Chapter 512: Competition
Translated by Crystal of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Although the amount of elites from Xiao Yao Institution wasn’t comparable to the Mage Guild and the Beast Transfiguration Guild, the teachers there were very strong, like the opponent for You XiaoMo.
You XiaoMo’s opponent was called Wu HaiGuang, a grade one rainbow level mage. In the Tong Tian Continent, being a rainbow mage wasn’t as simple as being ‘popular’. For a lot of forces, even after giving away all of their fortune, they may not be able to even invite one.
So the reason the ‘special rule’ was special was because every student challenger would face off against a rainbow-level teacher. For a mage who could make rainbow pills, a level ten magic pill was as easy as eating.
Thus, the challengers would face a difficult task.
Not only did they have to make a magic pill that was above their level, they also had to make sure its quality would be able to defeat a teacher. A truly daunting task!
With a reminder from Qiao WuXing, You XiaoMo walked down from the audiences seating area. He subconsciously looked over to the entrance, neither Qiao WuXing’s nor Jiu Ye’s Master came. They couldn’t be observing him in secret, right?
You XiaoMo actually guessed correctly. Since, Lei Long and Old man Shen’s status’ were special, their appearances would cause more speculation, thus if they could avoid it, they would.
The referee took a step forward, “For the sake of fairness, the recipe and magic herbs used for this competition will be provided by the Xiao Yao Institution. However, if the competitors believe that they have better ones, they can make a suggestion. Also, there is only two sets of magic herbs, thus the competitors will only have two chances. Once someone finishes their two sets of magic herbs, the competition will end.”
The provided sets of magic herbs was actually an opportunity given to You XiaoMo.
At Wu HaiGuang’s current level, unless his luck was really bad, there wouldn’t be any mistakes.
With that, the referee handed the recipe and the two sets of magic herbs to them.
You XiaoMo took a look, surprisingly, the magic herbs were all mid-grade, not even close to the high-grade ones in his dimension. Also, he more or less had all of these herbs. Even with that though, he hesitated before deciding to not change them, because if he used mid-grade herbs to refine the pill, wouldn’t it be a better show of his skills?
And then there was the recipe, with a pleasant surprise, You XiaoMo realized he had this recipe and had refined it before.
However…
You XiaoMo frowned, because of the difficulty of refining the Thundercloud pill, he had only made four or so of them and with a failure in the middle too. Since he was distressed over his magic herbs, adding on to the fact that Thundercloud pills had no market value, he had temporarily paused the making of such a pill.
But the key was, he had used high-grade magic herbs before. There were less impurities in high-grade herbs, thus he didn’t have to spend as much effort distilling them. Mid-grade herbs were a whole other story, with many impurities, the amount of distilling would only increase, and even then the herbs would still have them. With that, the chances of successfully making a pill worsened.
“If there are no problems, then I announce the start of the match.”
The referee noticed one was smiling and the other was relaxed, his eyes had a glint of satirical laughter in them. As if the special rule would be so easily challenged.
Wu HaiGuang backed a few steps away only to lightly sweep his hands across the open space in front of him. A purple cauldron appeared out of thin air. The cauldron had a feeling of mystery and around the opening, nine small purple dragons were coiled, as if they were going to ascend to the heavens. Even with the naked eye, one could tell the uniqueness of this cauldron and with that, whispers arose from the audience.
“To think, teacher Wu would bring out the Purple Cauldron.”(Ra: I’m tempted to change the Purple to amethyst cuz it sounds prettier)
The Purple Cauldron was ranked twelfth on the cauldron ranking board, although it wasn’t in the top ten, it was the treasured possession of teacher Wu. Every time he brought it out, it showed that he really cared about the match.
“Valuing a mid-grade level ten mage?” The person spoke with slight disdain.
“What of it, once upon a time, someone even won as a low-grade mage.”
“Tsk.”
When You XiaoMo saw the Purple Cauldron, a flash of surprise went across his eyes. He had later on patched up his knowledge of cauldrons so he recognized this one. All the cauldrons that could make it on the ranking board, especially the top twenty were all incredible.
