The entire crowd became silent. They followed Long Chen’s gaze to see Huo Changsheng, whose face was still locked in a stiff sneer.

Everyone was dumbfounded. This Long San was a bit too crazy, wasn’t he? He actually dared provoke the Huo family’s head. Did he not want his life anymore?

Even Fang Mingyuan and Chai Gaoyang were stunned. But then seeing Huo Changsheng’s dark expression, they felt incredibly refreshed.

At the same time, they admired this little fellow’s devotion. He had clearly insulted Huo Changsheng to express his position. This was equivalent to throwing his life in the ring as well. If he wanted to live, he would have to rely on the Fang family’s protection. This was a brilliant move by Long Chen that immediately won him the trust of the Fang family.

“Brat, you want to die?!” Killing intent surged out of Huo Changsheng. When would he have ever suffered such an insult?

“It’s forbidden to scream and shout in the arena.”

“But he’s intentionally trying to disturb me! That’s not fair!” cried Long Chen.

“Those who participate in this competition must comply with the Pill Tower’s rules. As long as the people outside don’t curse and shout at you, anything is permitted. If you don’t even have that level of calm, how do you expect to become a powerful alchemist? You are Long San? Since you come from an uncivilized land and don’t understand the rules, I’ll only give you a warning this time. Next time, I’ll immediately expel you,” said the tower administrator.

Fang Chang and Chai Liehuo’s hands were already covered in a layer of cold sweat. Only once they saw that the tower administrator wouldn’t expel him did they relax.

But the fact that Long Chen dared to brazenly insult Huo Changsheng like this made them admire Long San’s guts, as well as his loyalty toward the Fang family.

Long Chen laughed inside. This was what he had expected. The tower administrator was merely in charge of proctoring the competition. He didn’t care about anything else, nor did he have to give face to anyone. As a result, a minor infraction on his part only constituted a warning despite what he had done.

Although that had been a bit dangerous, this one insult had won him the Fang and Chai families’ absolute trust. So that gamble had definitely been worth it.

I can’t shout? Alright!

Suddenly, in front of everyone, Long Chen raised his fist toward Huo Changsheng. There was one tall middle finger raised.

“Hahaha…”

Despite being their family heads and having prestigious statuses, Fang Mingyuan and Chai Gaoyang couldn’t help but laugh.

Huo Changsheng’s hair stood on end from fury, killing intent gushing out of him. But he didn’t dare say anything. If he said anything directly to Long San, he would be rebuked by the tower administrator, and that would be even more embarrassing.

Even in Pill Valley, the staff that was in charge of the various lands’ competitions were powerful members. Even the Huo family was unable to do anything to them. The tower administrator was completely impartial.

So despite the fact that the Huo family was unrivaled in the Pill Tower and even had connections in Pill Valley, he didn’t dare offend this tower administrator whose cultivation base was even lower than his own. He could only swallow his anger.

But Fang Mingyuan and Chai Gaoyang’s laughter was even harder to bear than Long Chen’s insulting posture.

“A little person will only enjoy success for a moment. We’ll see who gets the last laugh,” said Huo Changsheng icily.

But the other two didn’t reply. They simply smiled. That wordless counterattack made him even more furious.

“This is what is being tested.”

The tower administrator waved his hand, and Long Chen saw a large block of words appear on his stage. It was a pill formula.

“Blood Soul Merging Pill.”

Long Chen was slightly startled. This was a rather neglected kind of medicinal pill. It was normally used by soul cultivators to nourish their blood and calm their soul. It was a high tier kind of soul nourishing pill.

Amongst fifth tier pills, its refining difficulty was middling. Fang Chang had told him that the preliminaries in past years had tested low fifth tier pills.

Thinking of that, Long Chen intentionally made his expression a bit ugly, a trace of panic appearing in his eyes.

“Eh, what’s with Long San? That Blood Soul Merging Pill shouldn’t be too difficult for him,” said Chai Gaoyang.

“Perhaps there really is a problem. According to Fang Chang, this Long San grew up in some backwater mountains. There are many high tier pill formulas that he has only seen, but hasn’t personally refined. Fang Chang gave him many pill formulas and medicinal pills to practice, but those were all low fifth tier pills that are easy to refine. It seems Long San hasn’t refined this kind of pill, and there are very likely a few ingredients that he doesn’t recognize,” said Fang Mingyuan gravely.

As an alchemist, if you wanted to refine a kind of pill, the first thing you needed was the formula. But then you also needed to know all the properties of the medicinal ingredients. You needed to know which ones you should refine first, and in what order you should refine them.

If there was a problem with your sequence, then it would be troublesome. Furthermore, each medicinal ingredient’s properties were different, and they required different levels of heat to refine. If you didn’t know those things, you would be like a blind person groping in the dark.

