Support me at patreon for 60+ advanced chapters :
patreon.com/YaoIk
**
With the appearance of the Green Lotus Core Flame, the crowd was once again struck with awe.
This was a true Heavenly Flame.
Unfortunately, Xiao Yan's attempt to switch flames ultimately ended in failure.
With a dull thud, the green flame inside his cauldron quietly extinguished. A faint trail of black ash trickled down from the bottom of the cauldron.
"Sigh~" Upon seeing this, the spectators couldn't help but let out collective sighs of regret.
Not far away, Xian'er gently pressed her lips together and shook her head slightly.
Judging by Xiao Yan's technique during the flame switch earlier, it was clear he was still extremely unfamiliar with the coordination required between multiple flames. If this was already his limit, then with only one attempt remaining, the outcome probably wouldn't improve much.
After all, time was running out.
Unless… a miracle happened—or he chose to refine a different pill altogether.
"Heh, you started strong but finished weak, kid. Since you've already failed, that leaves only one other person who poses even a slight threat to me in this competition," the gray-robed youth sneered smugly, glancing over at Xian'er.
The cauldron before him was blazing with a blue-white flame, and within it, the embryonic form of a pill was spinning steadily.
In the VIP section—
The distinguished guests all frowned slightly.
Although Xian'er remained their safety net, Xiao Yan's failure still left them somewhat uneasy.
Judging from the time left, Xiao Yan only had one attempt remaining. The pressure on him was unimaginable.
Under such intense pressure, even highly experienced alchemists would struggle to quickly recover their peak condition.
Their mental state would inevitably be affected.
Therefore, all they could do now was silently hope that this young man—who had performed quite well so far—possessed the kind of mental resilience that could impress everyone.
If he could bounce back quickly from failure and return to top form, then there was still hope.
Wei Yang narrowed his eyes slightly and let out a soft chuckle. He murmured inwardly, "Let me see how you create your miracle."
The ability to create miracles, to turn the tide in the face of despair—he was eager to witness that power.
A mysterious kind of strength.
One called: Breakthrough Surge!
At this moment, all eyes in the square were fixed on Xiao Yan, who stood motionless on the stage.
After a long while, there was still no movement from him.
It seemed he had become trapped in the spiral of his own failure.
Because of this, waves of disappointed sighs rippled through the audience.
Xiao Yan stood stiffly atop the stone platform, his pitch-black eyes staring at the black ash that had spilled from the cauldron. His usually calm and focused gaze now showed signs of daze and confusion.
Since regaining his talent, in the past three years, this was the first time he had encountered such an unexpected and difficult obstacle—and failed.
He hadn't expected that maintaining balance during a flame switch would be this hard to control. In hindsight, he had clearly overestimated his own capabilities.
He had thought that, since he was capable of creating something as terrifying as the Angry Buddha Lotus Flame and could barely control it, handling a flame switch during pill refinement would be no problem.
But reality had delivered him a harsh slap in the face.
"This time… I'm really in trouble. Master… what should I do now?" His lips trembled slightly as he muttered softly under his breath, his voice full of confusion and helplessness.
The long-absent sting of failure, coupled with overwhelming pressure, left Xiao Yan completely at a loss.
"Sigh... Little Yan, now… you really have to face this on your own," Yao Lao responded quietly, then fell silent again.
"This is a bottleneck in your path as an alchemist. If you can break through it, the benefits to your future are immeasurable. But if you can't, this moment may become a heart demon—forever haunting you, dragging down your progress…"
This was something even Yao Lao could not assist with directly. Everything now depended on Xiao Yan himself.
Whether he would evolve or collapse—the outcome rested on a single thought.
"So I have to rely on myself…" Xiao Yan muttered. His fists clenched slightly as he fell into deep silence.
Yet the competition's timer did not pause just because he had stopped moving—it continued ticking away relentlessly.
And on the stage, the battle for the championship was gradually entering a white-hot phase.
Waves of pill fragrance continued to waft from the various cauldrons, gradually drawing the audience's attention back to the other participants.
