Unlike the battle tournaments, the judges gave no break to the alchemists.
Clapping his hands again, Hendrix drew everyone’s attention to him.
”Alright, since everyone has completed the test and witnessed what you can do when you increase your skills, let us start the second round. Please press the red button on the bottom right of the table,”
Hearing Hendrix, Noah moved his finger to the small round red button on the bottom right.
As he pressed the button, the jade table suddenly trembled slightly. Then, the hole in the center disappeared as a pile of neatly stacked ingredients and a golden parchment slowly appeared on the clear, sleek table.
”The second round requires all of you to follow the formula on your table and brew the potion. Just like the first round, you have two batches of ingredients so you can only fail once. If you have finished your ingredients in the process of brewing the potion, you will be eliminated,”
”huh?” Hearing this, Noah was at a loss. Creasing his brows, Noah picked up the scroll and slowly pulled it open to read the contents. Unlike the scroll he read in the first round, the scroll in his hand contained neither complex nor wrong steps.
After memorizing the formula, Noah looked around to see everyone reading the scroll without batting an eye. Meanwhile, on the VIP seating, each judge received the same scroll as the participants.
”Revitalization potion,” Michael shared the scroll with Eve as she moved closer to him to see the contents written on the scroll,
Throughout a cultivator’s life, they would consume countless pills, potions, and foods on a daily basis. Little by little, they would create impurities to clog their bodies’ energy vines, resulting in slower cultivation. There were many ways to unclog the energy vines and purify the body from within and one of those ways was intaking a Revitalization potion or pills.
In the Majestic, Revitalization pills were one of the fastest-selling products. Michael sold one pill for 9000 gold coins. Currently, the guild has given the formula for free like candies. However, Michael did not worry about the formula because, unless Hendrix and other six-star alchemists began to sell the Revitalization pills in bulk, his business wouldn’t be affected.
”Twelve ingredients? Seems a bit more, don’t you think?” Eve whispered to Michael,
”The number is not the only problem they have. They need absolute focus and delicate touch to extract the essence. It was challenging. Unless one has total control over their alchemy fire, the ingredient would be burnt to ashes before they could extract the essence” Michael explained to Eve.
On the ground level, Noah raised his head, looking around him only to find that Jennifer, Leilan, and the others had their eyebrows slightly knit together. Clearly, they were very inexperienced. Else, they wouldn’t be thinking it’s simple to brew the Revitalization potion.
”Good thing I have practiced controlling Heaven’s flame,” Noah mumbled softly.
”We shall now begin the second round. You have an hour,” As Hendrix’s voice echoed through the arena, the ghostly hourglass materialized again in the air. After setting down on his seat, Hendrix looked at Noah, who had already raised his flame and began to refine the ingredients one by one.
”Speed and control, young man,” He muttered under his breath.
Many alchemists were grinning as they thought the formula was simple. Moreover, they had one hour to brew one potion. It was a simple enough task in their minds. Hence, they conjured the flames with bright smiles.
Of course, among so many alchemists, there were some cautious ones who were surprised upon looking at the simple test and hesitated. But they just shoved the doubt and hesitation to the corner of their minds and began to refine the ingredients.
With absolute focus, Noah conjured his bright blue flame. It took the cauldron a few more minutes to reach sufficient temperature. Afterward, Noah slowly began to throw in the medicinal ingredients one by one. His pupils constricted as he slowly began to refine.
”Are you participating in the Aqua auction Eve?” while everyone was busy refining the ingredients, Michael asked Eve. Since they were friends, they naturally addressed each other by their first names,
”Yes. I reckon you’re coming too,”
”I will issue an arrest warrant if you don’t come to Voldiguard mansion In Thera,” She squinted her eyes as Michael smiled,
”Definitely,”
”Here, take this” With a flick of her delicate wrist, Eve took out a silver medallion in the shape of ‘V’
”We can go to the auction together. Voldigards have our own place in the Aqua palace,”
Michael put the medallion in the system storage with a nod,
Meanwhile, as they were refining the ingredients, the noise from the two seating galleries at the sides also gradually decreased. Numerous gazes swept over the alchemists in the open square, looking at them without batting an eye.
…
As time slowly flew, many red lights flicked in the arena. Michael saw many alchemists had burnt all their ingredients while trying to extract the essence. But, like Michael told Eve, one needed absolute control over their fire and focus. Those who lacked either naturally got eliminated from the competition.
On the other hand, some of the competitors whose abilities were quite good had already refined the ingredients needed. After hesitating for a moment, they clenched their teeth and tried to merge the essence, beginning the final part of the refinement.
Noah’s gaze focused on the ingredients that were boiling within the cauldron. Because he was worried about the possibility of some problems suddenly arising, he took his time cautiously refining each ingredient.
As Noah finished extracting the essence of the tenth ingredient, Leilan and Jennifer finished extracting the last essence. Just when they were about to start merging the essence beads, a soft muffled explosion sounded not far away from the trio. Hearing the sound, Noah raised his eyes to take a look. At that spot, an alchemist was foolishly staring at black smoke coming from the cauldron. Clearly, this was a result of a failed refining attempt.
