The next day, there was no competition, so Xiao Yan went to purge Nalan Jie's poison. This time, Nalan Jie endured longer than he had on either of the previous two occasions.
Only a little over thirty percent of the Brand Poison remained in Nalan Jie's body. One more treatment would be enough.
After refining that Brand Poison, Xiao Yan's cultivation reached the level of a Seven-Star Grand Dou Master.
That night, Xiao Yan sat meditating at the inn.
Suddenly, his eyes snapped open, and he stared at the door.
A moment later, a knock sounded. Thump, thump, thump.
"Come in!" Xiao Yan said.
The door opened, and Hai Bodong, who had been absent for quite some time, appeared in the doorway.
"Elder Hai, what brings you here?" Xiao Yan rose from the bed and sat down at the table.
Hearing Xiao Yan call him "Elder Hai," Hai Bodong chuckled inwardly. Promoting Ya Fei had been worth it.
When Ya Fei returned to the auction house that day, he had naturally noticed her cultivation had reached the level of a One-Star Dou Master.
After a few questions, he learned that Ya Fei and Xiao Yan had become intimate.
Though Ya Fei's sudden leap in cultivation surprised Hai Bodong, he did not ask further.
Hai Bodong sat opposite Xiao Yan and explained why he had come that night.
As it turned out, Fa Ma had grown suspicious of the gray-robed contestant's age. He, Hai Bodong, and Jia Xing Tian had gone to the contestant's inn.
After testing him, they discovered that he was Yan Li, vice president of the Cloud Empire Alchemy Masters' General Guild.
He had taken an Appearance Restoration Pill, restoring his looks to those of an eighteen-year-old.
Yan Li had entered the Jia Ma Empire's Alchemy Master Tournament to seize the championship and damage the standing of its Alchemist Guild Headquarters.
With that achievement to his name, Yan Li could then become president of the Cloud Empire Alchemy Masters' General Guild as a matter of course.
Hai Bodong had wanted to kill him on the spot, but Fa Ma stopped him.
Yan Li's outstanding results in the first and second rounds two days earlier had already made him familiar to the spectators.
If he suddenly vanished, outsiders would certainly suspect the Jia Ma Empire's Alchemist Guild Headquarters. Its reputation would suffer a severe blow.
With the right people stirring things up, it might even lead to war between the two empires.
For now, Yan Li could not be killed.
But neither could they let him win the tournament.
And the person most capable of stopping Yan Li was Xiao Yan, who had also performed brilliantly.
"Fa Ma wants you to come to the guild. He has something to discuss with you," Hai Bodong said.
"Then let's go."
The formula for the Three-Pattern Azure Spirit Pill was something Xiao Yan needed.
The Three-Pattern Azure Spirit Pill was a fourth-tier pill that raised cultivation, and its value ranked among the highest of its tier.
Since Xiao Yan had entered the Alchemy Master Tournament, why would he pass up the chance to gain another fourth-tier pill formula?
Sure enough, when Xiao Yan arrived at the Alchemy Masters' Guild, Fa Ma told him the task for the third round.
In the third round, contestants could make whatever they wished, but each alchemist had to provide his own formula and ingredients.
To win, they had to refine the most valuable pill.
That required three things.
First, a formula.
Second, the ingredients called for by that formula.
Third, the ability to refine the pill.
To help Xiao Yan win the tournament, Fa Ma gave him the formula for the Three-Pattern Azure Spirit Pill and three sets of the necessary ingredients.
On the third day, the championship contest of the Alchemy Master Tournament's third round officially began.
With only a little over a hundred alchemists left, each contestant was separated from the next by three Bluestone Platforms. They had plenty of room to refine pills without disturbing one another.
"Good luck, Brother Han Li!"
After spending time together at the night market, the young princess Yao Yue had grown familiar with Han Li. She greeted him with a bright smile.
"Han Li, I'll give everything I have in this final round and take the championship."
Despite Han Li's excellent performance in the first two rounds, the proud Liu Ling had not given up on winning.
Perhaps because Fa Ma had seen through his identity, the gray-robed Yan Li no longer bothered to pretend. Today, he showed his youthful face.
