Chapter 138: Qualifying round

Two days later, it was time for the tournament the Alchemy Tower was holding.

But there were just too many entrants, even more than they had been expecting.

In total, there were over five hundred thousand people who had entered the tournament, so of course they had to hold qualifying rounds to cut down on these numbers.

This meant a change in the schedule to the tournament and the extra qualifying rounds took up another two days.

So for the first two days of the tournament, it would be pure qualifying rounds that would try to cut down the numbers as much as possible.

But even with qualifying rounds, there really were just too many people. Even the first qualifying round that they held was in a hall that was completely filled with participants and there were over ten thousand people taking the qualifying test at the same time.

There was quite a bit of trash that had been drawn in by the enticement of the prize, so there were actually quite a few Junior Alchemists that had entered even though they had no chance of winning.

To make things easier, the first qualifying round was for the participants to refine a Mortal Grade Pill.

Mortal Grade Pills were pills that only people who were at least Expert Alchemists could refine, so almost all of the participants in the first round were eliminated.

But there were a few that had managed to refine the pill after some difficulty, allowing them to move onto the second round.

The only person who was different was someone who was dressed from head to toe in black and was wearing a black mask that covered his face, only revealing a pair of sharp eyes. On the chest of that person, there was his identification which read "#133769 Fan Lin".

It was no one other than Lin Fan, he was here participating under the name Fan Lin.

He easily refined the Mortal Pill with a wave of his hand and when the judges looked over his pill, they were shocked to find that it was a pill with 100% purity.

At first when the judges discovered this, they immediately thought that Lin Fan was cheating, but after reviewing the tapes, they found that he had indeed refined this pill himself.

While they were still doubtful, they suddenly received a message and once they read that message, they immediately stopped investigating this matter and allowed Lin Fan to pass.

They were shocked to see this message since it was one that came from the elders themselves.

These judges were only normal alchemists and hadn't been at the auction, so they never saw the finale. They had only heard rumours about what had happened and it never occurred to them to link that Fan Lin to the Fan Lin in front of them.

Just like that, Lin Fan had passed the first qualifying round and was sent to the next round.

It was just too bad that the next round wouldn't be until two days later with how many entrants they had to test for this first qualifying round.

There were over five hundred thousand participants and each qualifying round took thirty minutes to test ten thousand participants. It would take a total of twenty five hours for them to test all the entrants, which took up most of the day.

Lin Fan just smiled as he walked out, entering an alley to drop his disguise before heading back to the shop.

…

In the Alchemy Tower, in the conference room at the top.

The elders had once again gathered after two days to discuss the tournament.

They had all been busy during this time since it took quite a bit to prepare this tournament. Especially with how many entrants there were since they had never expected things to develop to this level.

But this was also a good sign since this meant that it would be a great boost to the fame of the Alchemy Tower.

While they had taken out one of their treasures from a previous Alchemy Master, the fame that they had generated from this tournament was already enough to make up for that.

Over the past few years, the situation of the Alchemy Tower hadn't been good.

With the death of the previous Alchemy Master and the dissent between the two factions, it had caused the Alchemy Tower to gradually lose more and more power. They were now only a mere shell of what they were under the lead of the previous Alchemy Master.

As long as they had the fame from this tournament and the envoy's plan succeeded in taking down the other faction, they could stabilize the Alchemy Tower. Then with the connections and orders that would come from the fame of this tournament, they would have no difficulty in rebuilding the power of the Alchemy Tower.

While the elders were thinking about their bright future, the envoy actually had his brows knit while reading the report in front of him.

"Why isn't that Lin Fan participating in this tournament? What could the faction behind him want?" The envoy muttered to himself.

But still, he saw that Fan Lin's name was on the list of entrants, which meant that he had accomplished at least one of his goals.

He had made sure that the elders were carefully watching Fan Lin's path through the tournament since he had already seen Fan Lin's technique before. He could tell that it wasn't a refining technique from this world. The refining technique that he used even surpassed the level of the upper realm.

This Fan Lin had clearly found some King's inheritance and that was the only explanation why he was so talented.

At first the envoy had felt a bit of greed towards Fan Lin's inheritance, but he soon gave up that idea.

If he was talented enough to gain anything from that inheritance, he wouldn't have been sent down to this lower realm. The best path of action he could take now was to groom Fan Lin and take him as a junior of his family. As long as he could do that, he was certain that his family would thrive.

So he had the elders send that letter to the judge during the qualifying round.

He would be sure to make Fan Lin's path as smooth as possible just so Fan Lin would get the chance to meet him.

…

Back in Lin Fan's store, the morning rush had just ended when Lin Fan had come back.

The qualifying round that he was in was the first round of the entire process, so he had gone off early in the morning to participate, leaving only the four kids to handle the store.

But there was no one that dared to cause trouble in his store anymore after what had happened last time, so it was completely safe.

Elder Hua and Elder Gu had come early in the morning and they were surprised to see that Lin Fan was gone.

When Lin Fan came in, Elder Hua asked him, "Owner Lin, where did you go?"

Lin Fan just said with a smile, "I went to take care of some business, nothing important."

Elder Hua didn't keep pressing him since there was something more important that she had to ask, "Owner Lin, the Alchemy Tower's tournament is starting today, what are we going to do? From what I've heard, there's over five hundred thousand participants! This is clearly going to increase the fame of the Alchemy Tower and make them stronger! Are we just gonna watch as they become stronger?"

Lin Fan had the same smile, "You don't need to worry about a thing, I'm already implementing my plan."

Elder Hua had a confused look, "Your plan? What is your plan?"

Lin Fan didn't say a thing.

But it was at this time that Elder Hua heard some interesting gossip from some customers that were just leaving Lin Fan's store.

"Did you hear about what happened at the qualifying round? That infamous Fan Lin from the Treasure Pavilion's auction showed up and refined a 100% purity pill!"

"100% purity pill? It must be fake, no one can refine something like that!"

"No, no, the judges even inspected it for quite a bit of time and they couldn't find any problems with it, they even reviewed the tapes frame by frame. In the end, there was a letter that people are saying came from the elders themselves and the judges immediately let Fan Lin pass."

"No way, could it really be a 100% purity pill?"

Elder Hua narrowed her eyes when she heard this and then she turned to Lin Fan, "Owner Lin, could it be that this is the business you were taking care of?"

Lin Fan spread his hands with a smile, but he didn't say a thing.

Elder Hua deeply knit her brows at this, "Owner Lin, just what are your intentions?"

Lin Fan responded with the same smile.