Nine Star Hegemon Body Art

When the sun once more rose, Long Chen opened his eyes. He stood up and stretched. Originally, he had just been acting, but as a result, he really had fallen asleep. He had even drooled a bit.

Seeing the Tower Ancestor smiling in amusement, no matter how thick Long Chen’s skin was, he couldn’t help being embarrassed. He hastily bowed toward him to express his apologies.

Putting away the chair and parasol, Long Chen saw that there were only eighteen people remaining. Many people had washed out while he had been asleep.

That was due to the order in which they had refined their ingredients. They had left the three hardest ingredients for last. Most of them had probably failed there.

There was no way around it. They naturally left the hardest ingredients for last, as then you would be deeper in your mental refining state. That would increase the odds of successfully refining it.

If everyone had started with those three ingredients, then perhaps in just six hours, most of them would have already failed.

At this time, Long Chen saw that everyone was solemnly feeding their medicinal powders into the pill furnaces.

They had all realized that this was their only chance of succeeding. After finishing the refinement of the final ingredient, they had all rested for the final part of the refinement.

Long Chen also saw Huo Wufang had already long since been waiting for him. It seemed he truly wanted to compete with him until the end.

He couldn’t help laughing inside. Did Huo Wufang want to compete with him in terms of alchemy? Now Long Chen truly had an urge to take off his shoes and refine with his feet.

But that would be a bit too much. It was also an insult to alchemy, and the Tower Ancestor might directly kick him out.

Long Chen’s flame burst into existence once more. He began to warm up the furnace. As expected, Huo Wufang immediately got to work once he saw Long Chen start.

If he wanted to compete, then he could compete away. Long Chen was too lazy to bother with him. He focused his attention on his flame. After all, this was not his Earth Flame, and he wasn’t used to it. He had to be careful. If he failed because of carelessness, then this act of his would end with him acting like an idiot. He certainly didn’t want to do such a thing.

This was Long Chen’s first time refining the Overflowing Sea Expanding Pill. Although the Pill God memories did contain this pill, it was best to be careful with his first refinement.

Furthermore, getting first place wasn’t just for himself. It was to accomplish his promise, to repay Fang Chang and Chai Liehuo. Taking first place was extremely important.

If he did, the Huo family’s prestige would drop a great deal, while the Fang and Chai families' prestige would rise. Then, the one in the predicament would be the Huo family.

Although Long Chen was confident, he was still sensible. He continued refining normally. The old fellows present all had sharp eyes; thus, he couldn’t expose his true strength.

“Eh? Why are Huo Wufang’s actions so practiced?”

Long Chen’s divine sense was stealthily probing Huo Wufang. He saw that Huo Wufang’s refinement seemed very practiced. He controlled the flame extremely naturally.

“The fuck? This is cheating! That bastard’s definitely already refined the Overflowing Sea Expanding Pill, and not just once!” Long Chen cursed inside. The Huo family had definitely cheated. They had to have known what the test this time would be, and they had drilled Huo Wufang in it. It was no wonder he had been so confident.

It wasn’t just Long Chen who saw this. Even the distant Fang Mingyuan and Chai Gaoyang noticed, and their expressions became ugly.

As for Huo Changsheng, he just calmly watched. He pretended not to see their furious glares.

Sitting at the top platform, the Tower Ancestor was simply watching. The tower administrator quietly whispered, “Isn’t this unfair?”

“Does this world contain anything that’s fair?” asked the Tower Ancestor.

“...”

“Let me tell you the answer: there was never anything fair in this world. Asking for fairness is the whining of the weak. In the world of the strong, asking for fairness is just a joke.

“No one listens to the crying of the weak, while the strong never care about fairness. The big fish eats the small fish, while the small fish eats the shrimp. Who will care about the shrimps’ cries?

“The cultivation world is one where the strong feast on the weak. If you’re just prey, then don’t cry about unfairness. Instead, think of how you can increase your own strength so you can prey on others.

“When the weak become the strong, they also prey on others, and they will also ignore other people’s cries for fairness.

“But in my eyes, fair and unfair are a cycle, one in constant motion and balance. The circle falls and rises, coming back to the start. So don’t bother about these things, as these are the Heavenly Daos,” said the Tower Ancestor.

Hearing this, the tower administrator's heart shook. He hastily bowed. “Many thanks for your teachings.”

“What teachings? Let’s just calmly watch the game. I also want to know how Long San plans on playing,” laughed the Tower Ancestor.

Six hours went by in the blink of an eye. The entire crowd was silent. The only sound was the sizzling of Pill Flames.

Finally, a loud bang drew everyone’s attention.

