The Sect Leader System-Chapter 330: A Test of Judgment

Wan Ai stood in front of a table with a cloth draped over it, shielding everything beneath from her sight. Before her was a crowd of way too many people, and walls concealed her views of her fellow contestants to each side.

If only the front was blocked, too.

She couldn’t believe she was in the finals of the alchemy competition. It wasn’t that she didn’t think she was as good as the members from the bigger sects. She actually had a lot of confidence in her diligence and in the techniques and manuals that Master had provided her.

No, the reason she had trouble giving credence to the reality of her situation was that she was willingly doing her best each round even knowing that victory meant more attention on her. Before she’d started the tournament, she was confident that, if she made it past the first round, she’d have deliberately underperformed in the next one.

After easily winning the initial contest—the mites had been present on all the sets of herbs, but she’d been the only one to notice—she obviously advanced to the second round. In that one, she’d also faced off against nine other participants with only the top finisher moving on. That time, she’d discovered that her heating array was faulty, with a full quarter of the circle putting out significantly less qi than the rest, meaning she had to continuously rotate her cauldron while stirring the mixture.

Despite all the contestants in that round having won their section of the previous one, three of them somehow didn’t notice the problem with the formation. Of the seven that did, Wan Ai’s pill turned out to have the greatest purity, giving her the victory.

The third round went similarly, with her discovering that her cauldron had a defect, a dead zone that would not conduct qi. That was a chore to maneuver around since she literally couldn’t let any of the mixture touch the dead portion while at the same time ensuring that each part was heated evenly.

Very difficult. Her purity barely made it to seventy-one percent, a truly dreadful result. Luckily or unluckily, her nine opponents all did even worse.

That win put her, along with Bai Xinyi, into the top fifty and the subsequent fourth round. For that one, they competed in groups of five, where they were given a recipe for a pill Wan Ai had never even heard of. In studying the preparation instructions, though, they’d seemed off to her.

Talk about a difficult choice. She generally liked following rules. If someone in authority gave her instructions, she did her best to comply with those directions. On the other hand, her every instinct told her that the recipe was just plain wrong.

Despite the risk of failure or, worse, looking like an idiot with so many people watching, she went with her gut. It turned out that her gut was right, and she coasted to an easy triumph.

Bai Xinyi instead followed the recipe and didn’t make the finals.

Everybody in the Rising Tide Sect was beyond ecstatic that Wan Ai made the ten for the alchemy contest, which was apparently a big deal. At that point, there was only the potential for four of the martial members to do the same and, of the other crafters, only Xun Wu had also placed in the finals.

Which meant that everywhere she went, her fellow sect members congratulated her. All the attention was excruciating. Having to talk to so many people made her want to hide in her room and never come out, but she was instead once again participating in a contest. She wanted to shake her head in frustration, and she would have done just that if so many people weren’t watching her.

It was all Zou Tian’s fault. He delivered a note to her before each competition, and even if she hated the recognition her accomplishments brought, she couldn’t quite seem to pass up the chance to receive another one of his messages. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Well, that was the main reason for her continuing to win but not the only one. If Wan Ai were being completely honest with herself, she found it hard not to try her best when it came to alchemy, no matter the consequences. Intentionally doing something wrong just felt … well, wrong. Like her actions would be fundamentally in conflict with the core of her being.

She sighed. Aspects. Hers controlled her actions to a much greater degree than she would have ever expected, and that influence would apparently increase the higher in realm she ascended.

Still, that was a small price to pay for the ability to create miraculous cures.

With less than five minutes to go before the start of the final round, it was time for her to begin her calming routine, beginning with checking her inner pocket. She patted it from the outside and discovered a rectangular patch that was harder than the robe’s fabric.

Yes. There really was another folded piece of paper. He’d done it again.

How? When?

Despite her doing her utmost to keep constant focus on her surroundings, he’d somehow gotten close enough to her to touch and actually got his hand inside her robe.

She blushed.

What she didn’t do was pull the note from her pocket and read it. After the first time, she realized that doing so had a chance, however small, of exposing Zou Tian’s actions. Just knowing that it—and him—were there was enough for her.

Besides, depending on what he wrote, it might cause her face to redden even more than it already was.

Still, thoughts of him sent her to a happy place, making a good distraction from all the eyes on her, and when the contest started, she felt much calmer.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The drape was suddenly lifted from the table, and her eyes went first to a timer. One hour. Much shorter than the other rounds.

A paper with instructions drew her attention next.

Using only the resources found in your cubicle, create a pill. The contest winner will be judged on the complexity of the pill created and the quality and purity of the end result.

Yikes. So open ended. All the previous contests had directed her to produce a particular product.

Feeling more than a little pressure from the short time period, she quickly looked over a large pile of herbs. On the plus side, the heap contained just about anything she could want for creating any of the pills she knew how to make. On the other hand, all the herbs were jumbled together, meaning it would take time to find the exact ones she wanted, and there was something visibly wrong with all of them.

Just from a glance, it appeared that each of them was inflicted with large black patches. A blight.

If literally any of the malady contaminated the final pill, it would be completely ruined for use, if it formed a shell at all. More likely, it would remain a congealed mess that would have to be scraped from the cauldron.

