Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

From the audience, Alex and the rest could see the different people in the Illusory Formation randomly staring around in different directions. 

”Do they perhaps see something different from what we do?” Alex asked. The name Illusory told him that there would be illusions, just not what. 

”It’s a common rank formation, so I doubt it’s anything that impressive. It’s probably just a bunch of fog messing with their sense of direction,” Luo Mei said. 

Alex kept watching the competition, but at some point, it started to get boring seeing the people at the same place, unmoving. 

Alex diverted his attention to the other competitions. The artifact-making competition was somehow the most familiar to Alex. It had a large cauldron on top of the fire, and the participants were putting in ingredients one after another. 

The aim of the competition was to make an artifact from the given blueprint as fast as possible. Anything above certain criteria would qualify as having been completed. 

The cauldrons the participants used to make artifacts were a lot larger than normal pill cauldrons as the number of materials required in making a simple artifact was must more space-consuming than the ones for simple pills. 

The artifact they were making was a simple shield. To make the shield, they needed to make a metal shield itself and a leather strap. 

Soon, some of the disciples took the molten metals and started pouring them onto a shield-shaped mold.  The metal cooled down, and it took the shape of the shield. 

”Woah, is that how they normally make artifacts? That looks quite easy,” Alex said. 

”Nah, normally it’s better. They use manual, physical methods to shape the molten metals. But since this is a speed test, they are willing to take the easy route out. After all, they only need to get an Earth Grade shield out of it. 

The people quickly finished putting on the strap and the shield was ready. They went to go show it to the host. Alex lost a little interest after learning that that was not the proper method for the artifact-making process. 

He changed his attention to the Talisman competition now. The talisman competition was a little different from all the rest. 

The disciples were on the ground, continuously mixing various ingredients on a stone slab. The creation was slowly flowing onto a small area where it was getting pooled. 

That was what the people were going to use as Ink for the different drawings they made. 

Once the inks were ready, they all took out a brush and paper and slowly started drawing onto it. 

”So, it’s the fastest person to make the talisman who wins right? I wonder who will draw the rune first,” someone in front of Alex asked.

”Hey idiot, just cheer for your fellow disciple who is taking part,” someone else asked. 

”To be fair, they have the Royal Fu Sect, and Little Dawn sect to fight against. I doubt anyone other than those two is going to win the top 3,” another person said. 

”Oh god, look at him. He hasn’t even finished making the ink yet. I doubt we are going to win at all,” Someone else said. 

Alex looked at the disciple wearing the Tiger Sect’s robes and saw how slow he was. 

The various other disciples dipped their brush in the newly made ink and started making the runes in the paper they had. They needed to be very slow with it, or they would end up messing the entire paper and would have to start again. 

Also, the better the ink, the more volatile it usually was. So one needed to be extra careful when making the talismans. 

Disciples were soon starting to finish and one by one, they handed in their work to the host. 

The talisman they were made to make was one that create a burst of water when it landed on something. And the only way to show the audience who won was to use up all the different talismans. 

They could’ve just tested it using a talisman formation, but visual showings sit better with the onlookers. So, the host started throwing the talismans one after another towards a wooden target. 

As soon as the talisman landed on the wooden target, a column of water would burst out. The larger the burst, the stronger the talisman. 

In the end, the winner was as expected, Little Dawn sect and Royal Fu Academy. Alex could also see a few Grand Void sect names quite a bit up in the final rankings.

On the Artifact side, they were on the final testing too. The shields were made to strike with continuously increasing damage and would stop once the shield couldn’t block anymore. 

The highest damage block that they encountered was a shield that could block normal attacks from the 3rd Organ Tempering realm. For a competition that focused on being fast, that was an excellent result for the shield. 

Soon the results came out for them too. As expected, the Royal Fu Academy was victorious on this field as well. The other two sects with good results were the Tranquil Union sect and the Southern Sanctuary sect. 

Once the two competitions were done, finally did the participants from the formation test come out as well. One after another, the disciples started walking out. 

Surprisingly, Luo Mei’s sister was in the top 3 this time. She seemed to be from the sect called Earth path sect. They were a famous formation sect. For her to be part of the examination while being part of a formation sect, she must’ve been very good. 

The other winners for the formation competitions were out as well. As expected, one of them was the Royal Fu Academy. While the other one was called the Sky Soaring sect. 

Soon, the host laid out the rankings and the list of the winners was for everyone to see. Alex read his senior sister’s half-sister’s listing. 

’Luo Xing, so that’s her name, huh?’ Alex thought.