Chapter 392: 393. Chapter 392: The Competition Begins

393. Chapter 392: The Competition Begins

Long Yuyao gritted her teeth; at this moment, she could hardly deliver Spirit Medicines to him, so she could only steel herself and continue refining.

She knew she was bound to lose this round and could only pray that Fen Tian Old Ancestor would suddenly make a mistake, causing his alchemy to fail.

As Long Yuyao began refining, the remaining Alchemists, who possessed even fewer Spirit Medicines, could only wear bitter expressions and steel themselves to continue.

The time allotted for gathering Spirit Medicines was simply too short; without killing others to seize their treasures, most Alchemists could not even assemble the ingredients for a single Pill Formula.

This was especially true for those miserable Alchemists who had given all their Spirit Medicines to geniuses of the same surname; they were left with only obviously useless trash Spirit Medicines, and merely a single-digit count of them at that.

What could one refine with this?

Wearing bitter expressions, they could only toss the single-digit Spirit Medicines on their tables into their Alchemy Furnaces, preparing to smash the jar along with the ladle and give up.

In truth, casually throwing a few miscellaneous Spirit Medicines into an Alchemy Furnace could produce a Finished Pill, but pills refined so blindly would possess no medicinal efficacy and might even be poisonous.

For them, producing a Finished Pill was no problem, but they should not even dream of passing the score threshold.

At this moment, everyone had already opened their furnaces to refine, except for Long Xuan, who stood out like a crane among chickens, sitting there with eyes closed to rest, completely out of place with those around him, thereby attracting the gaze of every Judge.

All the Judges slightly furrowed their brows at this.

"His quantity of Spirit Medicines is far less than that of Feng Jiu and Qin Dan; he is destined to lose this round."

"Let us hope he does not fall asleep; the alchemy time is only one day, and once he exceeds the limit, he will receive a score of zero," Feng Tiancheng sneered.

"What do you mean the alchemy time is only one day? You must have remembered incorrectly; they exited early, so accurately speaking, everyone has three and a half days of alchemy time."

"It is still early; let him sleep for a while first; he might be tired," Long Xiaoyao said, mocking in response, recalling that Long Xuan had previously transmitted a voice message requesting time.

"Hmph! Even if we give him three extra days, so what? Will giving him three days increase his quantity of Spirit Medicines? I would like to see just how large a wave he can stir up."

Feng Tiancheng revealed a look of disdain, then looked at Long Xiaoyao and added, "Since you are so confident in him, how about we make another wager?"

"Let us wager five Life-Bound Extreme Grade Gu Worms, following the old rules: whichever side's Alchemist achieves the highest score shall be the winner."

Feng Tiancheng felt certain of victory in this round, so he immediately proposed the gamble; those who lose at gambling often wish to recover their losses, wanting to bet even more the more they lose, and right now he wanted to recover the five Extreme Grade Gu Worms he had lost previously.

However, thinking that Long Xiaoyao would never agree to this sure-loss wager, he immediately spoke again:

"You should understand that accidents occur in the Medicine Realm, so an alchemy time of three days or one day are both reasonable explanations; the final right of interpretation belongs to me."

"I imagine most Judges would not be willing to wait bitterly for three days; if you agree to this wager, then I will reluctantly agree to extend the alchemy time to three days."

Long Xiaoyao glared angrily at him; which of his eyes had seen that he was confident about this round? In this round, the Long Clan was clearly destined to lose.

He really knew how to pick his opportunities, proposing a wager in a sure-win situation; did he truly think himself a fool who would accept such a bet?

However, recalling what Long Xuan had whispered in his ear earlier, he momentarily felt some hesitation.

Although Long Xuan's chance of winning was extremely, extremely low, the outcome of this Alchemy Competition was far too important for the Long Clan, even concerning the life and death survival of the entire tribe.

Even with less than a one-in-ten-thousand chance of victory, he still wished to strive for it at all costs; what if a miracle appeared?

