Chapter 813: Golden List Reappears, Bountiful Harvest

A grand session was underway at the highly anticipated venue.

The judges’ panel, however, was in utter chaos, filled with the sound of arguments.

“Full marks! It must be full marks!”

“No, it can’t be full marks. No one has ever achieved full marks in the second round of the Alchemy Grand Competition.”

“But according to the rules, based on the three judging criteria—high grade, high quality, and minimal time consumption—Young Master Xu refined the highest-grade, sixth-grade elixir on the field, with supreme quality, and he took the least amount of time… I mean, his single alchemy process took the least time.”

“At most, he deserves ninety points.”

“No, you’ve forgotten the ten bonus points for the additional item. He submitted all the variations of the other elixirs, all inscribed in the jade slip. The elixir formula is also standard; even if some details need verification, he provided too much—thirteen variations more than we asked for… It must be full marks.”

“If you calculate it that way, why is the total time consumed for two alchemy processes calculated for others, but for Young Master Xu, it becomes the time for a single alchemy process? You should know he was the last one to complete his elixir and submit his work!”

“Can that even be compared?”

“What’s there that can’t be compared?”

“You old geezer, say that again, I dare you!”

“Just try me!”

A struggle ensued.

A group of old men on the judges’ panel argued so fiercely they nearly came to blows.

Undoubtedly, Young Master Xu securing the top spot in the second round was certain. However, there was disagreement over the standard for full marks.

One faction argued that Young Master Xu’s overall alchemy time was the longest.

Another faction argued that Young Master Xu’s single alchemy process took the shortest time.

Dong Ling listened from the side, her head spinning. In her opinion, the answers Young Master Xu provided were almost indisputable. So, after listening for a while, she interrupted forcefully.

“Everyone, consider this: in all five domains of the continent, where could a genius like Young Master Xu emerge?”

The crowd was stumped by the question.

Lu Chenghui, the leader of the opposition to full marks, turned his head away. “Just because you and I haven’t seen one doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

The old guild masters behind him shouted in agreement.

“Exactly! Exactly!”

“The major powers, with all their efforts in nurturing talents, surely have a few like him, right?”

“The Holy Palace alone has plenty!”

President Shi Ti, the representative of the 'approve full marks' faction, scoffed. “You mentioned the Holy Palace, but the Holy Palace is the Holy Palace. The person standing before you isn't some old geezer with one foot in the grave; he's a young man, and what he did today is truly astonishing!”

“Watch your words,” Dong Ling reminded him in a low voice.

Shi Ti was clearly angered and angrily flicked his sleeve, saying no more.

Everyone fell silent.

Young Master Xu was indeed too formidable. The answers he submitted were too perfect, so perfect it made people wonder if he had been possessed by a powerful being; otherwise, how could a mere kid possess such seasoned experience? Yet, looking at him now on the field, lecturing a group of contestants his own age with the air of a self-appointed mentor, he seemed exactly like a normal young man. Achieving a bit of success, he couldn’t stay low-key and couldn’t help but want to show off.

“What kind of person is he…?” Dong Ling sighed inwardly, no longer letting the guild masters deliberate. She exercised her rarely used power to make a final decision.

“There’s no need to discuss this further. Leave it to me. Just take your seats. If any Holy Palace inspectors investigate score manipulation later, I can handle it.”

As she spoke, she looked towards Hua Ying on the viewing platform.

This young lady, she was from the Holy Palace!

The session continued for a while, then was mercilessly interrupted.

Someone in the audience gasped.

“The Gold Board has refreshed!”

Immediately, the contestants on the field rose, not even listening to the session, and rushed to the Gold Board. Ultimately, in this Alchemy Grand Competition, scores were the most important thing.

Xu Xiaoshou finished his dazzling lecture, feeling parched. He took the teacup handed to him by Xiao Wanfeng and walked towards the Gold Board.

The scoring Gold Board had updated.

“One, Xu Deyu, 100 points.”

“Two, Zhu Yan, 69 points.”

“Three, Yu Chuchu, 67 points.”

Only reading the top three, some realized something was wrong and began to gasp.

“Oh heavens, Young Master Xu at the top with full marks, and the others, the highest score isn’t even seventy points?”

“This is too difficult. I’ve long heard that the second round of the Alchemy Grand Competition is ‘hell mode.’ Seeing it today, it’s certainly true.”

“Even a sixth-grade Alchemy Grandmaster couldn’t score above seventy points. Aren’t the assessment standards too strict?”

“So the question is, how could Young Master Xu achieve such an exaggerated… full score? Does he have an inside connection?”

The audience fell silent as they looked.

It must be said, when the first round’s Gold Board appeared, the gap between the top spot and second place wasn’t large—a “100” and a “97”—making everyone feel the difference wasn't significant. At least there might have been an element of luck, allowing Young Master Xu to emerge as a dark horse and overtake Yu Chuchu, the hot favorite to win the championship.

