Chapter 33
The black smoke slowly spread through the area, and two figures became visible. As the smoke slowly dissipated, the figures became distinct. A man was in front of a woman, holding her in a hug with his bloody back facing the blown-up furnace. What baffled the elders and the audience was that the young man's back, full of blood, only had a small wound, which was almost impossible since the young man was just a mortal. People then presumed that since he sacrificed himself, Qin Lou saved him with her spiritual Qi shield.
A moment ago, before the furnace blew up, Shin Jiao had already noticed that it was acting strangely and had a bad premonition. Without thinking twice, he quickly stepped between Qin Lou and the furnace. She hadn't noticed anything was wrong as she was too focused on a crucial part of forming the pill. Then, all of a sudden, she saw Shin Jiao in front of her, disrupting her concentration, followed by a loud bang.
Because of the force, Shin Jiao was thrown into Qin Lou's arms. This made her mind go blank, as it was the first time she felt a man's body hugging her. Shin Jiao was also in a daze, as he suddenly felt her bountiful chest almost serve as a cushion. Her stupefaction didn't last as she quickly recovered her senses. She remembered that she was about to finish her concoction when he disturbed her. Suddenly, a feeling of anger swelled in her heart, and she put her hands on her hips in annoyance.
"What have you done?" Qin Lou said in an aggrieved voice.
"I... I'm sorry," Shin Jiao said, not knowing what to say. He couldn't understand why she was angry after he had saved her.
"I was supposed to finish and form the pill when you disrupted me." Although she felt angry, she still controlled her voice and didn't shout.
Before Shin Jiao could say anything, someone interrupted them.
"Ha. Is that it? You're still a newbie trying to show off. You can't even control your pill furnace from exploding. What genius? A genius of disaster, maybe. Haha," Xing Meng taunted.
With a quick hand movement, he hit his pill furnace cover, and five pills suddenly floated up. Two of the pills were green with a golden aura, while the other three were black without an aura. This meant that out of the five pills, two were high-grade, while the other three were failed products.
Pill aura is the deciding factor of its grade: Normal-grade pills only have color; middle-grade pills have a colored luster; high-grade has a golden aura; mortal-grade has two golden auras; spirit-grade has a golden aura and either a hot or cold temperature; hybrid-grade has a pill color luster and a golden aura; sky-grade pills are almost transparent, but the pill color is in the middle, like a nucleus; heaven-grade pills have a thick white aura; immortal-grade has two separate auras, like yin and yang, which are black and white; and the last is the deity-grade pill, which already contains a spiritual pulse.
After the people saw the pills, everyone was in awe and amazed at Xing Meng's skill.
"Wow! He truly is a prodigy. He is able to make a high-grade pill. I wonder what the effect of the pill he made is."
"Of course, it's a new pill. Who do you think Young Master Meng is? Unlike others, he's not a newbie."
The people began to discuss among themselves as they saw the pills that Xing Meng made. But on the judges' stage, old man Lu Hao Duang furrowed his brows in confusion. After scanning the pill, he seemed to think that something was amiss.
"Hmm... this scent seems... familiar," Lu Hao Duang thought.
On the stage, Xing Meng looked at Qin Lou.
"So... I guess you lost. You're not yet qualified to be an alchemist... Work hard... Newbie," Xing Meng taunted with a sneer.
Instead of answering Xing Meng, Qin Lou turned her gaze to the judges. By this time, Shin Jiao had already moved to her side. She walked to the front and checked her furnace. There, she saw that a foreign object had entered the tiny hole on the side of the furnace. But instead of complaining about this injustice, she just stood there and shook her head. Cheating, dirty moves, and judges ignoring the rules were not new to her. She had already experienced these things many times, so she just accepted her fate.
After checking the furnace, she stood and was about to walk away, but a hand suddenly grabbed hers. She was startled because the strength was not that of a mortal man. When she looked at the hand's owner, a smile appeared on her face under the white mask as she felt warmth. She realized that Shin Jiao had protected her and felt a little guilty for accusing him.
"You're not going to just give up, are you?" Shin Jiao said in a low voice.