Oh well, those five Extreme Grade Gu Worms were not his own anyway; he had won them, so even if he lost, he could simply return them; he would suffer no loss whatsoever.

With such thoughts in mind, Long Xiaoyao immediately decided to gamble; he turned his head to look at Feng Tiancheng and sneered:

"You still want to wager with me? You previously lost five Life-Bound Gu Worms to me; are you certain you still possess five Life-Bound Gu Worms? Do not try to catch a wolf with bare hands."

Seeing that Long Xiaoyao had taken the bait, Feng Tiancheng secretly rejoiced and immediately said, "As the Chief Alchemist of a Nation, am I someone lacking money? Refining a dozen or so Life-Bound Gu Worms is effortless."

"Do not speak only of me; you surely possess more than ten Extreme Grade Gu Worms as well; we share equal fame, so how could my collection be inferior to yours?"

Long Xiaoyao teased, "I naturally know your wealth, but even if you are rich and powerful, if you lose ten Life-Bound Gu Worms, won't you become a useless waste?"

"I hear you have many enemies; when you become a waste, you had better be careful walking at night."

"That need not concern you; do you truly think I can lose this round? In this round, I will recover my losses," Feng Tiancheng said, clenching his fists tightly.

Thinking of the five Life-Bound Gu Worms he had lost previously, he felt a pang of heartache.

In the Heavenly Phoenix Empire, ostensibly the Feng Emperor was the strongest, but the Feng Emperor was old, with little Lifespan remaining; his Qi and Blood had long been exhausted, and his combat power had long been reduced to less than one-tenth of its former strength.

Therefore, the actual strongest figure in the Heavenly Phoenix Empire was him, yet he had unfortunately lost five Life-Bound Gu Worms to Long Xiaoyao in a previous wager, causing his combat power to drop significantly.

Unfortunately, at this very moment, the Four Great Evils attacked; with his strength severely damaged, how could he possibly be a match for the leader of the Four Evils?

This resulted in Black Mountain Old Man going unchecked, injuring the Feng Empress; the Feng Clan's experts could no longer withstand the assault of the Four Evils, ultimately being routed into disarray, losing a ground full of Gu Kings, allowing the four to escape laughing.

Otherwise, had he been in his peak condition, how could the Four Great Evils have escaped so easily?

Thinking of this matter, Feng Tiancheng became extremely angry, regretting it until his intestines turned green, secretly sighing that gambling harms people, misleading individuals and ruining nations; once he recovered his losses this time, he would never gamble again.

At this moment, within Long Xuan's spiritual world.

He gazed at the paper conjured by Illusion Technique in his hand, unsure of how to begin.

The materials in his possession were truly scarce; even if he were to create a Self-created Alchemy Formula, limited by the materials, he felt a sense of having nowhere to start.

Even if he created a new Pill Formula, so what? Would the Spirit Pills refined from a new formula necessarily hold higher value than those of the other two?

Long Xuan was not very confident in his heart; he had absolutely no bottom line.

The degree to which a Spirit Pill's efficacy defies heaven must be related to the materials; if the materials are ordinary, it is impossible to refine heaven-defying pills no matter what.

He possessed a heap of Pill Formulas capable of summoning Heavenly Phenomena, but which of those formulas did not require Main Materials exceeding the Tenth Grade?

The Heaven-Defying Pills capable of summoning Thunder Tribulation even used Heaven and Earth Unique Divine Tree Fruits as materials.

Relying solely on these Spirit Medicines he had gathered, it was impossible to create any significantly heaven-defying Pill Formula; this was a certainty.

The problem lay precisely here: because Fen Tian Old Ancestor and Qin Dan possessed greater quantities of Spirit Medicines, the overall quality of the materials they selected for refining would certainly far surpass his.

When the gap in material quality is too large, it is very difficult to compensate for it using a Pill Formula.

