In the Alchemist Headquarters, Lagan Jianto was in the middle of concoction when suddenly, his communicator received a call.
'Hum? Didn't I tell them to not disturb me while I'm concocting?'
Lagan then connected the call while he kept making his pill.
"It better be important, what is it?"
Palo noticed the elder was busy and went directly to the main issue.
"Hum? Someone dared to put a Divine Sense Mark on our alchemists?"
Lagan then looked into Krune's information and frowned.
"Wait, why would someone waste their time following a wisp?"
Palo then explained.
"Well, it goes like this."
Poff!
Suddenly, the elder lost control of his concoction, and the pill-making failed. But he couldn't care less about that since what he heard was way more important.
"Come that again. Did you just say that Krune got over 95% purity while still at the Core Formation Realm? You are not kidding, are you?"
Palo immediately shook his head.
"I'm not. If the elder checks the alchemist network, the second phase video should be available for you to watch."
Lagan did as Palo mentioned and soon found the second-day competition video. He then played it so fast that a normal person wouldn't be able to make heads and tails. But with his cultivation, it was the same a turtle. When he finally arrived at the analysis part, he got surprised. After all, Krune didn't do just a single herb over 90%, but all four of them!
He then turned to Palo once more and said.
"Wait a moment, I will be there in a second."
Lagan then finished the call and made a cutting motion with his hand in mid-air. Right after, a spatial gate appeared right in front of him. The elder didn't waste any time and entered it. As for the pill concoction that he failed, he had already forgotten that.
Back in the Junior Alchemist Competition site. Krune noticed that Palo finished his call and was just about to ask when suddenly, a Spatial Gate appeared right in front of him. From inside, a man with white hair stepped out, and the gate closed right behind him.
"Hello there, Krune. I'm Lagan, one of the elders of the Alchemist Headquarters."
It turned out that Lagan was just in the Planet neighbor to the Riren Planet. With his Semi-Divinity Cultivation, it was an easy task to open a spatial gate directly into the room where Krune and Palo stayed. Of course, there was also the fact that he knew the location and had a free pass into this place. Otherwise, he would not be able to do it.
Krune immediately got up and greeted the elder.
"Hi, I'm Krune."
Lagan nodded and then spread his Divine Sense around Krune's body. It only took him a second to find the Divine Sense Mark on Krune's back.
"So there is really someone trying to break our secrecy rule, hehe."
Elder Lagan checked the aura around that Divine Mark and then spread his Divine Sense. At his realm, covering the entire planet wasn't anything hard to do. As long as his target isn't inside some formation that protects against it, Lagan would probably find him.
On the other corner of the city, there was a man drinking some wine in a restaurant. He was acting quite leisurely as if nothing could bother him. Suddenly, he opened his eyes wide and got up from his chair.
"Shit!"
Just as he was about to flee, elder Lagan's spiritual pressure came from above and locked him in place. As mentioned before by Light Spirit, the owner of the Divine Sense Mark was probably in the Divine View Realm, which is an entire realm below elder Lagan.
Knowing that it would be useless to fight back, the man just sighed and waited in place.
Right after, a spatial gate appeared beside him, alerting all the customers in the restaurant. After all, a spatial gate isn't something that low-level cultivators and demon beasts see every day. From inside, elder Lagan, Palo Yiag, and Krune stepped out. When Lagan saw who it was, his mouth twitched.
"So it is really you, Rico. I knew I had sensed that aura before somewhere."
Rico smiled bitterly and then said.
"There was no need for elder Lagan to show himself, right? What about we just pretend that nothing happened? I swear I won't try it again."
Pow!
Elder Lagan smacked Rico's head after hearing that.
"Do you think you can escape the punishment that easy? Just wait until I bring you to your father, I wonder if he will be as merciful as me."
Rico's face immediately went pale.
"E-Elder Lagan, there is no need for us to go that far, right? Father is a busy man, why should we bother him with such a small problem like this? We can resolve this here, and everyone will be happy."
Krune couldn't help but ask Palo beside him with a Divine Sense message.
"You guys know this person?"
Palo sighed and then answered.
"It isn't even a problem of knowing him. In fact, we know him way too well. He is Amark Guli's son, after all. As for who Amark is, he is none other than the head of our Solar System Alchemist Organization Headquarters."
