1231 Normal Pills
Ryu indifferently moved to his spot. He was skeptical about trusting the Heavenly Dew Pavilion in this matter, but if it came to it, he would just have to use his own ingredients. Although doing so would shave some time off his concoction period, it was better that than dealing with faulty ingredients. In fact, concocting with ingredients that were a bit immature would be far better than ones that were rotten or poisoned.
Ryu sat on a platform meant for alchemists. They were all spread out and the crowd could see each one of them clearly. Down below, the combatants of the combat stream were ready and waiting, but what was interesting was that no one seemed to know who would partner with who yet aside from some very obvious ones like pairs that happened to be soon-to-be Dao Companions.
This secrecy was likely to be part of the games.
While the alchemists sat upon pillar-like platforms that raised them into the skies, each one of them was assigned an attendant who would bring forward their list of requested Spiritual Herbs.
Ryu already knew that he had to be fast. If the Heavenly Dew Pavilion wanted to play tricks, he would have to make it as obvious as possible what was happening, and that would likewise require him moving quite quickly.
No one knew Ryu better than himself, so the moment he saw the track, he already knew what he wanted. With a flick of his wrist, a list was formed and it fluttered downward.
At the same time, Adlael reacted as well, their pair of lists hitting the palms of their attendants at the very same time.
The crowd ate up. If before they had superficially placed Ryu and Adlael on the same level just because of their looks, at this moment they were invested in what would happen. Seeing this, Ryu felt that the crowd was far less annoying than he had originally thought. If they were this invested in him, at least in the beginning, it would be far more difficult for the Heavenly Dew Pavilion to pull something.
In the end, Ryu had clearly overthought things. With how confident the Heavenly Dew Pavilion were of him falling flat on their face, why would they need to do anything extra? In addition, they didn't know what pills Ryu would choose ahead of time even if they had certain guesses due to the events lined up, so how could they prepare such ingredients ahead of time? For organizations of this caliber, even sometimes high quality Spiritual Herbs would be thrown out and used as fertilizer, let alone rotten ones.
Although the attendant gave Ryu's list a weird look, that was all. Not long later, at a speed similar to Adlael's attendant, the ingredients were brought back in a basket that gave off a refreshing scent.
Ryu sent a strand of qi forward that plucked the basket out of the attendant's hand. With his other hand, he brought out his Embryonic Cauldron. By this point, it was still only in the Heaven Grade, but despite this, the aura it gave off was full and expansive. At a single glance one could tell that it was no normal cauldron.
The moment the crowd saw Ryu's Embryonic Cauldron, their reactions were explosive. Any genius who dared to nurture their own cauldron was at an elite level, just this alone made them realize that Ryu was no normal alchemist. But the aura of Ryu's cauldron was even more important than that, it seemed to carry the vastness of the skies above and the sturdiness of the ground beneath their feet. Several Alchemy Sky Gods watching in the vicinity couldn't help but narrow their eyes.
They didn't know anything about Ryu's battle prowess, but just from this cauldron alone, they knew that his alchemy skills were serious.
The only oddity was that the Embryonic Cauldron was a bit weak. Logically, since Ryu had cultivated to the Peak Dao Pedestal Realm already, his alchemy furnace should have already had time to enter at least the Lower Mystical Grade.
Of course, what they didn't know was that Ryu had gone from just entering the Dao Pedestal Realm to the peak of it in less than two years. If only his active cultivation time was included, it was only a handful of months, barely three.
However, when they saw the ingredients that Ryu had picked, they doubted their judgment for a moment. If it wasn't for the fact that passing down a Heaven Grade Embryonic Cauldron to a new owner made no sense whatsoever, they would have doubted their judgment.
When Ryu's picks were compared to Adlael's, the difference was quite striking.
"The young Adlael is concocting a modified Boiling Blood Pill. His additions and reductions to the formula are all perfect. This is probably the number one pill choice for this event. The pill itself isn't a difficult one, but the modifications will be where the skill gap is truly shown," Elder Bartien commented, keeping the crowd enthralled.
The Boiling Blood Pill was on a Body Realm Pill, however it had certain side effects. It pushed the body to the limits by exciting the nerves and forcing the heart to pump faster and move larger volumes of blood. The side effects were numerous, but they weren't all bad. For example, one was a more alert mind.
As one might expert, amplifying the blood flow to the brain would make it easier to stay out of a hallucinogenic state and thus deal with the Pink Rose Fields. At the same time, the added temperature rush from the flowing blood would make dealing with the harsh cold of the Whispering Hallow Valley far easier. The final side effect of the pill was one where one's body temperature would plummet once the "boiling" period was over, thus making dealing with the Amber Caves far easier.
This sounded simple, but each one of these "side effects" needed to be timed perfectly to the speed of the combatant. At the same time, they needed to be mild enough that they wouldn't impede future performance, but strong enough that they could actually fight back against the environment.
This was why the specific modifications made to the pill were so important and also why it tested the realm of the alchemist.
In this situation, just concocting the most perfect Runed Pill was useless. In fact, sometimes, creating a pill of poorer quality would help an alchemist rather than harm their chances. After all, certain effects couldn't be too potent if one wanted to time them correctly.
All of this, though, only made Ryu's choice seem all the more odd.
He seemed to be concocting a normal... Soul Nourishing Pill? The Boiling Blood Pill wasn't exactly some super famous, high class pill, it was about on the same level as any normal Soul Nourishing Pill. But the trouble was that a Soul Nourishing Pill would be hard pressed to help even with the Pink Rose Fields, what use did it even have for the others...?
