Cultivation: From Laborer to Immortal Venerable

"The content of this assessment is precisely the refining of Pigu Pills! No matter how good your Spiritual Root aptitude is, no matter how good your family background is, this assessment will only judge based on your alchemy skills."

This statement surprised no one.

Everyone had been refining Pigu Pills for the past thirty days.

If the assessment were for other pills, they wouldn't know how to make them, rendering the assessment meaningless.

Some had even purchased high-quality Pigu Pills from the market and hidden them in their alchemy rooms, planning to swap them out during the refining process.

If Zhou Xun were to scan the eyes of the crowd with his Divine Sense at this moment, he would notice the unconcealed excitement in several people's eyes.

"After you finish refining, I will personally appraise your pills. The better the quality of your pills, the higher your ranking. Those who rank in the top fifteen will be appointed as alchemy apprentices!"

"Those ranked outside of the fifteenth position can also remain at the Danbao Pavilion, but they will only be able to serve as Spirit Contract Laborers!"

Lin Zhishan finished speaking, scanned the crowd, and then continued:

"To ensure fairness in this alchemy assessment, and to prevent any of you from getting clever, you will not be refining in your original alchemy rooms. Instead, you will draw corresponding room numbers to determine where you will refine."

"Alright everyone, please come up and draw your alchemy room numbers. After that, you will receive your Pigu Pill materials and begin refining!"

As soon as Lin Zhishan finished speaking, Wei Shangyi was slightly stunned, and then erupted in anger.

"Change the alchemy rooms again!"

This meant that his and his brother's plan had fallen through!

His brother had spent a full thirty Spirit Stones, all of which were now wasted.

Wei Shangyi glared hatefully at Zhou Xun.

"You're lucky!"

Then he began to worry about himself.

"If those three rooms are drawn by people ranked behind me, won't I still not have a guaranteed victory!"

With a hint of unease, he joined the queue to draw his room number.

"How many alchemy rooms had Pigu Pills found in them?"

Not far away, Lin Zhishan asked his junior sister and clan niece.

"Senior Brother Lin, do these people really think you're so foolish that you can't even tell if a Pigu Pill was just refined?" Lin Xueying asked disdainfully.

"Why don't we just disqualify them and kick them out? The Danbao Pavilion doesn't need people with such ill intentions!"

"It's fine, besides those few ranked at the back, the others didn't need to go to such lengths!" Lin Zhishan waved his hand.

"Let them take the assessment first, and we'll kick them out afterwards!" Lin Zhishan's words had already decided their fate.

In the courtyard, under the organization of the stewards, the crowd began to draw their alchemy room numbers.

"B-3"

"B-9"

The crowd formed a line, taking turns to draw.

"B-13!" A round-faced youth looked at the number plate in his hand, his face lighting up with joy.

He was one of those who had purchased Pigu Pills in advance and hidden them in his alchemy room.

"Those who draw their original alchemy rooms must re-draw!" The steward's cold words interrupted the youth's joy.

The youth had no choice but to re-draw reluctantly.

The queue soon reached Wei Shangyi.

He stepped forward, rolling up his sleeves.

Then he reached into the cloth bag in front of him, his hand sweeping around, feeling for a number plate, carefully touching it.

He wanted to identify the number on the plate this way.

However, it was all in vain.

The number plates here were specially made and could not be identified by touch.

Helplessly, after searching for a long time, he finally grabbed one at random and took it out.

Upon closer inspection:

"B-17!"

At first, he thought he had misread it!

He rubbed his eyes and looked again.

No mistake, it was B-17, Zhou Xun's room!

Instantly, Wei Shangyi's head felt like it had been struck by a large bell, and he felt a buzzing in his ears.

He had originally been worried that those three alchemy rooms would be drawn by people ranked behind him, causing his and his brother's plan to fail completely.

He had never imagined that he would draw one of those three rooms himself.

This wasn't him paying to screw himself over!

He tried to trick Zhou Xun, but ended up trapping himself!

Wei Shangyi looked bewildered.

His face went from red to white, then gradually from white back to red, finally settling into a deep crimson.

He truly couldn't understand!

"What, you're not satisfied with this alchemy room?"

At this moment, the steward's words pulled him back to reality.

"No, no!" Wei Shangyi replied dryly.

He immediately began looking around; he still had a chance!

He desperately searched for the "Third Grandfather."

He needed to tell him to cancel the transaction!

However, after scanning the area several times, he couldn't find any sign of the "Third Grandfather."

What he didn't know was that while the Third Grandfather was greedy, he was also the type of person who would earnestly fulfill his end of a deal once paid.

In the business of taking money and doing work, to use Zhou Xun's words from his past life, he possessed considerable professional ethics!

Old Steward Lin was already waiting in his room, pulling out a control token to constantly monitor the ground fire array activation status of the three alchemy rooms.

He had planned that after the ground fire in these three alchemy rooms had been active for a while, he would calculate the timing to control a ground fire eruption.

However, he didn't dare to do such a thing too often.

Once every three to four years was already the limit.

Any more, and it would likely attract attention.

If the last eruption hadn't been five years ago, he wouldn't have dared to agree to the Wei brothers' request this time.

"Heh, once I've completed this matter, I'll definitely find those two brothers and treat them to some drinks!"

After Wei Shangyi drew his number, it was soon Zhou Xun's turn.

Zhou Xun casually drew a number, glanced at it, and then paid it little mind.

He had drawn number B-5.

For Zhou Xun, this assessment was merely a formality; he had already successfully refined no less than eighty bottles of Pigu Pills.

He was confident that among the other twenty-nine people present, not a single one could surpass him.

"After the assessment is over, I'll refine those two batches of Qi Induction Pills!" Zhou Xun's thoughts were already focused on those two batches of Qi Induction Pills.

However, he was unaware that his alchemy room, B-5, was precisely one of the three numbers Wei Shangli had proposed.

When he was halfway through refining the Pigu Pills, there would be a big surprise.

Soon, everyone finished drawing their numbers.

After receiving the refining materials, they each entered their respective alchemy rooms to begin refining.

Feng Bao was seventeen this year, and among the thirty prospective apprentices, he had the worst Spiritual Root aptitude, with a water spiritual root sensitivity of fifteen.

If it weren't for his father, who served as a squad leader in the enforcement team, he wouldn't have been able to cultivate to the third level of Qi Condensation at his age and successfully pass the initial selection of alchemy apprentices at Danbao Pavilion.

Feng Bao's alchemy talent was not high; he was one of the eight people who had not managed to refine a Pigu Pill.

By this point, he no longer held any hope of passing the assessment.

"If all else fails, I'll just take a position in the enforcement team!"

Having thought it through, Feng Bao smiled with relief, his mindset becoming peaceful, and he then began his alchemy.

Warming the alchemy furnace, condensing the spirit rice.

He performed every step meticulously.