Long Xuan frowned and pondered bitterly for a long time; just as he was about to worry his hair white, his mind suddenly opened wide, and a flash of inspiration struck, conjuring a brilliant idea.

The reason he currently found himself at a disadvantage was the significant difference in material quality compared to his opponents.

What if he could bridge the gap in material quality? Or even what if he could make the quality of his pill materials far exceed that of his competitors?

Long Xuan's eyes brightened at this moment; he suddenly thought, who stipulated that one must use Spirit Medicines to refine pills? Could he not refine pills without using Spirit Medicines?

Naturally, what if he used pills to refine pills instead?

This idea was truly excellent; it was far too creative.

The quality of Pills would definitely surpass that of Spirit Medicine; if Pills could truly be used as materials for Alchemy, then influenced by innate factors, the quality of the refined Pills would most likely be extremely high, and surpassing Fen Tian Old Ancestor was entirely possible.

His wild idea at this moment was to first refine the Spirit Medicine in his possession into various types of Spirit Pills, and then use these Spirit Pills as materials to refine another kind of Spirit Pill.

He named this Alchemy Technique at least the Pill Combination Technique.

The technique of using Spirit Pills to refine Pills was absolutely unprecedented in this world, and no Alchemist had ever thought of it; he was truly pioneering history.

If this method could truly be realized, and if he successfully refined the Pill outside using this method, it would surely shock all the Judges and dazzle the eyes of all the onlookers.

This method would henceforth shake the entire world, forming a new school of Alchemy, and Pill Formulas using Spirit Pills as materials would spring up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, researched by major Heavenly Pride Alchemists.

The prospect of such fame lasting for eternity made Long Xuan's breathing somewhat rapid, and he secretly sighed at how smart he was, that such an exquisite Alchemy method could be conceived by him.

Long Xuan excitedly slapped his own hand and immediately took action...

At this time, outside, in a mountain forest.

"Puh!"

The Burial Demon Old Ghost leaned against a huge rock, vomiting a mouthful of blood wildly, his eyes filled with terror.

"Damn it! How is this Fen Tian Old Ancestor so strong! With the four of us Four Great Evils joining forces, we were actually no match for this person at all! Is this the combat power of the Tenth Demon Head on the Wanted List?"

The Burial Demon Old Ghost's face turned iron-green.

Just moments ago, the four of them had slashed their way through the Ten Thousand Forbidden Army, coming and going as they pleased in Phoenix City where experts were as numerous as clouds, stunning the eyes of all onlookers; how high-spirited and vigorous they had been at that time.

Yet they never expected that shortly after the four of them escaped, they were thoroughly crushed by Fen Tian Old Ancestor alone.

In that battle just now, two of the Four Great Evils died and two were injured; Black Mountain Old Man and the White-Faced Scholar died on the spot, leaving only him and the Jade-Faced Rakshasa to escape by sheer luck.

However, at this moment, both of them were already severely injured; he himself had an arm burned off by Heavenly Fire, and most of his Gu Worms were about to be burned to death, so his current combat power had dropped to rock bottom.

"Damn it! Truly, there is always someone stronger than the strong; a powerful figure like Fen Tian Old Ancestor is ranked only tenth on the Gu World Wanted List, so what kind of figures must be ranked in the top nine?"

"And what kind of figures are the Ten Great Supreme Beings of the Righteous Path from his Past Life? Compared to this group of true experts, he was simply a frog in the well; previously, he had been too arrogant and ignorant."

A solemn expression appeared on the Burial Demon Old Ghost's face; worrying, he looked back, and upon seeing that Fen Tian Old Ancestor was not pursuing, he gritted his teeth, forcibly endured the severe pain in his body, and ran forward once again.

Fen Tian Old Ancestor clearly did not believe that the Dao-Understanding Tea Tree had been accidentally burned to destruction; if he could not find the Dao-Understanding Tea Tree, he would swear not to rest until he killed the two of them. (End of Chapter)