Mandakh had challenged Jon. Was this a blessing or a curse? Did it matter? If it was a blessing, then it wasn’t a curse. If it was a curse, then it couldn’t be avoided. At the very least, Mandakh’s challenge meant that I no longer needed to worry so much about Jon's machinations. From here on out, I could concentrate on doing my best in the upcoming competition.
Elder Yargui had teleported me to the Green Dragon Room of the Plum Blossom Restaurant. Mandakh stood next to the chair that he had occupied the night before, and Jon stood at the room’s entrance, flanked by a pair of Martial Emperors who were dressed in form-fitting martial arts robes.
With everyone caught up in the ongoing drama, the first person to notice my arrival was Jon, who smiled and tipped a non-existent hat in my direction.
Ignoring this, I walked over to An XunFei, who was no longer standing shoulder to shoulder with Mandakh. Instead, she was off to the side, caught between the two opposing groups.
“An XunFei, do you understand the implications of Jon and Mandakh’s bet? If Jon loses, it will be impossible for you to marry him in the future. I can ensure that you are not forced to follow Mandakh, but several powerful individuals are already aware of this bet. If we emerge victorious and you reject him, you will find your prospects for a good marriage irreparably damaged.” My eyes flashed with barely concealed anger. “Consider your options carefully. If you request it, we can still alter the terms of this agreement.”
Mandakh’s mouth dropped open in shock. “Fang! What are you—”
“Quiet!” I snapped, wanting to slap the boy. “You have already caused enough trouble. Do not compound your errors further.”
Mandakh looked like he wanted to respond, but I ignored him and looked at Jon, who gave me a silent nod, agreeing to my proposal.
I turned back to An XunFei. “What is your decision?”
The young woman bowed. “Thank you for your concern, Emperor Su. However, I have already made peace with my decision.”
Grunting, I turned to face Jon. “And you? Are you certain that this is what you want?”
Jon blinked, then burst into a hearty guffaw. “No… No, it isn’t. What I want is to be out hunting lost treasures, killing vicious beasts, and saving beautiful women, but we don’t get what we want in this world, do we?”
As Jon’s laughter faded, his expression turned somber. “Look, Fang—can I call you Fang? Fang, for the past 20 years, I’ve been railroaded through both the Hall of the Herb Lord and the Palace of the damn Herb Sovereign. Honestly? I’m sick of it. If you can defeat me, then so be it. You want to renegotiate our bet? Fine, I accept. If you win, then all of my companions will follow you. Better to push them into your orbit than leave them to fend for themselves.”
Jon’s lips quirked into a smile. “Don’t think that this means I plan to go easy on you, though. I still need to join the Temple, find my ‘rival,’ defeat him, and get rid of this damn curse so I can regain my freedom. I might be sick of this tutorial, but I’m not suicidal—not yet, at least.”
Stunned, I could only stare as Jon turned around and led his two guards out of the room.
Once they were gone, Mandakh walked up behind me. “Fang, what did you say to that man? I could only understand a piece of it. What did you mean about XunFei marrying him?”
I clenched my hand, forcibly stopping myself from whirling on the child.
“Go back to the inn and rest,” I said through gritted teeth. “We should soon be informed that the preliminaries are at an end. We need to be ready for the true competition.”
Upon returning to my room, I was greeted by one of the inn’s attendants, who was waiting outside my door.
“Good evening, Alchemist Su. A letter for you from Elder Jalari.” Giving me a deep bow, the attendant raised both hands, presenting me with a folded sheet of paper.
Nodding in acknowledgement, I took the letter and thumbed it open.
All preliminary tests are now complete.
The individual portion of the alchemy contest will be held in two days. All fifteen alchemists will go on stage and concoct their pills at the same time. Each alchemist will only be allowed a single attempt.
The group portion of the contest will begin one day after the end of the individual portion. Each group will be allowed to concoct up to three pills, but only one of these pills may be included in your group’s final tally. The winning team will be the one whose six pills—five from the individual portion and one from the group portion—have the highest total value.
As a reminder, all members of your team must take an active role during the group portion of this contest. If they do not, your team will be penalized.
So, I had two days—well, one day and two nights.
