"Congratulations to all of you who are still standing. You have more or less successfully passed the test for the first round. However, the round is not over," Hendrix said with a smile, 

  　　"Alchemy is a complex art. Some alchemists may have concocted a pill that might look like a high-purity pill. However, they might not have the desired healing properties. Hence, we will check whether the pill has achieved the required level.

  　　The slightly hoarse voice of Hendrix slowly sounded in everyone's ears, "Now, can all the competitors please search for a green colored button located at the bottom left corner of your jade table,"

  　　Hearing this, Noah looked at the table until his gaze finally stopped at the bottom left corner, which was not very noticeable. He was somewhat stunned to see a few different colored small buttons scattered there. His finger followed the instructions and stopped on the green button before pressing it down gently.

  　　As he pressed the button, the bright, clean rock table suddenly trembled slightly. On its surface, a slate was slowly protruding out. Once it was raised by around half a foot, it sank slightly and finally revealed a small hole.

  　　"Place the pill you have refined into the hole in the table. If you have achieved the requirement, a green light will flash on the jade mirror and redd if your pill has failed to meet the requirements. In case of red light, you will be eliminated from the competition, and I request the alchemists to leave the premises in a peaceful manner" Hendrix paused for a moment to let everything he said sin into their heads.

  　　"Additionally, the brighter the green light, the higher the purity of the pill. On the other hand, the brighter the red light, the farther you went from the actual burn healer. But fret not, at least your pill can be used to satisfy hunger,"

  　　Hearing the humorous joke that sounded in the air above the open ground, 

  　　The spectators laughed from the spectators' stand.

  　　" Everyone, begin," Hendrix said as the alchemists prepared to test the pills they concocted.

  　　As he caressed the round pill with his fingers, Noah calmly stared at the hole in the table. He did not hurriedly throw the pill in. Instead, his gaze swept around him.

  　　At this moment, some alchemists had already begun throwing their medicinal pills into the testing machine. Not long after that happened, the arena suddenly became very colorful. Strong and weak green and red lights interweaved as they glittered. Each brought either joy or gloominess to the alchemists' faces.

  　　"Bullshit," A two-star alchemist slammed the jade table looking at the flickering red light. He gritted his teeth, and under countless people's gazes, he quickly put his cauldron in his space ring and ascended to the air.

  　　"What the fuck is this round? You actually gave us the wrong formula and asked us to decode and concoct it within thirty minutes. This is a joke,"

  　　Noah saw another alchemist smashing the table and leaving the area while cursing the judges. For a few minutes, Noah continued watching the alchemists leaving the arena until he heard Jennifer's melodious voice draw his attention,

  　　"Master Noah, why don't we do it together……" Jennifer smiled, fiddling with the pill in her hand,

  　　"Anything will do……" Noah indifferently shrugged his shoulders. He eyed Leilan whose eyes were fixated on him. 

  　　Following Jennifer's request, Leilan, Noah, and Jennifer simultaneously threw their pills into the hole.

  　　As the three of them threw in their medicinal pills, every spectator on the stand turned their gazes to the arena's center where the trio was standing. Everyone wanted to know who concocted a better pill.

  　　"Bang, bang, bang……"

  　　The jade mirror was a little quiet. Then, a moment later, a slightly muffled sound erupted, and three bright streaks of green light abruptly shot out from the jade tables towards the sky. The density of any of the green lights was clearly much denser than any of the green lights that had appeared in the open ground before.

  　　All three streaks of light looked the same, except when looked closer, the streak of light shooting out of Noah's table looked slightly denser.

  　　"You were right," Eve said to Michael as Michael predicted Noah would concoct a better pill than the rest.

  　　"Your sister needs better control over her fire. If she had, she would have matched Noah," Michael whispered to Eve without letting Alred hear him.

  　　In a short amount of time, he had become a good friend to Eve. Something about her made him feel closer to her and treat her as his friend.

  　　"Haha, Master Noah really got the better of us. Although you finished your pill at the last second, yours is the purest. I admit you won this round" Jennifer watched the light streak coming from Noah's table with sparkling eyes. She then shook her head and sighed.

  　　"I am pretty sure mine is only one or two percent purer than yours," Noah smiled. Then, turning to the other side, he saw Leilan's dark face. 

  　　Instead of uttering any words, the corner of Leilan's mouth twitched. He inhaled deeply, and turned his head over, staring viciously at the jade mirror which was flashing green light. His heart suddenly had an impulse to smash it to pieces.

  　　"That young man has a bright future," Hendrix said with a smile as he observed the three streaks of light.

  　　"Ghost, why don't you demonstrate to them how you would concoct the pill?" Eve asked loud enough for all the judges to hear her. 

  　　For a moment, Michael had the urge to hug Eve and give her kisses on the cheek.

