness of his mind.

The rivers do not wish to be forced together. They wish to flow into a common sea.

He looked up, his eyes wide, the frustration forgotten, replaced by a sudden, dawning comprehension. He had been trying to brute-force it. To slam the two powers together, to compel them to merge through sheer, desperate willpower. He had been trying to push the river of Steel into the river of Austin.

But that wasn't the way. He needed to create the sea. A vessel. A focal point where both powers could flow, willingly, naturally, to combine.

Chapter : 302

He closed his eyes again, but this time, he didn't try to activate the Black Rings. He didn't try to forge anything. He simply… reached out. With his mind, with his will. He reached for the cool, creative energy of the Austin power. He reached for the hot, tangible substance of the Ferrum power. And he didn't try to force them together.

He pictured, in the space before him, a simple, empty shape. A cup. Not a real cup, but a mold. A vessel of pure, empty will. He didn't try to fill it. He just… held it there. An invitation.

And then, he gently, patiently, encouraged the two rivers of power within him to flow towards it. Not as a command, but as a suggestion. Here, he whispered in his mind. Here is the place you can meet.

He felt a subtle shift. A hesitant trickle of the cool, bluish-white Austin energy flowed from his left eye, not to create, but to line the inner surface of the mental mold, creating a smooth, non-stick, energetic boundary. And then, a corresponding, hesitant trickle of the hot, metallic Ferrum essence flowed from his core, not as a projectile, but as a slow, molten stream, pouring into the waiting, energy-lined mold.

The two powers touched. And they did not fight. They did not repel each other. They… merged. The Austin energy contained, shaped, and cooled the Ferrum essence, which in turn gave the ephemeral mold a tangible, solid reality.

Lloyd opened his eyes.

And there, hovering in the air before him, glowing faintly in the dim light of the ruined hall, was a small, simple, but undeniably solid, cup. It was crafted from a gleaming, silvery-grey metal he had never seen before, a perfect fusion of bluish-white energy and raw, dark steel. It wasn't ephemeral. It wasn't an illusion. It was real.

It hovered there for one second. Two. Five. Ten.

It did not vanish. It did not waver. It simply… was.

A triumphant, almost hysterical, laugh of pure, unadulterated joy erupted from Lloyd’s lips. He had done it. He had finally, finally, done it.

And in his mind, the most beautiful sound in the entire, multi-layered universe chimed, clear and glorious.

[Task Complete: The Eye of the Forge – The First Spark of Creation]

[Objective Achieved: One (1) non-ring-shaped object successfully created and stabilized.]

[Reward Issued: 200 System Coins (SC)]

The frustration of a novice had given way to the first, true spark of a master. The path was still long, but for the first time, he knew, with absolute certainty, that he could walk it.

—

The success of AURA was no longer just a whisper; it was a symphony, and Mei Jing was its conductor. The brand’s ascent was a masterclass in controlled hysteria, a textbook case of manufactured desire that would have made the marketing gurus of Lloyd’s Earth life weep with envy. Just as the initial frenzy over the Royal Rosemary Elixir began to plateau, with every dispenser holder now a smug, walking advertisement, Mei Jing unleashed the second wave.

The “Private Exhibition for the Discerning Gentleman” was an even greater triumph than the ladies’ unveiling. It was a stroke of psychological genius. By framing the new Silken Bar not as a mere soap, but as a symbol of “enduring strength” and “masculine refinement,” she had bypassed their skepticism and appealed directly to their egos. The men of the capital, already weary of their wives’ ecstatic pronouncements, were given a product that was theirs. It wasn’t a shared luxury; it was a personal statement.

The result was a commercial firestorm. The Silken Bar, packaged in its stark black wood and grey velvet, became the essential accessory for any man of status. To offer a guest the use of one’s washroom and not have a bar of AURA Silken Soap resting by the basin was now seen as a social faux pas of the highest order. The waiting list for the bars grew almost as long as the one for the dispensers, and the gold poured into the manufactory’s coffers in a steady, intoxicating stream.

Lloyd watched it all unfold with a sense of detached, almost surreal, satisfaction. His strange little soap venture, born of desperation and a memory of Earthly hygiene, had become the talk of the entire Duchy. His team was a well-oiled machine of innovation and production. His coffers were filling. His System Coin balance was steadily climbing, a quiet, digital affirmation of his success. For the first time since his return to this life, he felt a sense of security, of control.

It was, of course, an illusion.