Chapter 124 - Alchemy Competition 12
"Elder Godari, what about this Thundermelon essence?" One contestant asked.
Elder Godari had an expression of a person who had just remembered something. "Ah! I forgot about that. You can keep the essence for your own use."
The contestants were happy when they heard him. After all, the Thundermelon was quite a rare and expensive ingredient. They immediately sealed the essence in a tube and stored it away.
"Alright, we will have an hour's break first and then I will announce the content of the third round." Elder Godari immediately left the stage.
At the Clover Family area, the elders and the patriarch, Vitali Clover, were secretly discussing the matter about the Mystic Realm spots using the sound transmission.
"Patriarch, things don't look good. The hateful Homun Family might have a good chance to get the spots and while the Goldstone Family's chance doesn't seem optimistic, they seemed close to the family of that Anda Leyan, the dark horse of this alchemy competition!"
Another elder chimed, "That's right, the Goldstone Family probably knew about her talent from the start and had been pulling them closer. He even sent his beloved daughter to be Anda Leyan's husband's wife. He's making them their in-laws! This Magnus seemed more laid back than that hateful Tordin, but he actually secretly schemed to be further ahead of us!"
"Then what should we do?" Vitali asked with a thoughtful expression.
"Of course, we should rope Anda Leyan, too. And the key to this is naturally the husband, Leyvi Leyan! Since Anda Leyan is his wife, she will naturally obey his order. So, if we get him on our side, we got her. I'm sure this is Magnus's plan too." The elder explained. He had done a brief investigation of them just prior.
Vitali grasped the situation. "So, we should make him our in-law too? How? I don't have any children. Your daughter?"
"Nonsense! My daughter, Natalie, is our family alchemist. Of course we can't marry her out." The elder ruled his daughter out.
"My daughter Minami can't too. She is our precious alchemist." Another elder chimed in, shaking his head.
"Then who?" Vitali asked.
"Patriarch, what about your little sister? She is not an alchemist and still single." The elder glanced at the lady sitting beside the patriarch.
"What did you say? Do you want me to beat you up? Although my younger sister is way younger than me, she's far older than that kid! Around 200 years' difference! How is that appropriate?" Vitali disagreed, while quickly glancing at his younger sister.
"How can you say that, patriarch? Didn't you just take a concubine 300 years younger than you? What is this double standard?" Natalie's father complained.
"She's 300 years younger than me, but she's over 100 years old already. How is that the same? That kid is only in his twenties." Vitali retorted.
"Patriarch, over twenty years old, is already an adult. The age gap doesn't matter. Furthermore, this is an emergency. We can't let the Goldstone hog all the spots! Please understand!"
Vitali struggled to make a decision. A few moments later, he replied, "Let's wait for another round. If she does outstanding again, I will discuss it with my sister."
"Good!" The elders agreed with his decision.
Vitali sighed. He didn't know whether his sister would agree or not. She was born without a spirit root, so they could only make her use a body cultivation technique to cultivate.
However, because a body cultivator had to endure a lot of pain while cultivating, her mental was a bit unstable. She has a tendency to beat up people she disliked or when someone annoys her.
He wasn't sure if marrying her off was a good idea. What if she disliked him and ripped his limbs off? Although she looked delicate, her physical strength was monstrous.
His younger sister didn't practice the normal body cultivation technique, which gives the user a bunch of muscles, but one that slowly refines the body using countless precious ingredients.
Because of this, she had an appearance that didn't match her brute strength. Of course, this kind of body cultivation technique could only be practiced by someone from a rich family with a strong alchemy background like theirs.
If she wasn't his sister, a descendant without spirit roots would only live as a mortal. Since she had used a lot of the family resources, it wasn't inappropriate to ask her to contribute to the family, right?
Vitali tried to think of all possible reasons to convince her before he discussed this matter with his sister so that he wouldn't get beaten up later.
An hour later, Elder Godari returned to the stage.
"For the next round, the task is simple. You only have to concoct Tier-2 pills. We will give you multiple sets of ingredients and you need to use all of them to make as many pills as possible. Quality and quantity both contribute to the points you get."
"The pill that you have to concoct is the Poison Repellent Pill, one of the most common Tier-2 pills. Any Alchemist Teacher should know how to make this. If you don't know, just go home and relearn the basics."
"Each contestant will receive 10 sets of ingredients. Each set could be made into a maximum of 5 pills. Low-grade pill will get 1 point, middle-grade pill 2 points, high-grade pill 3 points, and top-grade pill will get 4 points."
"So, theoretically, a contestant can get a maximum of 200 points total in this round, if you can concoct maximum pills and reach top grade using every set."
Elder Godari smiled. "If you feel your rank is shit, this is the time to grab more points to reach a better rank. There's no time limit this time, so make sure to prepare yourself thoroughly before starting."
"However, if I feel like you are wasting time for the sake of wasting time, be prepared to get disqualified."
As usual, Elder Godari stopped talking and let the contestants and the audience have conversations among themselves first.
"Poison Repellent Pill? Isn't that the pill I consumed when fighting with the Demonic Kodomo Dragon? So it was just a basic Tier-2 pill. The effect is very good, though." Leyvi commented.
At that time, he ate a top-grade one that Anda concocted. Not to mention, he had a bunch of them with him right now and all of them were top grade. Which means that Anda had completely mastered this product. Does this mean that Anda will easily earn 200 points this time? Nice!
By the time the crowd calmed down and had less chattering, 10 sets of ingredients for the Poison Repellent Pill were already prepared in front of each contestant.
"Alright, although we made sure that every ingredient was good. I wanted all of you to check again in case we missed it."
A few minutes later, nobody detected any defective ingredients in their possession, so the third round could be started at any moment.
"Good, since everything is fine, let the third round begin!" He declared.
Since there was no time limit, the contestants prepared themselves to concoct the pills without hurrying. They must give their utmost concentration during the alchemy process to achieve the best results.
It was the same with Anda. Although she had mastered this basic alchemy product, creating top-grade pills without any difficulty previously, she couldn't let her guard down.
After all, she was under the watch of a million people, competing with over five thousand alchemists in the open. The atmosphere differed completely from the usual alchemy in private.
Not to mention that she could feel the killing desire directed at her from time to time, which was getting a bit annoying.
Anda took the first set of the ingredients. They consisted of Bitterleaf Herbs, Ironwood Bark, Golden Dew Mushroom, Snakegrass, and Windbell Flower Nectar.
They were all easily found or cultivated ingredients that have mild properties to resist or repel poisons in some ways.
By mixing their individual poison-repelling essences in a certain ratio, a product that repels most poisons that were effective to Foundation Building cultivators was created.
Ever since Anda obtained the Alchemy Vision, she realized that the mixing ratios stated in the Alchemy formulas were not the same as the mixing ratio shown by her Vision.
Some differ by just a little and some by a bit more. It was probably because of the minor errors during the other steps that the Alchemists could never know the real ratio and only set them as the benchmark.
In fact, the same thing happened to her. When she made mistakes, the mixing ratio shown by Alchemy Vision would change, suggesting the best mixing ratio in that specific circumstance.
Therefore, a real experienced alchemist wouldn't just blindly act in accordance with the alchemy formula rigidly. Every time a mistake was made, they had to make some adjustments to their alchemy.
They had to experiment with the variables and learn how to adapt to different situations. This was why most of the existing alchemists could only produce low-grade products; they never went beyond the alchemy formula.
Of course, to do this, one has to experience countless trials and errors, but thanks to the Alchemy Vision, Anda saved an unimaginable amount of time and resources.
It just shows how terrifying the Alchemy Vision was.