Genius Sa Ze

The assessment for pharmacists was relatively flexible and usually took one of two forms. One was an on-site assessment at a branch designated by the Medicine God Alliance; the other was a virtual assessment at Medicine King Valley.

Gu Ding had actually taken neither. To become an F-Grade Pharmacist, Pa Ma had sent his video to the Medicine God Alliance. After the Alliance's higher-ups verified the authenticity of the video, they directly awarded him the rank. In truth, becoming an F-Grade Pharmacist was not difficult. Anyone who could reliably concoct F-Grade potions of acceptable quality qualified. Naturally, "reliably" did not include those who succeeded through blind luck.

Although F-Grade potions were merely the most basic kind, there were not many F-Grade Pharmacists capable of concocting them to Ultimate Quality. As for Perfect Quality, it was something people had never even heard of. Though F-Grade potions were simple, even Pa Ma, a B-Grade Pharmacist, would not dare claim she could produce a Perfect Quality F-Grade potion with a one-hundred-percent success rate. That was why she had wanted to recruit Gu Ding into the Medicine God Alliance ever since meeting him. After Pa Ma's teacher, Ma Dike, watched Gu Ding's concoction video, his evaluation of Gu Ding was: "A monstrous talent rarely seen even once in tens of thousands of years." It was an exceptionally high appraisal.

There was no shortage of talented pharmacists in the Medicine God Alliance. Someone like Pa Ma, who had passed the B-Grade Pharmacist assessment at twenty-two, was clearly among the geniuses. Yet she felt that her talent was not remotely comparable to Gu Ding's. She knew very well that as long as Gu Ding gained sufficient knowledge of medicinal properties and had enough time to practice, he would undoubtedly surpass her.

At that moment, Sa Ze, standing on the arena stage and watched by a crowd, was also a genius. He was only sixteen this year. Like Gu Ding, he was merely an F-Grade Pharmacist, yet he could already concoct F-Grade potions of Ultimate Quality. Although his success rate was only around twenty percent, that was enough to show that his mastery of F-Grade potion concoction had reached an extremely profound level.

The moment he stepped onto the stage, the other F-Grade Pharmacists in the arena were overshadowed. Sa Ze's concoction speed was simply too fast. Each vial took less than ten minutes, and every potion he produced was at least Superior Quality. He had even concocted an Ultimate Quality potion.

His presence also caught Gu Ding's attention. The potion Sa Ze was concocting was an F-Grade Gene Enhancer—a genuine gene potion. Among potions of the same grade, gene potions were generally the hardest to concoct, because they involved separating and extracting Gene Chains, operations that had to be performed under a microscope.

Gu Ding was interested for two reasons. On one hand, gene potions were extremely difficult to concoct, and he liked challenges he had never attempted before. On the other, he had never operated microscopic equipment and was curious about how such instruments were used. Moreover, in his eyes, the other party's concoction skills were indeed impressive. Watching Sa Ze's composed manner, it was hard to imagine that he was the same age as Gu Ding. He had quite the bearing of a master.

"Master Men Ze's disciple is truly no ordinary person," the bystanders discussed among themselves.

Gu Ding had naturally heard of Master Men Ze. Like Ma Dike, he was also an A-Grade Gene Serum Master. Though he was not from the Tianhe Star Region, his reputation was no less renowned.

When he was young, he had not been considered a prodigy among pharmacists. However, he enjoyed traveling to Medicine King Valleys in other star regions to challenge their pharmacists in concoction contests. At first, he did not always win. In fact, he lost more often than he won, since every star region had no shortage of geniuses. But with every defeat, he improved. By the later stages, he was nearly invincible in his challenges. His name spread widely throughout many other star regions. His present achievements were also closely tied to the benefits he had gained from those many challenges.

His disciple had presumably followed his teachings and traveled to Medicine King Valleys in different star regions for challenges and training. The difference was that this disciple had been a pharmacy prodigy from birth. He had challenged Medicine King Valleys across more than twenty star regions and had yet to suffer a single defeat.

Feeling Gu Ding's heartbeat accelerate, Sea Emperor knew that the young man named Sa Ze had already stirred Gu Ding's desire to challenge him. "Your adrenaline secretion has increased, your heart rate has accelerated, and your body is in a relatively excited state. Do you want to challenge him?"

"Yeah. Help me prepare the information on F-Grade Gene Enhancers." Up to this point, Gu Ding had only concocted one type of potion: the Cell Enhancer. But the Cell Enhancer was merely a basic potion, whereas a Gene Enhancer was a genuine gene potion. Their difficulty levels were not even on the same plane. Gu Ding knew that, but he wanted even more to know just how far he could go. He had always felt that only challenging things could motivate him to do something well. Perhaps the pressure brought by Sa Ze before him could allow him to rise to another level in potion concoction.

A moment later, Sea Emperor transmitted all the relevant information on F-Grade Gene Enhancers into Gu Ding's mind. Gu Ding carefully reviewed the information in his memories item by item, not daring to overlook the slightest detail.

Comparing the concoction method in his memories with the method Sa Ze had just used, Gu Ding quickly found the key issue. Sa Ze's formula was flawed, and that was the main reason he could not concoct Perfect Quality potions. Another reason was that there were errors in his handling of the distillation temperatures for two medicinal ingredients and in the potion ratios.

Of course, the errors in distillation temperature and potion ratios might also have stemmed from the flaws in the formula. Still, Gu Ding deeply admired that Sa Ze could produce Ultimate Quality potions with such a flawed formula.

On the challenge stage, Sa Ze continued calmly handling the potion concoction in his hands, completely unaffected by the crowd watching around him. Such mental fortitude was also quite remarkable.

On Tianhe Star Region's side, more than a dozen pharmacists went up one after another, only to be defeated. The spectators began discussing it heatedly.

"Why aren't any higher-ranked pharmacists going up?" a young man asked indignantly. He truly could not stand watching any longer. As a member of the Tianhe Star Region, seeing pharmacists from his own star region lose one after another like defeated roosters made him feel rather uncomfortable.

"How could that be allowed? This is a contest among F-Grade Pharmacists. If higher-ranked pharmacists went up, the other star regions would say that our Tianhe Star Region lacks magnanimity," an old man beside him said, shaking his head.

"That's not entirely the case," said a middle-aged pharmacist with a grave expression. He was a C-Grade Pharmacist. "Though Sa Ze is only an F-Grade Gene Serum Master, the Gene Enhancer he is concocting is called the White Rhino Enhancer. It is one of the most difficult F-Grade Gene Enhancers to concoct. Even ordinary B-Grade Gene Serum Masters would not dare claim they could produce it at Ultimate Quality with a one-hundred-percent success rate, because the formula itself has certain flaws. Sa Ze chose this formula not only to challenge us, but also to challenge himself. He wants to raise his success rate for concocting Ultimate Quality potions through these challenges."

At that moment, Gu Ding had finally finished digesting all the information in his mind.

The corners of his mouth curled upward as he walked toward the challenge stage.