The Path of Immortality: Starts With Creating Water Bear Gu-Chapter 378: Second Round of Rules

Feng Tiancheng was utterly stunned. Innocent? What nonsense! That national advisor was downright insidious, capable of devising the most underhanded schemes imaginable.

At this moment, Feng Tiancheng was genuinely startled by the grand strategy laid out by the national advisor. No wonder the advisor had the audacity to gamble half of the clan’s fortune against the Long clan.

If this plan succeeded, it could deal a devastating blow to the Long clan. Once the Long clan's alliance lost half of their fortune, it would be easy for the Feng clan to destroy them in one swift strike.

Although this plan carried certain risks, the potential rewards were enormous. Feng Tiancheng couldn’t deny that he was tempted.

Taking a deep breath, Feng Tiancheng was about to say something when a deafening roar suddenly erupted from behind him.

Startled, he turned around quickly.

At the same time, similar explosions echoed throughout the city. The ground trembled as flames engulfed the surroundings. Shouts and screams came from all directions, creating a scene of chaos outside.

The mirror in front of him also reflected movement from the other side. Explosions reverberated so loudly that they could even be heard clearly in the imperial palace. The sounds of destruction from both sides transmitted through the mirror, merging into one cacophony.

Someone knocked on the door urgently. Soon, a panicked voice shouted, “Your Majesty, we have a major crisis!”

“Countless fireballs suddenly fell from the sky, destroying all the teleportation formation in Pheonix Heaven City.”

“The fireballs are heading toward nearby cities as well. Such long-range attacks must have been launched by an incredibly powerful expert. It’s terrifying.”

The old man in the phoenix robe narrowed his eyes, his fingers tapping rhythmically on the table. He muttered to himself, “Could it be him? A long-range fireball attack like this could only be his doing.”

“Is he trying to destroy all the teleportation formation in nearby cities to prevent reinforcements from the Gu Emperor City?”

“But this world-renowned alchemy competition has already attracted countless Gu Kings. The number of Gu Kings in Pheonix Heaven City alone is overwhelming!” 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

Meanwhile, in a nearby inn, Long Xuan also heard the deafening explosions outside. His pupils contracted sharply.

“This is the power of Heavenly Fire! One of the participants in this alchemy competition possesses Heavenly Fire.”

Long Xuan’s expression turned grim as he glanced toward the door. The pressure he felt mounted significantly.

There was no need to overthink. Anyone capable of wielding Heavenly Fire was undoubtedly a formidable individual.

Previously, Long Xuan had debated whether to reveal his own Heavenly Fire during the finals. Now, it was clear that keeping it hidden was no longer an option.

When Heavenly Fire is unleashed, all other flames bow in submission. Without revealing it, he wouldn’t even be able to refine pills during the finals.

Taking a deep breath, Long Xuan chose to ignore the chaos outside and focused entirely on refining the Heavenly Gold.

The materials required for refining Heavenly Gold had already been collected by his clones. Now, he needed to make the most of his time to refine the Heavenly Gold, as the alchemy furnace would be essential for the next stage of the competition.

Half a month passed in the blink of an eye. During this time, many significant events occurred, and the news spread rapidly.

Long Xuan stayed informed about the outside world, paying close attention to any developments. His various clones would occasionally return with filtered intelligence, presenting the most relevant information to him.

Of all the news, the most concerning involved contestants who posed a threat to him.

Over the past two weeks, the elimination rounds continued. Numerous alchemical geniuses with extraordinarily high scores emerged, shocking the entire city.

Each of the Ten Great Empires boasted one genius who scored 97 points. However, since the system did not use decimals, the scores were not entirely precise.

After calculating with decimals, Long Xuan concluded that three individuals—Long Yuyao, Feng Shuang, and Ninth Prince Wang Wu, who had appeared at the trade fair—had slightly higher scores. These three warranted his attention.

While these three contestants merely required vigilance, two others made Long Xuan feel like he was facing true adversaries.

One was Feng Jiu, and the other was Qin Dan. Both had achieved perfect scores, just like Long Xuan himself.

This indicated that their alchemical skills were on par with, if not superior to, his own. Furthermore, it was entirely possible that they also possessed Heavenly Fire.

