Chapter 17 The Trick Within

After seeing the display just now, no one else was exactly eager to try their luck. Xuan, however, was holding off on going for a different reason. He knew right away that the whole 'endurance and mental fortitude' thing was bullshit, since many alchemists were the type to give up very easily. The ones who consistently tried over and over again were the ones who would go far, but they were few and far between.

That meant the true test of this competition lay elsewhere, and in order to find out what, Xuan needed to observe for a bit longer.

After a period of quiet murmuring amongst the crowd and a few cowards choosing to leave, two men stepped forward at the same time.

"If Grandmaster Dun does not mind, could you let this junior have a try?"

"This Hu would also like to try his luck."

The senior overseer, whose name was apparently Grandmaster Dun, looked at the two briefly before giving a nod.

"The two of you can go together."

"This junior thanks Grandmaster Dun."

"Understood."

As the two climbed onto the stage, the crowd below began murmuring.

"Who's that guy on the left? Why does he seem so confident he can succeed?"

"You don't know? That guy's name is Zhou Hai, and he's the young master of the renowned Zhou family!"

"Ohhh, the child prodigy who reached the Core Formation stage in merely half a year at the age of eight? I heard he's already in the Qi Transformation Stage even though he's only 25! With talent like that, why is he participating in an alchemy competition? Does he want to become an alchemist?"

"Heheh, you don't understand. I heard that he's in love with Grandmaster Zong's student, Lady Zhi Ruo, and wants to join Open Sky Alchemist Guild to get closer to her. As for why he's participating in this competition like the rest of us and not simply using his family's connections to get in… I'm guessing he wants to impress her."

"What? Love really makes a man go blind, huh?"

"Ha! You new or something? I'm guessing you haven't seen Lady Zhi Ruo, because if you have, then you'll understand why Zhou Hai was blinded by love. Didn't that announcement earlier say something about secondary leaderboards? Open your System and look at the Beauty Rankings—her cultivation's not very high and she's quite young, but she's already part of the top ten."

"System? What System?"

"Oh, you're not… ah, never mind."

Meanwhile, Xuan was confused. 'Getting to the Core Formation stage in half a year is considered a child prodigy? My fellow brother in the ways of the Martial Dao, I went from First-Layer Body Tempering to Ninth-Layer in one night, and will be breaking through to Core Formation in a mere day's time…'

'Not to mention… only Qi Transformation stage at the age of 25? Hmph, in my past life, I was already a Saint-stage powerhouse by then.'

Of course, he didn't say any of this out loud, and instead merely watched as this so-called child prodigy took on Grandmaster Dun's challenge.

"By the way, who's the guy on the right?" Some guy beside Xuan asked. "This brother, do you recognize him?"

"Hm? Oh, I'm not sure. Never seen his face before," Xuan replied nonchalantly. "But judging from his calm and collected movements, he seems pretty refined… a noble from a distant land, perhaps?"

After answering the other man's question with some quick bullshit, Xuan turned his head back to the stage to observe the two contestants, who had just received the pills and put them into their mouths after sitting down for a more comfortable position.

"…!" Immediately, both of them were hit with the same feeling the poor test subject had been struck with earlier, and their eyebrows furrowed above their tightly shuteyes. However, neither of them began spasming like the man earlier had, and instead persevered through it, thinking this really was a test of endurance and mental fortitude.

After about thirty seconds, the man on the right, surnamed Hu, forcefully swallowed the pill without chewing it at all and opened his mouth and eyes, panting heavily.

"Hah… hah…"

Beside him, Zhou Hai forcefully swallowed the pill immediately after hearing the other man give in, and hid the disgust on his face as he calmly re-opened his eyes.

"… Whew."

'This Zhou Hai person purposely waited for the man surnamed Hu to give in first before swallowing himself, thus allowing him to hold the record for longest time with the pill in his mouth… he's crafty.' Xuan observed, making a mental note to himself. 'All to receive that special reward, hm? This Zhou family must be a group of sneaky cretins who snitched their way up to their current status through various dirty tactics… not that I care.'