But now, no one would think that!

Full marks in the second round too… Young Master Xu maintained his score, while others’ highest was merely “69.”

How absurd was this?

“It turns out Young Master Xu scored a hundred because the maximum score was a hundred, while Miss Yu’s ninety-seven in the first round was just due to luck.”

Such comments began to emerge.

Yu Chuchu blushed with shame. Her score in this second round was even lower than Zhu Yan’s; she only managed third place. But that wasn’t the point. It would have been fine if everyone had low scores, but there was a freak with full marks hanging at the top of the board.

How embarrassing for others!

A group of alchemy talents looked back with complex expressions, wanting to see Young Master Xu’s reaction to his own score.

As they turned around, they saw Young Master Xu on a tall, high-backed chair in the distance, legs crossed, eyes closed, resting. “Wanfeng, what’s my score?”

Having followed Young Master Xu for so long, how could Xiao Wanfeng not know what he should do at this moment? He obsequiously offered a cup of tea and exclaimed loudly, “Young Master Xu got full marks!”

Young Master Xu, still with closed eyes, frowned, then stood up and turned to leave, not even glancing at the Gold Board. “Full marks is full marks, what’s the big deal? Why shout so loudly?”

Xiao Wanfeng rolled his eyes repeatedly behind him, yet forced a helpless smile on his face. “Young Master Xu is right. Full marks is something anyone with hands can do, isn’t it? If one can’t even get full marks, then it must be a human problem.”

“Anyone with hands can do it…”

“A human problem…”

The alchemy talents behind him felt as if something had pierced them, and they felt a pang in their chests.

Yu Chuchu’s eyelid twitched wildly. She felt she couldn’t let Xiao Wanfeng continue to follow Young Master Xu, or the boy would be corrupted sooner or later.

But…

“But if things continue this way, I’ll become his alchemy apprentice! What energy would I have left to worry about Wanfeng?” Yu Chuchu bit her lower lip, her face full of bitterness.

A Gold Board meant for a hundred people displayed only thirteen names in total.

“Thirteen, Long Mei, 42 points.”

Below that line, the board was empty, as if mocking the contestants on the field. The contestants on the field quickly left with dejected faces. The Gold Board listing up to the thirteenth place indicated that it wasn’t just the top ten who advanced from the second round that would be displayed, but rather anyone with a score. In other words, in the second round of assessment, out of a hundred contestants, eighty-seven failed to refine anything by the end of the assessment time. Some couldn’t even devise a final solution and just stood there blankly for an hour.

What a blow that was! East Heaven King City knew that alchemy geniuses from all five domains had come this time. But as soon as the test questions became difficult, the elimination rate remained absurdly high. This also meant that a score of “42 points” for thirteenth place was not weak at all; anyone who could make it onto the board with that score was already the cream of the crop in the alchemy world.

Of course, if calculating that way, one absolutely could not include Young Master Xu, who topped the board with full marks. Otherwise…

There was no otherwise! Because between the two, there was simply no comparison!

The commotion after the appearance of the scoring Gold Board lasted for quite a while before it finally subsided slightly.

“It’s too outrageous.”

Not just the audience, but even the alchemists who had failed to make the list couldn’t help but be amazed as they looked at the top of the Gold Board, shaking their heads in awe and sighing. As fellow alchemists, they understood the immense difficulty of the second-round assessment, and thus realized even more what it meant for Young Master Xu to secure full marks again in this round.

On the viewing platform, Hua Ying sat amidst the crowd. In a place filled with faction leaders (middle-aged men) and guardian elders (elderly men), a young girl sitting there truly stood out. During the Alchemy Grand Competition, many came to greet her, trying to get acquainted with this young lady who had appeared at the Spirit Nexus Trading Fair but whose identity was unknown. However, without exception, she politely refused to interact with them. She had only been invited by Dong Ling to attend as a spectator and had no expectations for the alchemists on the field. This was, of course, not because her masters, grandmasters, and great grandmasters were poor teachers, but simply because Hua Ying’s skill tree was entirely invested in the explosion arts of the Burning Radiance lineage, with not a single point left for alchemy.

However, despite her lack of alchemy skill, Hua Ying was knowledgeable.

“His last stance for concocting elixirs, why does it look so familiar?”

On the viewing platform, the young lady watched Young Master Xu leave the Gold Board and then start wandering around the venue. She was still pondering the opponent’s final concoction method, which strongly resembled the ‘Burning Radiance Elixir Concoction Art’. It could be said that this was the only alchemy technique Xu Xiaoshou had displayed so far: concocting elixirs. Before this, no one could see exactly who Young Master Xu’s alchemy techniques were inherited from. What could an ordinary observer discern?