“Heavens, Huo Wufang is the first to seal his furnace!”

Sealing the furnace represented an important part of the refinement. Normally, it represented that the refinement was ninety percent finished and was merely lacking the final step.

Long Chen also sealed his furnace. But he was extremely irritated inside. That idiot was cheating. Despite being idiots, the Huo family was actually quite skillful. Their connections were so strong that they had secretly learned the test for the finals.

Startled cries rang out once Long Chen sealed his furnace. The two of them were refining at almost the same speed.

Huo Wufang circulated his Earth Dragon Golden Blaze to its full strength. Golden flames enveloped his pill furnace, causing space to twist. It was truly worthy of being the existence ranked first on the beast flame rankings.

The Overflowing Sea Expanding Pill’s final step required an extremely powerful flame. The stronger the flame, the higher the final quality. This part was extremely important.

Long Chen also pushed his merged flame to its peak. Multicolored flames danced over his pill furnace. At the same time, a powerful pressure descended.

“Heavens, Long San has gone insane! He’s already feeding his Spiritual Strength to his flame!”

Refining the Overflowing Sea Expanding Pill was a battle of attrition. It was extremely exhausting to a person’s Spiritual Strength. Most people would conserve their Spiritual Strength until the end. That moment was the most taxing to a person’s soul energy.

To begin feeding extra Spiritual Strength to his flame right at the beginning, was he not afraid of running out of soul energy in the middle? Even if his Spiritual Strength was extremely powerful, it couldn’t possibly have reached that level, right?

“Long San has no other choice. His merged flame is actually weaker than the Earth Dragon Golden Blaze, and the power of the flame is extremely crucial to the Overflowing Sea Expanding Pill. If Long San wants to defeat Huo Wufang, he has to go all-out. But this action of his is still completely crazy,” sighed one highly experienced senior alchemist.

An ordinary Pill Emperor wouldn’t even be able to endure an hour at the rate Long San was using his Spiritual Strength. But this final part of the refinement would require at least twelve hours. Did he really think he could keep up with this exhaustion for twelve hours?

Furthermore, at the final moment, the temperature of the flame had to constantly change in order to seal the medicinal energy inside the pills. That was the truly exhausting part.

According to people’s understanding of Long San, although he liked to show off, his true strength was something to admire. According to reason, he wouldn’t show off to the point of being an idiot. But his current action was completely incomprehensible.

At this time, the others also sealed their furnaces. However, two of them had to leave dejectedly. Due to their nervousness, they had failed during the process of sealing their furnaces.

Time passed. Even the spectators were extremely tense. The winner of the centennial Pill Emperor Competition would soon be decided.

One hour… two hours… three hours…

One alchemist suddenly collapsed from his stage. He had exhausted all his soul energy and fallen unconscious.

Thump.

Another alchemist collapsed. They were all people with strong perseverance. They had endured all the way until they had truly run out of strength and fainted.

People couldn’t help but sigh. These alchemists were all amazing Pill Emperors, but here, they were still eliminated despite bitterly persevering until the end.

The sky once more darkened and then slowly brightened. There were still two hours until the time was up.

Bang!

Suddenly, someone finished their refinement and opened their furnace. Everyone hastily looked, but then they couldn’t help sighing.

There was no pill inside the furnace. There was only a pile of dregs. Obviously, in the end, that person hadn’t had enough soul energy and had been unable to condense the pill.

Bang! Another furnace opened. This furnace belonged to Fang Chang. As a result, startled cries rang out. Within a pile of pill dregs, there was actually a medicinal pill.

Although there was no pill halo, and the medicinal fragrance was extremely light, it could still barely count as a low grade pill. That was actually not bad. At the very least, he had condensed the pill.

Following Fang Chang, others also began to open their furnaces. As a result, many of them had only created pill dregs. But some succeeded. Chai Liehuo had actually refined a middle grade pill. He was indescribably excited.

But that excitement quickly faded. Three others had also refined middle grade pills. They would have to use special tools to measure the medicinal energy in the pills to determine which one of them was better.

“Heavens, it’s a high grade pill!”

Duan Tianqiao’s furnace caused shocked cries. She had actually refined a ringed high grade pill.

“Yes!” She couldn’t help but let out a cheer. But as soon as she did, her expression immediately changed. She had broken the rules of the competition.

“It’s fine. The competition has already reached its end. You can speak, as long as you don’t intentionally try to affect other people’s refining,” said the Tower Ancestor with an amicable smile. Duan Tianqiao was incomparably grateful that he didn’t punish her.

“Hahahaha, we can speak? Then good, Long San, I’ve already said that the first place is mine!” laughed Huo Wufang.