Chapter 96
Magic pill evaluation.
Hearing these words, everyone looks over to him in surprise.
Tang YunQi who wanted to see him make a fool of himself frowns deeply. She looks darkly at the cauldron in front of him, her eyes burning with rage. The fists hanging at her side are clenched so tightly that they turn bright red clearly showing how much force she is using.
That Senior raises his brow slightly and walks over asking calmly, “Where is the damage?”
You XiaoMo turns the cauldron over. There are criss-crossed cracks on the bottom. At first it was only one crack. But because of his actions while refining the magic pill, the crack couldn’t withstand it, causing it to widen.
The Elder frowns and without a word, gets someone to replace the cauldron. The first portion of magic herbs is ruined just because of the issue with the cauldron. But he doesn’t give him another portion.
After receiving the cauldron from that young man that distributed the magic herbs earlier, You XiaoMo deliberately examines it in front of him. After making sure that there are no cracks on the bottom, You XiaoMo feels more at ease. He doesn’t want to discover the same thing again after having started refining. After all, he only has one portion of materials left. If doesn’t make it this time, that would mean he would have really failed the assessment.
The young man lowers his head as if he doesn’t notice his actions. When he walks by the Senior, his steps falter a bit. By the time he gets back to his original position, his eyes seem red.
You XiaoMo lets out a light sigh. Actually, he himself doesn’t want to be too fussy. But this time, the situation is beyond his control. If the cauldron were to really explode, it might affect the two disciples at his side. If they were Heaven peak disciples, he wouldn’t feel bad. Just blame it on their bad luck. But one of them is an Earth peak disciple. He is not the Virgin Mary, so he isn’t that kind-hearted. But, if he were to cause this disciple to fail the assessment, he can guarantee that after that he would be drowned to death by the saliva from everyone’s condemnation. That disciple would also put the blame on him. This is not what he wants to shoulder so he chooses to give up halfway.
Because of this matter, there is less than half of the fine sand remaining.
You XiaoMo takes one sweeping look at the other cauldrons. A lot of them have already started the final blending step.
Throwing in the final portion of materials into the cauldron, You XiaoMo starts to concentrate once again. Several hundred pairs of eyes are thrown to the back of his head and ignored. The only things that remain are the magic herbs in the cauldron. One half of the time left means fifteen minutes. This duration of time may seem tight for others but You XiaoMo is not the least bit anxious.
After talking with Elder brother, his understanding of the soul force has reached another level. At first, he thought that the soul force can be released from any part of the body. Now he knows that that is a misconception. Only beginners would think that way. The true soul force should be released from the ten fingers. Only this way will it not be wasted. On top of that, others will not be able to discern your exact condition when done this way. That’s because some high level master mages will only need to take one look at your soul force and figure out your strength. So hiding one’s own strength is also something that mages need to learn.
After settling his thoughts, You XiaoMo uses his soul force to dissolve the three stalks of magic herbs into liquid. Then he slowly distills the three pools of liquid. After a while, some impurities fall off into the dark depths at the bottom of the cauldron. Then he starts the second round of distillation …….
He is full of concentration throughout the whole process. Other people can tell than he is distilling the magic herbs but they can’t see what is really happening in the cauldron.
After the first disciple successfully refines a magic pill, the second one and third one follow. Luckily, one among them is actually the disciple standing next to You XiaoMo, from the same peak, who can hardly hide the joy on his face. The Earth peak disciples behind him also feel very happy seeing this. Even Kong Wen’s serious face softens a little. This is the fourth Earth peak disciple to pass the test because four had failed during the previous two rounds.
Soon after this disciple’s success, the other disciple seems to be spurred on and with one eighth of the time remaining, he finally succeeds in refining a magic pill with the second portion of the materials.
At this time, with the time limit fast approaching, only two people are still refining magic pills among the nine stone platforms.
One of them is You XiaoMo. The other, surprisingly, is actually Heaven peak’s Jiang Liu. He is standing at the first platform, separated by five platforms from You XiaoMo. The two of them seem to be at the blending step. With the time limit fast approaching, they both appear calm and composed.
But the Heaven peak and Earth peak disciples all appear very agitated.
For the Heaven peak people, Jiang Liu is their most outstanding new disciple. If he fails, Heaven peak will lose face.
For the Earth peak people, You XiaoMo is a disciple of the Master of the peak. As a formal disciple, if he fails, Kong Wen and Earth peak will lose face.
Zhou Peng feels that he has never felt this nervous before. He wasn’t even this nervous when he faced Lei Ju on stage and this is all because of You XiaoMo who is in the middle of refining a magic pill, “Elder brother, the time is almost up. Why is your Little brother still not done ah?”