"It's... it's no use. The furnace is already broken, and there is no replacement for it. One of the hidden rules in this tournament is one alchemist, one furnace. So, how could I continue?" Qin Lou replied, also in a low voice.
"Haha... Who says you can't produce pills without a furnace? That's just how the old ones think. I already made a promise to show you a miracle pill, right? Do you... trust me?" Shin Jiao said, flashing his charming smile.
Seeing his handsome, smiling face, Qin Lou seemed to forget his question and just stared at him blankly, but someone in the crowd shouted, which interrupted her train of thought.
"What are you two lovers whispering about? Just get down from here and give up."
"Yeah, it's already over. Get down from there..."
"Haha, I guess Senior Sister Qin Lou can't accept her defeat."
The people, especially those who had already lost the contest, were shouting with contempt toward Qin Lou.
"Lass, what will you do? If you give up now, you will lose. Although you are already accepted as an inner disciple of the school, you would still lose the contest," Hu Ao said while looking intently at her.
"I will trust you," Qin Lou said to Shin Jiao, which made him feel happy.
Shin Jiao secretly passed her a tiny scroll when he held her hand, acting like he was politely assisting her back to their alchemy table. When she noticed the tiny scroll, she was a little taken aback.
"What is this for? Why did he give me this tiny scroll?" Qin Lou was a little confused about what to do.
But she still looked at her hand and secretly opened the thumb-sized scroll. Upon seeing this, Shin Jiao couldn't help but laugh at himself. It reminded him of when he was still in school. Those students who liked to cheat on exams would always carry those tiny papers that contained some answers, sneaking a look at them while trying to evade the teacher in charge of the exam. If they were successful, their exam results would be good; if not, they would face the consequences.
As Qin Lou read what was on the tiny thumb-sized scroll, her expression changed dramatically. But before anyone could notice her reaction or even scan the scroll, she immediately burned it with her fire. As if with a tacit understanding, both of them nodded and began to move. Shin Jiao acted as if he was taking something out of the bag and brought out an item wrapped in animal skin. Qin Lou accepted it and began to boil some water, putting the thing inside the paper into it.
When the people saw what she was putting in the pot, everyone was dumbfounded: it was a beast bone and skin. Some almost fell out of their seats when she started to carefully stir the water in the pot.
"What's this? Is she out of her mind? The explosion may have affected her brain. That's why they started to make some bone soup. Haha!" a person in the crowd shouted.
People began to mock Qin Lou for being a sore loser and acting like that. She was even trying to insult the alchemy contest by cooking bone soup in the middle of the match. Some people even closed their eyes in disgust.
As the people were busy mocking her, another contestant successfully made a pill. Inside her pill furnace lay three pills with a golden aura, which caught everyone's attention, especially when they smelled the rich aroma of the pill.
"Those are three high-grade pills," an elder suddenly stood up.
It was known that most students here could only successfully make one or two high-grade pills. Even the genius Xing Meng could only reach two at his current level. Now, seeing that there were three high-grade pills, this made everyone excited.
"Seniors, I'm done with my pills," the young woman said.
The young woman was Susu Ling, who excitedly took a glance at Qin Lou's table. But when she saw what Qin Lou was doing, her smiling face suddenly froze. She, too, was dumbfounded by that scene. But her feeling was different from the rest.
She couldn't believe that Qin Lou was nonchalantly cooking a bowl of soup in the middle of the tournament, which made Susu Ling admire her even more. At that time, Susu Ling was too focused on concocting her pill that she didn't notice what was going on around her. She was not aware that Qin Lou's pill furnace had blown up. So upon seeing her calmly cooking, she couldn't help but admire her bravery and nonchalant attitude. It was as if Qin Lou was saying that this test was truly a piece of cake.
A glimmer of adoration was in Susu Ling's eyes as she watched her new idol in alchemy. Everyone's attention was on Qin Lou and Susu Ling, while Shin Jiao started to mix a couple of herbs using a mortar and pestle. Since nobody paid him any mind, he began to use his small stove and slowly refine the herbs he mixed in a porcelain container. His actions were so inconspicuous that everybody didn't notice or even care what he was doing, so no one was paying attention to him.