Hua Ying frowned. She couldn't help but think again of Zhou Tiancan’s defiant words at the Spirit Nexus Trading Fair that day. Touching her chest, she still had a letter in her bosom waiting for Elder Xu to sign for, which she hadn't delivered yet. Hua Ying naturally remembered Master Bai Lian’s instructions. To find someone as famous as Elder Xu in East Heaven King City—honestly, someone who knows alchemy, has strong cultivation, and can casually cause explosions…

“Holy Servant Xu Xiaoshou, Xu Deyu from the First Floor in the Heavens…” Unconsciously, these two images in Hua Ying’s mind gradually overlapped, then coalesced into an Elder Xu who was eighty percent similar to her previous conjecture.

“No way?”

A girl who wasn’t very clever and was easily influenced by others’ words was actually more inclined to trust her sixth sense, even if the feeling was inexplicable and had no logical basis for verification. But she just believed it! Or rather, apart from rational women like Lan Ling and Rao Yaoyao, most women felt their sixth sense was accurate. Hua Ying felt the same way at that moment. She felt that if she had to figure it out on her own, she might not find Elder Xu even by next year. But now that someone so similar had appeared, it would be outrageous if she didn’t ask him directly after the Alchemy Grand Competition.

“Elder Xu couldn’t possibly refuse his little niece, Hua Ying, could he?” she thought. But suddenly, she shivered as she remembered something. “I just beat up Zhou Tiancan, and then I’m going to find Young Master Xu. If I get a positive answer, wouldn’t that mean Zhou Tiancan was right?” For a moment, Hua Ying scratched her ear, feeling a bit confused. The capacity of her small mind wasn’t enough to comprehend why Elder Xu had two identities and what he was trying to achieve. But this didn’t stop her from making such a determination after witnessing the ninety percent similar Burning Radiance Elixir Concoction Art.

“Once the competition ends, I’ll go have another face-to-face talk with Young Master Xu!”

“Regardless, even if he isn't Elder Xu, just for his talent, I’ll lure him to the Holy Palace and show Xiao Bai my prowess!”

“Passive Points: 964,722.”

On the other side, Xu Xiaoshou was startled by his Passive Points inventory when he checked his information panel.

Over nine hundred thousand!

He was almost reaching the million-point target!

He knew that in a short period, it was impossible for people to continuously generate too much emotional output towards a single person, even if that person did something truly extraordinary. With constant climaxes, anyone would become numb the more they watched. After the first round, the Passive Points he received from the audience were already substantial. The fact that he could still gain around five hundred thousand Passive Points after this second round only proved that the shock he delivered to the audience during this period far exceeded his own expectations.

“Being a crowd-pleaser is exhausting too…”

After two rounds of competition, Xu Xiaoshou had desperately stirred up trouble, mainly to gain some extra benefits. By this point, he was running on empty. The audience was the same group. If he wanted to intensely accumulate Passive Points in the next round, he would have to do something that far surpassed his actions in the previous two rounds. But Xu Xiaoshou wasn’t a god!

“I have nothing left…”

For the third round, Xu Xiaoshou felt he would just do his best. A million was a small goal. Reaching it today was inevitable. Xu Xiaoshou didn't care how much more he got; he decided to enjoy the competition.

On the judges’ panel, Guild Master Dong Ling, after giving the contestants ample time to rest, began to speak loudly:

“First, congratulations to the contestants who made it onto the Gold Board in the second round. The top ten will advance to the final.”

“Additionally, I believe everyone has gained a clear understanding of their own strength through this competition.”

“This Association won’t say anything like ‘if you work hard, everyone can claim the top spot’ anymore. For this final qualifying round, just do your best, because at this point, you have all already secured qualifications for the Royal City Trials!”

The contestants looked at each other.

Indeed!

Do your best, leave the rest to fate. If a true prodigy is above you, you might think you can surpass them if you try hard. But when they realized this wasn’t just a top student, but an insurmountable force, they no longer had the mindset to try and fight a losing battle.

“Let’s give it a shot, maybe aim for second place…”

Xu Xiaoshou found it amusing to listen from below. He suddenly realized that, without knowing it, his small goal of securing a spot in the Royal City Trials had already been achieved. The only thing left to compete for, it seemed, was the prize for the top spot—the Small Clear Flower of Pinghu.

“A minor Heavenly Flame?”

It must be said, Xu Xiaoshou still coveted this item. Even though he possessed the Burning Radiance White Flame, objects from the Burning Radiance lineage were too distinctive. Besides, wasn’t it true that the more treasures, the better? If he could obtain the Small Clear Flower of Pinghu, use this opportunity to eventually acquire the Clear Flower of Pinghu from the City of Living Pagodas, and then combine this supreme Heavenly Flame born from the Sky Tree with the Burning Radiance White Flame to improve his Five-Finger Imprint Seed Art…

“What kind of power would that entail?” Xu Xiaoshou’s heart pounded with excitement.