My teammates were fully prepared for the individual portion of this competition, and I had already prepared everything we should need for the group portion. However…
If the Temple had been keeping as close an eye on me as Elder Yargui’s actions suggested, then they already knew about most of these preparations. But if that were the case, then wouldn’t this competition be little more than a farce? After all, they should already know the full extent of everyone’s capabilities.
What were the Temple’s intentions? Was this just a way to showcase our talents publicly? No, manipulating Mandakh into challenging Jon revealed the elders’ true
intentions. They wanted to push us to our limits. They wanted us to push the bounds of everything we had done before, even in ‘private.’For Jon, this wouldn’t be much of a problem. Whatever boosts he had gotten from Mandakh’s challenge would likely be enough to push him into an entirely new weight class. For me, however, the situation was more complicated. I was already at my limits. Where was I supposed to go from here?
Certain experiments that I had been running in my inner world might be able to provide me with a solution, but they weren’t ready yet. With only a little over 50 hours to go before the start of the group portion of the competition, I would need to redouble my efforts if I wanted to produce something that was even halfway usable in time.
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Mandakh’s challenge had caused us an inordinate amount of trouble, but I couldn’t place the blame for this solely on his shoulders. The Temple’s elders were far too eager to see a full-power confrontation between me and Jon. If Mandakh hadn’t been willing to play his part, then they would have just kept pushing until they found some other way to make this challenge happen.
So, setting aside past mistakes, I looked my team over one last time.
Both Mandakh and Lau CoiHung stood at attention, expressions of grim determination locked on their faces. Our other two companions were more nervous, but I didn’t fault them for this. They were ready.
“Take your time,” I said, looking each one in the eye. “Don’t rush. Take things slow and focus on doing your best. If you start to lose control, condense your pill immediately. We only get one chance at this, and better a weak pill than no pill at all, right?”
They all nodded at me.
“Good. Let’s go.”
Turning on my heels, I walked through the ominous black portal that appeared in the air before us.
We stepped out onto the middle of the stage where we had first arrived—the same stage where we had been subjected to that soul suppression formation. This time, however, we were not surrounded by rows of empty bleachers. No, the stadium was packed, with the weakest members of the audience being Martial Lords.
Ignoring the spectacle, I led my team forward, and we bowed deeply to the three powerful before us. “Greetings, Elders.”
Jalari waved a dismissive hand, motioning toward the alchemy workbenches. “Take your places.”
Bowing again, we turned and did as ordered.
The workbenches had been set up in three rows, with the first row having three benches and both the second and third rows having six benches each. I took the middle bench of the first row, while Mandakh and Lau CoiHung took the two benches in the middle of the second row. Jon took the bench to my right, while the leader of the team from the True Martial Domain took the bench to my left.
Not bothering to give some long speech, Jalari released a wave of qi, which various formations translated into several different languages. No matter the language, however, the meaning of his words remained the same. “Begin!”
I looked over at Jon just in time to see him turn his head to look at me. He smiled as, at almost the exact same time, we both reached out and stuffed the provided workbenches into our storage bags. Then, maintaining this odd synchronicity, we both pull out massive metal containers that towered over our fellow competitors.
Jon’s behavior didn’t surprise me. If anyone had been paying even the slightest bit of attention to me in the lead-up to this competition, my plans would have been transparently obvious. So, it wasn’t much of a shock to see that Jon had also chosen to concoct a Rank 6 Ascension Pill. We would just have to wait and see whose pill was better.
Reaching into my storage bag, I pulled out the carcass of a Peak Rank 5 saber-toothed wolfhound and shoved it into the bottom chamber of my furnace.
Mimicking my motions, Jon pulled out his own beast. When I saw it, I let out a soft curse. It was a Peak Rank 5 root-eater boar—a demon beast that contained wood energy. Was this Jon’s way of gloating about having received a temporary copy of my two-star wood affinity? I should never have raised that damn thing. It had yet to do me much good, and now, it was helping my opponent.
While Jon’s behavior did bother me, his performance was well within my expectations. In fact, I was happy that he was making an Ascension Pill. This meant that he hadn’t been able to come up with any real surprises.
Letting out a breath of stale air, I put Jon out of my thoughts and focused on the task in front of me.