From her experience with the previous rounds, she’d expected there to be some problem with either the materials or the equipment, so with the issue with the herbs diagnosed, that meant the equipment was probably fine. Probably didn’t mean definitely, though.

Wai Ai tested the heating array and noticed that its energy fluctuated wildly. One moment, it would work normally, and the next it would reduce the qi emitted to almost nothing. And the next, the output would flare.

Yikes.

Having detected problems with two out of the three provided elements, she suddenly had little confidence that the third would be fine, and that concern was proved out as soon as she looked inside the cauldron. Rust. There was actual rust visibly coating the inside of the device.

How was she supposed to remove all that in the allotted time? Cleaning it to her standards would take almost an hour on its own.

Whereas the previous rounds had focused on achieving perfection by circumventing one major problem, the current one challenged her to do the best she could with flawed resources. It wasn’t her abilities that were to be tested but her judgment.

Instead of working with the natural inclination of her qi aspect, she’d have to work against them just to get some kind of finished product.

Focus.

There was nothing to be done about the heating array. She didn’t have the knowledge base needed to repair a formation. All should could do was identify that there was a problem and call Master, which wasn’t an option during the tournament.

That portion would simply have to be accommodated as best as possible during the process.

The rust inside the cauldron could be resolved to perfection if she had long enough, but she didn’t. The obvious solution actually helped with a bunch of issues—choose a pill that required the least amount of material possible.

Yeah. That way, she could clean the rust from a relatively small area of the bottom of the cauldron. As long as the mixture didn’t stray from that spot, the final product wouldn’t pick up any contamination. And a small amount of material meant less time sorting through the herbs and preparing the ingredients.

Of course, the pills that were the least material intensive were also the least complicated, which would impact her final score. Better to get something done than nothing, though, and it was the only path forward that she could see.

One Stamina Pill coming up. The mortal grade medicine only used two ingredients and basically provided a small boost of energy. Master called it a Monster Pill for some reason that no one could figure out and jokingly—she thought, anyway—suggested that she make it into a drink.

She searched through the pile of herbs and discovered both guarana and kola nuts. Perfect. Exactly what she needed. The latter even appeared to be mostly blight free with her only having to cut out small portions.

The guarana, on the other hand, was more problematic. The only part of the plant that was useful were the black seeds, resembling eyes, that were found inside the red fruits. She quickly found, however, that none of the fruits were ripe enough to split open. Which meant that the potency of the seeds wouldn’t be at their optimal state. Worse, though, was that the seeds were absolutely consumed with blight.

Out of each one, she only got a tiny, tiny amount of useable material.

Again, not optimal. As long as she didn’t accidentally get even trace amounts of the blight into the cauldron, though, the lessened quantity of seeds would only result in a smaller pill instead of a failed product. The size would reduce her final score, but she’d at least remain in contention.

Her instincts chafed at the many compromises she was making, but she had no choice. To make any pill at all in the time provided with the obstacles presented would be a victory.

Wan Ai looked at the pile of crushed kola nuts and tiny bits of guarana seeds and desperately wanted to keep adding more of the latter to it. A glance at the timer, though, dissuaded her. Whatever she had in the heap would have to do.

The only good part about the tiny quantity was that she didn’t need to clean much of the cauldron, which meant she could focus on making that spot as pristine as possible. Which was really to the good.

A low quantity of materials simply meant a smaller pill. Introducing rust meant increasing impurities or even complete failure.

She took a provided wire brush and scrubbed like she’d never scrubbed before, suddenly very glad of her pavilion’s policy that every member, including her, cleaned up their own messes. Some of the most experienced Rising Tide alchemists had pushed to have the new members do all the cleaning as part of their chores, but she and Bai Xinyi had both agreed that was a horrible idea.

Hours and hours spent removing every bit of sludge left over from a failed mixture paid off as Wan Ai’s hands and fingers knew exactly what to do and didn’t tire during the process.

Soon, she rinsed and dried the area, satisfied that no rust remained.

Of course, part of her shuddered at using a cauldron that was still so heavily contaminated over most of its surface area, something she would not have stood for any of her pavilion members doing under any other circumstances.

In an ideal world, heating the mixture would have been easy after all she’d gone through getting to that point, but with the malfunctioning heating array, she had to constantly monitor the temperature and physically lift the cauldron off the plate when the formation flared. The fault made the entire process just that much more stressful, especially with the timer continuing its inexorable countdown.

Luckily, though, a brown shell formed seconds before time was up, giving her a finished product. A tiny finished product, granted, but she’d take it.

An attendant came by to collect the pill, and the contestants were called before a panel of judges. Three of the competitors had failed to produce anything other than sludge and were declared tied for eighth place. The products of two others were lumpy and barely formed. They took sixth and seventh place.

Of the remaining pills, all were clearly better than Wan Ai’s. The winner, a girl from the Swift Blizzard Sect, apparently knew enough about formations to repair the heating array. She’d also used that knowledge to somehow dissolve the rust, leaving her with a pristine cauldron. Given her expertise, it was no surprise that her Vitamin Pill had a purity of eighty-nine percent.

Wan Ai was actually quite pleased with fifth place. The other contestants were clearly better than her, and she’d tried her best. She would walk from the pavilion with her head metaphorically held high.

In reality, she’d duck down as low as possible, of course, to avoid what attention she could.