Who Else?!
They've gone mad, they've all gone mad.
Lu Ping planned to let Little B calm down.
I will absolutely not choose Little B in the near future.
He chose A.
[You chose A.]
You dusted off the medicinal residue from your hands, extinguished the alchemical fire, and quietly retreated to the edge of the array platform.
[Liang Yishou looked at the half-finished product in his hand, his chubby face jiggling slightly.]
He withdrew his hand without a word and stepped back to your side.
[Yan Xuanyao sat back down in the main seat of the stands.]
[The Fire Jade Gallbladder in his hand began to spin again, emitting a crisp clinking sound.]
He looked down at you, a fleeting glint in his deep eyes.
"Lu Ping and Liang Yishou win."
[There was still no sound from the stands.]
The way those local Alchemists looked at you changed from disdain to fear.
[However, the way you won was too bizarre, causing these local Alchemists to feel both wary and somewhat resentful.]
"It was just a lucky break. Something as violent as One-Step Grass would explode nine times out of ten."
[Someone is muttering down below.]
[You ignored it.]
[You stepped down from the platform and returned to your original position.]
[Liang Yishou followed behind you, hesitant to speak.]
[The second match begins half an hour later.]
[Your opponents this time are two young, talented Alchemists, said to be juniors of a high-ranking member of the Chamber of Commerce, with extraordinary backgrounds.]
[The moment they stepped onto the stage, their eyes were fixed on you.]
["Drug selection begins!"]
[A water mirror appears, and one hundred kinds of medicinal herbs fall into the medicinal pool.]
[Those two young Alchemists had clearly learned from the previous round; in the first round of herb selection, they directly snatched a "Wind-Traveling Grass".]
[Wind-Traveling Grass can greatly increase the speed at which elixir spreads within Formation Technique.]
[They'll also take a fast-paced approach, cutting off your path until you have nowhere to run.]
[Liang Yishou a little nervous and turned to look at you.]
[You remained unhurried, choosing a completely unremarkable "Deadwood Vine".]
After several rounds of herb selection, the opponent snatched up all the herbs that could accelerate or promote growth.
[And in your hands, there's a bunch of uncommon auxiliary medicines.]
"Open the furnace!"
[This time, the two opponents didn't divide their roles into offense and defense; instead, they simultaneously refined Poison Pills.]
[They're going to use twice the amount of poison gas, combined with the speed of the Wind-Traveling Grass, to crush you completely.]
[Watching their techniques, you sighed inwardly, "They truly are scions of a great Aristocratic Clan."]
[These two have much more solid fundamentals than the two Alchemists from the previous match.]
Unfortunately, their opponent is you.
[I Love Working, effective.]
[Cost Reduction and Efficiency Improvement, effective.]
[The Artisan Spirit is now in effect.]
[Overtime, effective.]
[You simply threw all seven or eight auxiliary ingredients into the Azure-Pattern Bronze Cauldron.]
[Earthfire rises.]
[Your Divine Sense is fully activated, precisely capturing the critical point at which each medicinal ingredient melts.]
[Your current Divine Sense is comparable to that of Nascent Soul; refining these Pills, which are at most of the highest grade, would be incredibly easy for you.]
[The opponent's Poison Pill has only just melted.]
[The lid of the cauldron has been lifted over your side.]
[A dark yellow Pills falls into your hand.]
[With a flick of your finger, the Pills shot into the center of the formation.]
[Boom!]
[The Great Expansion Alchemy Formation is activated.]
The poisonous gas from the Deadwood Vine was originally extremely slow-acting.
[But catalyzed by your few unorthodox auxiliary herbs, it transformed into a dark yellow arrow, hurtling forward along the Formation Technique's Spirit Veins.]
The two people opposite were completely focused on controlling the heat.
[A dark yellow toxic gas was already billowing towards us.]
"How could it be so fast!"
[The two felt a sudden blockage in their meridians, and their Spiritual Power flow instantly ceased.]
[Bang! Bang!]
