Seeing that the young lady had no intention of joining any of them, many of the elders left dejected. However, azure robed elders, or alchemists, were very much known for their overbearing arrogance.
No one knew why this was, honestly speaking. Many thought that it was because improvement in cultivation relied heavily on pills. However, other factions were also highly important. Who didn’t need weapons? Or formations? In fact, magic and runic veins, in particular situations, could be even more useful than alchemy. So, in truth, that answer was just a band-aid and couldn’t possibly be the entire truth.
The true answer laid in the constitution necessary to become an alchemist. Although weapon’s masters and formation masters required the amount of soul talent, they were still seen as professions easier than being an alchemist.
If a weapon’s master messed up a piece of equipment, it could be re-forged. For a formation master, it was even more straight forward because the only thing they lost was their own stamina. However, if an alchemist failed, they might even lose millions of energy stones worth of materials.
Such severe losses, faced constantly, would cause many to become dejected. In the end, only the most arrogant and self-believing people could follow the path of alchemy to the end.
In addition, if you weren’t a peak talent, one wouldn’t even consider alchemy. This was because the cost was too great. If you took too many attempts to understand something, you would end up bankrupting your guild and your master, and in the end, yourself. And, which peak talent wasn’t arrogant beyond belief?
With all of these factors accumulating over millions of years, it ended up that only the most self-believing and arrogant individuals rose to the top of alchemy, resulting in the feeling of superiority disseminating to the younger disciples, causing even those that weren’t necessarily arrogant by nature to start being affected by the “air”.
That aside, it was clear that the azure robed elder wasn’t happy with the young lady’s rejection, especially since he had actually lowered himself to go personally, something he thought no junior deserved.
Well, the truth was he sent his disciple first… Okay, maybe he sent a servant first, then his disciple, and then he was forced to go personally, unwilling to miss out on such a disciple.
However, by the time he got there personally, the young lady had somehow already been infuriated. When he asked his disciple what had happened, he feigned ignorance. But, after some discreet inquiries, he found out that the stupid boy had actually made a pass at the young lady, claiming that since he was a first grade comet alchemist, he could take care of her.
What none of them knew until that point was that the young lady was supposedly already married and had a husband that could quote “run circles around your pitiful alchemy”.
At first, everyone found such a statement to be ridiculous. After all, his disciple was a once in a hundred year genius, and although he wasn’t a peak grade innate soul talent, his innate soul was still at the second stage! So, completely enraged, the young lady challenged his disciple to an alchemy duel for the honor of this supposed husband of hers.
Of course, the elders were delighted by this challenge.
For one, they all thought that she would lose. After all, at that time, her soul had only been at the 6th stage, while his disciple’s was at the 8th. This wasn’t because of talent, but rather because his disciple was almost a thousand years old. Regardless, they thought that this would be a win.
Secondly, they were dissatisfied that such a genius had already given herself to another. Although marriage alliances were quite useless within The Sapientia Quadrant, who would like the idea of their goddess of a disciple marrying a mere mortal? So, they wanted to broaden her horizons, and show her what a true genius could do.
However, they were in for a rude awakening.
In order to be fair, they were both tasked with creating a master level pill.
When his disciple created one with 87% purity, they thought it was over. In fact, many more sympathetic elders implored her to stop pill-making as there was no point to continue. This was because such a purity level was usually only possible when one had become a comet level alchemist, those still at the master or grandmaster level would mostly be capped at the 60-70% level, and those would be geniuses among geniuses.
From what they knew, this girl was only focused on weapon’s forging, the fact she knew any alchemy at all was already impressive, she didn’t need to continue to push herself for a husband that likely didn’t deserve her.
But, they had all forgotten one thing. With how overbearing this young woman was, with how absolutely arrogant and domineering she was, even in the face of them as elders, how could her husband possibly be normal? What kind of man did it take to subdue such an arrogant woman?
Once the young woman’s delicate hand slapped the her cauldron, and the pill popped out, they all thought she had failed. They couldn’t smell any scent from the pill at all, and could only sigh and try to console her.
But, that was when the arrogant young lady looked at them as though they were stupid and everyone focused their attention on the trembling young man that was her opponent.
She leisurely tossed the pill to him and walked back to weapon’s pavilion, leaving behind only these words. “My husband is the man who taught to me create pills, you aren’t even worth the bottom of his shoes.”
When everyone turned their attention to the pill, they all trembled in shock. It was actually a pill with 100% purity!