Perfect Primordial Potion
At the center of the arena, Lin Hao began making the final fine adjustment to the flames' temperature with his fingertips.
The pressure-release valves on both reaction vessels gave a faint hiss at the same time. Clear medicinal liquid flowed slowly along the guide tubes into the sterile crystal condensation dish at the center of the workbench.
In the crystal dish, the lustrous white medicinal liquid was clear and translucent, without a trace of impurity. A faint golden sheen shimmered over its surface-the active halo found only in a Perfect-Grade Primordial Qi and Blood Potion.
Looking at the potion in the crystal dish, Lin Hao's taut shoulders and back immediately sagged.
Excruciating pain surged through his sea of consciousness like a tide, nearly sending him sprawling onto the workbench.
He braced himself against the worktop and recovered for quite a while before taking out the sterile potion bottles provided by the tournament. Fighting through his dizziness, he steadily bottled both doses and screwed the caps tight.
No more, no less-exactly two standard-dose bottles of Perfect-Grade Primordial Qi and Blood Potion.
With these two bottles of Primordial Qi and Blood Potion, his qi and blood value should reach the 2.0 threshold required to qualify for Capital Martial University's selection within the next couple of days.
He put the bottles away and, forcing down his dizziness, headed toward the arena exit.
As the spectators in this section of the stands watched him leave the arena, they immediately erupted.
"Holy shit? He left? Did he withdraw?"
"He finished refining and just left? Without submitting his finished product for evaluation? This is the Six-City Tournament!"
"Is he crazy? With those moves just now, he had the championship in the bag, and he just withdrew?"
"..."
The cries of surprise spread through the arena, even drawing the attention of several judging panel members on the second floor, who all looked over.
At the station beside Lin Hao's, Uncle Fu stared at his retreating figure as it disappeared into the passageway, utterly bewildered. He turned to Su Mo. "Young master... this..."
Su Mo also stood there, looking blank.
He looked at Lin Hao's station, where traces of medicinal liquid still shimmered with an active halo on the workbench.
An utterly outrageous thought surfaced in his mind...
Could this grandmaster-level genius have come all the way to compete in the Six-City Tournament...
Just to mooch some free medicinal ingredients and equipment and refine two potions for himself?
How was that possible?
With his potion-refining skills, he only needed to show a little of what he could do, and plenty of powerful families would scramble to give him medicinal ingredients and equipment.
How could he possibly lack such trifling things?
Su Mo remained dazed for a long while, feeling only that even geniuses' minds worked differently from one another.
He truly could not understand what Lin Hao had done.
The discussion in this section of the stands grew louder and louder, attracting the proctor's attention.
The proctor walked over, first glancing at the empty station, then listening to the spectators' overlapping accounts. A trace of impatience first appeared on his face.
That was because he quickly recognized this as the contestant who had scorched the purification apparatus.
"Bring up the recording of what happened at this station." He gestured to the staff behind him.
A staff member soon brought over the surveillance display equipment.
The footage played through Lin Hao's actions at high speed.
It began when Lin Hao sat back down at his station and ignited twin flames at his fingertips, and ended with the medicinal liquid condensing in the crystal dish before he turned and left.
Watching the footage, the proctor was initially startled.
In his eight years as a tournament proctor, he had seen eighty, if not a hundred, talented pharmacists, but he had never seen anyone dare refine a Primordial Qi and Blood Potion like this.
But his shock lasted only a few seconds.
Watching Lin Hao pocket the potion bottles at the end of the recording and leave without looking back, he gave a derisive laugh.
He took out his identity verification terminal and entered the name "Zhou Mingxuan," which was affixed to the workbench.
Information on Zhou Mingxuan of Linshui City appeared on the terminal screen.
Seventeen years old, he had obtained his apprentice pharmacist certification only six months ago. He had no previous awards in any potion competition and had never even reached the finals of a small city-level event.
"Sir, this..." The staff member beside him stared wide-eyed. "Those moves were incredible! Could he be this tournament's hidden dark horse? He might even have a shot at the championship!"
"A dark horse? Just a crowd-pleaser." The proctor slipped the terminal back into his pocket, his face full of disdain. "Without looking at the final product, who couldn't just move their hands faster and show off some flashy tricks? If he really made a potion that met the standard, would he turn around and leave instead of claiming a tournament ranking?"
An expression of sudden understanding immediately appeared on the staff member's face. "You mean he deliberately staged all this, pretending to be a novice before showing off to draw attention, when he hadn't actually made a usable potion at all? That's why he hurriedly withdrew and slipped away-he was afraid the finished-product inspection would expose him?"
"What else?" The proctor tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I've met a few contestants like that before. No real ability, just crooked tricks to draw attention. Who knows what goes through their heads?"
Neither of them made any effort to lower their voices, and their words reached the spectators in the front rows.
The spectators who had been marveling just moments ago immediately changed their tune.
"I knew it! How could someone who just scorched his vessel suddenly know how to refine with two vessels at once? So it was all an act!"
"No wonder he ran as soon as he finished. If he really had the goods, would he pass up the championship?"
"And here I was getting excited for nothing, thinking a grassroots genius had appeared. Turns out he was just a clown playing to the crowd."
"..."
At the neighboring station, Uncle Fu listened to the discussion around him and scratched his head. He looked at Su Mo beside him, wanting to say something, but swallowed his words.
Su Mo also heard what these people were saying and noticed the change in Uncle Fu's expression.
His expression remained calm, but his tone was certain. "Earlier, before I saw Brother Lin's work with my own eyes, there might have been the slightest chance I would believe that explanation. But now, anyone saying that is only proving they don't understand potion refining."
Uncle Fu paused. "What do you mean, young master?"
Su Mo looked toward Lin Hao's empty station, his eyes full of admiration. "Ordinary surveillance footage can only show his movements, not the temperature of the flames at his fingertips. His fire control alone isn't something you can fake, much less something you can develop by playing to the crowd."
Understanding dawned on Uncle Fu, and he nodded repeatedly.
Recalling Lin Hao's work just now, he felt it really was as Young Master Su Mo had said: Lin Hao was a genuine potion-refining genius.
The little disturbance in the arena was soon drowned out by other activity.
Time ticked by, and the countdown on the large screen reached the fourth hour.
Contestants began finishing their Primordial Qi and Blood Potions one after another.
Cheers rose from the stands in wave after wave.
The judging panel, the heads of each city's potion departments, the heads of the potion-refining families, and the representatives of the major trading companies also came down from the second-floor viewing room into the arena one after another.
Holding testing devices, the judges inspected the finished products one by one and assigned ratings.
The Primordial Qi and Blood Potion represented the ceiling of beginner potions, and anyone under twenty who could successfully refine it was an exceptionally rare talent.
Even a rating of 6.0, just barely over the passing line, was enough to make the major trading companies, powerful families, and relevant city departments fight tooth and nail over them.
A young contestant from Linshui City held his rating report of 6.2, his hands trembling.
As soon as he turned around, the representative of the Wansheng Potion Trading Company, the largest in the six cities, stopped him.
The representative handed him a special employment contract on the spot, offering an annual salary of one million.
The contract clearly laid out six types of insurance and a housing provident fund, a housing allowance, and cultivation resources.
Beside him, another female contestant who had scored 7.6 was immediately surrounded by people from Qingyang City's City Lord's Office.
They finalized an established position for her as a dedicated pharmacist at the City Defense General Administration on the spot, with resources and benefits at the level of a Two-Star Martial Artist from her first day on the job.