  　　"If anyone should, it's Lord Hendrix. Since he's the best among us," Gabriel calmly said without showing his hatred for Ghost. Everyone who knew Gabriel knew he would hate anyone who stole his spotlight. Considering Ghost dethroned him as the number one alchemist in Elon and Ozer, naturally, Gabriel loathed Michael to the core. They knew how Gabriel would think even if Gabriel didn't show it openly.

  　　"I have to disagree with you, Lord Gabriel. He has reached a height I never could at his age. It's only a matter of time before he surpasses all of us and becomes the number one alchemist in the world" Hendrix turned his gaze from the participants to Gabriel,

  　　"It's settled then. Ghost, please give them a demonstration" Alred gestured at Michael to go to the ground level so the participants could see Michael in action.

  　　"Everyone," Hendrix clapped as the entire arena became silent once again,

  　　"Before we move onto the second round, let one of the judges demonstrate how to concoct the blood healer pill using the same ingredients as you,"

  　　Michael slowly stood up from his seat as the crowd immediately became excited. 

  　　"This is so exciting…"

  　　"YEEYYY!"

  　　"I can't wait!"

  　　"How long will it take him to make the pill?"

  　　The crowd began to chitter-chatter while the participants looked up to see Michael descending from the VIP seats to the ground,

  　　"Please, use my table," Jennifer quickly said before even Michael's feet could touch the ground.

  　　Under thousands of gazes, Michael strolled to Jennifer's table, where he saw a batch of ingredients lying on the table. At the moment, Michael was everyone's center of attention.

  　　From the VIP seatings, Eve stood up from her seat and came to the edge to see Michael in action. 

  　　"Look closer. I will try to concoct the pill slowly" Michael enhanced his voice through Arch energy. Thus, his voice sounded loud and clear throughout the arena.

  　　"Miss Jennifer, may I?" Instead of conjuring his alchemy flames and directly extracting the essence from the ingredients, as usual, Michael asked for Jennifer's cauldron.

  　　"Lord Hendrix," Michael looked up at Hendrix as he clapped his hands to turn the ghostly hourglass upside down.

  　　DING!

  　　The hourglass began to rain sand down with a loud band. With a calm face, Michael conjured his alchemy flames. The emerald green flames disappointed many as they expected Ghost to possess a different color flame. However, Hendrix's calm eyes perplexed, sensing weird energy from the flames surrounding Jennifer's crimson red cauldron.

  　　Other than Hendrix, none sensed anything different about Michael's flames.

  　　Under their gazes, Michael controlled the fire in one hand while picking up the first ingredient in the other.  However, before any green mist could appear from the cauldron like when the others refined the ingredient, Michael put another ingredient into the cauldron.

  　　"Whoa, he's extracting the essence from the ingredients at the same time," Ativan gasped as Michael put all the ingredients into the cauldron instead of one by one.

  　　In a few blinks of an eye, colorful beads emerged from the cauldron and hovered above the cauldron,

  　　Many gasped in shock, and even Leilan and Noah couldn't help being stunned by his skills. Michael made it look simple but as an alchemist, they both knew how hard it is to extract essence from all the ingredients at the same time,

  　　"Wow," Jennifer stared at his every single move without blinking an eye. Her jaw dropped a couple of inches, just like the rest.

  　　[Ding! Congratulations to the host for successfully being a badass. The reward is 2000 badass points]

  　　[Ding! Congratulations to the host for successfully being a badass. The reward is 1000 badass points]

  　　[Ding! Congratulations to the host for successfully being a badass. The reward is 1200 badass points]

  　　The badass points rapidly increased as the notification sound continued to ring in his head.

  　　At the moment, they looked closer at the beads, wondering whether he would merge them one by one or merge them all like Noah. To everyone's surprise, Michael moved his palms closer and closer as the beads began to merge with each other.

  　　Noah's method was difficult, but not for Michael. It only took him less than a minute to merge all the beads into an orb of essence. Noah saw no signs of struggle on Ghost's face.

  　　The next moment, the emerald green flames appeared once again, surrounding the orb of essence. The flame swirled around the orb for a few seconds before disappearing out of existence. When the fire disappeared, a glowing purple pill hovered in the air, radiating a sweet fragrance. Since Leilan, Noah, and Jennifer stood closer to Ghost, they could smell the fragrance coming from the pill.

  　　"Under two minutes," Atian gasped after he saw the hourglass. Then, just like him, countless sounds of people gasping reverberated in the arena. They were all stunned beyond words.

  　　While his speed stupefied them, Michael flicked his wrist as the pill went straight into the hole in Jennifer's table. Then, unlike never before, the table began to tremble, producing a whistling sound.

  　　Boom!

  　　Then, a muffled burst sounded from the table as a bright streak of green light shot towards the sky. The streak of light turned everyone and everything green with withs brightness. It was several times brighter and denser than Noah's streak of light.

  　　"That's how you make a burn healer in seventy seconds," Michael calmly said, shocking everyone in the arena.