”What the? I followed the instructions to the word…how…how can it happen…why did I fail,” The alchemist stuttered, trembling in shock.
A moment later, he turned the cauldron upside down, dropping a pile of ashes. Taking a long deep breath, the alchemist began refining the last ingredient batch.
As more and more time passed, numerous soft muffled sounds from the medicinal cauldrons occurred one after another. The alchemists who failed stared at the black smoke coming from the cauldrons dumbfounded.
Dum!
Dum!
All of a sudden, Noah heard the muffled explosion sounding from his side. He then turned his head to see Leilan and Jennifer standing behind their tables with completely stunned faces. One could see dark lines on both their foreheads as they stared at the black smoke coming out of their cauldrons.
Countless sounds of gasps emerged from the spectators’ stand. They did not expect Leilan and Jennifer to fail. Even the elders in the VIP seatings were not an exception to this.
”Damn. she failed,” Even clenched her fist tight looking at her younger sister’s smoking cauldron,
”As I said, she needs more control over her fire,”
Following the shocking turn of events, many red lights began to flicker across the arena, indicating the elimination. Almost one-third of the alchemists destroyed their last batch of ingredients. By doing so, they left with no ingredients to refine. Hence, they could only walk out of the arena
”Fuck. Why did it fail? My control over the flame was clearly very good,” An alchemist shouted before leaving the arena. Similar events happened throughout the arena as the judges calmly observed them.
Looking at many getting eliminated, Noah didn’t dare to lose focus. When Noah began to raise his flame and perform the merger, some of the alchemists around him including Leilan and Jennifer threw their gazes over. Under the circumstances where they all failed, they wanted to see if Noah could succeed where they failed.
Noah ignored the surrounding gazes as he put all his attention into controlling Heaven’s Flame. Under the grilling of the blue flame, Noah extracted the essence from the last ingredient.
Each essence bead emerged from the cauldron and sparkled in the air. Every twelve beads were floating in a row in the air from blue to pink.
”Try merging them one by one,” Noah said in a low-pitched voice, only loud enough for Jennifer and Leilan to hear. Noah broke sweat on his forehead and merged the last bead in the row with the bead beside.
Hearing Noah’s tip, Jennifer and Leilan conjured their flames again to refine the ingredients.
Michael, who sat leisurely on the VIP seat got bored of seeing the youngsters failing so miserably. Thus, he focused on the Spycam he placed on Pirate Captain Corey. Currently, he could see her navigating through a treacherous storm, and in the distance, Michael noticed a vague outline of another ship.
”Sabrina,” It was clear to Michael that Corey was chasing Sabrina’s ship. Apparently, she had something that the vampires needed. Until they get what they want, Michael knew they wouldn’t let Sabrina go.
The judges and spectators observed the alchemists without batting an eye. But, because of Noah’s focus and experience, he was the first one to merge the beads.
As soon as all the beads merged into an orb, the orb of essence radiated a sweet fragrance along with a bright glow.
”Shit, he’s about to finish” As Leilan sniffed the faint fragrance emanating from the essence orb, he growled inside.
At this moment, countless people’s hearts were hung in their throats.
”He can finish it,”
Atian’s shriveled palm tightly held the guardrail.
Unlike Michael, the rest were too focused and excited to see the alchemists in action.
The silent atmosphere in the arena continued until Noah kicked the table, sending the vial into the air. With a flick of his wrist, Noah guided the essence into the vial and covered the vial with his Heaven’s flame.
Only when all the essence went into the vial, did Noah slowly exhale. He raised his head as a faint smile appeared on his calm face.
Under the thousands of gazes, Noah remained with a dark red vial in his hand. Following Noah’s success, almost fifteen minutes later, the green light of Jennifer and Leilan was lit up. The two of them placed their potions on the table and exchanged glances, sighing in relief.
After the trio, a few more streaks of green light shot out towards the sky from the arena. Unfortunately, the red streaks of light overwhelmed the green light.
When the sand within the hourglass completely fell, only a little over a hundred people still remained in the arena. The rest of the people had already been completely expelled during these two rounds.
As Hendrix clapped his hands, Noah slowly raised his head. His gaze landed on Hendrix who revealed a friendly smile at Noah.
After they concluded the second round, the next event was to once again test for the potions. Just like the first round, when everyone placed their potions into the hold, Noah’s table produced a brighter streak of light, followed by Jennifer and Leilan.
Once the test was completed, the sky had already gradually darkened. A crescent moon slowly appeared at the edge of the sky, bathing the city of Oxshore beneath.
Looking at the daylight slowly fading away, Atian stepped forward from his seat,
”Everyone, we will stop the competition for the day and start the final round at ten tomorrow morning. Everyone, please take a rest and arrive here thirty minutes before,”
With Atian’s announcement, the long day of competition finally came to an end. Everyone in the VIP seating planned to take a rest just like the participants except Michael. He had something important to do…Like contacting the Alpha Guardian.