Krune was taken aback by that. If he really had that identity, then why exactly would he need to put a Divine Sense mark on him? Couldn't he just use his connection with the headquarters to probe his identity? Of course, Krune understood that the situation wasn't that simple.
Palo knew that if Krune researched it later, he would definitely find out the truth since it isn't a secret. So he decided to tell Krune everything.
"You see, Rico Guli left our Solar System Alchemist Organization behind and joined another one. He is very talented, so it was quite a blow for his father when he found out. But the problems didn't stop there. For some reason, this idiot comes by every now and then to try to steal our Solar System talents. We lost quite a few geniuses because of him already."
Krune understood that the story had a lot more behind it. But since it wasn't his problem, he decided to not ask anymore. As long as they keep the secrecy part, he is okay with it.
Elder Lagan turned to Palo and Krune and then said.
"I will bring this failure away to be dealt with."
He then opened two spatial gates, one for him and Rico, and the other for Krune and Palo.
"You two go back and finish whatever you had to do."
Rico had a very gloomy expression. Until now, he didn't understand how they found his Divine Sense Mark. He had made a through and through research and knew that there wasn't a single elder above the Divine View Realm in the alchemist competition. In theory, no one should have found his mark.
Krune and Palo looked at each other and nodded. They entered the spatial gate that was opened for them, and soon, they appeared back into the private room back in the Junior Alchemist Competition site.
Palo then turned to Krune and said.
"Alright, now that it is over, let's go back to the main topic. You said before how you do your extraction of the herbs. How come you can control your energy so well at your cultivation realm?"
Krune shrugged his shoulders and said.
"Do you believe that until today, I didn't know that what I was doing was something amazing? When I first tried it, I felt like it was a lot easier to get more from the herb if I did it that way. It was that simple."
Palo looked deeply at Krune, but in the end, he didn't force the issue. Everyone had their secrets, after all.
"Anyway, just change your appearance so that I can send you out. Also, remember that you are going to be in the middle of the spotlight tomorrow in the final phase. Do you think you can repeat what you did today?"
Krune shook his head.
"Six Silver Stars is really my level at the moment, so there is no way I can bring a pill to the Golden Star Level. First of all, I probably will be placed at the very end since there is a lot of Seven Silver Stars and higher alchemists competing tomorrow too."
Palo didn't seem surprised since the information that they got from Ramon's branch really stated that Krune was at the Six Silver Stars level.
"Well, whatever. The fact that you can control spiritual and elemental source energy to this level is something to be very proud of. But I have bad news for you. As you probably know, the Junior Alchemist Competition happens so that we can find good talents to invest in. Unfortunately, although your talent is at the very top, your life span is way too small. Because of that, we won't be able to help you since it wouldn't have a good return."
Krune didn't mind that at all. He wasn't expecting anything from this competition to start with. The fact that it went out of control like this was totally out of his expectations to start with. Not to mention that he is confident in raising his Alchemist Rank with or without the Headquarters help. Lastly, it would mean that he won't be bound to them unnecessarily.
"Not a problem, I prefer it to be like that too. I'm taking my leave, then."
Palo nodded and helped Krune leave through another passage where he wouldn't be noticed. Krune also returned to his normal appearance, so other than his rainbow hair being catchy, no one else paid attention to him.
Once Krune returned to the hotel, he found out that Yilio and Ramon were waiting for him already. Yilio then gave him a strong pat on the back.
"Alright! I understand why you can do that well in the knowledge phase, but how the hell did you do that in the extraction part?"
Krune then told him the same thing as he told Palo.
"What?!"
Yilio's eyes lit up!
"Tell me more about that."
Ramon noticed Yilio's excitement and decided to intervene.
"Your energy control is far from enough to do that, so forget it."
Yilio then smiled and said.
"That's where you are wrong. Do you think that Krune is the only one with secrets? Anyway, Krune, if you don't want to talk about it or if it is some secret, you don't need to tell me."
Krune shook his head and said.
"It's not a secret, so I can tell how I do it."
Of course, Krune wouldn't include the Myriad Energies Technique in the explanation. But since Yilio seems to be confident, he had no issue in explaining everything else related to the alchemy part.