Compared to all those fancy cauldrons, Anda preferred an extremely durable cauldron like the one in front of her.
However, she wondered what kind of material was used to make this cauldron?
Anda performed the Azure Flame Technique to heat the cauldron and resumed her alchemy process.
Two hours later, her second batch of Poison Repellent Pills was completed. Anda sighed. As she expected, not all of them were top-grade pills this time.
One pill was at the high-grade quality. It couldn't be helped. An unexpected situation happened, after all. It was already the best possible outcome in that situation.
If she didn't know the fire concept, she would definitely have to halt her refining technique halfway and end up with fewer and much lower-quality pills as a result.
However, it was only like this due to the limitations of the Alchemy Competition. If something like that happened in the normal alchemy session, she could just toss away the failed essence and grab a new ingredient to start over. Not a big deal.
Of course, that would only work with common alchemy products like the Poison Repellent Pill, where the ingredients were abundant, cheap, and easily available.
If the product was difficult and the ingredients for it were rare and expensive, she wouldn't have the luxury to act the same way.
Soon, Anda grabbed the third set of ingredients and repeated the same alchemy process.
A day later, all the contestants had at least completed five sets of ingredients. During this time, most of them had gotten used to the pressure of being constantly watched by countless eyes, resulting in fewer and fewer mistakes done while making the Poison Repellant Pills.
Elder Godari nodded in satisfaction at seeing the obvious change. After all, his passion right now was to guide these young alchemy geniuses into becoming true masters. He wanted them to be better than the alchemists of his generation.
That way, even if he wasn't able to become the alchemist he strives to be, people would remember him as someone who helped them pave their path.
He also noticed that many of the arrogant young alchemists at the start of the competitions had faced reality checks time after time, making them more humble, and their usual arrogant expression had disappeared, or at least diminished. It didn't matter how great their background was, there was always someone better than them.
Unfortunately, Elder Godari saw that not all of them accepted those humbling experiences. A few of them couldn't accept the reality that they were not as amazing as they thought they were and it caused them to have mental turmoils. He could see it clearly through their expressions.
What surprised him was that, among these people, one of them was considered as one of the best alchemy prodigies in this generation. He wasn't expecting Ori Oregano to display that kind of expression as well.
Ever since Anda Leyan displayed her amazing feat with the fire concept, Ori had been showing more and more hostility toward her. Although he tried to hide it, it was very obvious at this point.
Elder Godari sighed. If he meddled by trying to advise him in this situation, it would just hurt his ego more and make it even worse.
"Looks like I have to inform Alar Thorne of this situation. As the Medicine Valley Sect Master, he would be the best person to advise Ori from being consumed by his negative feelings, as it might affect his future." He murmured, feeling worried.
He looked around the Grand Stadium and saw that there was no more audience being concealed by a formation, meaning that all the cultivators had completed their breakthrough.
He felt a bit ironic by the situation. His viewpoints regarding unfairness had caused a lot of them to advance in their cultivation, but he himself was still stuck without any sign of breaking through. The world was truly unfair.
On the special cat-shaped seat,
"Meow ~~~" A white cat with a tiara was yawning.
"Rina, who do you think is the most interesting among them?" Luna asked, while lying on Caterina's lap.
"That Leyvi kid, of course!" She answered without hesitation, licking her lips.
"I'm not talking about your next ding dong, I'm asking about the contestants." Luna lashed her tail on Caterina's thigh.
"Oh, you should have said that earlier, you virgin cat! Hmm.... that panda girl is the most amazing so far, but if we talk about interesting, it would be that messy boy, Asmondol. He has been doing something interesting since the beginning of the round." Caterina commented.
"Meow? What did he do?" Luna immediately observed Asmondol on the stage.
"..."
"He's just doing alchemy like the other contestants! I don't see any difference." She said, while poking Caterina's thigh with her sharp nail.
"Ouch! You silly white cat! Don't injure my body. I need it to be perfect for later, okay? You can't see through him is normal, only someone awesome like me is capable."
"Hmph, narcissist! Just tell me already."
"From the beginning until now, he has been using over 30 kinds of different alchemy techniques," Caterina revealed while adjusting her posture.
"Meow? That's weird. Why did he do that? Why didn't he use the best alchemy technique he knows?"
Caterina chuckled. "That's why I said he's more interesting than that panda girl. Knowing many alchemy techniques is not weird, but constantly changing from one to another in a competition is."
She squinted her eyes. "From my observation, he's learning other people's alchemy techniques and using them on the spot."
"Really? That sounds impressive."
"Of course it is impressive. Martial skills, including alchemy techniques, are not something you can learn just from seeing other people using them. You have to know the details of Qi circulation in the body too."
"I wonder what kind of special ability he has. Does it come from a treasure, or was he born with a special physique?"
Luna tried to guess. "Maybe he has a penetrating vision that can see Qi flow inside the body? Furthermore, he could see through your clothes and ogle at your useless twin fat lumps."
"Useless? Fine! You are not allowed to sleep on them anymore! Go look for new pillows!"
"Nyaaa! I'm just kidding! You are so sensitive. Maybe it's the sign of old age catching up."
"What did you say? You are an old cat too! Old virgin cat!"
The bickering continued without anyone realizing it.
Meanwhile, on the stage, Asmondol's expression was showing indifference as always, as if unbothered by anything that was happening around him.
However, this wasn't the case internally. He was screaming with joy, celebrating the fact that he had just copied and successfully replicated the most interesting technique he encountered so far.
He had successfully raised the grade of one of his pills! Before this, he could only get one top-grade Poison Repellent Pill from each set, but now, using the miraculous technique he had copied, two top-grade pills came out from his sixth set.
Hahahaha! Ori, Ori....Thank you for the gift. I don't know where you get this awesome technique, but it is also mine now. I only regret that I didn't observe you earlier. I would have more points if I had copied your technique when the round started.
But that's fine. My goal here is not to win anything, I just wanted to copy as many techniques as possible. If I somehow managed to stay in the top ten, that's free-spending money, baby!
He was born with a special physique. He had checked with the list of Unique Heavenly Body, but none matches his.
Although he didn't know exactly what his physique was, he only had to observe someone using a martial skill only once for the complete detailed sequence based on what he saw to appear in his mind and his body would miraculously know how to do it too.
It was more like he had copied their experiences since his body instinctively knew how to execute it, too.
Since then, using his ability, he has been watching other people and copying their skills. Alchemy wasn't the only thing that he could do.
He knew alchemy, array and formation, blacksmith, medical technique, many types of martial skills, musical instruments, and many more. One could consider him the most versatile cultivator.
However, it was not without limitations. He could only copy from someone with the same or lower cultivation level as him and it wouldn't be as good as the one he copied from. He estimated that it was around 90-95% as good.
Additionally, for some reason, the skills and techniques he copied would just stagnate at the same level and cannot improve.
So, even if he could easily copy many things, he couldn't become the best. He was the definition of the jack of all trades and master of none.
He didn't mind this at all because it was still a massive cheat. Who said he had to be the best? All other people had to put so much effort into being good in their specific field, but he could just copy them and enjoy the benefits.
All he had to do was focus on increasing his cultivation level so that he could copy better techniques from stronger cultivators. Simple.