Hearing the three distinct 'k' sounds, Liu Ling and Princess Yue Er's expressions ged as they turo look at Xiao Yan in the ter, their eyes filled with utter disbelief.

  Xiao Yan smiled faintly upon sensing their gaze. He took out a Bone Growing Pill and said with a chuckle, "Thank you for letting me win."

  Then, he flicked his finger, and the Bone Growing Pill flew into the testing device before him. Instantly, tless eyes from the spectator stands, the VIP seats, and even the alchemists still refining their pills all turo this most attention-grabbing spot.

  Everyone wao know how the top seed and hottest tender from the preliminary test had performed.

  A moment ter, a subtle muffled sound rang out. A dazzling green pilr of light suddenly shot up from the stoform in front of Xiao Yan. The iy of the color was such that even though others had not yet pleted their refi, they all knew what that rich green represented.

  That beautiful jade-like esmerized everyone in the spectator stands.

  "Incredible! Some people are still reading the pill recipe, yet he's already finished refining!"

  "That's too fast! Is this really alchemy? Why is his refi process so different from ordinary people's?"

  Fa Ma nodded in the VIP seats. It would be strange if Xiao Yan wasn't fast using that teique. But despite Xiao Yan's speed and perfect extra of medial properties, only alchemists of tier 4 and above could uand the difficulty involved.

  Deputy Chairman Qie Mi Er frowned slightly and said with some , "Xiao Yan's refining speed is so fast; it might not necessarily be a good thing."

  Sure enough, just after Xiao Yan pleted his refi, some alchemists who couldn't uand the pill recipe and had exited early began to whisper among themselves.

  "How could he possibly refi so quickly without any instrus in the pill recipe!"

  "Exactly! If he hadn't practiced beforehand, there's no way he could be so fast!"

  "Hmph, so this is the so-called number one seed? He must have knowest questions in advance."

  "What's the point of winning the championship by cheating? The Alchemist Association is just this corrupt."

  For a while, various voices of doubt arose due to Xiao Yan's excessively fast refining speed.

  Xiao Yan naturally just smiled faintly upon hearing these doubting voices. Outsiders watch the excitement, insiders look at the skill. Without a certain level of ability, they naturally couldn't uand how he was able to plete the refi so quickly.

  Just as Xiao Yan was about to take out a chair from his ste ring to sit a for a while, a beam of light nearly on par with his own shot out from a er.

  The sed to finish wasn't Liu Ling or the Little Princess, but an alchemist wearing bck robes!

  "That person..." Fa Ma narrowed his aged eyes, a sharp glint fshing in his cloudy pupils. He lightly tapped his finger on the railing and said in a low voice, "That bck-robed man seems rather strong."

  Even Xiao Yan hadn't expected that someone else's speed could rival his own!

  "Who oh is this guy?!" Still in the midst of refining, the Little Princess and Liu Ling stared in astonishment at this formidable oppo who had suddenly appeared, their faces full of bewilderment.

  The first round of the petition wasn't difficult. Soon, Liu Ling and Yue Er also pleted their refis. However, the beams of light from the two of them were noticeably thihan those of Xiao Yan and the mysterious man.

  From the thiess alone, one could tell that the quality of their Bone Growing Pills was inferior to the two of them.

  Xiao Yan looked at the mysterious bck-robed figure, a strange glint fshing in his eyes. He smiled faintly, "It seems this b Alchemist Graing might bee a bit more iing."

  "Qie Mi Er, get me his information." In the VIP seats, Fa Ma suddenly turo Qie Mi Er and said in a deep voice.

  Qie Mi Er also sehat something was amiss. He took out a stack of dots from his ste ring and quickly flipped through them. After a moment, he handed a thi of paper to Fa Ma.

  Ia, the picture of the mysterious bck-robed man looked to be aroueen hteen years old, so young that it seemed somewhat uny.

  "An alchemist from the Chu Yun Empire?" Fa Ma frowhe Chu Yun Empire bordered the Jia Ma Empire, and the two often had flicts. They could be sidered hostile nations.

  "How e it only states he's a 2nd-tier alchemist here? From what I sehat fellow is at least a 4th-tier alchemist." Fa Ma frowned as he g the tier recorded in the information.

