It was time for the next set of competitions.
Alex leaned next to Ma Rong and asked, "Master, how well should I do in the next competition?"
Ma Rong made a weird face and said, "What do you mean how well? You should do your best."
"But that would mean using Spiritual sense. You told me not to," he whispered.
"Hmm… I did say that. But… you will be so far away from the audience, and there is no one in the competition staff that can use Spiritual sense, so you will be fine," Ma Rong said.
"How do you know that master?" he asked.
"You still don't understand how lucrative and rare spiritual sense really is. If any one of those people had spiritual sense, they wouldn't be working as a staff. So, just feel free to use it in the arena. As long as you keep it to a moderate amount, you should be fine," Ma Rong said.
Then, Alex, Wan Li, and the girl in the 9th ranking stood up and walked to the gate below.
"You guys have your ingredients ready?" Ma Rong asked.
"""Yes""" they all replied.
"Good. What pills are you making?" she asked.
"I am thinking of making the Face Changing Pill. I am used to making those and I think I will be good at it," the girl said.
"I have had the most success with a Hundred Poison Antidote, so I think I will make that pill, Sect leader," Wan Li said.
"As for me, I will make a Bronze Tiger Rage. That is the one I had the most success with yet," Alex said as he named a pill with Metal energy as the resulting energy.
"Very well. Since you guys are confident, I won't say anything else. Good Luck," she said. They reached the place with the barrier and one by one, the participants started to leave for the competition.
Alex walked in as well and felt the barrier touch into his Qi and tried to check him. After knowing that he was a participant, it let him be.
Along with Wan Li and the girl, Alex reached the location of the competition. The arena was quite big, even bigger than the one from yesterday.
'Are there more disciples taking part today?' Alex wondered and looked around. Surprisingly, there were a lot of familiar faces.
There was Han Long and his two fellow sect disciples that Alex had seen during the last 2 competitions. There were a few other disciples that were either with him during the last ingredient finding test, or one that he saw in yesterday's Fastest pill-making competition.
Aside from them, there was also the 4th place winner of yesterday's competition, the guy from the Royal Fu sect.
And finally, with an air of Elegance, sitting in front of one of the fire pits was perhaps the best alchemist amongst the competitors here today. He was Huang Fu, the Royal Alchemist's disciple.
Alex hadn't seen him properly the first time as he had only heard the person's name and caught a glimpse of him while he was leaving the arena.
Today, he got to see him very well. Huang Fu was a moderately tall man that seemed to be not even 20 years old. He had a slim face with a pointed nose and sharp eyes.
Huang Fu seemed to notice Alex's eyes and turned towards him before giving a small nod in greeting. Alex reciprocated with a nod as well.
Everyone else was randomly seated around the place. No two sect disciples were allowed to sit with each other.
A new female host walked up this time and stood on top of a small podium and started talking.
"Welcome everyone, to the Best Pill-making competition. I hope you guys are doing well and are well prepared. You guys probably went through this already but please take these storage bags and keep your required ingredients in there. Everything else, please put it in the box," the female host said.
A group of staff members walked forward handing everyone a box and storage bag. Alex took them both and stored everything aside from the required ingredients into the box.
He locked the box with his Qi and handed it to the staff. He looked at the ingredients in the storage bag. He had kept two sets of ingredients just in case.
'Ah, hopefully, the double pills won't happen this time,' he hoped. Even if the pill splitting Qi did appear, he was sure that he could reach at least 42% harmony level.
However, that wasn't enough to win the competition. The best of the best were gathered here. Even if they couldn't reach Heaven grade, which he wasn't sure about, they would definitely make better pills than 42% harmony.
So, he was prepared just a bit. Now, all he could do was wish he didn't need to.
The host saw that the storage bag situation was taken care of, so she started to speak again.
"As every one of you knows, this is the competition where you rank based on the best pill you can make. So you will be given an hour exactly to make the pill."
"The competition will rank you based on the best pill you make, so you are allowed to make multiple ones. In fact, we urge you to make multiple pills," the host said.
All the participants seem to have expected that and were ready with the extra ingredients just like Alex.
"There are also rules that you will have to follow. If you are unable to follow them, you will be disqualified."
"If you don't have a pill by the end of the hour, you will be disqualified. If your cauldron explodes, you will be disqualified. If you disrupt others intentionally, you will be disqualified."
"If you are found guilty of having cheated during any of the parts in the competition, you are disqualified. Those are the rules, everything else, you are free to do what you like. Good luck."
