Mo Xuan and his group remained seated, trading quiet observations of their own about what they'd just watched.
The bronze bell rang for the third time.
Dong—
The entire square fell silent. Only three competitors remained, the nine original cauldrons now reduced to three, the eliminated furnaces already cleared away to leave the remaining platforms spaced farther apart than before.
Elder Xu rose from his seat, his calm voice carrying easily across the square. "The final round. This round tests more than control. It tests perception."
An attendant carried out three identical jade boxes, and unlike the previous rounds, each one contained herbs that appeared remarkably similar to one another — different species entirely, yet nearly identical in appearance to an untrained eye.
Elder Xu continued. "Within these boxes are eighteen herbs. Twelve are required. Six are deliberately incorrect. The wrong combination will fail before refinement even begins."
A murmur swept through the audience at that.
The competitors didn't touch their cauldrons right away. Instead, they examined each herb individually first — some lifting them toward the light, others crushing tiny fragments between their fingers to test the texture, one competitor closing his eyes entirely and smelling each leaf in turn before setting it aside.
Mo Xuan watched without blinking. The final competitor, a slender youth wearing dark blue robes, moved the slowest of the three, yet he never once picked up the same herb twice, each choice deliberate and final the instant he made it.
The broad-shouldered competitor finished his selection first — too quickly, if his pace was any indication — and ignited his furnace immediately, his flame burning bright and confident. Five minutes later, the medicinal smoke rising from his cauldron changed colour, and Elder Xu sighed almost imperceptibly as the furnace darkened. The young man froze, realising at once what had happened.
He'd chosen the wrong herb.
"Eliminated," Elder Xu announced, and the competitor bowed deeply before leaving the platform, his earlier confidence visibly deflated.
The audience remained quiet. Two competitors remained.
Now the differences between them became clearer. The silver-robed young woman controlled her flame beautifully — steady, elegant, almost flawless in its consistency. The dark-blue youth looked far less graceful by comparison, adjusting his flame repeatedly, sometimes lowering it, sometimes raising it again just as quickly.
At first glance, he appeared the less skilled of the two, but watching closely, the audience began to notice the pattern behind those adjustments — each shift responding to something specific happening inside the cauldron, the apparent unsteadiness actually a kind of constant, attentive correction few alchemists would have the patience for.
Half an hour later, the silver-robed competitor completed her refinement first. She opened her cauldron to reveal a fragrant, emerald liquid shimmering beautifully in the morning light, and the audience applauded softly. It was, by any reasonable standard, excellent work.
Then the blue-robed youth extinguished his own flame. He waited — three full breaths — before finally lifting the lid.
The square was instantly filled with a richer fragrance, thick enough that Elder Xu naturally rose from his seat and descended from the judging platform to examine both products closely.
A long silence followed as he examined each in turn. Finally, he spoke. "First place. Qing Mu."
The blue-robed youth bowed quietly, without any visible triumph, as though he'd expected nothing less from his own effort.
The crowd gradually dispersed after that, some still arguing over the judging, others already moving to discuss business directly with the competitors. Merchants approached the contestants with offers before they'd even finished packing away their equipment, and the square slowly returned to its usual lively bustle.
Mo Xuan made his way out with the others, a quiet yearning to learn alchemy slowly taking root somewhere inside him.
Skyreach City's lights faded behind them as they headed directly toward the next teleportation station, the alchemy competition already fading into memory against the pull of the road still ahead. By dusk, they had stepped into the vast teleportation array, handed over their tokens, and vanished into a swirl of white light.
They emerged on the outskirts of a vast plain. After days enclosed within the muted stillness of the spatial tunnel, an endless expanse of emerald grass rippled beneath the wind like the surface of a tranquil sea, each wave chasing the next until it disappeared into the horizon.
Above them, the sky stretched impossibly wide. White clouds drifted lazily across a brilliant blue expanse while spirit birds wheeled high overhead, their long cries carried effortlessly through the crisp air.
Jin Bao took an exaggerated breath and stretched, clearly relieved to have solid ground beneath his feet again after so long inside the tunnel.
Lianxue unfolded the map once more, studying it for a moment before speaking. "From here onward, we travel by land. Our destination lies hidden deep within a remote territory." She folded the map carefully and tucked it away.
