Word Count: 2,628 Words
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Quite a few of the Yao Clan's younger members and elders, those already able to refine peak tier 8 pills and even beginning to challenge tier 9, stood utterly dumbfounded.
What shocked them was not only the thrilling spectacle of four Mysterious Pill Gurus clashing over the world's energy, but the realization that Xiao Yan had foreseen this very outcome from the start!
Four rivals fighting over one supply could only end with the fish dead and the net torn! So before the net tore, Xiao Yan had quietly eaten his fill!
"Good grief, who says an alchemist only needs talent in alchemy? Without brains, you still get played for a fool."
"That guy was a step ahead of Elder Wanhuo and the other two from the very beginning!"
A jolt ran through the mind of everyone who understood why Xiao Yan had chosen the simplest Mysterious Pill to refine.
"Eh? Why are all four of them fighting over the world's energy? Is alchemy supposed to look like this?" a novice alchemist asked in confusion.
"A Tier 9 Treasure Pill can already defy fate, while a Tier 9 Mysterious Pill must seize the power of heaven itself. That's why tier 9 pills are also known as Heaven Pills."
"The fact that all four are seizing the energy of the world proves that every one of them is refining a Tier 9 Mysterious Pill."
From the seat of honor, Yao Dan watched the spectacle unfolding across the sky, and a peculiar look crossed his face. With his discerning eye, how could he fail to see that the four of them were locked in a contest of pride? He could not speak with certainty for the others, but he knew Elder Wanhuo inside and out. The man's skill in alchemy was certainly not weak, yet his odds of successfully refining a Tier 9 Mysterious Pill were likely no higher than twenty percent.
Refining a Tier 9 Mysterious Pill also demanded a staggering amount of the world's energy. The natural energy within thousands of miles of Yao Mountain was exceptionally dense, but it clearly could not sustain four Tier 9 Mysterious Pills at once. By Yao Dan's estimate, draining every wisp of energy across that whole expanse would barely suffice to produce a single one, let alone... all four of these fellows attempting one at the same time.
'If Tier 9 Mysterious Pills were so easy to refine, they would never be so scarce.' Yao Dan gave a slight shake of his head and shifted his gaze toward Xiao Yan. If pressed to say who stood the best chance of completing a Tier 9 Mysterious Pill today... the likeliest candidate really was that clever little rascal.
High across the distant vault, wild torrents of energy howled and converged into four colossal spiritual tornadoes. One end of each funnel anchored itself to its master's Heavenly Flame cauldron, while the other spread wide like a vast fishing net and ravenously hauled in every strand of natural energy it could reach.
Under that reckless, all-consuming pull, the spectators around the square felt the Dou Qi inside their own bodies straining to break free. Alarm surged through the crowd. On the verge of panic, people scrambled backward, terrified that the Dou Qi they had spent years cultivating would be ripped out of them and dragged into the four storms overhead. Such a loss would be far too heavy to bear.
Neither Xiao Yan nor the other three showed any sign of relenting, and their earth-shaking tug-of-war raged on for nearly three full days. By then, no one could tell just how much energy had been torn from the surrounding realm. Everyone could sense, however, that the natural energy drifting through the air had grown markedly thinner. Even the medicinal herbs around the square had begun to yellow and wither as their vitality was wrenched straight out of them.
Since none of the four had stepped into the Emperor State soul realm and all of them wielded Heavenly Flames, none held a decisive edge over the others in this contest.
A Tier 9 Mysterious Pill was a divine work forged by mortal hands, and the energy needed to shape one was enough to stagger even Dou Saint experts. According to ancient texts, whenever a Tier 9 Mysterious Pill was born in antiquity, the land for hundreds of miles around was left completely barren, every last wisp of energy in the region swallowed into the pill.
The Yao Clan naturally felt a pang of heartache at the sight of their herbs withering, yet there was nothing they could do to stop it. Several elders seized a brief opening to lay protective seals over the most valuable medicinal fields across Yao Mountain. Otherwise, by the time this refinement ended, the mountain itself would be reduced to a barren wasteland.
That bottomless devouring lasted five full days. Only at noon on the fifth day did the howling firmament abruptly fall quiet. The crowd looked up to find that the four colossal tornadoes had dissolved into thin air.
Four massive medicinal cauldrons, each several thousand feet tall, hovered in the sky. Formidable energy undulations pulsed from within them, but potent as those waves were, they remained far short of a Tier 9 Mysterious Pill. They had not even reached the threshold of a Tier 9 Treasure Pill.
