The Alchemy competition did go well, but nothing surprising came out of it. Roan wasn't joking when he said he wasn't confident in getting any amazing result. There were too many new herbs and concocting methods that he wasn't able to check yet.
Of course, if he had used the Alchemy Repository's tools, he definitely could have done much better. However, they were different from Rean's Circuitry Runes. Rean's runes were things made on the spot with the materials available. Roan's alchemy tools, on the other hand, had to be taken out to be used.
For the sake of fairness, no one was allowed to use their own cauldrons, pestles, mortars, and such. Instead, they were given identical ones. It was basically a copy of the alchemy test Roan had in the Sasamil Empire, but with just one match. The one who made the best quality pill would win, that simple.
