201 Competition 4

Ivan neither agreed nor rejected. He was aware that it wasn't an offer easily made, so rejecting it would be unwise. Not only because it could slight Serene but also because it could mean that he would miss a great opportunity. And just agreeing wasn't smart either. He didn't even know the reason she wanted to make him her disciple. It seemed to have something to do with the herb he had given her, but that was all he knew.

But before he could think more about it an angry voice interrupted his thoughts. "Teacher, how could you ask someone like him to be your disciple?", the voice belonged to that annoying man who had insisted on having a bet with him.

"Shut up!", Serene reprimanded him, "Haven't you ridiculed yourself enough yet?"

Knowing that he wouldn't agree that easily, she then turned back towards Ivan and started to explain. "From the way you have handled this herb, I can see that you didn't know what kind of herb it was when you harvested it. But even so, you managed to nearly perfectly conserve all its medical effects. This isn't something that can be done just by learning. Instead, it requires a certain talent.

Unlike your master Bea here, I don't really focus on pill refining. It is more of a side hobby for me. Something I picked up to improve my true passion which is growing herbs."

Miss. Klein nodded. "She is truly talented in this area. Still, her talent in pill refining sucks.", although she agreed with the part about herb growing, she also took the opportunity to strike her opponent.

Ivan was slightly surprised to hear her speaking out for Serene. Did that mean that she thought he should accept the offer? No, he shouldn't just accept the offer like this. As mentioned before, taking a master was something important so he shouldn't make the decision hastily.

"Could you let me think about it?", he asked carefully.

"Of course.", Serene agreed. She too knew that it wasn't something that should be done hastily. If she didn't have such a good understanding of Bea she too wouldn't have made an offer like this so soon after meeting. But since that girl had accepted him as a disciple, that could only mean that his personality was good enough.

"How about I come with you to your realm, when you leave? Then I can start teaching you about herb cultivating and you can make your decision better.", she then offered to everyone's surprise.

"Don't you have anything to do?", Miss Klein asked her. There was a slight annoyance in her voice. But it seemed like she was a bit happy as well.

"Not at all. And it isn't like anyone can say anything about it.", Serene responded, before grinning at Miss. Klein, "Don't tell me you don't want your aunt to visit you."

"Hmpf, who is my aunt."

"Huh?", everyone exclaimed. None of them would have guessed that they were related, seeing how they had gone against each other as soon as they had met.

"What can't members of a family fight each other?", Serene asked.

Everyone hurriedly shook their head. No wonder their interaction had been a bit weird. It wasn't really as if they were foes. There hadn't been any true hostility shown. But everyone had only thought that it was because they were rivals.

"But they look completely different.", Ivan lightly murmured to himself.

He hadn't even finished, when a death stare focused on him. "Did you say something?", his master asked him in a sharp voice.

He hurriedly shook his head. "No, I didn't say anything."

"Oh? Is that so? I could have sworn I have heard a certain someone say that I look very different from her. Don't tell me you think I'm too small to be her relative?"

Ivan shook in fear. Normally Miss. Klein was very nice. But there was something she was sensitive about and that was her size. Anyone who mentioned it in front of her was sure to receive her anger.

Luckily the sound of a bell stopped her from really lashing out against him. But he knew that she wouldn't forget the words he had murmured in his astonishment that easily.

The sound of the bell rang through the whole area and with the third ring, the participation tokens lit up. On the fourth ring, the sight before Ivan's eyes completely changed.

He now stood in a room, which was just as his master had described. On the screen in front of him, a row of words appeared. "Welcome to the Pill Refining Competition."

The row then vanished, only to be replaced with a counter, counting down from sixty. Ivan knew that it was counting down until the start of the competition. Although it wasn't truly necessary for everyone to start at the same time, for the sake of the observers it was done like this.

At another avenue, many large screens lit up at the same time Ivan and the others appeared in the virtual rooms. These large screens displayed the inside of some of the rooms. They were currently focused on the highest placed contestants of the last competition.

"Welcome, everyone to the Pill Refining Competition.", a female voice, that was cold and clear as water sounded out.

The avenue which was filled with cultivators quieted down at the sound of her voice. Although the owner of the voice hadn't appeared, she had managed to pull all attention to herself. Or to be exact to the screens hovering in the air.

"Let the competition begin.", the voice sounded out again as soon as the countdown in the rooms had run down. This was also everything she said. The competition didn't have anyone commenting. Instead, everyone had to use either their own knowledge to understand what was happening or find together in a study group.

Throughout the avenue, there were many smaller groups, which surrounded smaller screens, where one person was commenting on what was happening on the screen, while the others were attentively listening. It was a rare opportunity to see higher skilled and ranking pill refiner in action.

In his small room, Ivan was confronted by the first question. It was a fundamental question.

"The purity of a pill is defined by which factors?"

Although it was a fundamental question, this didn't mean that it was easy to answer. The most basic and easiest answer was, that the number of impurities in the pill defined the purity. But this answer wasn't complete. Because even with a number of impurities, a pill could be called perfectly pure. This was because an impurity didn't necessarily reduce the medical effect of the pill.

So was the purity of the medical effect the best factor for determining the purity of a pill? Not at all. To craft a pill of a certain rank, it might even be necessary for the medical effect to be impure. This was because a medical effect that was too pure could lead to too much energy contained in the pill.

It could thus be said that although the basics of this question were simple, to truly answer it wasn't easy at all.

This was also the reason for the question of asking for multiple factors. That was because just one wasn't enough. Instead a combination of factors had to be used. Not only the two mentioned before but also some others, such as pill structure and pill aura.

The following questions were the same. They were questions on fundamentals. Some of them simple while others were exceedingly complex.

During this part, the first participants had answered five questions wrongly. They were then thrown out of their respective rooms. They had failed in the competition. They would later be ranked according to the number of correct answers and the time used. But all of them would be at the lowest end of the ranking.

And if they came from a sect focused on pill refining they would definitely be punished. To already lose during the fundamental section was seen as a shame for those coming from these types of sects.

In fact, most of those who had already lost where cultivators which didn't have an orthodox understanding of pill refining. They were wandering cultivators who hadn't come into contact with real pill refiners and were mostly self-thought.

Of course, there was also the occasional disciple of a sect, who had gotten an answer wrong. Mostly this happened because they had been too nervous to think straight. They had let their mind defeat them.