Seeing that he was looking over with a surprised expression, the smile on Wu HaiGuang’s face shone brighter.
Suddenly, You XiaoMo felt laughable. If teacher Wu’s ego took a heavy blow from him, was he going to kill him? This teacher shouldn’t be that petty right?
Seeing as teacher Wu had brought out his cauldron, everyone turned to look at You XiaoMo.
You XiaoMo pretend to tap his magic bag and a soccer ball sized red cauldron surfaced on his hand. Once he threw it out, the cauldron quickly grew larger, with its red light shined brighter than the Purple Cauldron.
Everyone widened their eyes in astonishment.
“This, this is the Heavenly Cauldron?” As someone who loved cauldrons to death, teacher Wu’s eyes became round with shock. Having one of the top ten cauldrons was his dream, but they were either in someone’s possession or their whereabouts were unknown. This old fellow could only sigh with powerlessness.
He had thought that his Purple Cauldron was impressive enough, yet his opponent brought out the Heavenly Cauldron so casually, that it was really a heavy blow. The audience burst into an uproar.
Every mage had a dream and that was to obtain a good cauldron.
A good cauldron was an element of success for refining pills, although not by much, it was still critical.
“He’s so lucky, to think its the Heavenly Cauldron. That’s just two ranks away from Elder Lei Long’s Thundergod Cauldron, even I don’t have one.” Tian Xin said with extreme jealousy. She was also a mage, so of course she knew what a good cauldron meant.
Below the stage, the referee coughed and said, “Competitors, please start the match, the time limit is twenty four hours.”
You XiaoMo grabbed a set of magic herbs. Using a mid-grade magic herb meant that it was unlikely to have the pill at a high-grade, thus he had to work on the distilling process.
The Thundercloud pill was considered a high-grade level ten magic pill because it contained ten or so level ten magic herbs, with a total of sixty plus herbs used.
Firstly, You XiaoMo threw all of the non-level ten magic herbs into the Heavenly Cauldron. It was his first time refining pills in public so he was a bit nervous, but it was negligible.
On the side, teacher Wu saw that he could distilling tens of herbs at a time and couldn’t help but take a few more glances. If he could do this, then his control over his soul power must be at a very high level, no wonder Elder Lei would specifically tell him to not hold back.
Since You XiaoMo had always been distilling high-grade magic herbs and due to their nature of having less impurities, it was much more difficult to distill than mid or low-grade herbs. It was because of that, that his proficiency of distilling went up by a lot.
A mid-grade magic herb usually contained about ten percent impurities.
During the first round of distilling, You XiaoMo easily took out four percent of the impurities, when before, he could only take out two to three percent. For the second round of distilling, the difficulty went up by half, but even then he still took out two percent and more.
The Thundercloud pill wasn’t too difficult for teacher Wu and thus while he was distilling, he was observing You XiaoMo’s situation. About three hours later, he suddenly saw You XiaoMo throw in all of the level ten magic herbs and a feeling of astonishment flashed over him.
He only used five hours for nearly fifty magic herbs?
Teacher Wu couldn’t help but be suspicious, could it be that he was pursuing efficiency? But, if that was the case, then he would be sacrificing the success rate and the pill grade. It looked like he was a bit impatient.
Although it was true that You XiaoMo focused on speed, he would still take care of efficiency and grade as well. It was his unwavering motto from his many years of refining pills.
Time was money!
But in terms of ability, teacher Wu was still stronger. You XiaoMo had used five hours whereas he only used three. Towards the end, he even increased that distance. When You XiaoMo started to distill level ten herbs, he was already merging the pill.
During the pill making process, the key was in the merging process. Since it was beyond his ability, You XiaoMo had to double his concentration. If there was a slight mishap, then all of his efforts would go to waste.
You XiaoMo let out a small sigh. In truth, merging high-grade herbs was slightly more difficult than mid-grade herbs because the herbs’ energy was more saturated. Thus, herbs which had more saturated energy would cause a bigger conflict when merging, increasing the chance of failure by a lot.