“Ah, inexperienced people really aren’t so dependable. That child, Fang Chang, is still lacking,” sighed Fang Mingyuan.

If Fang Chang knew that Long San had such flaws, he should have alerted the family. They would have sent people to help him. Now it was troublesome.

On their stage, Fang Chang and Chai Liehuo also saw Long San’s expression, and they immediately understood what was happening. They couldn’t help feeling worried.

But being worried now didn’t have any use. This was not the opening round. They couldn’t talk, and so they could only hope for Long San to be lucky.

The tower administrator icily shouted, “The content of this test is the Blood Soul Merging Pill. Each person has three sets of medicinal ingredients, and you have six hours to refine it. As long as you can refine a three-ring Blood Soul Merging Pill, you’ll pass. Those who aren’t able to achieve that will be directly eliminated. Time starts now!”

All the participants hastily began to warm up their furnaces and refining pills. The Blood Soul Merging Pill was not a small challenge.

There was a high chance of failure when refining this pill. Furthermore, there were countless spectators and even alchemy seniors watching. That gave them a great deal of pressure.

It was lucky that they had already practiced refining here during the preliminaries. Otherwise, the odds of failure would have been even higher.

In truth, this Blood Soul Merging Pill was nothing to Long Chen. But he had to act. He carefully examined several medicinal ingredients as if he had never seen them, trying to appraise their properties.

Then he began to refine them into powders one by one. Furthermore, he had to act as if he wasn’t very familiar with this process. That was a bit difficult on him.

But he was quite the professional. Each detail, each mistake he made, played out an extremely meticulous scene, enough to prove he was a novice.

“Hahaha, this Long San is the genius you pulled over? Hahaha…” Now it was Huo Changsheng’s turn to sneer. Long San didn’t even recognize some of the main ingredients in the Blood Soul Merging Pill. He was a complete amateur who didn’t possess any foundation in alchemy.

Just as Long Chen was hastily refining the ingredients, the faster ones had already sealed their cauldrons.

BANG! Suddenly, one of the alchemists became vexed. A slight error had caused the contents of his pill furnace to turn to ashes.

He hastily calmed himself and began to refine anew. This kind of mistake shouldn’t have occurred, but he was too used to refining in a private room. Now that it had changed to this chaotic environment, it was difficult for him to completely focus.

BANG!

As expected, following the first person’s failure, two people immediately followed. If it wasn’t that their Pill Flame had spiked in temperature, it was that their Spiritual Strength had faded for a moment, causing the pill to congeal.

Pill congealment referred to when the medicinal ingredients had been refined into liquid, but a sudden weakening in the flame caused them to congeal before it was the right time. The liquid would freeze, and then there was no way to continue refining it.

Before the pill condensed, all the ingredients’ essence had to be maintained in liquid form. Only at the final pill condensement would you increase the flame and the amount of Spiritual Strength, forcing out the moisture to condense it into a pill.

BOOM!

Suddenly, a dense medicinal fragrance filled the arena.

“Heavens, it’s Huo Wufang! He already condensed the pill!”

Startled cries came from the spectators. It was forbidden to talk within the arena, but that wasn’t referring to them. They all hastily looked towards Huo Wufang’s furnace.

Huo Wufang pridefully opened his furnace lid. Nine pills shone with a brilliant light.

“There’s a six-ring pill! As expected of Huo Wufang! He’s the top alchemy genius of the Huo family in the past thousand years!”

The Blood Soul Merging Pill was already hard enough to refine. When adding in this noisy environment, refining it so quickly was truly admirable.

It had only been an hour. One reason he could do it so quickly was because of his beast flame. After all, it was the Earth Dragon Golden Blaze, ranked first on the beast flame rankings.

The other reason was that Huo Wufang’s alchemy arts and mental quality were truly excellent.

Huo Changsheng looked at Huo Wufang with pride. Paying a huge price to save him had been entirely worth it.

Suddenly, another light shone. A flame appeared in Long Chen’s furnace. But this caused everyone to be stunned.

“This idiot. He’s actually merging the Smoke Grass with the Fire Dragon Root first. Does he even know alchemy?” Insults rang out. These two powders couldn’t be directly merged.

Long Chen failed several times before stopping. He just watched others refine.

“Good, he’s getting smarter.” Fang Mingyuan smiled.

Rather than groping around on his own, it was better to watch other people’s refining process. The pill formula that everyone had been given was just a general outline. It didn’t go into detail, and if you didn’t understand the medicinal properties, there was no way for you to refine it.

“Hmph, getting smart now is too late. There’s only an hour left.” sneered Huo Changsheng.

Only then did Chai Gaoyang look at the hourglass. There was not much sand remaining.

Long Chen looked at the hourglass and felt that it was about time. He began to throw in powders into his furnace.

“Even at this time, he still wants to show off?!”