by Translator: BornToBe; Author: Ordinary Magician (平凡魔术师); Licensed From: 17k
And yet, these things were all personal viewpoints and theories of different people, all based on their own lives and experiences. Yes, it was true that their alchemy arts and theories were novel and innovative.
But these things were only suited to themselves. It was like everyone was learning how to paint, and he was trying to paint an image of a landscape. Did showing him paintings of beautiful women help him at all?
The most irritating thing was that he needed to know this, and he had to be able to write out his impression and what he learned from reading them. Otherwise, they wouldn’t let him pass.
Just because he wanted to cook a chicken, did he need to know how a chicken existed? Did they really care about which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Unfortunately there was no way around this. The competition would be testing on this. If he didn’t pass the theory aspect, he wouldn’t even get to go to the refining portion.
After ten days of studying, Long Chen had an urge to vomit. Even with his immense Spiritual Strength, memorizing all these things gave him a headache.
Furthermore, some of these theories were fundamentally flawed, but he still had to memorize them. He had to be wrong with them.
That was because the competition would test this, and he had to reply within the scope of these texts to get his answer marked correct. This was Long Chen’s first time having to study such irritating alchemy ‘knowledge’.
Zhao Xiang was a bit worried to see Long San come out in just ten days.
For most cultivators, memorizing all these theories in two months would be impressive. But ten days? That was a bit unbelievable.
Zhao Xiang was in charge of Long San, and so his station would rise and fall according to Long San’s result. Looking worried, he asked, “How do you feel?”
“I feel alright, and I’ve pretty much memorized them all. It should be no problem.” Long Chen rubbed his weary face. For the second volume of the Nirvana Scripture, he had no choice but to go all-out.
“Good. Don’t feel too much pressure. Even if you fail this time, you’ll definitely pass the next one,” comforted Zhao Xiang.
Zhao Xiang led Long Chen toward the Pill Management Department. Once they were in, Long Chen saw that the inside was packed with people already.
“Long San?”
He had only just walked in when a stunned voice rang out.
Chapter 1332 Soul Gathering Heart Tempering Pill
“Long San?”
Long Chen was startled. Someone actually recognized him here? Turning toward the voice, he saw a young man amongst this crowd of close to a thousand disciples. Each one of them had a small table in front of them, like they were scholars about to take a test.
“Sorry, you are…?” Long Chen didn’t recognize him.
“Shut up! Who said you could speak so loudly here?!”
A Jade Core disciple sternly shouted at him. This disciple was already quite old, so his temper wasn’t good.
Long Chen frowned. The Jade Core disciple glared at Long Chen, and Long Chen almost couldn’t help but slap him in the face.
He had an urge to curse this disciple, but he didn’t say anything. Now wasn’t the time to start being arrogant. Silently walking around that disciple, he walked toward the person who knew him.
“Long San, sit. Sorry, I made you get scolded,” apologized that person quietly.
Zhao Xiang just happened to see the sight of Long Chen quietly turn away from the disciple who had scolded him so sternly. Seeing that he didn’t dare to reply, he shook his head.
“This Long San’s character is too timid. It’s not good for us. I’ll have to report it to Protector Zhuo,” thought Zhao Xiang to himself as he left.
Long Chen didn’t recognize this man at all, so he couldn’t help but find it strange.
“Long San, after winning the championship in the Eastern Wasteland, you probably forgot this little one.” The disciple bitterly smiled.
“I think I remember. You were in the competition too…” said Long Chen, coming to a sudden comprehension.
In truth, this comprehension was just guesswork. He still didn’t recognize this person at all. He put his answer in a questioning tone to avoid things becoming awkward if he was wrong.
“Yes! I’m Li Kang! Do you remember me now?” That person was happy that Long Chen recognized him. He didn’t even know he had just fallen for Long Chen’s trick.
Long Chen had no idea who Li Kang was. Supposedly, he had been in the Eastern Wasteland’s competition as well. Li Kang recognized Long Chen, but Long Chen didn’t recognize him.
“Long San, why did it take you so long to come? It’s been many years.”
“Don’t even mention it. It’s depressing. How have the other people from the Eastern Wasteland been doing here? Did anyone manage to get some strong support?” Long Chen changed the subject.
“Only after coming did we realize that our so-called talent was nothing here. We were just green leaves coming to show off before the flowers of the Central Plains.” Li Kang bitterly smiled. “The disciples who came from the Eastern Wasteland are mostly outer disciples. They probably won’t get promoted in their lifetimes. As for me, I’m not doing too bad. After three years, I’ve finally managed to get the qualifications for the Divine Pill Hall trial.
“Amongst these people, I rank 987th. In other words, there’s pretty much no hope of me passing. But even just taking the test will improve my standing amongst the inner disciples. If I didn’t take the test, the others would look down on me all day.”
“Really, it’s this bad? What about that female disciple? What’s her name again?” Long Chen thought of a certain person.
“Duan Tianqiao. Her talent is very good, and she managed to get into the Divine Pill Hall. In truth, she helped me out quite a bit to be promoted into an inner disciple. But after getting in the Divine Pill Hall, she has become distant from me. Perhaps our statuses are no longer similar,” sighed Li Kang.