The presence of these two individuals put Long Xuan on edge. One of them, bearing the surname Feng, was a particularly troubling presence from the Feng clan, which already had a reputation for producing top-tier alchemists.

On this particular day, on the main island, Long Xuan retrieved the Sunset Divine Flame. A silver alchemy furnace hovered quietly in mid-air. The furnace gleamed with a silvery sheen, its body adorned with carvings of ferocious dragons, their forms seemingly alive with flowing light.

This was the alchemy furnace he had just crafted, primarily made of Heavenly Gold. The Heavenly Gold Alchemy Furnace had taken him over ten days to complete.

This Heavenly Gold Alchemy Furnace was extraordinary, as it was an improved version of the Devouring Demon Cauldron.

The characteristic of the Devouring Demon Cauldron was that its size could be freely adjusted, though its volume had limits. It would stop expanding after reaching a certain size and stop shrinking when it became too small.

He modified the cauldron’s inscriptions, reducing their scale by a hundredfold. This allowed the furnace to accommodate hundreds of times more inscriptions on its surface. By using Heavenly Gold, a superior material, the Heavenly Gold Alchemy Furnace could expand to a size a hundred times greater than that of the Devouring Demon Cauldron.

It was no exaggeration to say that if he maximized the size of the Heavenly Gold Alchemy Furnace, it would be too large to fit within the competition grounds of Phoenix Heaven City.

Similarly, since he could develop a furnace with adjustable size, he believed he could also create a similarly scalable Sea-Stabilizing Needle.

However, he had no plans to research the Sea-Stabilizing Needle during the Alchemy Competition.

Gazing at the beautiful silver alchemy furnace floating in the air, Long Xuan revealed a satisfied smile. He shrank the furnace and stored it away before slowly walking out.

Today happened to be the day of the second elimination round. Fortunately, he had just managed to complete the Heavenly Gold Alchemy Furnace before the competition began.

With this Heavenly Gold Alchemy Furnace, his chances of victory in the competition would significantly increase.

The first elimination round had already disqualified 90% of the contestants, leaving only a few participants who would compete in the central plaza of Phoenix Heaven City for the second round.

The central plaza was vast and open, with no obstructions, allowing countless Gu cultivators to spectate.

The rules for this second round were quite interesting, consisting of only two words: “show off.”

All contestants would refine pills together in the central plaza, but they had only one chance to refine. Each could choose the type of pill they wanted to make. However, in this round, every alchemist needed to showcase their skills. The greater the difficulty of their alchemy, the higher their score.

Other criteria, such as the practicality of the pills or the speed of refinement, were not part of the evaluation. Difficulty was the sole standard for scoring.

This placed significant pressure on each contestant’s courage.

Refining more challenging pills would yield higher scores, but the risk of failure also increased.

The question was whether to play it safe with a moderately difficult recipe or take the risk of attempting the most challenging one. Many contestants would likely find themselves torn over this decision.

It was worth noting that the competition organizers had collected almost every type of spiritual herb in the world.

Thus, no matter what kind of pill you wanted to refine, you could find the ingredients here—unless the spiritual herb had already gone extinct in this world.

However, there was no such thing as a free lunch. Whatever pill you refined, you had to hand over two-thirds of it to the competition organizers. If there were only two pills, they would be split equally.

This arrangement was fair, and none of the contestants expressed any dissatisfaction.

Given the presence of two competitors who might possess Heavenly Flames and could rival his alchemy skills, Long Xuan decided not to hold back. He resolved to use one of his trump cards.

When it came to showcasing skills, using the Great Cauldron Pill Refining Technique was undoubtedly an excellent choice.

This technique involved stacking the ingredients of a single recipe thousands or even tens of thousands of times over, tossing them all into the alchemy furnace at once, and producing tens of thousands of pills in a single batch. The difficulty of such a technique was unimaginable. Aside from him, no other alchemist in the world could achieve this.

Even for Long Xuan, he needed to rely on his progress-enhancing cheat ability to execute such a difficult refining technique perfectly. Otherwise, attempting this would likely result in a furnace explosion.

Who could outshine him in skill? He was eager to see what those two Heavenly Flame users could bring to the table.

He was determined to create a significant point gap between himself and those two competitors in this second round!

Clenching his fists tightly, Long Xuan prepared himself for the challenge ahead.