The Alchemy Conference consisted of several trials, which made sense. After all, most alchemists around the platform were clearly no match for either him or Feng Yingyue. There was no need for any kind of competition to know that. But having a competition with only one duel wouldn't be very entertaining for many. Besides, it was also the occasion to have a social event and to allow each province to show its influence.
Each contestant received a different pill to analyze. The alchemists were prepared for a difficult trial and they were right. The pills they had in hand were known to no one. Looking around, some alchemists saw the dubious look on their opponents' faces. It was clear though that those pills were neither Earth nor Human pills. Indeed, they had been given him a Heaven pill to analyze.
Analyzing a pill was not very complex but it could be very difficult. One had to look at the color, smell the fragrance, sometimes even send Qi in it to decipher its components. For a simple pill, it would be easy to quickly identify the medicinal essence within and link it to known ingredients and recipes. But for complex pills, it could be a maze of intertwined medicinal essences. Right now, Cao Yun was faced with such a maze. Even with his senses, he was unable to decipher every medicinal essence within the pill. Then, he had to perform a more detailed analysis. In fact, no alchemist was able to discern what the pill they had was.
This first trial would not be easy at all. But no one was expecting for the Alchemy Conference to be easy. Besides, the elders in the public knew that each trial was difficult as they remembered what had happened every time. Of course, the trials were always different so that no one could know beforehand what would be the contents of the trials.
In order to appraise a pill, the first thing to do was to know the recipe. From that one could deduce the ratio of medicinal essence and toxins left in it. Even without knowing the recipe though, the concentration of medicinal essence alone could give some hints. Right now, Cao Yun could determine that this will was a Pure pill. Thus, it had at least 95% of medicinal essence. The rank of the pill itself was harder to determine but Cao Yun guessed that it was either a 4-star or a 5-star Heaven pill. Indeed, he was able to smell many different fragrances.
Among them, he recognized a few ingredients. However, some others were harder to make out. And everyone had the same problem. Even after guessing half of the ingredients, it was difficult to know which pill this was. But then, Cao Yun imagined that the crux of the problem wasn't the pill itself but the recipe. Maybe the pill was known by him but not the recipe.
Anyway, he would have to try and identify the process by which this pill had been refined if he wanted to know more about it. In fact, many alchemists had this same idea.
The small pill in front of Cao Yun levitated in the air. He sent his Qi within the pill itself instead of just analyzing the fragrance around it. With his Qi, he was able to follow strands of medicinal essence. They were all intertwined in a complex maze. Besides, there were also strands of toxins all over the place.
With this more detailed analysis, Cao Yun was able to confirm all the ingredients he had smelled and even found most of the others. Then, there were only a handful of ingredients to discover. By taking the toxins into consideration, Cao Yun was able to slowly form a map of all the interactions within the pill. And from that, he could then begin to imagine the refinement process.
Such a process was very difficult. Among the contestants, some had decided to take out their cauldron to try out other techniques. A handful of the weaker contestants cut up the pill into several small pieces. Then they used their cauldron to mix each piece with other ingredients. Thanks to that, they could deduce the contents of the pill.
On the other hand, the favorite of the competition were all like Cao Yun. Feng Yingyue, Mei Hua and Xue Gulin were all meditating with the pill floating in front of them. There was no sound in the square apart from the flames ignited by the alchemists. No one in the audience made a single sound. To be honest, this first trial was not very impressive. Those who didn't know much about alchemist looked at the cauldrons. In their eyes, this was where something interesting could happen. However, the connoisseurs were all looking at the disciples from the Golden Flowery Fragrance Institute. And a few eyes were also on Cao Yun.
Finally, Feng Yingyue opened her eyes. The pill fell toward a small wooden box she had taken out of her spatial ring. Then, she walked toward a small platform in the center of the square. It was just below the flying platform of the arbiter.
"Contestant Feng Yingyue is ready to give her answer."
Less than an hour had passed by and many alchemists were still full of confusion, yet she appeared perfectly confident. Suddenly, everyone looked at her. They couldn't imagine that the first representative of the Golden Flowery Fragrance Institute could lose. Thus, they were looking forward to learning what kind of pills they were dealing with. Even a few alchemists diverted some of their focus to listen to her. Maybe they might find a clue as all the pills had to be as difficult to analyze.
Feng Yingyue presented the wooden box and it floated all the way to the arbiter.
"Go ahead. Give your answer. The more detailed it is, the higher your performance will be rated."
"Mercury Cinnabar Alloy pill, 5-star Heaven pill. Its quality reached the Perfect grade with 93.2% of medicinal essence. On the other hand, 17.8% of the toxins are still within the pill. It was not made by following the standard recipe as taught by Alchemist Duihe. The main ingredient was replaced with Purple Dragon Tendon, thus it increased the amount of Fire element within the pill. Besides, it was refined in a cauldron that was a bit too rich in Metal element. My guess is that it made of Crude Copper. The alchemist who refined it shouldn't have been more than a 3-star Heaven alchemist himself, on the verge of getting into the 4-star rank. But he made some mistakes, not a few, but enough for the pill not to reach its full potential.
"And I suspect he deliberately tried to keep as much of the toxins as possible. Otherwise the choice of this cauldron with such a recipe would be foolish beyond reason. There was a severe clash between the Fire and the Metal. This clash caused more and more toxins to be gathered in the core of the pill. But the alchemist was able to contain it so as to not reduce the grade of the pill. However, I would advice not to consume this defected product."
Then, Feng Yingyue began to describe the entire refinement process and even described how the medicinal essence had reacted at every moment. If she had told everyone she had been present during the refinement process, they would have believed her. In fact, she spoke for four incenses sticks as her analysis was just too thorough.
