Lust Vs Determination

The sunny looking boy's eyes were full of desire and lust as he glanced towards his seductive guild leader.

'If I win this stage of the tournament maybe I'll prove myself to her, maybe she will choose me!' He thought.

Egor was also thinking, 'I have always been scorned and looked down upon for my life choices, I'm a Titan, I'm supposed to domineering and strong but here I am delicately refining pills'

'However even though people look down on me due my difference from my other Titan brethren I will prove myself.'

'My will is unbreakable!'

The teen quickly released fire from his hands, baking the cauldron, the terrifyingly hot flames caused heatwaves in the air, the centre of the arena felt like a volcano as countless contestants released their flames.

The sunny look teen had to output massive amounts of aura as he melts every ingredient in his pot, the FFOF and Netherworld Anise slowly softened, the plants becoming more and more gummy like until they became a thick paste.

All 16 herbs melted at the same time, if they didn't the whole batch of pills would fail as their would be an imbalance between the Five Flame Obliterating Flower and the Netherworld Anise and cause and even more intense reaction.

This required immense control, since if the teen did not increase/decrease the temperature at certain spots on the cauldron some of the herbs would melt too fast or too slow causing the situation described above.

This teen was an absolute genius, his confident small and sunny temperament seemed to encompasses the entire world. He had sandy blonde hair, hazelnut coloured eyes and a swimmer's physique, all in all he was beautiful. The man's name was Locke Morgan and he was the 31st ranked Alchemist.

(There are 300 people in the Alchemist classes.)

The difficulty of what the action Locke pulled off is astronomical, as he is only in Tier 8 and he is currently refining 8 Transcendent pills at the same time! He is probably has better control than almost everyone in the stands, the only people that may come even close to Locke's Aura Control are Samael, Rosa and Zi Tian.

Egor on the other hand was already sweating bullets, he had to refine 3 at the same time, but since he removed so many impurities it strengthen the power of the herbs increasing the ferocity of the reaction.

He was also trying to remove even more impurities while he was refining, this was continuously increasing the difficulty of Egor's task, however his eyes were filled with determination, even though his slender hands were shaking, he held on, he would not give up.

Bright maroon paste slowly combined with bright blue paste, creating the familiar purple substance. Egor sighed in relief, however this relief was gone in a moment as his cauldron began shaking, the paste was thrashing in the furnace like a bird shaking in a cage. The paste wanted to be let out, it wanted to explode.

The gases released by the pseudo-solid were circulating in the circular cauldron, it's heat transferring into the metal walls turning the dark metal and fiery orange.

The Titan's pale blue hands were slowly turning a reddish purple, steam was coming of the tips of his finger, the blood in his hands was evaporating!

The reaction that occurred in the cauldron was putting off so much heat, that it was boiling Egor's blood, even his innate fire resistance due to his fire affinity was useless. The heat was on the same level as a Floor 4 Transcendence cultivator.

The others in the arena also felt some of that heat but due to how away they were from the source they were not affected that much, however they still looked over in shock, they were certain Egor would fail this refining.

The reason why the reaction was so strong, was 1 due to how much Egor cleansed the herbs, 2 he further purified the herbs in the cauldron reducing his control in other areas and 3 due to how pure the herbs are, the power of the plants has been enhanced. Three sets of these enhanced herbs refined together have created this deadly reaction.

Egor's burly body was shaking in pain, however, he continued to refine the pills, his fingers were trembling as he once again swayed them in the air like a conductor, he ignored the agony he was feeling and played his sorrowful symphony.

His will unshakeable, his mind unbreakable and his drive unstoppable, Egor would never give up.

The Void's Owl guild members in the arena and in the stands looked worriedly at Egor, some of the weaker-hearted people began sobbing, after all the Titan was in horrible condition.

Locke gazed upon Egor and what he saw was shocking his, The titan had put in the Shedding Mortality fungus without stabilizing the reaction in his cauldron. As soon as the three brightly shining mushrooms hit the inside of the pot, a huge column of flame blasted into the sky.

By doing this Egor could use less aura as he did not need to add any more fire aura to the furnace, the titan quickly applied wood aura to his fingers slowly healing them.

(Wood aura is not as affective as life or healing aura when it come to recovering injuries.)

Egor's green eyes seemed to flash with insanity as he emitted huge amounts of gravity aura, compressing the column of fire into the cauldron. The fire became denser and denser, leaving a glowing sphere of energy, the ball was white hot and seemed to obliterate the air around it.

The wooden aura Egor was releasing could not heal his hands as fast as they were getting burned, the surroundings were so hot that it was burning the Titan's whole body, steam was gushing out of his pores as his blood boiled and burned.

The people in the stands were gasping in fright, why would you try so hard, why would you damage your body so much just to win?

The heat being released from the cauldron was now on par with a Floor 6 Transcendence cultivator.

The Titan's skin began to char and peel, allowing thick blood to slowly leak out, it was a hellish scene.

Locked looked back to his furnace, his pills were soon going to be ready, he felt quite confident that he was going to win as he believes that after what Egor done his pills will surely be obliterated.

He just sat there waiting for the pastes to fully combine, all he to do was be patient and he would win.

