Competition (5)

The foundational questions were then followed by questions concerning low-ranked grade 1 pill. This would then be followed by refining the pills before increasing the rank or grade. This pattern would be used throughout the competition.

It was easier and more efficient to first weed out those who didn't even have the theoretical knowledge before letting them refine the pills.

Simulating pill refining cost much more than just asking some questions. And since the formation would consume massive amounts of energy it was much cheaper to reduce the simulation of pills to the minimum.

With the theoretical knowledge drilled into his brain by his master, Ivan didn't have any problem answering the questions concerning grade 1 pills.

Questions such as, what ingredients the Lesser Healing Pill required or which step during refining was especially important for the Lesser Bloodreplenishing Pill. Even more difficult questions such as the possible side effects of the Lesser Absorption Pill were answered effortlessly by him.

Following this section was the practical part. Something where his method was highly different from those other participants.

Just about every participant was a cultivator with the cultivation of Foundation Building or above. This level of cultivation was required for them to use their Qi outside by infusing it into a pill furnace. With lower cultivation, it was impossible to exert one's Qi outside of the body, making pill refining for them impossible.

But Ivan and all the other low cultivation pill refiners from his home realm worked differently. They didn't use Qi for pill refining but instead used the mana produced by their mana source.

Both forms of energy were capable of controlling the medical ingredients and refining them. They also could facilitate the pill condensing and providing the necessary energy to make it a success. In the end, they were both energy and that was what the process of pill refining required.

But while both could be used, technically it was better to use mana. In the end, it was something generated by oneself and thus provided a much better capability of control, while Qi was, in the end, something that had been absorbed from the outside before it had been made into something under control.

Of course, it was also much easier to increase Qi which meant that mana would become exceedingly unimportant the higher the cultivation. Especially since with higher cultivation, there generally was also an increase in the ability to finely control Qi.

But during the early stages, using mana provided a huge advantage to Ivan over the other normal cultivators. Using his finely controlled mana together with the technique taught by his master, allowed him to speedily refine the grade 1 pills.

The points from the practical section of the competition were calculated according to the purity of the pill as well as the speed at which it had been refined. This allowed Ivan to collect a lot of points during this section since he was able to refine faster and more precise than his counterparts.

It was only when it came to refining pills of the second grade when he started to have trouble. The theoretical part was still easy but the practical refining part brought him to his limit. He just didn't have enough mana.

Between refining, the formation would simulate a refill of all kinds of energy, allowing the participant to start the refining at the best possible state. This was done to ensure fairness. But something that couldn't be done was to keep this status during pill refining. It would have messed up the process of refining too much.

And this meant that the energy could run out during the process of refining a pill

Now with the second-grade pills, this flaw was shown with Ivan. He just didn't have enough mana to finish the forming of the pill. During the forming stage, a pill would absorb a large amount of energy in order to stabilize its structure. Even a slight imbalance of energy could completely mess up the structure, leading to failure.

By finely controlling his mana and applying it in the most optimal way, Ivan was capable of reducing wastage during this process but if the minimal energy required for the pill to form was above that he had available, then even without wasting anything, he would still be unable to finish the formation of the pill.

And that was exactly what happened to him with the second pill he had to refine. He was just unable to supply the necessary energy, meaning he could only give up.

He still tried three times, which was the maximum number of failures allowed, showing that he hadn't failed before. But even with trying out every trick he knew, he was unable to form the pill. It could be said that he had reached a part of the competition, that was above what he should have been capable of. Now he had been removed because his cultivation just couldn't support his skill anymore.

"I really have to improve myself.", he sighed. Of course, that was currently impossible but this situation still served as a powerful motivational factor for his future will of improvement.

After failing his third attempt, the simulated room vanished and he found himself in a room filled with screens instead. Until the end of the virtual part of the competition, the participants would be unable to leave this room, but they would be able to watch the other participants.

He checked out this guy that had made the bet with him and found out that he too had stopped participating. But since the points would only be announced at the end, he couldn't be sure if he won or not.

The competition continued on and while watching those still in the race, Ivan was able to learn a lot. Especially since their method of pill refining was so different than his.

Although the basics of pill refining were all the same in the end, consisting of freeing the medical properties, merging them, and finally forming the pill, the method with which this was done could differ extremely.

He hadn't learned about refining pills with Qi and a furnace before, so all these methods were completely new to him. It seemed like there were many different techniques, all of which had different methods of archiving the same goal. And all of them were impossible to understand from just watching. If one didn't know the method of controlling the Qi one would be completely unable to imitate them.

But that didn't mean that it was impossible to learn anything from it. The timing of adding herbs to the furnace, the temperature of the furnace, and many other things could still allow one to learn a lot about pill refining as well as the herbs used.

So Ivan and many other participants who had already lost were now watching the ones left continue refining pills.

Ivan especially focused on his master Miss. Klein as well as Serene. Both of them showcased a strong skill in pill refining. Ivan wasn't skilled enough to see where they both made their minuscule mistakes but the formation was and as such the points they gained weren't the maximum. Still, they both were close to it. Sometimes it was Miss. Klein who was better and sometimes it was Serene.

It was only when the difficulty reached the fifth grade that there was a change. From then on, Miss. Klein's pill consistently got more points. But it still started to go down from the upper limit of available points, with the pill quality constantly worsening and the time needed for refining increasing.

It seemed like this was the limit for both of them, with Serene approaching hers faster than his master. It also showed that his master was just slightly better.

Besides those two there were still many participants left. In fact, there were still more than a thousand left, with some constantly dropping out. With each new pill, at least one would fail and be removed from the race to the top one hundred.

It was at the second of the sixth-ranked pills that only the top one hundred were left. Everyone else had failed in the first one, which seemed to be some kind of barrier. Both Serene and Miss. Klein had barely managed to get enough points for the first sixth-ranked pill. In fact, Serene had only gotten one point more than required while Miss. Klein still had ten more points.

It seemed like this was about how far they could make it. But reaching the top one hundred was still a good result for both of them. Last time neither of them had managed this, getting stuck in the top five hundred instead.

And then at the third sixth-grade pill, both of them failed, leaving behind only slightly more than fifty contestants. All of them were old and experienced pill refiners, with the exception of only one man and woman, who both were much younger. In fact, they didn't seem much older than either Miss. Klein nor Serene.