Alex was watching a bunch of participants makes poison on the stage. The task wasn't a very visual task as everyone tried their best to hide their methods from the audience.
All they did was mix a bunch of ingredients with each other and soon the poison would be completed.
"That guy from your group is quite fast, junior brother," Luo Mei said.
Alex looked at a man currently finishing the preparation of the poison. "Ah, yes. What was his name again? Tang Bao, I think. He is ranked 8th in our sect if I remember correctly. He seems to be quite adept at poison," Alex said.
He hadn't known the person's name before today and had only learned when Ma Rong had chosen him during the registration.
"He should make it into the top ten," Luo Mei said.
Alex silently nodded. As expected, he finished in the 7th position. That was more than what anyone from the Hong Wu sect was expecting from a competition that was not about Alchemy.
As the poison competition was ending, Meng Yun stood up and walked away with an elder. "Is sister Meng taking part in a competition too?" Alex asked.
"Yes. Meng Yun is quite good with the tunes, so she is taking part in the music competition," Luo Mei said.
"I see," Alex said and went back to watching the competition. There was another competition going on, one that he had never seen before, a puppet competition.
The competition holders provided the puppets and the participant's job was to refine the puppet and make it theirs the fastest.
The puppets were just small mechanical rats so the competition holders didn't lose much by handing them out. The winner of the puppet competition was someone from a sect called the Thousand Hands sect.
After the puppet competition and the poison competitions were over, it was time for the music competition.
Meng Yun and a bunch of other disciples got onto the state and the host started explaining the rules.
As the competition was themed Speed, the participants had to play a certain piece at a fast speed while staying above a certain threshold of errors.
Everyone was made to take out their instruments. Some took out drums, some took out zithers, some took out guitar-like stringed instruments. Meng Yun took out her flute that he had used against Alex's fight.
When they were given the go, everyone instantly started playing the music piece that was floating in front of them. Alex couldn't understand what the bunch of lines floating midair meant, but it seemed the participants fully understood them.
As soon as they started playing, a graph of sorts appeared on top of each of the participant's heads letting the audience know how correct they were.
Everyone aside from a few kept on fluctuating up and down on the accuracy scale, but never dropped below a threshold marked by 25%.
Only a few could consistently keep it at around 40%. Meng Yun was one of them. She was very good at playing the piece as if she had learned it all her life and her average level seemed to be around 42%.
"Oh wow, Mengmeng is so close to becoming a Heaven Grade musician," Luo Mei said from the side.
"Heaven grade is at 50%?" Alex asked.
"Yeah, it's always the same for any profession that can check its quality in percentage. 10% is the mortal threshold, 25 is the Earth, and 50 is the Heaven. Honestly, if Mengmeng spent just a bit more time practicing her craft instead of trying to serve me, she would definitely be Heaven grade by now," Luo Mei said.
"S- Serve you?" Alex was a little confused. 'Isn't Meng Yun a player? Why would she serve senior sister?' he thought.
"Oh yeah, didn't I mention it yet? Mengmeng is my maid. My family sent her to the sect with me to take care of me. Although it turned out that her talent was quite good, so master agreed to make her a disciple of the sect. However, she still tried to take care of me and follows me around," Luo Mei said while shaking her head.
"Oh," Alex said, unable to articulate any more words. His entire view of Meng Yun came crumbling down. 'Wait, so she isn't a player, but is just a talented NPC?' he thought.
Meng Yun was on the stage currently finishing up her piece. She was quite fast, even when compared to participants who came from genuine music sects.
Finally, she finished and ended up being the first to do so. Her highest melody was around 45% and her lowest was at 38%. On average, she stayed at around 42% melody.
She had passed without question. Other participants also started finishing one by one. A few of them actually had a higher melody than her, but they weren't as fast, so they failed to get into the top 3 rankings all the same.
Once the results were out, Meng Yun happily returned back to the seating area.
"Congratulations Mengmeng," Luo Mei said as she stood up and went to hug her.
"Good job. You got us 100 points where we weren't expecting any," Wen Cheng said.
"Congrats, sister Meng," Alex said.
Other people started congratulating her too. Soon, Meng Yun was red as a beet from all the attention and quickly went to hide near Luo Mei.
Alex looked back onto the stage. He had nearly missed the formation setting competition, but even after watching it, he didn't realize what was happening.
He couldn't understand the logic as to why the participants threw their flags at the place they did. Soon, that competition was over too without Alex really knowing what took place.
'It seems watching a formation-making competition without the slightest idea on formation making is not a good idea,' he thought.
Finally, he looked back towards the Hong Wu sect's seating area and saw that Ma Rong was missing. So were the three disciples.
It was time for the pill-making competition.
