10 Being Right Never Felt So Bad

The atmosphere in the room took a drastic shift as Mateus picked up the first herb that was to be processed. Gone was the unassuming black-haired youth who looked like he was touching a pill furnace for the first time in his life, and in his place there now stood a veteran with decades of experience.

'Ok… This is worrying,' Evangeline thought to herself as she watched Mateus casually throw an herb into the furnace and flash process it in an instant.

'Tch, Extraction is the selling point of the Herbal Extraction Theory,' she told herself upon immediately recognizing the Alchemy Method he followed. 'He's just playing to his strengths,' she added as she watched Mateus effortlessly continue processing herb after herb as if he had done so millions of times.

She had a point though, for as a Cardinal Alchemist she knew for a fact that the Herbal Extraction Theory's greatest strength was in the first, Extraction Phase, of the pill concocting process.

'Once he gets into the Fusion and Pill Formation Phases, he'll obviously fail,' she reassured herself.

Of course, when the time came…

'What the fuck?!' Evangeline's jaw dropped as she saw through her Spiritual Sense what was happening in the pill furnace despite it being completely closed off to the outside environment.

'How is he doing that? That's clearly an application of the Concept Of Solubility, but the kid's Cultivation Base is certainly that of a total beginner! His Soul Land isn't even opened, nevermind bred a Affinity Representation of Water to even start comprehending the Water Laws!' Subconsciously, Evangeline began biting her nails as an uneasy feeling gradually creeped up on her the longer she watched.

'This is starting to breach into impossible territory...' She thought as she accurately estimated the amount of energy Mateus was using to complete the Fusion Phase; surprise, surprise, it was disturbingly low.

Then, he moved on to the Pill Formation Phase and literally broke the process altogether.

[?Upgrade?]

"Hmm?" Mateus thought, 'In the middle of pill concocting?'

[!Upgrade!

Name: Mortal Restoration Pills (x10)

Grade: Mortal

Quality: Good (82-85% Refined State)

Description: A decent batch of basic healing pills. Though far from perfect, all ten possible pills formed with a Refined State of Low to Mid Good Quality.

Current Effect: Upon consumption, small wounds to the physical body instantly heal upto and including bone fractures instantly heal. Multiple pills of the same quality might be needed to heal major bodily injuries like fully broken bones and damaged organs.

Cost:

!Consume!

Mortal Restoration Pills (10)

Effect: Increase Quality by 5% (potential of 50% total)]

Thus, instead of ending up with ten Good Quality Mortal Restoration Pills, when Mateus opened up the pill furnace, he found three Consummate Quality — ostensibly perfect — pills, instead.

"Insane, isn't it?" Evangeline was jolted out of her shocked state and into a defensive one upon registering a foreign sound transmission.

When Cultivators reached a high enough Cultivation Base, they could send out telepathic messages called sound transmissions. However, for one to come through one of the testing rooms, in the heartland of the Sect no less…

"My disciple has quite an impressive innate ability, wouldn't you agree?"

"Your disciple? Who are you?" Evangeline asked upfront to decide what tone to take with the unknown person.

With a sigh, and two disappointed, "tchs," the person said, "Weren't you the one complaining just minutes prior about how being a Cardinal Alchemist should get you some recognition? You damn hypocrite, I'm your freaking Sect Guardian!"

"Monte?" Evangeline subconsciously straightened up.

"Anyways, what do you think of the kid's ability?" Monte dismissed her question entirely.

"Wait, since when have you taken an interest in alchemical abilities? I don't know much about you as you can guess, but from what I do know, you only care about array formations."

"What?" Monte was evidently confused as he said, "His ability has nothing to do with Alchemy. I'm talking about the way the kid seemingly integrates with all the information he comes across."

Evangeline unironically said, "Are you sure about that, chief? Because it looks to me like he just took fully formed pills and fucking fused them synegistically. You know, unlike how formed pills should ever behave..."

"Hmm… That's another aspect of his ability worth looking into at a later time," Monte decidedly said. "In any case, for now just ignore the reality-breaking nature of his abilities. He doesn't seem to know how highly we regard them, so until it becomes absolutely necessary, I don't want to give him any reason to hide his power from us."

"You will teach him the meaning of subtly after he is registered as an Outer Disciple, though… right?"

"I'll try..."

The conversation ended and Mateus was none the wiser for not only did both parties communicate telepathically, but also, the instantaneous nature of sound transmissions allowed for an elapsed time of less than a second to pass for the whole conversation to take place.

"Ha!" Mateus suddenly became smug as he held up his three perfectly cheated Consummate Mortal Restoration Pills. "Cardinal Alchemist or whatever you are, maybe this will teach you not to judge a book by its cover next time," Mateus said. After all, it always felt good to be in the right.

"You're right," Evangeline patiently said as she harmlessly made to pat Mateus on the shoulder. Heaven only knew how badly she wanted to knock him down a peg or two—

Crack!

Mateus felt all the bones in his body crack at Evangeline's touch…

—but, she would settle for just a slight wrist slapping.

"Gah! What the fuck was that for?!" Mateus fell, feeling a sharp pain from every other square enough of his body.

"Oh, man up, will you?" Evangeline grinned as she said, "This is the perfect opportunity for you to prove to me just how wrong I was, right?"

With a flick of her fingers she sent one of the Mateus' Consummate Mortal Restoration Pills into his mouth.

A literal moment later and Mateus was healthy enough to pick himself up from the floor like he hadn't just been paralyzed in pain and rendered a skeleton less husk of a human being. Still, he wasn't beneath glaring quietly at Evangeline as he stood up and took a couple steps back.

'This fucking crazy bitch...'