"The natural energy within hundreds of miles has been drained dry." Yao Dan reached out and closed his fingers around the empty air before shaking his head in resignation. The ambient energy had thinned to a dreadful degree. It would take months, if not several years, for Yao Mountain to recover its former abundance.
"There isn't enough natural energy left... Does that mean their refinements have failed?"
Many of the Yao Clan elders did not know whether to laugh or cry. The embryonic pills inside the four cauldrons were only half-formed, yet every wisp of natural energy across thousands of miles had already been exhausted. Nothing remained to carry the refinements through to the end.
Even with perfected Heavenly State souls, the four of them could command the natural energy across ten thousand miles at most. Stepping into the legendary Emperor State, of course, would be another matter entirely. At that realm, an alchemist could bend the world's energy to his will anywhere his spiritual perception reached. Legend had it that in ancient times, a peerless expert with an Emperor State soul had mobilized the natural energy across nearly half the Central Plains with a single thought. Merely imagining such a feat was enough to make one's scalp prickle.
"Wait, look at Xiao Yan!"
Xiao Yan slowly opened his eyes and glanced toward Hun Huzi, who was glaring back at him in bitter frustration.
He then looked over at Old Man Shen Nong and Elder Wanhuo. Both elders wore wry, helpless frowns, clearly at their wits' end.
The corners of Xiao Yan's mouth curved upward. He turned his palm over, and a transparent crystal appeared in his hand.
This crystal belonged to the batch left over from his time in the Heavenly Tomb, after Mao Wu had gathered up the crystals produced by the Ancient Devouring Insects and taken the lion's share. Xiao Yan had set the remainder aside from the beginning for alchemy.
Ancient Devouring Insects could swallow violent energy storms and refine them into such crystals, each one packed with pure natural energy.
Whoosh!
Stark white Bone Chilling Flame wrapped around the crystal. Under the blaze, the stone melted away at a visible pace and released a pure wisp of natural energy, which drifted straight into the Refining Sky Ancient Formation.
One crystal after another followed, melting into steady streams of world energy that poured into the array.
Those crystals alone could never supply everything a Tier 9 Mysterious Pill demanded. Yet Xiao Yan had monopolized the natural energy across the whole expanse for two full days before the others even joined the fray. His rivals had spent five days splitting the realm's reserves four ways, while Xiao Yan had drawn in energy for seven days in total, two of them entirely to himself!
By himself, he had absorbed more of the world's energy than Hun Huzi and the other two combined!
Better still, the Tier 9 Mysterious Pill he had chosen was a healing pill, the simplest of the four and the least demanding in energy. Seven days of absorption had already met ninety percent of what the pill required. All he needed now was to make up the final ten percent!
Crystal after crystal dissolved in his palm. Before long, the unmistakable pulse of a maturing pill began to ripple from the cauldron inside the Refining Sky Ancient Formation.
"What the hell?!"
"This..."
"No way, Xiao Yan is actually pulling it off? He really stole the win right out from under them?!"
Even Human Medicine, Yao Tian, and the others wore strange expressions. In every past Medicinal Ceremony, the champion had stood beyond dispute, claiming first place through sheer supremacy in alchemy.
This time, however, the title felt more than a little contentious!
It was no exaggeration to say that refining a Tier 9 Mysterious Pill placed Xiao Yan at the very pinnacle of alchemy on the Dou Qi Continent. Given how young he was, he might even refine a Tier 9 Golden Pill one day.
Yet today, at least, Xiao Yan had beaten Yao Wanhuo, Old Man Shen Nong, and Hun Huzi not because their technique had faltered, nor because their pills were inferior to his, but because they had been starved of the energy needed to finish. And in the eyes of the crowd, he had finished his own pill only because he had 'gotten lucky.'
Yao Wanhuo shook his head with a wry smile and murmured, "This old man never imagined his Mysterious Pill would fail for a reason like this. It must be said, that lad really does have a clever streak."
He looked at the unfinished pill inside his Nine Serene Wind Flame. Whether he could have succeeded under ideal conditions was beside the point. The pill was currently starved of far too much natural energy to ever take form.
Nearby, Old Man Shen Nong stroked his beard and narrowed his eyes, studying Xiao Yan with keen interest.
"Perhaps there is more to him than mere cleverness. Had he never refined a Tier 9 Mysterious Pill before, he could not possibly know the exact amount of natural energy such a pill demands."
