"All right, since everyone has completed the test, let us begin the second round. Move your fingers and press the little red button at the lower left of your stone platform."
Hearing Fa Ma's voice ringing in their ears, the contestants who had advanced and remained at the venue followed his instructions.
As they pressed the buttons, the massive bluestone platforms suddenly trembled slightly.
Then the platforms split open, and neatly stacked piles of medicinal ingredients and scrolls containing pill recipes slowly rose from beneath them.
"This time, you have been given a proper pill recipe. Our guild devoted all its manpower and several months of effort to producing it. Your task in this round is to successfully refine the pill according to the recipe.
"The ingredients before you are enough for two attempts. In other words, you still have only two chances. Once you exhaust your ingredients, you will have failed."
The second round finally involved conventional pill refinement.
"Isn't this second round a little too easy?"
"Could it be that the first round was too difficult, so they're giving us a free pass through the second?"
"No, this definitely can't be that simple!"
"It's the second round, after all. There's no reason it should be easier than the first!"
"I think so too. Better to be cautious."
Many of the alchemists who had passed the first round found this unbelievable.
Yet after checking their pill recipes, they found nothing wrong with them!
That left them rather bewildered.
Meanwhile, Xiao Yan also directed his soul power into his pill recipe.
Clearly, Xiao Yan was among those who had noticed something amiss.
At first, Xiao Yan had indeed found nothing wrong.
But after examining it a little more closely, he immediately realized where the trap in this second round lay!