“It’s not you who is refining the magic pill. Why are you so anxious?”
Ling Xiao looks at You XiaoMo expressionlessly.
“I’m feeling anxious on your behalf ma. After all he is your Little brother. If it’s someone else, I wouldn’t care.”
Zhou Peng feels himself getting so anxious that he is going round in circles. And Elder brother is actually showing no expression at all, feeling really like ‘Emperor is not worried but his eunuchs are worried to death’ type of situation.
The reality is, Zhou Peng doesn’t really understand Ling Xiao.
If You XiaoMo were to see Ling Xiao right now, he would be able to tell that he is not in a good mood.
“Ha! Brother Jiang Liu has succeeded!”
A joyful shout comes from the Heaven peak group. Seeing that the shout is coming from the Heaven peak side, Ling Xiao can’t help but frown.
At this time, Jiang Liu who is standing at the first stone platform is smiling proudly. In his hand is an impressive magic pill. The magic pill is light blue in color but it is a shade darker than light blue. Compared to the magic pills from the other disciples, it is clearly a little better. No wonder he is smiling so brilliantly.
The happier the people from Heaven peak, the more unsightly the faces of the people from Earth peak. Looking at the glowing faces of the people from Heaven peak, the faces of the Earth peak disciples get darker and darker, moving their line of sight to You XiaoMo.
At this time, the amount of fine sand remaining in the hourglass is not much.
Ling Xiao’s tight expression suddenly relaxes when he sees You XiaoMo’s shoulders raise a little. His lips slowly curve up a little while Zhou Peng at his side is still anxious to the point of death.
“Time’s up!”
The Senior’s roaring voice suddenly rings out.
At the same time, a light red magic pill flies out of the cauldron. You XiaoMo hastily stretches out his hand to catch it.
The hearts of the Earth peak disciples that were suspended in mid air suddenly fall back down. Really scaring them to death. They thought that You XiaoMo wouldn’t make it in time. Luckily he managed to catch up.
“Damn it!”
Tang YunQi gloomily bites her lower lip, finding it hard to conceal the sinister gleam in her eyes. She glares hatefully You XiaoMo who is holding a light red magic pill. She designed those two plans specifically and they both actually failed.
The two people at her side look at each other in dismay. Unable to come up with any words of comfort, they can only pray that You XiaoMo refined a dead magic pill.
Jiang Liu walks up to You XiaoMo, his somewhat childish face showing a brilliant smile, Big brother You, congratulations ya!”
You XiaoMo was looking absorbedly at the magic pill in his hand. Suddenly hearing these words, he looks over in surprise. Only then does he find out that it is actually his fellow villager Jiang Liu. Ever since the competition at Central peak, he has not seen him again. He didn’t expect that he would be in the same round.
You XiaoMo sees the magic pill in his hand and smiles saying, “Younger brother Jiang. I too have to congratulate you. Looks like you have passed the test.”
Jiang Liu playfully sticks out his tongue, saying happily, “Big brother You. This words must wait until after the magic pill evaluation. I would be even happier if you say it to me then ba.”
Even though he says those words, the joy in his words is very obvious.
Because it is only them that have yet to have their magic pills evaluated, the both of them walk up together to the Senior. Jiang Liu is the first to hand over his magic pill respectfully to the Senior. The light blue magic pill rolls in his hand giving out a light medicinal fragrance.
The Senior is a level six mage. Although his power is not as high as Kong Wen and his peers, but his ability in evaluating magic pills is higher than theirs. So as long the magic pill evaluation is done by him, no one would question the result.
Everyone sees him take the magic pill from Jiang Liu and those eyes that look muddy but are actually very shrewd, look fixedly at the magic pill for a bit. Then with some satisfaction he says in a clear loud voice, “Blue spirit magic pill. Distilled twice. Medium quality low grade magic pill. I declare that Heaven peak’s Jiang Liu passed the test.”
Just when he finishes speaking, all the Heaven peak disciples burst out in cheers.
Because of the limit from the materials, all the magic pills refined by the disciples can only be low grade magic pills. But even though they are low grade magic pills, the quality can still be a little different. So the ones distilled once are of low quality, the ones distilled twice are of medium quality while the ones distilled thrice are of high quality.
But the disciples now can only distill once. So Jiang Liu’s achievement, distilling twice and in one try, is actually quite excellent when compared to others.
Jiang Liu himself is feeling very excited, revealing a slight arrogance in his eyes. Then he realizes that there is still You XiaoMo standing next to him, so he restrains that bit of arrogance and says smilingly to him, “Big brother You. It’s now your turn.”