After some time, Qin Lou saw some things that began to float on the top layer of the boiling water. Qin Lou carefully scooped it up and put it in a small container. Then, after gathering a substantial amount, she began to refine it and burn out the dregs that came with it until a gelatinous liquid was left, which grabbed everyone's attention.
"What... what is that thing? It's like a white goo..." Hu Ao muttered to himself.
Then, in front of everyone, Qin Lou used her spiritual sense control to start forming tiny spheres with the gelatinous substance. Qin Lou was able to make a total of ten thumb-sized spheres from it, which after cooling were now like soft gel pills.
"I'm done!" Qin Lou said excitedly.
"Okay, you have to combine this medicine with the remaining Ganoderma you refined," Shin Jiao said as he handed her the porcelain container that contained some green liquid.
"But the remaining Ganoderma that I refined is too little..." she protested.
"We actually didn't need that much. All we need are three drops of Ganoderma extract, and that's it," Shin Jiao said.
"Okay," Qin Lou said as she took out the remaining drops of the Ganoderma, which were surprisingly exactly three drops.
Then she combined it with the greenish concoction that Shin Jiao gave her. She carefully used her fire while the ingredients were in the porcelain container. With her level of control, the porcelain didn't break. Not long after, the medicine began to combine, and she slowly refined them using her spiritual sense.
When the greenish liquid turned brown with a glimmering golden aura, Qin Lou herself became amazed. She couldn't believe that she had refined something without using a pill furnace. Her elation was through the roof at the discovery of a new way to make medicine.
"Whew, it's done at last!" she said excitedly to Shin Jiao.
"Okay, that's good. Now use this and take some medicinal liquid and fill a gel sphere," Shin Jiao whispered as he handed her a syringe-like thing he had crafted the previous night.
Qin Lou understood what he meant and did what Shin Jiao asked her to do. She was able to fill around six spheres with the liquid concoction. These series of actions filled everyone in the audience with excitement. As they had never seen any pill made this way, they were amazed at the gel-like substance that held liquid medicine. And the most amazing part was that they could now see six brown pills with a golden aura on a plate on Qin Lou's table.
"This is truly an ingenious idea. With this, we can now concentrate more on refining and combining the materials rather than forcing the extract to be heated and hardened into a pill."
"Yeah, this would lessen our effort but double our success rate in making pills."
"Hey, did you remember what she did?"
"No, I actually thought that she's just making some soup, so I kept my eyes closed at that time."
"Damn... me too..."
The people began to discuss what had happened and how Qin Lou had made a new type of pill, even though her pill furnace had blown up. On the judges' platform, all the elders looked at each other in disbelief. Those who had mocked Qin Lou kept their mouths shut as they, too, were dumbfounded and felt like they had slapped their own faces upon seeing her performance. The eyes of Elder Ao and Lu Hao Duang gleamed with joy and excitement. They did not expect her to show this kind of ability.
"This is... I... I must get this method. My teacher would praise me more and give me more benefits if I could get him this method of concocting." Xing Meng's eyes had a glint of craftiness and evil scheme.
"I must get her... not only are her martial arts good, she can even make this new kind of pill." Xian Jian Feng, in the audience, also showed extreme lust toward Qin Lou's ability and knowledge.
He was now looking at Qin Lou like a ravenous wolf ready to pounce on its prey.
While everyone was busy with either scheming or amazed expressions toward her, Qin Lou's eyes were filled with happiness. Her heart felt really warm as she remembered Shin Jiao's question: "Do you trust me?" At that time, although she said yes, there was still a little doubt in her heart. But she was truly happy now that she had put her trust in him. What she didn't know was that in her heart, Shin Jiao had now made a mark that she would value very much.
"Boom! Boom!"
All of a sudden, two more explosions rang inside the arena. The two remaining contestants' pill furnaces had exploded, and they declared that they would give up.
So, in the end, there were three people who passed the final test. Of course, the three were Qin Lou, Susu Ling, and Xing Meng.
"I would like to congratulate the three winners. We already know the quality of the pills you've made and that two of them are of a higher grade than the original, and one is an original type of pill. But we need to make sure of the efficacy of those medicines. So, a test on the quality of your pill is necessary," the old man with a long beard who acted as the spokesperson of the judges said.