"All right, I'll give it a try, then. But don't get your hopes up too high."
Xiao Yan gave them fair warning beforehand, lest the two of them nag him if he failed to meet their expectations.
"Just do your best. It doesn't matter even if you're eliminated in the first round."
That said, neither of them actually believed Xiao Yan would be eliminated in the first round.
"Go on in. It should be starting soon."
Xiao Yan nodded, then lifted the curtain over the entrance to the internal nomination screening room.
Many alchemists had already arrived inside. At a glance, there were some forty or fifty of them.
"Good grief. Who knew the branch guilds across the Jia Ma Empire had so many nomination slots?"
His hometown, Wutan City, did not even have an Alchemist Guild.
The alchemists here were all very young. Most were second-rank, and a dozen or so were even third-rank.
At that moment, several third-rank alchemists were gathered together, chatting and laughing. Among them were Liu Ling and the dazzling young Princess Yao Yue he had seen on the way here.
"Oh, if it isn't Brother Xiao Yan. I didn't expect you to receive a nomination too. It seems you really were hiding your abilities before."
Liu Ling was the first to spot Xiao Yan and greet him from a distance. Beneath his seemingly friendly smile, however, lurked envy and jealousy.
"It's rare to see you strike up a conversation with someone. Aren't you going to introduce us?"
Princess Tian Yue also looked toward Xiao Yan. The third-rank Alchemist Badge on his chest surprised her somewhat.
She knew practically every third-rank alchemist in the Jia Ma Empire. Where had this man sprung from?
"Oh, I forgot to introduce him. This is Brother Xiao Yan. He