Finally, she stopped speaking. And the arbiter gave his judgment. The young woman had exposed everything she had discovered about the pill. There were many details that almost seemed like divination for those who didn't know a single thing about alchemy. In the end, she had aced the trial even though she was the first one to speak.
"Perfect. There is not a single mistake in everything you've said. 100 points."
From the audience, a round of applause erupted. However it quickly quieted down so as to not disturb the other alchemists. Immediately after Feng Yingyue was done, Mei Hua decided to go on the central platform to expose what she had discovered.
Her report wasn't as detailed as Feng Yingyue's. However, she didn't make a single mistake either. Her pill was a 4-star Heaven pill with 95.7% medicinal essence and 19.4% toxins. Then, many people realized that the pills probably had a lot of toxins. Because of that, they were more difficult to analyze correctly as the toxins could cause the alchemists to make mistakes. Clearly, this had been done on purpose.
Mei Hua only obtained 98 points. Of course, this was still very good and the two women were obviously exceptional. But then there remained a single student of the Golden Flowery Fragrance Institute, Xue Gulin. He could accept to be bested by Feng Yingyue, but he refused for anyone else to have a better score than his. Unfortunately, he wasn't done yet. He looked toward the west and saw that Cao Yun wasn't done either. However he didn't heave a sigh of relief just yet.
Within Cao Yun's sea of consciousness, entire libraries were being explored. Cao Yun had the vague sensation that he had read about this pill at some point. But although he had memorized everything, it didn't mean that he could easily access all his memories, especially on subjects that he hadn't fully mastered yet. And Heaven pills weren't part of what he had mastered. In the back of his mind, what he was feeling on this pill had woken up a memory though. Right now, he was looking for it while a very small part of his intent was still looking at the pill. From the outside, it really looked like he was focused on his pill without moving at all.
This was a Pure Heaven pill for sure with around 97.9% medicinal essence and 15.8% toxins. Such a pill was rather strange. No Heaven alchemist would have been satisfied with a result as poor as this. Of course, Cao Yun was too focused to hear what had happened around him. But these ratios made sense when he thought about the fact that this was a competition.
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More than an entire double hour had passed now. Xue Gulin had found out what pill he had in front of him but he wasn't satisfied with just that. Indeed, he wanted to get a perfect score, just like Feng Yingyue. Even if he couldn't reach it, he at least didn't want to be any lower than Mei Hua. He could accept to have the same score as her, but no lower. Hopefully, Cao Yun wouldn't exceed 98 points either. As talented as he was, he was still a martial artist first. Thus, he probably wasn't as good as Mei Hua.
In fact, Xue Gulin was right in theory. However, Cao Yun had an unfair advantage, his Flying Poison. At first, he had refused to use it. But finally he went for it. Hiding his spiritual senses with 'Ashen Feather Seal', only Xiao Xuefeng and Huang Liyue saw that he was doing something a bit strange. Huang Liyue senses that he had used her stealth technique because she was obviously used to it. On the other hand, Spirit Master Xiao had known about his spiritual senses. Otherwise, she wouldn't had suspected a thing.
Technically speaking, using one's spiritual senses during a trial was authorized. That rule was there for the Heaven alchemists who would enter some of the other trials. However, the rule applied to everyone. If a Mortal Warrior could use them, they had the right to do so. It was just that Cao Yun didn't want anyone to know he had such spiritual senses.
Cao Yun had already identified the pill thanks to his great memory. Indeed, the recipe had not been respected. But in order to get more details on the entire process, he had no other way than to use his spiritual senses. Then, he focused on his 'Spiritual Sea Refinement' in order to imagine the entire process. With his Chamber of Heavenly Court, he slowed down time in his mind. Before the Alchemy Conference, Cao Yun had explicitly asked Dian Mo not to help him at all. Indeed, he didn't want to use anything that wasn't directly his.
After several attempts, he was almost certain of what had happened during the refinement process. Thus, he opened his eyes and went toward the central platform. As he did so, Xue Gulin was jolted back to reality. He felt his rival ready to give his response. Even if he was close to being finished himself, he wasn't quite there yet. Either Cao Yun had already exceeded what Xue Gulin could guess in the same amount of time, or his answer would be inferior to his. Even though he didn't stop analyzing his pill, Xue Gulin still focused on Cao Yun's answer.
When he walked toward the platform, some whispers were heard throughout the square. They were very quiet so as to respect the contestants. However, because no one could use spiritual senses outside of the contestants, they were forced to speak. Of course, they controlled their voice so it only reached a certain area. In a few seconds, everyone knew about Young Sect Master Chen Guo and his accomplishments.
The Wubei Sect was not known for its alchemists at all. However, they imagined that its Young Sect Master wouldn't enter the competition just to disgrace the name of his sect.
"Celestial Autumn Leaf pill. 4-star Heaven pill."
"Its quality is not too good unfortunately, with only 97.9% of medicinal essence and 15.8% of toxins. Instead of following the traditional recipe as written by Great Master Duren in 'Chronicles of the Seven Seasons', the alchemist who refined it tried to use Dew Pearling Angelica in order to improve the effects of the pill. But he didn't take into account that the Lacquered Obsidian would clash with it. It caused an excess of Water element and completely destroyed any semblance of balance in the cauldron. Thankfully, he had used a powerful cauldron and was able to maintain the overall cohesion of the ingredients, but this was a stupid mistake.
"Every pill crafted by Great Master Duren has to follow the harmony of the nature. That is literally the theme of his most famous treatise. Not just anyone can improve on the recipes of 'Chronicles of the Seven Seasons'. Thankfully, the alchemist who refined this pill wasn't too foolish and he got a result, but wasting such good ingredients for a meager successful pill..."