People strove for the top, while water always flowed to the bottom. Those who stood at different heights ran in different circles. This was understandable.
“You two flies, stop buzzing. It’s annoying. If you don’t want to take the test, you can scram. Stop disturbing others.”
As Long Chen and Li Kang quietly whispered, another disciple to the side who had had his eyes closed suddenly glared at them.
Long Chen looked at him and saw that he was glaring at him disdainfully. It seemed that his ranking amongst inner disciples was very high. Perhaps he had a high chance of getting promoted.
Long Chen cursed. If this was inside the Xuantian Dao Sect, he’d have long since slapped such a person to death.
But he had nothing to say now. It seemed wherever he went, he would encounter countless idiots. Even if he didn’t cause trouble, others would find trouble for him.
“Silence!”
Just at this moment, a cold shout rang out, and eight elders walked in, all Soul Transformation experts.
The eight elders were all wearing stern expressions, as though everyone here owed them money.
These people were in charge of the trial, and they were here to prevent cheating. Their eyes were all as sharp as an eagle’s.
Long Chen shut his mouth and found his position.
“Who is Long San?” asked one of the elders.
“Disciple is present.” Long Chen hastily stood.
“Show me your badge. I have to check it.”
This surprised Long Chen. It seemed that this test was very stringent. Although his identity had already been confirmed when he had walked in, they checked him again.
The elder examined his badge closely and then nodded. “You were added to this trial late, so you have to be checked stringently. You don’t need to feel any pressure.”
Long Chen’s eyes brightened. He knew that this elder was ‘on his side’. Zhao Xiang had said everything should go smoothly.
It was easy to tell who was on his side. The
others all looked like saying an extra word was too much work, so the ones speaking to Long Chen were on his side.
But these elders were only in charge of overseeing the test, and they couldn’t help him. If he cheated, he would immediately be expelled. In fact, he would be directly kicked out of Pill Valley. Pill Valley’s test was one hundred percent fair and did not allow any cheating.
Beast hides were quickly distributed. Long Chen couldn’t help but bitterly smile. Wasn’t this just like the secular world’s imperial exams?
Long Chen looked at it, and as expected, it was about the things he had studied during these days. It was actually very simple.
But the final question was a bit difficult. The question was to list the various medicinal pills that could be refined based on the given medicinal ingredients. The more they could list, the more points they would get.
Long Chen couldn’t help but feel a struggle with this question. With these many medicinal ingredients, he had over a thousand pill formulas that could be written from his Pill Sovereign memories.
But many of those pill formulas no longer existed in this world. He didn’t dare to randomly write them.
He had an urge to use his Spiritual Strength to investigate how many pill formulas others wrote, but those eight elders were like hawks watching their every move. He truly didn’t dare to do so.
“What to do? Too many is no good, and too few might get me eliminated. Fuck.”
Long Chen suddenly had a thought. He stealthily picked out a booger and wiped the mucus along the edge of the beast hide. He used it as a mirror to look around silently. Turning that corner, he managed to see what the person who had scoffed at him had written.
“One, two… twenty-seven in total. Alright, that’s not bad.”
Long Chen managed to see what that fellow had written barely through the mucus. He couldn’t see the exact pill formulas, but he was able to see how many lines he had written.
“Achoo!”
Long Chen suddenly sneezed, and his mucus ended up all over his beast hide. He hastily began to wipe it off.
“You, what are you doing!” One of the elders suddenly appeared behind Long Chen like a ghost.
“Sorry, disciple had to fly over the sea for three years, facing the constant sea winds. Pill Valley’s spiritual qi is too dense, and my nose is sensitive. I’m sorry!” Long Chen apologized as his sneeze had disturbed the disciples around him.
He had no way around this. He had noticed those old fellows were getting suspicious and getting close behind him. That was why he had sneezed, to wipe away the proof.
The elder stared at him coldly, but Long Chen looked back at him without the slightest fear. Seeing his expression without the slightest fear or panic, he didn’t say anything else. He had only been a bit suspicious in any case.
“Hmph, you want to play mental warfare with me?” Long Chen sneered inside and continued answering the questions. That fellow beside him had seemed so confident before, so his ranking should be near the top.
But he was still cautious. He only wrote fifty-three pill formulas, just double of that fellow.
They had two hours to answer their questions. Long Chen had long since finished, but he continued until the very end to hand in his scrolls with everyone else.
“What?!”
When the elder saw Long Chen’s scroll, when he saw the answer to his last question, he was absolutely stunned.
“Haha, excellent!” The elder on his side laughed. Long Chen knew he was indicating that he had probably gotten first on this test.
But the results were not immediately announced. Instead, they switched locations into a lounge where over a thousand refining platforms had been provided.
Each platform was ten meters wide. The furnaces and cauldrons had already been arranged, and the pill formula was under the furnace.
The disciples who had come here were mostly ones that had taken this test many, many times. They were already used to this scene.
But when they arrived at their spots and saw the pill formula in front of them, all their expressions changed.
“Impossible!”