His appearance startled the spectators. None had expected him to be so young.
And someone seemed to have deliberately spread the word, for many spectators now knew he was an alchemist from the Cloud Empire.
"I heard that gray-robed youngster is an alchemist from the Cloud Empire."
"He's so young! How can his alchemy be that good?"
"Don't tell me an alchemist from another empire will win this year's tournament. We'd never live it down."
A constant buzz of discussion rose from the stands. Worry showed on the faces of the Jia Ma Empire's spectators.
The spectators from other countries, meanwhile, looked delighted at the prospect of their misfortune. They did not dare openly cheer for the gray-robed youngster, though; provoking the crowd would do them no good.
As Yan Li passed the Bluestone Platforms occupied by Xiao Yan and the other two, he paused. He gave Xiao Yan a cold look and smiled.
"Of the three of you, you're the only one with any ability. But the championship is mine. You don't stand a chance."
"You dare look down on me, brat?"
Liu Ling, furious at being slighted, glared at Yan Li's departing back and growled through clenched teeth.
A bell rang. Fa Ma stood in the VIP seats, his voice amplified by Dou Qi until it reached every corner of the square.
"The third round of the Jia Ma Empire's seventh Alchemy Master Tournament now begins. All contestants may refine a pill of their choice. The champion will be decided by the value of the finished pill."
At the announcement, some alchemists on the Bluestone Platforms turned deathly pale.
Some had no suitable formula; others had a formula but lacked its ingredients.
Only the well-prepared contestants remained calm.
Among them were Liu Ling, the young princess, Yan Li, and several other alchemists.
The contest began.
The strongest contestants brought out every trump card they had.
Liu Ling summoned the fifth-tier medicinal cauldron he had not used on the first day. He also abandoned his Dou Qi flame and conjured a pale brown fire.
The young princess likewise summoned a fifth-tier medicinal cauldron and used the Raging Tide Dragon Beast's Dry Blue Water Flame.
Yan Li's cauldron was no low-tier vessel either, and he summoned a pitch-black flame.
In this third-round championship battle, none of the alchemists held back.
Flames of every color sprang up across the square. The spectators in the stands watched, thrilled and utterly absorbed.
Xiao Yan stopped holding back as well. He summoned the Green Lotus Core Flame.
As soon as the Green Lotus Core Flame appeared, the other alchemists' flames weakened and leaned toward it.
They looked like ministers bowing before a sovereign.
"A Heavenly Flame! That's a Heavenly Flame!"
"Han Li has a Heavenly Flame!"
"So it's true: when a Heavenly Flame appears, ten thousand flames submit!"
Spectators in the stands and alchemists in the square alike stared blankly, stunned by the Green Lotus Core Flame.
Xiao Yan smiled and tossed the Green Lotus Core Flame into his cauldron.
Only then did the other alchemists come back to their senses. This was a competition; they could not afford to stand around gawking.
Having a Heavenly Flame doesn't make him unbeatable. At least his cauldron isn't as good as mine.
Some alchemists consoled themselves with that thought before returning to their work.
Xiao Yan expertly extracted the essences of the ingredients he needed. Once every ingredient had been refined, he poured all their essences into the cauldron.
He unleashed his full spiritual power. The order, timing, and temperature of every fusion were controlled with unerring precision.
As time passed, a white pill began spinning inside the cauldron.
A ring of azure markings slowly formed on its surface, and a faint fragrance drifted out.
But that was nowhere near enough.
Xiao Yan summoned the Purple Flame and cast it into the cauldron.
Two flames burned within it. The next step was to switch flames while tempering the pill.
During that switch, the tempering temperature could not change in the slightest. Whether it rose or fell, the pill would be ruined.
Such exacting conditions demanded extraordinary spiritual power and flame control from an alchemist.
For Xiao Yan, however, it was remarkably simple.
First, his spiritual power was strong.
Second, his flame control was superb.
Third, the Dou Qi cultivated through his Flame Mantra could fuse flames.
Thus, switching flames came easily to Xiao Yan.