When more than half of the competition time had passed—
Inside the cauldron before Xian'er, a tornado the size of a washbasin whirled rapidly, forming a barrier that completely obstructed external vision and blocked the diffusion of pill fragrance. No one could see what was happening inside.
Because of this, no one could determine what stage Xian'er was currently at.
If someone's vision could penetrate the veil of the Wind and Thunder Fury Flame, they would be shocked to discover that the flame at this moment was only acting as an outer shield—it was no longer being used to temper the pill.
Inside that barrier, at the center of the cauldron, a fist-sized dark green flame sphere floated silently like a small green sun. The surface of the flame pulsed gently, and at the tips of its flame tails, there were hints of pale gray-white light.
It looked calm and tame, almost ordinary—giving off no sense of danger at all.
And within it, faintly visible, was a cyan-green pill, perfectly round and plump, rotating quietly. Two distinct bands of red and yellow pill patterns encircled its surface, and a third green pill pattern was faintly forming.
Waves of visible pill fragrance coiled through the air inside like mist—rich and intoxicating—but none of it escaped past the flame barrier formed by the Wind and Thunder Fury Flame.
It turned out that, without anyone noticing, Xian'er had silently switched to a different Heavenly Flame.
Heavenly Flame: Ghostly Poison Flame!
Her delicate brows were furrowed slightly. Clearly, this was not easy for her either.
Especially since she had to devote much of her focus to suppressing the toxic nature of the Ghostly Poison Flame, preventing its poisonous essence from contaminating the pill.
Thankfully, the most dangerous step—the flame transition—had already been completed silently and successfully.
Now, she only needed to calmly nurture the pill, and once the timing was right, it would be complete.
If this were discovered and spread, it would surely turn this small alchemy competition into a legend, shaking the entire Northwestern Region.
After all, in what was merely a regional alchemy tournament within the Jia Ma Empire, three different Heavenly Flames had appeared:
Wind and Thunder Fury Flame!
Green Lotus Core Flame!
Ghostly Poison Flame!
Such a grand occasion might not even be witnessed in the Central Plains' Pill Tower Grand Tournament.
In the meantime, the cauldrons of the gray-robed youth, the little princess, and Liu Ling had all begun producing the solid embryonic forms of their pills.
Some time later—
A strong wave of pill fragrance was the first to spread from the little princess's cauldron.
Its richness was undeniable—anyone could tell at a glance that it was a fourth-tier pill.
Gasps of astonishment instantly rippled through the crowd.
A trace of satisfaction surfaced on the little princess's lovely face.
This was the only fourth-tier pill she had any real confidence in refining—and even then, the success rate was low. But fortunately, her luck had exploded today. She'd actually succeeded on her first try.
But the gasps hadn't even died down when another burst of even richer pill fragrance emanated from Liu Ling's cauldron on the other side.
The two waves of fragrance drifted into the air, twining together in the sky above the square, nearly indistinguishable from each other.
However, some of the sharper-sensed alchemists could easily tell that the pill Liu Ling refined was clearly a grade higher than the one from the little princess.
Liu Ling, too, had experienced a stroke of luck and succeeded on his first attempt, refining a fourth-tier pill he previously hadn't had full confidence in—one with a high failure rate.
It seemed that, in this competition, everyone's potential had been pushed to the limit. Or perhaps, there was some unseen force of fortune at play, enabling many of the participants to outperform themselves.
…Xiao Yan excluded, of course.
"Tch, this guy!" The little princess had also noticed the clear difference between their pills. She furrowed her brows and shot a sharp glare at Liu Ling, who was smiling at her.
"Hehe, Yue'er, my apologies—looks like I've pulled ahead this time," Liu Ling said with a cheeky grin, cupping his hands politely.
"Gaga, you two little brats are already celebrating? Don't you think it's a bit early for that?" A strange, mocking laugh suddenly rang out from the corner of the stage.
"You think I'm not even here?"
----------------------------------------------------------------
Support me at patreon for 60+ advanced chapters :
patreon.com/YaoIk