Alex was a little surprised. "I should have guessed. They do look similar, so I could have just known name by associating her with sister Zhou Mi," he thought.
He started wondering how good she might be at making pills or how far along she was at becoming an elder by now. He was also curious if she would be one of the people taking part in the annual competition. It was an obvious choice if he thought about it.
He talked with Kong Yuhan for a few more minutes as the rest of the elders came to the exam fields.
The elder from before started calling out names, sending the examinees to specific elders who were waiting for them. The names were at random from what Alex could tell and thus he had to wait a bit before he was called.
"Yu Ming!" the Elder said out loud. Alex walked up to the Elder. The Elder looked him up and down and said, "You're the sect leader's disciple huh? I heard you're quite good at taking pills. Good luck on your exam today." He then sent Alex to an Elder who was waiting for him near a fire pit.
Alex walked to the Elder and greeted him. The elder was on the younger side like he had just been transferred from the core disciples to the elders. The elder didn't speak much and directly told him to sit down and prepare.
"Have you chosen what pill you are going to make?" the Elder asked.
Alex didn't have to think as he had prepared for this moment. He chose the Bone Sealing pill. The Bone Sealing pill was a pill that blocked the cultivation base of anyone in the Bone Tempering realm of lower for a few hours, depending on the pill's harmony.
It was one of the pills he had only made a few times and was thus one of the few pills that fell under the criteria for his choice in the exam. The criteria being it wasn't registered to the sect, it was a recipe sold in the sect, and it was a recipe he had the ingredients for.
"Do you have your own ingredients and cauldron?" the elder asked. Alex was about to nod his head in affirmation but then realized that it was probably not a good idea to show his True Earth grade cauldron in front of everyone here. So he told the Elder that he only had the ingredients and not the cauldron.
The elder asked for him to take out the ingredients for checking. Alex happily complied and took out the ingredients. After seeing that Alex's ingredients had no tampering done to them, the Elder said, " Keep your storage bags aside please."
Alex was a little surprised at first, but then the Elder gave him a moderately big box that could fit about 10 storage bags in them. Alex put his bags in there and locked the box. He took the key with himself.
The elder took out a simple black cauldron, the same ones that were found in the Alchemy hall. This one had no lid either.
Alex had planned to not use Elemental Guidance and definitely not make pills whose resulting energy was metal so as to not stand out in the crowd. And now, he had to use a less than mediocre cauldron too.
'Oh god. If the pill splitting Qi activates, I might actually end up with pills below 20% harmony and just might fail,' he thought.
After the Elder handed him the cauldron and the ingredient, he said, "You have an hour to make the pill. Your time starts now." He then sat directly in front of him.
Alex stopped caring about the Elder and focused on the cauldron. He put the cauldron on the fire and let it heat up. As he was doing so, a small film-like substance started appearing around him and the fire pit. Not even the Elder was inside there.
Alex realized that this was a sound-blocking formation at work. 'I am really curious how these formations work,' he thought.
He then turned his focus back to the task at hand. The first thing he did, even before putting in the ingredients was clean the cauldron. Sending out a wave of Qi, he scraped off whatever bits of powder were left behind from previously made pills.
The Elder simply nodded when she saw this, approving of the choice.
Alex then waited for the cauldron to reach the proper temperature. The cauldron wasn't very good at transferring heat fast enough, so he would have to time it right. Thankfully, he remembered what the pill was supposed to look and feel like throughout the process of making it. So, he could base how close he was using that memory.
He could also use his spiritual sense to figure out the temperature of the cauldron. However, it wasn't as accurate as Flame Mastery Scripture.
When the cauldron was properly heated up, he put in the first ingredient, a tendon from a beaver-like beast. He waited until the tendon was heated enough and the energy started releasing into the air.
Due to having no lid, most of the energy flew away, while some of them stayed behind and got recollected into the powders. He then put in the second ingredient and moved it around inside the cauldron, turning it into powder and releasing its energy too.
The two energies mixed together in the powder forming a simple harmony of energy.
Compared to the first time he made the pills in the Alchemy hall, this was a much easier time. Thanks to his increased mental energy due to the spiritual sea being unlocked, he had a far better concentration and multi-tasking ability than a month ago.
He could also use spiritual sense to constantly check on the ingredients and energy, instead of just watching the powders move in the cauldron-like last time.
All in all, he was doing much better than the first time he had made a pill. Which, he started worrying might come around to become a problem for him.