Back to Egor. The time is 15:55

The ball of fire began to slowly cool down, the white hot gradually turned a bright yellow, then a sun like orange, then a dark deep red. The metal on the cauldron had began flaking off and it was pretty much ruined beyond repair. Egor impatiently touched the furnace, ready to grab the pills inside and when he did the furnace completely fell apart into dust.

It seemed that there was no pills, it seemed that the refining failed and it seemed that Egor had lost.

"HAHAHAHAHA!" Locke burst out laughing.

He slowly removed the lid on his cauldron revealing 8 pristine pills with 33 - 19% impurities in them, these set of pills have much more impurities due to Locke refining more pills at once reducing his accuracy in removing impurities.

He gained 27 points brining his total to 44, he was currently in first.

Albert stepped forward with gusto, "What an exciting event, however, it seems that Locke Morgan has won!"

The titan was frantically search through the dust, he couldn't accept the lost, he couldn't believe his failure. His already injured fingers were roughly dragged across the stone floor as he dug through the rubble. His hands quickly latched onto one circular object but it was completely black.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Egor shouted, "I have a pill!"

Everyone looked towards Egor and once they saw the black sphere in his hands they sighed, it was clear that the other two pills were completely decimated and only this piece of charred trash survived.

Han Moxie spared no time and began laughing madly, tears pooled up at the corner of his eyes as he held his stomach while he broke into hysterics.

"You call this piece of shit a pill," he said, "I wouldn't be surprised if you shat that out your ass to make it seem like you didn't fail!"

The members of Brahma Valley began laughing together with their guild leader, causing the Void's Owl to stand up and condemn them. Awa looked worriedly at Egor, she saw his melancholic expression and felt distress for the titan.

Sami felt a pulse in his blood, he quickly used Nihility Eye, his eyes turned white and his pupils disappeared. When he focused on the pill in Egor's hand he was shocked.

He teleported into the centre of the arena, scaring the contestants and hastily grabbed the pill from the Titan's grasp. Sami peeled off the thick black tar of the pill revealing a heavenly emerald green pill.

It looked perfect. Every other pill in the arena paled in comparison with this beautiful pill.

The members of staff's heads swivelled to the object in Samael's hand after the black tar was removed they quickly sensed the uniqueness of that pill.

Albert flashed over in an instance and picked the pill out of Sami's grasp. He quickly sniffed the pill.

"No scent?" Albert said, "It can't be, this pill has no impurities it is a perfect pill!"

Everyone was shocked, the leaders of the freshmen guilds finally took a closer look at Egor, even if the titan was a genius they still never put him in their eyes, however now they had to take him seriously.

He refined a pill with no impurities, even though many alchemists can do this, they can normally only refine no impurity pills when that pill has a very low difficulty.

For example an Tribulation level Alchemist refining a Mortal level pill, it would be unsurprising for them to refine a perfect pill. Egor a Mortal realm Alchemist refined a perfect Peak Transcendence level pill.

(The level of an Alchemist will most of the time be equal to their cultivation.)

Albert teleported out of the colosseum taking the pill with him, it seemed that he was going to consult with a senior teacher about how many points to award Egor.

He soon came back, "Everyone it seems that the winner has changed."

When he said that Locke went pale, he glanced towards Marianne just to be greeted with coldness. Locke felt terrible, his legs buckled as he collapsed onto the floor in sadness.

"I have discussed with some senior members of the school and we have decided to award Mr. Vullvat with 50 points for his unprecedented achievement."

The sound of clapping resounded throughout the stadium, the members of The Void's Owl were screaming and shouting, they were ecstatic, they won again. The alchemists from the guild looked towards Egor in admiration, they had never done what he is done and they were all eager to ask him how he did it.

Sami looked towards the Titan with a reassuring smile on his face, "You won Egor, celebrate!"

Egor looked at the scenes around him and began tearing up, his tears falling on to his charred hands.

Awa and some other healers quickly moved to help the Titan. Samael also used a fusion between the Wood, Life and Healing elements to help Egor recover from his severe burns and exhaustion.

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Info of the day - The Ra Pyramids

The Ra Pyramids are one of the longest lasting human civilizations, they have existed for a ridiculous amount of time.

Similar to the Aztec Temples, the main gods they worship are The Fire, Life and Light deities. These two civilizations also use sacrifice to please said gods, however no one knows why they do this.

Pyramids are another thing both human settlements have used in their architecture the most famous pyramid is aptly from The Ra Pyramids and it is called Amun's Myr.

(Real world info: Amun and Ra used to be separate gods however were eventually merged as one. This god then received the name of Amun-Ra and is called the Supreme god by Egyptians. And Myr is apparently the ancient Egyptian word for pyramid.)

Their are rumours that in Amun's Myr there is a Eternal level beast, that is the pet of the sun deity. Many people have said they heard the cries of a bird during their stay there.

The Ra Pyramids used to be the strongest Human Civilization, however after numerous invasions from The Roman Empire they have fallen out of the top 4 and were replaced by Britannia.

Furthermore the territory of the Ra Pyramids have been afflicted by some sort of spell that has caused their land to become desert leading them to grow crops in artificial sky islands and secret realms.

The only benefit of this 'curse' was them being blessed by the water deity due to the pity they felt on them.

This blessing gave them the longest river in Verus, the Hapi River.

(The reason I'm saying deities is because I don't know what gender each god/goddess is yet.)

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Next Chapter: The Owl Codex