Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Alex raised an eyebrow when he read the second sentence.

‘So there is technically a form of pill-making contest in the end,’ he thought. ‘But what pill you make will rely on what pill recipe you make.’

The Alchemy God continued as the third sentence became clear.

“You will each get 35 hours to make the new pill recipe.”

Those words were no less strong than a hammer. Just a mere 35 hours to make a new pill recipe was a very difficult task. Making the recipe itself might not take much time, but refining it to make an amazing pill did take a lot of time.

“After 35 hours have passed, you will prove that you have made a new recipe by preparing a pill with it. Should you fail to make a pill, you will be disqualified. And since you all chose one-on-one, you will be in competition with someone else as well. And if your pill ends up worse than someone else’s, you will be disqualified as well.”

A lot of people cursed right at that moment. It appeared that by choosing to make the tournament more like a tournament, they had unknowingly made things harder for themselves.

Not only were they being pushed to make new recipes, but they were also pushed to make them better than someone else’s.

“The quality of the pill is merely determined by its Harmony. We will not consider what it does during this evaluation. And since your cultivation base is not in contest here, we will not consider Pill Veins in this competition either. Merely forming the Pill Clouds should put you at the best place you can be during this competition.”

Alex took in the information, trying to gather his head around what the competition was exactly.

‘We will be making new recipes within a day and a half and competing with others to see who refines it the most, right?’ Alex thought. Something felt quite off about what he had learned so far. The competition felt biased toward those who were good at refining, at least during the start.

Someone who was good at coming up with new recipes would most certainly fail during the beginning against someone else that was good at refining. Maybe that was the point? Still, it felt unfair.

There were more sentences to be unveiled, so he waited and watched.

The second-to-last sentence became clear, and the Alchemy God read it.

“When the competition first starts, you will be given 2 days to make 3 different recipes. You will not be in competition with anyone else, and the pill can be as bad as you want it to be. We merely want the recipe for the first 2 days.”

“Anyone who fails to do so will be disqualified. Only after this will the one-on-one begin.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed. ‘I was worried too quickly,’ he thought. This fixed the bias he thought the competition had. Now, those who were good at refining would be forced to use away any easy recipes they might figure out, balancing the other group that would struggle later on with refining.

‘This also gives a perfect chance to learn enough about the ingredients we will be working with,’ Alex thought. ‘Speaking of which, are we using our own ingredients?’

The final sentence became clear, and Alex saw the sentence written at the end of the floating panel. The Alchemy God read it.

“The recipes you will be making must come from 20 ingredients that we will be providing you soon. 15 of those ingredients will be known as minor ingredients, and 5 of them will be known as major ingredients.”

“It does not matter how many ingredients you use to make the pill, it must consist of at least one major ingredient. That is the main requirement.”

“The other requirement is that you cannot make similar recipes that include the same major ingredient. For example, if you make a pill that improves cultivation speed with one of those major ingredients, then the same major ingredient cannot be used to make another pill that improves cultivation speed.”

“There are no other requirements for this competition as you will be given as much freedom as you want. Of course, actions such as communicating with other people or doing anything to disturb the other participants are not allowed. But, other than that, almost everything is allowed.”

“You may refer to any material you want, use any treasures you have, use any technique. Do whatever you can by yourself without harming others, and it will be allowed.”

After a tournament with the strictest of rules, having one where almost anything can be used was quite refreshing. So long as no other person helped them, it wouldn’t be considered cheating.

It was quite nice.

“You will find out what the ingredients you will be using are when you are up on the stage in a few hours. Until then, you will have to remain in the dark. Does anyone have any questions?”

Someone raised a hand.

“Your Majesty, what happens if two people make the same quality pill?”

“Oh, excellent question. If two people end up making the same quality pill, then we ask them to make the pill again. They will continue making the pills again and again until one of them loses,” the Alchemy God explained.

“If that crosses the 1 hour we are provided,” someone else asked, “will our next match be paused until we pass?”

The Alchemy God shook his head. “No. Your failure to win will not impact your opponent at all. If you take an hour longer than provided to win, then you will have 34 hours to make your next recipe. It will be on you to pass.”

Before someone else could raise their hand, he continued. “However, when the 35-hour mark passes, you will be forced to make a pill immediately to prove that you do have a recipe ready. Not only will we test if that recipe can work or not, but we will also force you to make another one quickly should you end up in a tie. We decided to give an hour to making pills alone for this precise reason.”

“If you finish making the pill quickly, you will essentially have 36 hours to spare for the next recipe.”

A wave of understanding and astonishment spread through the 100 participants as they nodded.

Someone else raised their hand.

“How will the rounds be selected? How will you decide who goes up against whom?” Aethersage asked.

“We will decide after the 2 days have passed, depending on how many fail to make the 3 recipes. Depending on how many people we have remaining, we will decide who goes up against whom from the start.”

Aethersage nodded as he understood that.

Dusklily quickly raised her hand as well. “What about our pins?” she asked. “What is the advantage we were going to get?”

The entire room fell silent at the question, all staring at the Alchemy God.

The Alchemy God smiled upon hearing the question.

“I know how much you want to learn just that,” he said. “However, you will have to wait just a while longer. You will find out when the competition starts.”