Long Chen looked at the pill formula and also couldn’t help being stunned. A ninth tier medicinal pill - the Soul Gathering Heart Tempering Pill.
This was a must-have pill for Jade Core cultivators. It made their mental realms clear and expelled any foreign influences.
“Damnit, I only trained in the methods to refine eighth tier medicinal pills before this. I didn’t refine a ninth tier pill for them to see!” Long Chen felt quite a bit of pressure.
“Let the refinement begin!”
Just as all the disciples despaired, an elder announced the start of the trial.
Chapter 1333 Vast Soul Energy
“Disciple gives up.”
Immediately, a portion of the disciples directly gave up.
These disciples were indignant. Many of their cultivation bases were at the Foundation Forging realm or below. Some were only at the Sea Expansion realm. They obviously couldn’t refine a ninth tier pill.
According to normal standards, a ninth tier pill could only be refined by a Jade Core expert. But in Pill Valley, those standards were overthrown.
Pill Valley always changed the difficulty of the pill to be refined. Sometimes it would be easy, sometimes it would be difficult. But this trial was held every two months, so failing this time wasn’t terrible. As long as their ranking didn’t fall out of the top thousand, they could try again.
Those people who had given up could only blame their bad luck and prepare to test their luck next time. They knew that just refining ninth tier medicinal ingredients into powders was their limit. As for refining a true ninth tier pill, it was a joke. Their Spiritual Strength couldn’t handle such exhaustion.
For almost half the contestants to leave at once didn’t surprise the Soul Transformation experts at all. They were indifferent to this, clearly having long since expected such a thing.
The remaining alchemists had bitter expressions. They had stayed behind, mostly by thickening their faces. They were quite sure they couldn’t refine it.
There were seventy to eighty Jade Core alchemists amongst the people being tested. But they felt even more panicked than the Foundation Forging disciples. Their higher cultivation bases also signified their ages far surpassed these people.
Within Pill Valley, the younger you were and the lower your cultivation base, the greater room for growth you had. Other sects’ disciples did their best to raise their cultivation bases, but Pill Valley’s disciples did their best to suppress their cultivation bases from growing.
The lower their cultivation bases, the easier it would be to comprehend certain alchemy techniques, and the more solid their foundation would be. Once their cultivation bases were higher, it would be difficult to fix the fundamental flaws in their alchemy.
It was like an adult and a youth had the same talent. The younger one would definitely be able to adapt easier, because their minds were still flexible.
Once these Jade Core disciples reached the Soul Transformation realm, their alchemy arts would no longer be up to par with Pill Valley’s standards for people of their cultivation base. They would be expelled from Pill Valley and sent to work in the Pill Towers without any chance of returning to cultivate in Pill Valley.
Although they were doing their best to suppress their cultivation bases, refining pills meant using their core flame, and that was a passive form of cultivation in and of itself. It was impossible for them to not advance eventually.
These Jade Core disciples looked young, but in truth, even the youngest was in his fifties. His cultivation base was about to reach the peak of the Jade Core realm. Once he broke through to Soul Transformation, he would be expelled.
Long Chen looked around. Seeing how nervous everyone else was about this pill, he relaxed quite a bit.
If their expressions had been relaxed, he would have felt much more pressure.
All of them began taking out their Pill Flames and warming their furnaces. All their movements were identical.
If the outside world’s alchemists were to come here, they would definitely die of envy. That was because all these disciples’ Pill Flames were Earth Flames.
It had to be known that in the Eastern Wasteland, the Earth Flame Long Chen had obtained had been the envy of all. Even the Pill Tower hadn’t had an Earth Flame, or the Chai and Fang family’s heads wouldn’t have wanted to kill him to take his Earth Flame.
Just thinking about it made him sigh. Long Chen wasn’t quite able to understand how Pill Valley was so rich but the Eastern Wasteland’s Pill Tower was so poor. Why weren’t they willing to give out a few Earth Flames? Otherwise, the Chai and Fang’s family heads wouldn’t have turned against him, and their fates might have changed.
At this time, people were already starting to refine their ingredients, and Long Chen didn’t tarry. To be low-key, he used the same alchemy techniques as all of them.
However, he couldn’t be too complacent. He had to show his value. Zhuo Tianxiang and the others would only have viewed him importantly if he was valuable, and that was his only chance at obtaining the Nirvana Scripture.
Long Chen’s Pill Flame suddenly began to grow stronger. He was starting to burn his Spiritual Strength to increase the power of his Pill Flame.
A terrifying heat rose, causing the surrounding people to jump.
“Hmph, what a flowery trick. How could a Foundation Forging disciple refine a ninth tier medicinal pill? He couldn’t possibly possess the soul energy required,” sneered some Jade Core disciples.
The Foundation Forging disciples present all felt that they had pretty much no hope. They were simply doing this to experience the refinement of this pill. They had no hopes of forming a pill. Most importantly, they wanted to see if others could refine this pill.
According to reason, a Foundation Forging disciple’s Spiritual Strength should have no problem refining the medicinal ingredients, and it should have no problem during the pill refinement process. It was only at the final moment that they would stumble. By the time they were about to condense the pill, they would have no more Spiritual Strength.
