Another five days passed after Cao Ying refined her high-grade eighth-tier pill. Throughout that time, she remained seated in meditation, recuperating her body and soul.
Dark clouds now blanketed the sky, thunder rumbling as silver-serpent lightning repeatedly crashed toward a pill suspended in midair, radiating a pure medicinal fragrance.
Yet whenever the lightning was about to strike the pill, a phantom flashed past, shattering and dispersing the lightning tribulation. It could do nothing to the pill. As time passed, the tribulation gradually weakened until it finally dispersed completely.
As the dense, oppressive thunderclouds overhead scattered, warm sunlight spilled down once more, illuminating the land ravaged by pill lightning. That warmth gave many people the strange sensation of being reborn after their spirits had nearly scattered.
With that, the final contestant successfully finished refining his pill and completed the competition. The Alchemy Convention held once every thirty years officially drew to a close.
After basking in the sunlight for a while, everyone turned in unison toward Xuan Kongzi on the raised platform. Now that the Pill Gathering had ended, it was time to announce the results.
Under the eyes of the entire crowd, Xuan Kongzi smiled faintly on the platform. He took a slow step forward, swept his gaze over the stone platforms suspended in the sky, and spoke.
"The pill lightning has dispersed. Contestants, please take out the pills you refined."
Hearing Xuan Kongzi's words, the dozen or so people still on the stone platforms took out their pills without hesitation. One by one, the pills drifted up from their hands and hovered before them.
The instant these pills appeared together, rich medicinal fragrance and pill mist blanketed the entire sky, so dense they seemed impossible to disperse. Everyone present needed only a light breath to feel refreshed in body