Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

“What is he saying? Why can’t we hear anything?” Momo asked.

They were waiting for the competition to start. The Alchemy God had just cut off all sound coming from the stage, so everyone could only watch as he talked to the participants about something.

Being unable to hear the words that were being spoken there made a few people curious, including Momo.

“Were you aware of such a possibility?” Grimsight asked, referring to the 2500 alchemists that had joined the competition.

“Not at all. This took me by surprise as well. Nurei must’ve accepted the offer in my absence,” he said. There were 3 alchemists from his Court, which he hadn’t known were coming, so he could only attribute this to Nurei.

“I see,” Grimsight said.

“I wish they went on with it though,” Silvermist grumbled, annoyed at not being able to hear the words. “Why not explain this all beforehand? My disciple has been here for an entire day now.”

“Maybe he did and is reiterating the rules,” Grimsight said.

He was watching without much thought for a moment when he suddenly saw something that caught his attention. He perked up a little, trying to get a better understanding of what he was seeing.

Something was clearly happening though, and after a moment, he traced the thing that caught his attention to a tower to his left that stood at the very front instead of being slanted like all the other parts of the audience seating area.

Grimsight looked puzzled. His eye showed signs of things happening in that tower-like section, but he could gather nothing concrete.

“What is it?” Silvermist asked, turning to look at where Grimsight was looking.

“Something complex,” Grimsight said. “I couldn’t see it. Like a Dao I can’t understand, I know there’s something there, but I can’t tell what it is,” Grimsight said.

Silvermist paused for a moment. “That’s the esteemed guest viewing station,” he said. “Only the most important people would be sitting there. Perhaps you shouldn’t be looking at them.”

Grimsight thought for a moment and nodded. “I wonder if they are all gods, or just some,” he said.

Silvermist got curious almost immediately. “You can see which gods are there?” he asked.

“Sort of,” Grimsight said. “Some gods are easy to differentiate because of their cultivation base. Only so many people can have a cultivation base in the Celestial realm. But the rest aren’t so easy. Their cultivation base barely goes to the peak of the Divine realm, so the person inside could be a king, or he could just be a random person with a high cultivation base.”

Silvermist nodded. “The chances are very low though,” he said, turning to look back at the tower. “There must be quite a few gods in there then. I was sure none of them would come until the final tournament, but it is nice to see them show interest in young alchemists’ lives and talents.”

Grimsight said nothing and kept looking on ahead. He could see the Alchemy God’s back profile as he talked to the group of participants. Whatever was happening in that tower, it had to do with him.

Grimsight couldn’t explain why he felt that way, especially since he could see nothing from his eye. What could be going on?

“Still,” Silvermist said, seemingly not recognizing Grimsight’s tiny predicament. “I can’t believe so many came. There were 3 here to begin with, but the rest had to have come during the last 4 decades.”

Grimsight said nothing. He let the strangeness of the situation linger there for a while before he watched the Alchemy God walk away from the stage.

* * * * * * * While no one could know how many points one could obtain in the tournament, the Alchemy God did explain how points were separated. There were mainly 4 ways to gather points.

The first one was the simple one, which was to rank as highly as you could. Rankings were based both on who replaced 6 ingredients the fastest and as well as who replaced the next few ingredients the fastest.

Thankfully, the numbers of pill veins did not give anyone any extra points. That was something that very much relied on someone’s cultivation base, so that would be the same as asking them to gain points based on how far along they were in their cultivation journey, or points on how old they were.

Alex was glad that the Alchemy God and his comrades thought that through.

This was something everyone expected, so they weren’t surprised when the Alchemy God explained it to them.

The second way to obtain points was to create Pill Clouds. As the Alchemy God had mentioned prior, one could create pill clouds and make pills with Pill Veins to earn points.

Thankfully, the numbers of pill veins did not give anyone any extra points. That was something that very much relied on someone’s cultivation base, so that would be the same as asking them to gain points based on how far along they were in their cultivation journey, or points on how old they were.

Alex was glad that the Alchemy God and his comrades thought that through.

The third way to earn points was through speed. Speed by itself was quite an important factor in this competition, as the rankings themselves were in a way a test of speed as well. But beyond that, they counted the time taken between ingredients and how fast it took someone to figure out the next ingredients between each pill they had to make.

The faster they came up with the next part of the solution, the better.

And finally, the fourth way to earn points in this competition was to do things differently.

With 3000 contestants, the chances of people coming up with the same answer were simply inevitable. Many of them memorized the replacements by heart and could name any at all. But the task here was one where they had to choose something unique instead of something they knew.

That switched the whole dynamic of the competition.

The task now was not just to come up with replacements, but also to make sure that it would be something rare that no one else would choose. That was a tough task for anyone, let alone Alex.

So the candidates had to stand out with their answers, while making sure they made the right pill the entire time.

Suffice to say, it was going to be a difficult competition for many.