Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Chapter 2081  The Duel

Blackfrost announced the beginning of the duel and asked the participants to prepare. While Alex and Ming Longxin prepared, Blackfrost went on to explain the rules of the Duel to the crowd.

The Alchemy duel was going to be based purely on the contestant's ability to make pills. Each one of them would be asked what pill they were going to make and then they would have to make that pill within an hour.

Each one of them would get 3 chances to make the pill they wanted to submit at the end of the competition. The one with the highest Harmony to the pill at the very end would be the winner.

There were minor rules as well, especially regarding not distracting the other participant or swapping for a pre-made pill.

Any attempts at cheating in any way would result in the immediate loss of the participant.

Once that was explained to the crowd, Blackfrost turned around toward the contestants. "What pill will you guys be making today?" he asked the two.

Ming Longxin spoke before Alex even got a chance to. "I have decided to make a Fire Weaver Healing pill," the man said. Alex raised an eyebrow in surprise, not because it was a great pill, but because it was one of the easier pills to make. It was one of those pills that could be made by early Immortal Ascendant realm alchemists.

For a Supreme Immortal Alchemist like him, using this sort of pill in a competition should have been a disgrace. And yet, here he was using it. The man looked toward Alex with a sneer on his face.

'Just how much do you want to defeat me?' Alex wondered and turned to look at the guild master. "Today, I have decided to make a Blood Iron pill," Alex said. "Blood Iron pill?" Blackfrost asked. "Are you certain about this?"

"Yes," Alex replied. He had been more than ready.

"Okay, you have one hour to make the pill. You may begin!"

The guests walked out, leaving the two Alchemists to make the pill in peace. Everyone went silent and watched the two work silently.

Alex's work was quite simple. He laid down his cauldron and lit a fire under it. It was a regular fire, and once the cauldron began heating up, he placed the ingredients before him in a file.

To his side, Ming Longxin showed off a little. Blue flames burned from his palm, encircling the cauldron within a second, covering it entirely. Not only did the fire heat up the cauldron, but it also stopped the energy inside from escaping, which made it quite a helpful type of fire.

Alex looked at the flames for a moment and shook his head. 'That fire won't be useful for me,' he thought. He could already do what the fire could do, and that too better than it. If he learned the fire, that would only be useless for him.

He needed a different fire for himself, but that was not something he needed to be thinking about right now. He focused on his own alchemy and took the very first ingredient, a root from a Snow Pheasant Flower fruit, and put it into the cauldron. The item teleported in and he began controlling it.

* * * * * * *

"It does not matter what sect he is in or how talented he is," Bluehorn said softly to Blackfrost. "Because he is young and naive, he will lose today's battle."

Blackfrost had the same feeling as the man, but he wanted to argue with him. "What if he becomes the winner in the end?" n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Winner? Hah!" Bluehorn laughed. "Let's not kid ourselves, Blackfrost. You know what that kid lacks."

Blackfrost frowned a little. He understood the implications. Because most of the suppliers were on Bluehorn's side, Alex had to have stuck to his supplier, who was nothing more than one of many side businesses of the Pang family. While they were good, they were not great, especially when it came to delivering high-level ingredients. "Who knows?" Blackfrost said. "He may have gotten his ingredients from the Blue Silk sect. You can't deny they would have everything."

Bluehorn paused for a second, his face stuck in thought. "No!" he said quickly. "Can't be. We have been watching him closely for a while. There is no one who came to deliver any ingredients, especially from the Blue Silk sect."

"You never know," Blackfrost said, as much as he didn't believe it himself. Forget about using the Blue Silk sect for his alchemy resources, Blackfrost forgot most of the time that Alex was even a disciple of that sect. He remained at his store for too long, which was not something most disciples of the sect did. At least, not openly.

Bluehorn grunted simply, saying nothing. He continued watching the two and waited for the result to be ready.

* * * * * *

Alex put the main ingredient of the Blood Iron pill in, the Rustbalde leaves. He had found these leaves inside the Maze in the Twin Saber sect's secret realm and had gathered quite a bit of the leaves.

He carefully moved the ingredients around, converting them into powder and energy. There was no haste in his movement, no anxiety in his actions. He was calm and the world was calm, so he calmly prepared the pill.

One after another, the ingredients went in, slowly preparing for the final stage. Once the energy was completely prepared and the powder was all that was left to be brought together to turn into a pill, there was one more thing he needed to do.

* * * * * *

"Blue flames are interesting, but they're not that good. They're just hotter, nothing else, but I suppose it must work well for him as an Alchemist," Silvermist said. "Does that other kid have anything interesting happening yet?"

"Not that I can tell," Grimsight said. "Everything looks quite ordinary."

"Nothing? That's disappointing," Silvermist said, looking at the two. He shook his head. "They both clearly have good insight into the Dao of Alchemy, even though they still have ways to go before they can learn it. If they only pushed themselves a little—"

"Something happened!" Grimsight said suddenly, a rare look of surprise flashing through his face.

Silvermist got curious. "What is it? What happened?" he asked. From a regular cultivator's perspective, nothing important had happened at all, but Grimsight had to have seen something extraordinary to sound like that.

"Weirdly, the amount of energy within that kid's cauldron reduced," he said. "I… cannot understand what I saw."

Silvermist turned around, somewhat surprised. "Are you sure the energy lowered and didn't just get lost in the wind?" he asked.

"The cauldron's lid is closed, so I'm confident."

Silvermist was very curious now. "In that case… it could be that his Cauldron has an Artifact Spirit already," he said. "I don't believe it is acting on its own, so why would it feed on the energy?"

Silvermist guessed an answer.

That was more shocking for him than most things he had been notified of in the past decade. He could only remember one event more memorable than this one, and it was the event that had been forcing them to run around in a circle.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm looking forward to the results."