C1164

"As expected, the Fire Spirit Holy Son has given up on the preliminaries!"

When Ye Zichen and Yu Yan arrived at the Fire God Hall early on, they did not find any trace of the Fire Spirit Holy Son amongst the crowd of alchemists.

However, he had already expected that the Fire Spirit Holy Son would give up on the preliminaries and enter the semifinals. He didn't show any surprise on his face.

After flying into the Heavenly Flame World, Ye Chen noticed that there were nearly two thousand stone platforms floating in the space that emitted a scorching heat and were covered in restrictions.

On every stone platform, there was an identical set. There were an extremely large amount of medicinal plants, and many people had already occupied the stone platform in advance.

Meanwhile, Ye Zichen and Yu Yan did not fight for the excellent location of the stone platform. Instead, they chose two of the more remote stone platforms and waited for the preliminaries to begin.

"The rules of this year's preliminaries is the same as last year's. There will be three rounds of preliminaries. In the first round of the preliminaries, everyone refined the same type of pill. After they refined a pill with more than five lines, they would pass the first round. However, the herbs on the stone platform were limited.

"Also, we only have four hours to concoct pills. Everyone, get ready. Let the competition begin!" Zhang Ye said in a loud voice.

Following the end of the long letter, the restrictions on the stone platform disappeared. Everyone hurriedly picked up the pill formulas and began to memorize them.

"Low grade Mysterious Ice Pill. It can increase the strength of water-attributed cultivators. Forging pills requires twenty-three different types of herbs …"

Ye Zichen recalled that there were twenty-three different types of medicinal herbs in the Mysterious Ice Pill. He cast his gaze towards the fifty or so medicinal herbs on the stone platform. His hands moved like lightning as he grabbed out each medicinal herb from the pile.

Soon, he had picked out the twenty-three herbs needed to concoct pills.

"Hmm, there's something wrong with these two herbs?"

Ye Zichen took out a middle grade Dao Treasure grade cauldron. When he was about to start concocting pills, he suddenly felt that the Spiritual leaf of the Purple Back Heaven Helianthus, one of the twenty-three herbs, was damaged.

"How could this be? These two unique medicinal plants are actually incomplete?" Ye Chenfeng frowned.

When he looked around, he could see that many alchemists had the same serious expression on their faces. They muttered to themselves, "This first round of preliminaries is not that simple, it is almost impossible to refine a Profound Ice Pill with more than five percent of the medicinal herbs. Just refine it directly, there's a 80 to 90 percent chance the pill will explode."

"This is …" "Deer Horn Grass!"

When Ye Zichen swept his gaze across the remaining herbs with his blade-like eyes, a small bush that was dark brown in color and looked like a deer horn appeared in his sight.

Although the Deer Horn Grass was not a medicinal herb from the pill recipe, Ye Chenfeng, who had absorbed a great deal of memories from concocting pills, thought that the best use of the Deer Horn Grass was to restore the spiritual nature of the medicinal herbs.

"So Arcanum is here."

After finding a solution, Ye Chenfeng did not hesitate at all. He threw the twenty-three herbs and the deerhorn grass into the pill furnace, spat out a mouthful of Deadfire, lit the pill furnace, and refined the twenty-four herbs, refining them all.

Refining 24 different herbs at the same time was a test on the soul. The test for alchemy and the control of fire were extremely high. However, it did not pose much of a challenge to Ye Chenfeng.

His hands were like flowing clouds as he constantly formed exquisite hand seals. He manipulated the Deadfire Sky Flames, which was burning brighter and brighter, to meticulously refine twenty medicinal herbs.

In less than an incense stick of time, the 20 withered and melted herbs turned into 24 drops of pure spirit liquid. There wasn't a single impurity within the spirit liquid, and it was pure without a single flaw.

"Gather!"

After the purification was completed, Ye Zichen's soul controlled the Dead Flame Heaven Flames to continuously condense, condensing the twenty-four drops of pure spirit liquid into one.

And because of the repairing solution made from the Deer Horn Grass, the lack of spiritual energy of the Purple Heavenly Helianthus and the Spiritual Leaf Liquid did not affect the process of condensing the pills. The 24 drops of Elixir smoothly condensed into two milky white elixir essences.

"Pill imprint, fuse!"

As the pill took shape, Ye Zichen's hands quickly began to condense, while a lifelike pill pattern appeared in the air. Under his soul control, the pill fused into two drops of milky white pill through the furnace, increasing the quality of the pill.

Just as Ye Zichen was using his full strength to condense the pill and fuse the pill traces, an ear-piercing explosion sounded out in the silent Skyfire World.

A 6-star apothecary stared foolishly at the cauldron which was emitting a charred air, an expression of disbelief appearing on his face.

"How is this possible? I have completely refined the pill according to the formula, and the purification did not reveal any flaws. How could I fail?"

Opening the pill furnace and looking at the pile of black ashes at the bottom, the sixth-grade pill refiner was unable to accept this fact because with his cultivation level as a sixth-grade pill refiner, not to mention refining a low-grade dao pill, even refining a mid-grade dao pill would have an extremely high success rate.

Just as he was recalling the reason for his failure, the sound of exploding pills continuously rang out from within the Skyfire Realm, which was filled with a thick medicinal aroma and a fiery aura.

Looking at the charred pill ashes in their respective pill furnaces, the apothecaries who failed in their pill forging were astonished and at a loss. They didn't know where the problem was with their pill forging.

"Buzz!"

A pill furnace suddenly vibrated. Ye Chenfeng, who had completed the pill refining at the fastest speed possible, suddenly slapped the boiling pill furnace, causing two Ten Stripes Profound Ice Pill that emitted a faint cold aura to fly out.

"Of all the apothecaries here, he is indeed the best!"

As he looked at Ye Chenfeng, who had formed the first pill and refined two Ten Stripes Mysterious Ice Pill, his calm face revealed a rare smile.

In just three breaths of time, Jiao Yuyan succeeded Ye Chenfeng in concocting two Ten Striped Mysterious Ice Pill and completed the pill refinement.

At that moment, Marquis Wang, who was watching the fight through the light wall in the pavilion, revealed a proud smile when Mu Qinghuo saw Ye Zichen and Jiao Yanyan standing out amongst the crowd of alchemists and completed the pill refinement.

With just the results of their first round of preliminaries alone, Heaven Viewing Pavilion was able to advance into the 5-star Heaven Pavilion.

As time passed, more and more pill refiners with extraordinary powers completed their pill refinement. There were many that had successfully concocted the Ten Stripes Pill, but there were also many that had failed and were eliminated.

In the tense atmosphere, four hours passed.

The first round of the intense preliminaries ended.