Time fell into a steady rhythm afterward: traveling under the sun, camp at sunset, and nighttime cultivation, repeating the same cycle daily until the days started to blur. One day turned into three, then ten. Weeks slipped by unnoticed, and another month disappeared.
The vast grasslands gradually gave way to rolling hills, where waist-high wildflowers covered entire slopes in white and violet blossoms. Small streams cut through the landscape like silver ribbons, their waters so clear that smooth stones were visible beneath the surface even from a distance. They crossed each one without hurry.
Travelling and facing danger together had made them closer than any of them had probably expected when they'd first set out. They chatted and laughed as they walked, the earlier formality between them long since worn away.
As the months passed, civilisation gradually thinned around them. The roads narrowed. Villages grew smaller and farther apart until they eventually disappeared altogether. Ancient forests replaced the open plains entirely.
Trees grew so enormous here that several adults together couldn't have wrapped their arms around a single trunk. Thick roots rose from the ground like sleeping dragons, while vines stretched between branches high overhead, weaving a green ceiling that scattered sunlight into countless golden fragments across the forest floor.
The area felt primal in a way the earlier plains hadn't, and the rivers reflected that same shift. Instead of the gentle streams they'd grown used to, they now encountered roaring currents that carved through stone canyons with relentless force, each crossing taxing enough to leave all four of them winded by the far bank.
Deep within the wilderness, roars echoed at all hours. Lightning Wolves prowled distant ridgelines, blue arcs occasionally dancing through their fur before vanishing again into the gathering dusk. Earthback Boars rooted through the forest floor in scattered groups, each one large enough to overturn a cart with a single charge. Stone-tail Serpents lay hidden among sun-warmed rocks, so perfectly still that they resembled nothing more than weathered stone until their tongues flickered out to test the air.
Most encounters ended before they became proper battles. The four of them had grown remarkably coordinated by this point in the journey, each of them settling naturally into a role without needing to discuss it — Mo Xuan intercepting anything that closed in too fast, the twins covering whatever came from range or in pairs, Jin Bao's talismans filling whatever gaps remained.
At night, the sky changed entirely, the heavens revealing beautiful constellations. Mo Xuan often sat beside the campfire after everyone else had fallen asleep, keeping watch over the group in the quiet hours, content to let his thoughts wander while the fire burned low.
Four months after leaving the sect, they finally reached the place marked on the map.
Yu Lianxue stopped walking. Before them stood a rocky mountain slope so ordinary that none of them would have looked at it twice had they arrived by chance. A small cave mouth rested quietly beneath an overhanging cliff, unremarkable in every visible way.
Jin Bao looked around. "...This?"
Lianyan nodded.
Mo Xuan examined the surroundings carefully, and the place felt almost suspiciously ordinary given everything they'd gone through to reach it.
Lianxue smiled faintly. "Without the map, no one would ever think to enter."
The four of them exchanged one final glance. Then, together, they stepped into the narrow cave.
The passage ahead was little more than a cramped stone corridor. Dust drifted down whenever their shoulders brushed against the rough walls, and even Jin Bao had to lower his head to avoid scraping the low ceiling. Every step echoed softly against the stone.
The twins quietly moved toward the centre of the chamber ahead, their expressions turning solemn as their hands slowly rose in unison.
Mo Xuan had seen the sisters cultivate countless times over the months — he'd watched Yu Lianxue's frost lotus bloom with quiet precision more times than he could count. Yu Lianyan's flame lotus erupted with fierce, unrestrained brilliance just as often. But this felt different. Both sisters now moved with uncanny synchrony.
Yu Lianxue closed her eyes first, and a pale frost-blue glow spread beneath her feet, thin lines of crystalline light tracing across the stone floor like ice slowly crawling over a winter lake. At the same moment, Yu Lianyan's Soul Power awakened, warm crimson light gathering around her hands, its glow resembling embers breathing quietly beneath ash rather than roaring flame.
Cold.
Heat.
Two opposing forces, instead of rejecting one another as logic might suggest, intertwined seamlessly. Lotus-shaped patterns shimmered faintly around both their wrists as their Soul Powers flowed together, merging so naturally that it became impossible to tell where one sister's energy ended and the other's began.