'So long as they don't get in my way, that is.'

"… Congratulations," Grandmaster Dun said calmly as a servant wrote down the two's times. "You both pass. What are your names?"

"This humble junior is named Zhou Hai," the young master of the Zhou family said. "The son of the Zhou family's current patriach, Zhou Dong. It is a pleasure to meet you, Grandmaster Dun. I have long heard of your honored name."

"This guy is really good at flattery, isn't he?" Some people amongst the crowd snorted.

"Yeah… I heard the Zhou family only has their status in Cloud Catcher City today because they have a good relationship with the powerful Stealing Heart Sect."

"Stealing Heart Sect… isn't that the infamous evil sect that charms innocent pure maidens and turn them into their dual cultivation slaves…?"

"Shhh! Keep it down! What will you do if someone from the Zhou family heard you?!"

Grandmaster Dun seemed completely unaffected by Zhou Hai's shameless flattery, however, and he coolly turned to the other man.

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"And you?"

"Hu Bao greets Grandmaster Dun," the man surnamed Hu said, bowing respectfully. Compared to Zhou Hai, his greeting was far simpler and more laid-back, almost like he and the old man were of the same status.

"Good. You two may return to the crowd. After everyone's testing is over, I will announce the results, and you will receive your alchemist tokens—as well as the aforementioned special reward, if applicable to you."

"Understood, Grandmaster Dun."

In unison, both Zhou Hai and Hu Bao left the stage and went back to the crowd. The latter was immediately bombarded with questions about the taste and how he endured it, since no one dared to pester the former due to his status. Xuan, watching this with interest, pondered for a moment.

'Hu Bao… now where have I seen that name before… oh, right. The chat.'

In other words, he was a player—and one of the few who had been talking about Zero the other day when Xuan had checked on the global channel. As he tried to recall whether or not this Hu Bao person said anything bad about him, the others contestants went up to the stage one by one to test their endurance in the face of Grandmaster Zong's specially-refined repulsive pills. After seeing Zhou Hai and Hu Bao's success just now, the morale of the group went significantly up, giving them the courage they needed to tackle this challenge.

Most failed, of course, fainting or spitting the pill back out the moment it touched their tongue. Many among them tried to simply shove it down their own throats without tasting it at all, but naturally Grandmaster Zong's test wasn't that easy to cheat through. The few who attempted this were met only with defeat, loss of consciousness, and an esophagus that felt literally on fire with no amount of water being able to cool it.

However, some individuals actually managed to succeed, though no one managed to last even remotely close to Hu Bao or Zhou Hai's times. The highest someone else got was two seconds, and that was cutting it ridiculously close. Just a single millisecond more and they may have been unable to take the taste any longer and end up spitting the pill out as a natural reflex.

Before long, there was only one person who had yet to go—Xuan. He'd been observing all this time, and from everyone else's experiences and reactions, he'd deduced a few things.

First, the pill wasn't poisonous. If it was, they wouldn't have made the test consuming them. Second, the pill was very energetic—in other words, filled with Qi. Ling'er, one of his wives, had once told him that the 'energy level' of a pill referred to how much Qi was in it, not the quality. The amount of Qi inside a pill directly related to how volatile and reactive it was, thus leading to the needle-like pain felt when consuming this pill.

Lastly and most importantly… all of the contestants before him did not show any sign of having a lingering taste in their mouths. Normally, for a pill whose taste was truly as bad as their reactions seemed to prove, it would make sense for its taste to linger in the eater's mouth for hours unless water was drank. Yet all of the crowd, both those who had succeeded and those who had failed, showed no sign of disgust over a lingering bad taste.

It was odd, but when putting all the pieces together…

… Xuan already had a good idea of what the real test of this alchemy competition truly was.