Jumping on top of the massive furnace’s lower chamber, I walked over to the smaller box that sat atop the plinth at its center—the battered old furnace that I had received from Ancestor Wong. This wasn’t the standard furnace that one would use when concocting an Ascension Pill, and this would create a few issues, but the benefits provided to me by my soul-empowered furnace were too good to pass up.
Tossing my herbs inside, I poured pill qi into the top plate of the furnace to form a Qi Gathering Formation. Then, I used the energy of the formation to cleanse my herbs with little more than a thought.
Once all traces of toxin had been eradicated, I melded the herbs together, forming two halves of a sphere, like I had when concocting that Rank 4 Ascension Pill. Next, I brought the bundle of fang wu up from the bottom chamber, setting it to hover directly below my furnace.
Unlike the furnaces that would normally be used when concocting Ascension Pills, Ancestor Wong’s furnace didn’t have an opening that would allow energy from the lower chamber to enter the chamber with the herbs. So, I was forced to create another Qi Gathering Formation—this time, without any filters—to pull it inside. I just had to be extremely careful not to let this formation pull in any impurities from the surrounding environment.
Thankfully, the soul fragments that I had imbued into my furnace proved their worth and took care of this without me needing to do much of anything.
Once all of the wu was gathered up, I infused it into the separate halves of the sphere and melded everything together. All of my motions were smooth and well-rehearsed, not allowing for even the slightest burr to creep into my pill’s medicinal energy.
Pulling this energy together, I quickly gave it its first two patterns. Then, I reshaped it, giving it a third.
At this point, however, I paused, reached into my storage bag, and withdrew five additional herbs that I carelessly tossed into my furnace. Then, like I had done with my Beauty Reviving Pill, I burned nearly all of these herbs away and used the few scraps that remained to patch up the tiny flaws that had appeared when I had given the pill its third pattern.
Two more tightenings and one transformation later, the energy within my furnace had achieved its sixth pattern, so I threw five more herbs into the furnace to restore the energy to its pristine condition.
This was where I began to struggle, but my years of practice, my improved pill recipe, and the assistance of my Rank 9 furnace pulled me through. I tightened the pill twice more, reshaped it, repaired it, and condensed it.
Finally, reaching into my furnace, I retrieved my creation. My analysis ability didn’t work on Rank 6 pills, but the even, dark green sheen of my Ascension Pill was enough to tell me that it was nearly perfect.
I was proud of this pill, but I already knew that it wouldn’t be enough. Watching Jon retrieve his own nine-patterned pill only confirmed this. I would just have to wait and see what happened next.
After placing my pill into a jade bottle, I handed the bottle to an attendant and sat down on a cultivation mat to await the results of the day’s events.
The stadium buzzed with excitement, but the elders remained calm as Jalari stepped forward.
“In third place, with a total value of 6,749 mid-grade spirit stones, is the team from the True Martial Domain.”
The response to this announcement was muted, and downcast expressions appeared on the faces of the True Martial Domain’s alchemists.
“In second place, with a total value of 501 high-grade spirit stones, is the team from the Nine Rivers Domain.”
I let out a faint sigh, relief mixed with worry. Jon’s blessing had its limits—I had already proven this. However, the last time we competed, we had been Martial Disciples concocting Lord-level pills. This imbalance had caused his blessing to falter. Now, though, we were both Martial Emperors concocting Emperor-level pills—something that was, evidently, well within his blessing’s capabilities.
“And in first place, with a total value of 506 high-grade spirit stones, is the team from the Heroes Domain.”
I looked at Mandakh and the others, nodding in approval. They had done what they needed to do. With the limits imposed on me by both this competition and my own abilities, I would, at best, be able to tie with Jon. A tie was fine, though, since my teammates were able to pull me over the final hurdle.
With Ascension Pills being the most valuable type of Rank 6 pill, as long as we could concoct another one of the same quality during the group portion of this competition, there shouldn’t be anything that Jon could do to turn things around. However, when I looked at the man, he just smiled, not showing any signs of worry.
This confirmed what I had been afraid of. Jon had another trick up his sleeve, and I didn’t have the faintest idea what it might be.
That was fine, though. I had a trick of my own. One of which, not even the Earthly Dao was aware of yet. I just didn’t know if the elders would allow me to use it.