Chapter 378

379. Chapter 378: Second Round Rules

Feng Tiancheng was stunned. Innocent? What a load of nonsense. That National Preceptor was simply insidious; he could think of any vile scheme.

He was truly startled by the grand game the National Preceptor was playing. It was no wonder the National Preceptor had the audacity to wager half the clan's fortune against the Long Clan.

Once this plan succeeded, it would be enough to severely cripple the Long Clan. After losing half their clan luck, the Long Clan Alliance would easily be crushed by the Feng Clan in one fell swoop.

Although this plan carried a certain level of risk, one had to admit that in the face of such immense gains, he was tempted.

Feng Tiancheng took a deep breath, but just as he was about to say something more, a deafening boom suddenly erupted from behind him.

He was startled and hurriedly turned his head to look.

At the same time, deafening explosions were heard from various parts of the city. The ground shook, and soon, flames lit up the outside. Shouts and screams came from all directions; the outside was in chaos.

The other side of the mirror was also in turmoil. The sounds of explosions from the imperial palace were clearly audible, and the sounds from both sides transmitted back and forth through the mirror.

A knocking sound came from that side, and soon someone shouted in panic: "Your Majesty, something terrible has happened."

"Countless fireballs have suddenly fallen from the sky, destroying all the teleportation arrays in Heavenly Wind City."

"The fireballs also flew toward the surrounding cities. We don't know what kind of powerhouse launched such a long-range attack; it's simply terrifying."

The Feng Clan Ancestor's gaze narrowed. He tapped his finger on the table repeatedly and muttered, "Could it be him? A long-range fireball attack—I'm afraid only he could pull that off."

"He's destroying all the teleportation arrays in the nearby cities to prevent reinforcements from the Gu World from arriving?"

"But this world-renowned Alchemy Competition has attracted countless Gu King powerhouses. The number of Gu Kings in Heavenly Wind City is already more than enough!"

At this moment, Long Xuan, naturally, also heard the deafening explosions outside and his pupils quickly constricted.

"This is the power of Heavenly Fire! There is a contestant carrying Heavenly Fire in this Alchemy Competition."

Long Xuan wore a grave expression. He looked toward the door, and the pressure on him increased significantly.

Needless to say, anyone with the strength to consume Heavenly Fire could not be simple.

Originally, he had been considering whether or not to expose his Heavenly Fire during the finals, but now it seemed he had no choice.

Once Heavenly Fire appeared, all other fires would submit. Without exposing his Heavenly Fire, he wouldn't even be able to refine pills during the finals.

Long Xuan took a deep breath. He stopped paying attention to the chaos outside and began to focus entirely on synthesizing the Geng Metal.

The materials needed to refine Geng Metal had already been collected by his clones. He had to seize the time to refine the Geng Metal, as he would need the Geng Metal Alchemy Furnace for the upcoming matches.

Half a month passed quickly. During this time, many major events occurred outside, and much news broke.

Long Xuan's information was not blocked; he kept a close eye on the situation outside.

His various clones returned from time to time, relaying useful intelligence to him after filtering it.

What concerned him most were the intelligence reports on contestants who posed a threat to him.

Over the past half month, the elimination rounds had continued, and many more alchemy prodigies with incredibly high scores had emerged, shocking the entire city.

Each of the Ten Great Empires had a prodigy who scored ninety-seven points, but since this world lacked the concept of decimals, the scores were not precise.

Through decimal calculations, Long Xuan concluded that Long Yuyao, Feng Shuang, and Wang Wu—the Ninth Prince who appeared at the trading fair—had slightly higher scores; these three were worth his attention.

If these three only required his attention, there were two others who made him feel as if he were facing a formidable enemy.

These two, one named Feng Jiu and the other Qin Dan, had actually scored a perfect one hundred points, just like him.

This meant their alchemy skills were absolutely not inferior to his own, and it was impossible to rule out the possibility that these two possessed Heavenly Fire.

Long Xuan couldn't help but feel nervous. One of these two had the surname Feng; the emergence of such a high-level alchemy expert from the Feng Clan put him under immense pressure.