Old Man Shen Nong's reminder sent a jolt through Yao Wanhuo's chest. His eyes widened with sudden understanding, and he turned back toward Xiao Yan.
Precision!
Xiao Yan had not merely anticipated that all three of his rivals would attempt Tier 9 Mysterious Pills. Far more importantly, he had calculated the exact amount of natural energy he could claim and the precise sum his own Tier 9 Mysterious Pill would require!
His refinement had never been in danger of failing, because the energy available to him had been sufficient all along. From the moment he selected that recipe, he had held total confidence in the outcome! He had known down to the last detail how much natural energy the pill needed, and how far ahead of the others he had to finish extracting his ingredients to lock down the lead!
No mere Treasure Pill Guru could ever make such a calculation. Neither could someone like Yao Wanhuo, whose odds of refining a Mysterious Pill barely reached twenty percent.
By now, Yao Dan and Hun Huzi had pieced the truth together as well.
"He has very likely succeeded in refining a Tier 9 Mysterious Pill before... Xiao Yan's attainment in alchemy may already be that of a true Mysterious Pill Guru, not merely a Treasure Pill Guru."
Old Man Shen Nong's words sent a chill straight across Yao Wanhuo's scalp, and his mind reeled. Xiao Yan had not been gambling blindly at all. He had measured out the exact requirement of a Tier 9 Mysterious Pill, which proved beyond doubt that he had known what he was doing from the very start. Clever tactics and reading his rivals' minds were only half of it. Above all else, he possessed the mastery to back his strategy up.
And that confidence came from true strength!
As the old saying went, laymen watched the spectacle while masters watched the craft. Even prodigies like Yao Tian and Human Medicine still assumed Xiao Yan had simply pulled off a clever trick and schemed his way into this advantage.
Little did they know that the only reason others had failed to foresee this outcome was that they had never refined a Tier 9 Mysterious Pill to completion themselves. That left them completely blind to what it truly took!
Even so, there was no denying Xiao Yan's wit. Both Old Man Shen Nong and Hun Huzi had refined Tier 9 Mysterious Pills in the past, yet neither of them had thought so far ahead.
"Ah, these old bones really are getting on in years. I can't keep up with the young folks anymore." Old Man Shen Nong was nothing if not frank, and he openly conceded the point to Xiao Yan.
Yao Wanhuo could at least console himself with the excuse that he had never completed a Mysterious Pill and simply lacked the experience. Old Man Shen Nong had no such excuse... he had been outsmarted, plain and simple.
"It seems the championship is his this time," Elder Wanhuo said, shaking his head with a wry smile.
"Heh, not necessarily..." Before Elder Wanhuo's voice had even faded, a sinister smile twisted across Hun Huzi's face in the distance. His hand seals shifted sharply, and his palm slammed down against the Heavenly Flame cauldron before him.
Two pillars of black fire erupted from the vessel and shot above the cauldrons of Yao Wanhuo and Old Man Shen Nong. There they twisted into a pair of wildly spinning black holes, and a ferocious devouring force surged out of them. Within moments, the vast stores of energy the two elders had spent days gathering were wrenched upward in bright columns of light and swallowed straight into the dark vortexes.
"Hun Huzi, you dare!"
Both elders' faces darkened in an instant. Neither of them had expected Hun Huzi to be brazen enough to target their cauldrons directly.
Old Man Shen Nong and Elder Wanhuo let out furious roars. The Life Spirit Flame and the Nine Serene Wind Flame swept upward in tandem and crashed against the black holes. Under their fierce assault, however, the dark vortexes only spun faster. Their devouring pull surged, tearing off and swallowing whole swathes of the two Heavenly Flames.
When their counterattack failed to break the vortexes, both elders turned grim. The Life Spirit Flame stood high on the Heavenly Flame Ranking, yet it was renowned for its restorative and auxiliary properties rather than raw lethality, and it was no match for the Nihility Devouring Flame in a head-on clash. The Nine Serene Wind Flame sat only at tenth place. Even against a mere Seed Flame of the Nihility Devouring Flame, the gulf between them was impossible to bridge.
"Hehe, trying to stop my Seed Flame of the Nihility Devouring Flame with Heavenly Flames like yours? Pipe dreams!"
Hun Huzi let out a loud laugh and checked the interior of his cauldron, only to find that the stolen energy still fell short. His hands locked into a new seal, and a vicious glint flashed through his eyes as his gaze cut toward Xiao Yan.
He was a member of the Hun Clan through and through. Even the former head of the Pill Tower had died to his underhanded schemes.