That was why, on the market, there were fewer high-grade pills than mid-grade pills. It wasn’t only because of the rarity of high-grade herbs, it was also this.
From the spectator seats, Qiao WuXing and the others were staring intensely at You XiaoMo, without even blinking. One rarely failed in the refining stage, the real challenge lay in merging.
Although every recipe would have clear and specific instructions, the requirements for merging was strict and rigorous. For example, some required a balanced merging, some only needed to be a fraction. These kinds of situations were stricter the higher the level of the pill.
“It’s already been going on for more than two hours, that’s so impressive!” Tian Xin exclaimed as she held her cheeks with sparkling eyes. As expected of the man she had once liked. Examining herself, she knew she wouldn’t be able to do this, maybe she would have failed at the start of the merging process.
Qiao WuXing said with a smile, “That’s true, since they are a teacher at the Xiao Yao Institution, with a strength of a level one rainbow grade mage, to be able to do this much is already amazing.”
“Who knows how long he can last though, with this many people watching, he must be feeling the pressure. Maybe in a minute he will fail.” Yan Hui said with disinterest as he folded his hands behind his head.
Ling Xiao, who was two people across from Yan Hui suddenly glanced at him from the side.
“He will succeed.” Jiu Ye unexpectedly opened his mouth.
Hearing such an assertive answer, everyone turned towards him.
Tian Xin couldn’t help but ask, “How are you so sure?”
Jiu Ye continued calmly, “Haven’t you guys noticed? Since distilling his herbs until now, he has never noticed the people around him, not even to look at the teacher. Such an intense concentration is not something people can do normally.”
“That’s true.” Qiao WuXing thought as his rubbed his chin, “Judging by this, maybe he can make the Thundercloud Pill with only one set of magic herbs.”
“Look guys, teacher Wu is about to finish.” Tian Xin suddenly shouted out.
Teacher Wu’s Purple Cauldron was a few levels below You XiaoMo’s Heavenly Cauldron and only the top ten on the rankings had Restriction Barrier, thus once teacher Wu’s pill was completed, immediately there were signs of it trying to escape the cauldron.
‘Thud, thud, thud’ sounded from within the Purple Cauldron, as if something heavy was smashing against it. As anyone who had refined high leveled magic pills before would know, this was the prelude to the pill trying to escape and the higher the level, the more the struggle.
A second after Tian Xin yelled out, a deep blue magic pill came rushing out of the cauldron, as if it was a pure blue shooting star. Within the blink of an eye, it shot towards the ceiling.
As someone who had many experiences, teacher Wu reacted quickly and jumped up, reaching to catch the Thundercloud pill. Using his soul power slightly, he suppressed it. It quickly lost its resistance and lay in his hand obediently.
The crowd stretched out their heads.
Looked like teacher Wu’s Thundercloud Pill was a success and by the color, it was of pretty good quality too.
Although the materials were mid-grade, the color was closer to that of a high-grade. There weren’t many, even within the institution, who could do something like this.
Now all that was left was You XiaoMo.
If he failed, he could continue to use the second set of magic herbs, there wasn’t a worry for time but the pressure would be exponentially greater.
Either he finished this round or he would wait for the next, but the chances of failure would go up. No matter how one looked at it, it was bad for You XiaoMo, especially since teacher Wu’s pill looked so close to a high-grade pill. To him it must be a huge burden.
Ling Xiao stared at You XiaoMo for a few seconds before looking away and leaning back on his chair, bored out of his mind.
He had seen him refining pills, with his own two eyes, thousands of times. He knew exactly what responses he would have when refining a pill. If something was off, he would give a reaction. If he slightly tilted his head or his mouth twitched, half an hour later he would successfully refine the pill.
As for his failures, it was usually with a poker face.
Once the magic herbs in the cauldron were wasted, he would squat at a corner to draw circles. As he grieved, he would reflect on his mistakes.
For this, Ling Xiao used one sentence to draw a conclusion— an idiot’s cycle of process!
