Alex recognized the young man. He was Yao Bujiang, the one with the reflection dao that he had fought in the battle hall a few years ago.
He looked at the other 3 people as well, and each one of them was very strong. To have reached this high, they needed to have a cultivation base that was strong enough to survive through all the trials and challenges.
"Do you know what the challenge is by chance?" Alex asked.
"Don't be in a hurry," the young man said. "You will find out soon enough."
Another man entered a few minutes later, and a woman came in nearly half an hour after that. Finally, another 15 minutes later the final person entered the room, and the gate closed.
At the same time, the room started speaking.
"This is the Alchemy challenge," the voice said, making many of the competitors frown immediately. Alchemy was the last thing they wanted to have to go through as they weren't very familiar with it.
Alex was also surprised that this was an Alchemy competition. But his surprise came more towards the fact that such a competition would be impossible to hold without ingredients and cauldrons.
A few of the others didn't seem surprised at all, as if they had been through this already.
'So it had to be a slightly different one,' he thought. As he expected, this was not a traditional Alchemy competition.
"I will name a pill and what it does, as well as the final energy held within it. Then, I will show you three different recipes, of which 2 of them will have 1 ingredient changed."
"You will have to figure out the correct recipe," the voice said. "There will be 5 such questions, and you will get an hour for each pill. You will have access to my knowledge of said ingredients, so the only thing being tested here is your knowledge of Alchemy, not your experience or luck."
"The first 3 with the correct answers will be sent to the next floor."
"Also, anyone who gets an answer wrong will be eliminated," the voice said. "If you end the challenge with no answer, you will be allowed to take the challenge again."
"You will be eliminated automatically after 3 consecutive challenges."
Alex was surprised for a second before he remembered something he was told in passing.
From floors 20 to 40, there were rarely any floors that sent the participants down to the first floor. It instead kept them there to take part in the challenge again.
That was one of the ways to keep a steady number of people on a floor without having the upper floors have to wait forever for any participants to come.
"Now, let us begin with the first one."
Three recipes appeared in the air, each of which looked normal at first glance.
"The pill is called Heaven's Strength pill. When eaten, it strengthens one's body to produce physical strength to the same level as your cultivation realm. After 30 minutes of consumption, you will lose all bodily control for the entire next day."
"The final energy of the pill is Metal."
That was all the voice said and left the 8 people in the room to figure out the answer to this question.
Alex had never seen or heard of this pill before, so he too was at the same starting point as everyone.
However, his speed at deduction and understanding of alchemy would leave these people behind soon enough.
He looked through the first recipe and closed his eyes. He read the names of the ingredients, the order, and the instruction. Then, he started formulating a simulation in his head of how those would work.
However, it wasn't long before he realized that he hadn't worked with some of these ingredients, so formulating a simulation wasn't exactly easy.
"Argh! Screw it," he thought and suddenly brought out a cauldron. The other contestant looked at him weirdly, almost not wanting to believe what they were seeing.
Alex looked into his storage bag and quickly brought out the ingredients. After visiting the Forbidden Orchard, he had every single ingredient mentioned in the first recipe.
Every other contestant couldn't help but be slackjawed when he started a fire underneath the cauldron and started making the pill.
"Wait, no, that's cheating, isn't it?" one of them asked.
"Is he an actual Alchemist?" another one asked.
"Let's see if he can come up with the answer," someone else said. "We might be able to use it in the next rounds."
The remaining didn't speak, but they were in an equal amount of disbelief for sure.
Alex didn't care for finesse or quality or even getting a proper pill. He simply followed the recipe as was written in front of him.
As he reached the end of the recipe, he suddenly stopped and tossed everything out.
Then, he looked at the second recipe and started making that too.
A few of the people in the group realized that the first one was not the correct recipe and continued watching Alex as discretely as possible, hoping to get the answer before he could.
Alex started on the 2nd pill as well, and as he got close to the end, he shook his head and discarded it as well.
"The third recipe!" one of them said immediately.
"Wrong!" the voice said and the person who answered was sent back to the first floor.
The others hesitated to answer anything else, and that nearly made Alex break out into a fit of laughter.
"The first one," he said.
"Correct."
Alex smiled as the teleportation power started gathering around him. He quickly put everything into his storage and left the room.
When he arrived on the next floor, he couldn't help but be surprised at how easy that challenge was.
His first pill had resulted in a Metal energy, and with the ingredients involved, he was half-sure that it was correct. However, making the pill and then testing it was not his luxury, so he decided to test the remaining two before he did something like that.
His second pill had resulted in wood energy, which told Alex that it was the wrong one.
He had to still check the third one, but someone gave him the answer to that question by assuming it was the answer to the ultimate question.
With both options gone, he knew the first one was the answer.
He looked around his location and saw an open gate once again. In fact, there were 3 such doors, each one of which was open.
Alex wasn't sure which one he had to enter and looked around at all 3. As he looked, he noticed something he hadn't noticed on the earlier floors at all.
Above each one of the doors, there was an indicator of how many of the slots in those rooms were filled up. Of the 3 rooms, only the first one had people in it, and 3 out of 5 of those slots were filled up.
Alex walked into the 1st room.
3 people were already in there, and Alex quickly checked them all.
They were all in the Saint realm, but only in the Condensation and Foundation realm. None of these people were Saint core realm at all, and that made Alex a bit relieved.
He looked around the room and saw that there were no spots like the earlier floor. The 3 people in the room were all either sitting on the floor or leaning against the wall.
Alex went and sat by the side as he waited for the final person to enter the room.
Alex was surprised when Yao Bujiang walked in as well.
"Hey, brother. That was an amazing show you did on the floor," the man said. "To think we would have an actual alchemist make the pills. That was wild."
Alex looked at him with a surprised look on his face. "Did brother manage to find an answer too?" he asked.
The man shook his head. "Nah, I was annoyed and decided to leave, so I gave a random answer. Turned out I was right, so I got to come here," he said. "I sure was lucky."
"Please stand in the lit-up area," the room's voice said suddenly. Everyone walked over to one of the 5 spots, and as soon as they did, a barrier sprung up behind them, about 3 meters away from the wall.
"If you touch or pass the barrier behind you, you lose," the voice said. "You can take part in the next round if you lose. 3 consecutive losses will eliminate you."
"The last person standing within the circle will get to go to the next floor."
"Begin."
Alex took a moment to take in what was being said and saw that someone was charging for him.
'Send them outside the barrier,' he thought. He understood what needed to be done. He quickly teleported away from the girl and appeared somewhere else.
Yao Bujiang barely noticed Alex's presence, but by the time he could do anything, Alex had used his teleportation dao on him and sent him out of the barrier.
"Sorry, you're the strongest here," Alex said toward the man and turned to look at the rest of the people in the room.
Now that he had taken care of the strongest person, taking care of these was no work at all.
Half a minute later, he was teleported to the 28th floor, where he walked into the room with the most people in it.