On this day, on the Main Island, Long Xuan put away the Sunset Divine Flame. A silver alchemy furnace floated quietly in the air. The furnace was silver, and the body was carved with ferocious dragons, with light seemingly flowing across their bodies.

This was the alchemy furnace he had just refined, using Geng Metal as the primary material. It had taken him over ten days to refine this Geng Metal Alchemy Furnace.

This Geng Metal Alchemy Furnace was quite extraordinary; he had improved it by drawing inspiration from the Devil-Swallowing Cauldron.

The characteristic of the Devil-Swallowing Cauldron was that it could control its size at will, but there were limits to the volume it could control; it would stop growing at a certain point and stop shrinking at another.

He had improved the artifact patterns of the Devil-Swallowing Cauldron and shrunk them by a hundredfold, allowing the furnace body to accommodate a hundred times more patterns. Coupled with the use of Geng Metal, a superior material, the Geng Metal Alchemy Furnace could expand to a size exceeding that of the Devil-Swallowing Cauldron by a hundredfold.

It was no exaggeration to say that if he expanded the Geng Metal Alchemy Furnace to its limit, the competition venue in Heavenly Wind City might not even be able to contain it.

By the same token, since he could research an alchemy furnace that could control its size at will, he could similarly research a Sea-Calming Divine Needle that could grow or shrink.

However, he wasn't planning to pursue the Sea-Calming Divine Needle during the Alchemy Competition.

Looking at the beautiful silver alchemy furnace in the air, Long Xuan smiled with satisfaction. After shrinking and putting away the furnace, he slowly walked outside.

Today happened to be the day of the second round of the elimination tournament. He had almost lost track of time, but he had managed to refine the Geng Metal Alchemy Furnace just before the second round began.

With this Geng Metal Alchemy Furnace, his chances of winning this competition would be even higher.

The first round of the elimination tournament had eliminated ninety percent of the contestants. The few remaining contestants would head to the Central Square of Heavenly Wind City for the second round.

The Central Square was vast and unobstructed, and it would be watched by a massive number of Gu Cultivators.

The rules for this second round were very interesting; the rules consisted of only two words: "Show off."

All contestants would refine pills together in the Central Square, and they would only have one chance. They could choose the type of pill to refine, but in this round, every alchemist had to show off their skills—meaning the higher the difficulty of the pill refined, the higher the score.

Any other criteria, such as the practicality of the pill, the speed of refining, were not part of the assessment. The only standard for scoring was difficulty.

This tested the courage of every contestant.

While refining pills of greater difficulty would yield higher scores, it also came with a higher failure rate.

Whether to play it safe and choose a pill of medium difficulty, or to take a risk and choose the most difficult one, would likely leave many struggling with indecision.

It was worth mentioning that the organizers of this Alchemy Competition had collected almost every type of spirit herb in the world.

Therefore, no matter what kind of pill formula you wanted to refine, you could find the materials here, provided the herb wasn't already extinct.

But there was no such thing as a free lunch. No matter what kind of pill you refined, since you used the organizers' materials, you had to hand over two-thirds of the finished pills to the organizers. If you only refined two, they would be split evenly.

This was fair, and none of the contestants had any complaints.

Given the appearance of two competitors who likely carried Heavenly Fire and whose alchemy skills might not be inferior to his own, Long Xuan decided not to hold back. He decided to use one of his trump cards directly.

If it came to showing off, using the "Big Cauldron Pill Refining Technique" was undoubtedly a good choice.

Stacking thousands of portions of materials for a single pill formula and throwing them into the furnace all at once to produce ten thousand pills in one go—the difficulty of this was immense. Aside from him, no other alchemist in the world could achieve this.

Long Xuan also needed to rely on the "Progress" cheat to perfectly execute this level of alchemy; otherwise, even he would likely blow up the furnace if he tried to play like that.

If it came to showing off, who could outshine him? He wanted to see what those two Heavenly Fire possessors would use to compete with him.

He was determined to create a score gap between himself and those two Heavenly Fire possessors in this second round!

Long Xuan clenched his fists... (End of chapter)