Inside the cauldron, the edges of the Purple Flame and the Green Lotus Core Flame joined together. Like the waters of the Jing and Wei rivers meeting without mixing, they formed a strange boundary between two distinct colors.
For every wisp of the Green Lotus Core Flame Xiao Yan withdrew, an equal wisp of Purple Flame flowed in. The temperature never changed.
A few minutes later, the Purple Flame had completely replaced the Green Lotus Core Flame in tempering the spinning pill. Xiao Yan withdrew the Green Lotus Core Flame through another flame vent.
After the Purple Flame had tempered the pill for some ten minutes, a purple marking formed on the white pill, crossing the azure marking at a right angle.
In the VIP seats, Fa Ma watched Xiao Yan switch flames, and his earlier worry eased.
But remembering how effortlessly Xiao Yan had done it, he felt a peculiar suspicion.
Did that little fellow fool me?
Next, Xiao Yan summoned Medicine Elder's Bone Spirit Cold Flame.
As the white Bone Spirit Cold Flame appeared, a layer of frost formed over Xiao Yan's Bluestone Platform.
"A Heavenly Flame! Another Heavenly Flame!"
"Good heavens, he has two Heavenly Flames?!"
"Terrifying! How can one person possess two Heavenly Flames?"
"What kind of Heavenly Flame is that? It looks like ice!"
Unsurprisingly, the appearance of the Bone Spirit Cold Flame sent a wave of commotion through the square.
Even Fa Ma, president of the headquarters and an alchemist nearing the sixth tier, sprang to his feet in shock.
"What a boundless future! What a boundless future! Xiao Yan possesses two Heavenly Flames at such a young age. His future is boundless!"
A keen light blazed in Jia Xing Tian's eyes as he watched Xiao Yan. Win him over. I must bring Xiao Yan over to the Imperial Family's side.
Hai Bodong's face remained as still as an ancient well, but inwardly he was smug. Xiao Yan could already be considered a son-in-law of the Mittel Family.
Still, he could not publicize it, or Jia Xing Tian beside him would grow wary.
"Damn him! He has two Heavenly Flames! But my Purple Heart Barrier-Breaking Pill won't lose to yours. The championship is mine."
Seeing Xiao Yan summon yet another Heavenly Flame, Yan Li's eyes burned with envy, and he growled in anger.
If he failed to win this tournament, he would likely never make it out of the Jia Ma Empire.
Ignoring everyone's stares, Xiao Yan expertly switched the positions of the Purple Flame and the Bone Spirit Cold Flame.
As the Bone Spirit Cold Flame tempered the pill, a white marking formed on its surface. A rich fragrance carrying three distinct notes drifted out.
At that moment, a purple-tinged fragrance also drifted from Yan Li's cauldron.
The fragrance of a fourth-tier pill spread far and wide. The stronger it was, the higher the pill's quality; a colored fragrance marked another rise in quality.
Clang! Clang!
Both men sent their cauldron lids flying at the same instant. Their pills shot out and landed in their hands.
When the others saw Xiao Yan's and Yan Li's pills, smelled their fragrances, and sensed their surging energy, they knew the championship was beyond their reach. Each grieved in silence.
On the raised platform, Fa Ma's eyes brimmed with delight. He had not expected Xiao Yan to truly refine a Three-Pattern Azure Spirit Pill.
Even Fa Ma himself could not guarantee he would succeed every time.
Smiling, he announced, "Between the Three-Pattern Azure Spirit Pill and the Purple Heart Barrier-Breaking Pill, I hardly need to explain which is superior, do I?"
"Therefore, I declare the champion of this year's Jia Ma Empire Alchemy Master Tournament to be... Han Li."
Yan Li clenched his fists, his face livid.
He had thought that after taking an Appearance Restoration Pill and entering the Alchemy Master Tournament, the championship would be his for the taking.
He had never expected Xiao Yan to come out of nowhere and rob him of the title.
He shot Xiao Yan a vicious glare, packed away his cauldron, and hurried out of the square.
But Fa Ma had laid an inescapable net for Yan Li. Whether he would make it back to his empire remained to be seen.
Before you continue