[Two crisp sounds rang out, and black smoke billowed from both bronze cauldrons simultaneously.]
[In alchemy, the pursuit of Poison Pills is not necessarily about their lethality.]
[Just make the opponent's furnace explode.]
[Since the opponent ran out of Pills, they naturally lost.]
[Second match, won.]
[Still, the opponent hasn't finished refining their pill, but your pill energy has already arrived.]
[The training ground fell into a deathly silence once again.]
The Fire Jade Gallbladder in Yan Xuanyao's hand had long since disappeared.
[In the following days, the selection process within the chamber of commerce intensified.]
Everyone's starting to analyze your playstyle.
They discovered that you never play by the rules.
The medicinal herbs you choose are often the most toxic and have the most conflicting pharmacological effects.
[But each time, you manage to forcefully knead them into a pill within a very short time.]
In the later matches, your opponents started targeting you relentlessly.
[In the first round of medicine gathering, even if you don't need the herbs yourself, you must first seize those that have rapid onset and are highly toxic.]
[I'd rather have it rot in my hands than leave it to you.]
However, it was of no use.
[You have the blessing of this Trait, and possess Divine Sense comparable to Nascent Soul cultivator.]
[Especially with the support of "Artisan Spirit," you've already dissected those hundred-plus Pill Formula until nothing is left.]
[No matter what kind of medicinal materials are used, you can always find the combination that will produce the fastest pill.]
[You don't care about the toxicity of the Poison Pill; your only goal is to cause your opponent's furnace to explode.]
[In one instance, you even used Spirit-Exploding Pill, which caused your opponent's Spiritual Power to surge, leading to an out-of-control explosion of their furnace.]
[Each time, the other party felt that their Pills was about to be completed.]
[Give them just three more breaths, and they can refine the most powerful Poison Pill and take you down in one fell swoop.]
[But each time, your poison gas always manages to splatter onto their faces just before they're about to complete their transformation.]
[Just one step away.]
Everyone was holding their breath in resentment.
They think you're just fast, lucky, or that you exploited a loophole in the Formation Technique.
[As long as we can withstand your first wave of attacks, your Poison Pills made from those unorthodox herbs will be utterly useless.]
But no one can withstand your first wave.
[You're like a ruthless time clock, always on time to clock in, always ready to knock your opponent off the stage.]
[I Love Working, effective.]
[Overtime, effective.]
[As the number of matches increased, your performance not only didn't decline, but you actually became more and more energetic.]
[The final qualifying round has begun.]
[Your opponent is Yan Xuanyao's Personal Disciple, a cold-faced young man who has reached the peak of the Golden Core Perfection.]
[Actually, this match was no longer necessary.]
[You are already the uncrowned king of this selection competition.]
[He is Yan Xuanyao's disciple, and he volunteered to perform this final match.]
[If he can drag the game to a draw, he will have salvaged some pride for the local cultivators.]
He wants to prove that your methods are merely unorthodox and unethical.
[As soon as the herb selection process began, the cold-faced young man snorted and selected "Black Tortoise Shell" and "Wind-Stabilizing Wood" in turn.]
His partner, in perfect harmony, also chose a medicinal herb similar to "Essence-Stabilizing Grass" (a type of herb).
[This time, even Liang Yishou could see it.]
[To defend against your quick attack, the cold-faced youth actually abandoned the process of refining Poison Pills.]
The two focused their efforts on refining the defensive "Turtle-Breathing Purity Pill".
[Moreover, the way the two of them were holding themselves up clearly indicated they were going to stack the tortoise shell as thick as possible.]
[Options pop up.]
[A: Just concoct a random Poison Pill to get by.]
[B: Hehehe, let's do something different, let the local bumpkins see what's what.]
[C: Submits a "Proposal on Revising the Judgment Mechanism of the Taiyan Formation" to the referee's panel, pointing out that "passive competition" violates the competitive spirit of the Dao of Alchemy Grand Competition, and requesting that the opponent be judged the loser.]