Having found a commonality between some of the ingredients, Alex decided to focus on that. It was a breakthrough in his attempt after 3 days, but it was going to take more than just that to make the pill.
He needed more.
If Alex was to be honest, making new pills wasn't hard at all. All you had to do was use different ingredients in a way that their elemental energy didn't become violent all of a sudden.
As long as one could maintain that and reach a level where the energy was stable, that could be considered a pill.
However, that pill was more than likely going to have an unusable effect. No one wanted a pill that grew your body hair by 2 centimeters everywhere. No one wanted a pill that could turn your muscles into bones.
A pill needed to have a good effect to be considered a good pill. So, considering what sort of ingredients he was being allowed to use, Alex decided to start by thinking of what a good effect the pill could have.
And it all needed to come from a majority of Water energy.
He started racking his brain for ideas.
The Emperor on the other hand had a rather smooth sailing from the start. With ingredients that actually did something, he was able to test them out with various other ingredients to see what they did.
He had some idea about what sort of pill he wanted to make with the ingredients, so he brought out similar ingredients to make them.
Unlike Alex, he had to practice with every ingredient to be able to tell how they interacted with each other. Even with 10 thousand years worth of experience, it just wasn't enough to know how two ingredients would react if he had never tried it before.
Outside of their small zone, the stage was filled with entertainment that kept the audience happy. They watched the two monarchs from time to time, but most of them had already considered the emperor to be the victor.
After all, he was the only one doing anything. Alex was just sitting there with his eyes closed. Even if he did start now, would he even make it?
The Emperor saw that too. He had been noticing that Alex wasn't doing anything for the past few days and was very happy with himself. His 3-day long preparation hadn't been for nothing.
Ever since he proposed to Alex the idea of teaching him how to bring out the Pill cloud, he had been planning to use this exact bet to get him to accept his trade should he reject it.
In the chance that he did accept, he was going to use this to make him trade his stuff to him for cheaper. As such, no matter what, he would come out on top in this trade.
He smiled to himself and continued. He had stumbled upon what he was going to be making, and now he was going to have to figure out how to make that pill. After that, he had to try out the various ways he could make the pill so that he could figure out which recipe gave the best result.
If he could make the primary pill by the time 5 days had passed, he could follow through with the rest in the next 5 days, winning the match. When that happened, Alex would simply lose without any more grace period in which he could finish his pill.
Not that the emperor was worried about it. There was no way for him to finish the pill at all.
The emperor continued practicing the pill and finally ended up finishing it halfway through the 5th day. He quickly made a Saint Nullifying pill and tested his new pill on himself.
As soon as he felt the pill burn him from the inside, he quickly ate the nullifying pill and removed its effect.
"Great!" he spoke to himself with a smile. "I now have four and a half days to finish this."
He spent the rest half of the day cultivating. Having used up so much Qi the first 5 days, he needed this time to regain his Qi so he could continue on with the rest of the days.
His first pill had come out at 58% harmony. While others in the empire would consider it great, he considered it garbage.
The emperor experimented the entire next day and found one recipe that improved it to 69%. That was a good result, but it wasn't even an immortal-grade pill yet.
He tried some more.
Over the course of the next day, he experimented until he managed to make a pill that reached 76%. That was a great improvement to the previously immortal pill.
"That should be acceptable," he thought. He could take it slow now and see if he could still improve it. If he could, great. If he couldn't, that wasn't so bad, since he was going to win anyway.
He looked up to see if Alex was still sitting there with his eyes closed, and that was when he saw that Alex was working on some ingredients with his cauldron out.
The Emperor was a little surprised, but he wasn't afraid at all. After all, it was too late. There was no way for Alex to win this competition after starting on the 8th day.
Still, the Emperor watched to see what he was doing and couldn't help but sigh when he saw Alex only practice on single ingredients. That was a phase that the Emperor had gone through at the very beginning.
"Sigh, you shouldn't have taken my bet," the Emperor said and continued with his experimentation.
Even as he experimented, the Emperor got slower and slower as he felt there was no need to do so. Even on the 9th day, Alex was still practicing with ingredients.
Not only that, he would close his eyes and start meditating after each ingredient he practiced with.
"What the hell is he doing?" the emperor couldn't imagine at all.
The 10th and final day began, and the Emperor improved his pill once more. He managed to make a recipe that made a pill with 84% harmony. That was a greater number than he was hoping to achieve in just 10 days with random ingredients he hadn't even thought about.
He watched Alex who had his eyes closed for the longest time once again. He wasn't even making any pills this time around.
As the time continued ticking down, the Emperor understood that there was no more competition here. He had won.
He recorded everything he could about the pill on a talisman and handed the pill over to the headmaster who was going to handle it for fair judging.
Not that there needed to be one since he had most certainly won.
As the final hour came around, Alex finally moved and placed an ingredient into the cauldron.
"Is he still going?" the Emperor couldn't help but wonder. The world couldn't help but wonder.
However, as Alex started putting ingredients into the cauldron one after another, they all realized that he was indeed making a pill this time around.
"That's not going to be enough though," the Emperor thought. "I already won—"
The world darkened as if to intentionally cut off the Emperor's thoughts.
His face drained as he slowly looked up to see the storm cloud roll around on top of them with purple lightning flashing occasionally.
"No… no way!" the emperor thought. "Pill Clouds?"