  "A seventeen-year-old 4th-tier alchemist? Chairman, that's simply impossible no matter how you think about it. No matter how much of a genius he is, alchemy requires time and the accumution of experience," Qie Mi Er said with a wry smile.

  Hai Bodong lightly coughed twice from the side and said, "Some things aren't necessarily impossible. Don't be so sure."

  "Then what should we do now?" Qie Mi Er asked.

  "What else we do? We only tih the Graing for now. We'll discuss it after today's petition ends. Tonight, we'll iigate further," Fa Ma said.

  Time passed by sed by sed. Partits tio either qualify or fail and leave. By the time the sand in the hss ran out, the inal thousand-plus alchemists had been reduced by a third, leaving only about three hundred.

  After the first round was pleted, servants walked out from the passageway one by one, pg two sets of medial ingredients and a pill recipe scroll in front of each qualifying alchemist.

  Xiao Yan sighed when he opehe scroll and looked at the standard pill recipe. This time, they were still refining acc to a pill recipe. Although it had ged from tier 2 to tier 3, it was merely a low-grade tier 3 medial pill—the Wind Walking Pill.

  "It allows the er to bee highly sensitive to the wind attribute natural energy for a short time, thereby achieving the effect of increasing movement speed."

  "It does have some use."

  To Xiao Yan, whether it was tier 2 or tier 3, the difficulty was actually the same—that is, no difficulty at all.

  He looked at the surrounding alchemists who had already begun refining. Even Liu Ling and the Little Princess quickly entered a focused state and started refining, seemingly spurred on by Xiao Yan's speed to pete. None of them wao be slower than him, and all began refining early.

  Xiao Yan shook his head. He leisurely took out a bottle of iced mineral water from his ste ring, took a couple of gulps, stretched his body, and assumed a rexed expression.

  He po let them refine for a while first.

  Once again, there were two sets of medial ingredients. As before, Xiao Yan directly stored the sed set into his ste ring and tossed all the ingredients into the medial cauldron at once.

  He didn't eveo out the residue ihe cauldron because the Nihility Dev Fme would pletely ie even the residue into nothingness.

  Deputy Chairman Qie Mi Er smiled slyly wheched Xiao Yan throw all the ingredients into the medial cauldron like in the first round. He muttered, "Heh heh, this time we've finally set a trap for this kid. Let's see how he ha."

  At this moment, a bang was suddenly heard in the pza. A 3rd-tier alchemist's medial cauldron had detonated, and the ingredients were utterly destroyed.

  This wasn't an isoted i. Not long after, another explosion occurred nearby. Soon, more and more alchemists experienced cauldron explosions. Evetle Princess, Liu Ling, and the mysterious bck-robed man beside Xiao Yan all had their cauldrons explode.

  Liu Ling and the Little Princess's expressions immediately turned ugly. They slowly exhaled and both looked toward Xiao Yan's position.

  Because Xiao Yan had been slow and leisurely, he had only just tossed the ingredients into the cauldron not long ago and hadn't pleted the extra yet.

  "Something seems off." In the VIP seats, Ya Fei looked at the alchemists in the pza, almost all of whom had turned into dumbstruck statues, and said softly.

  "Indeed, something's wrong," Nan Yanran replied, knitting her delicate brows. "Although I'm not an alchemist, I know that refining acc to the pill recipe will undoubtedly greatly increase the success rate. But those people below including Liu Ling and the Little Princess all seem to have failed."

  Princess Yao Ye g the area where the Alchemist Association's higher-ups were seated. She crossed her slender right leg over her left, gazed at the somewhat stramosphere in the pza, and murmured, "It seems there's something fishy about this test. I just wonder if that alchemy genius pass this round."

  Before long, sino one knew what was happening, they all stopped to study the situation. The inally slow and leisurely Xiao Yan uedly became the fastest again.

  Just as the medial essences were about to fuse into a pill, suddenly there was an energy fluctuation ihe cauldron. A violent energy began to spread outward.

  Xiao Yan shook his head helplessly and said, "Pying such petty tricks, you people at the Alchemist Association are really childish."

  "Mao Wu."

  Whoosh!! Ihe bck fme-filled medial cauldron, a bck cat suddenly appeared and swallowed all the medial essehat were about to form into a pill in one gulp.

  Instantly, the violent energy disappeared.

  Xiao Yan's fingers moved nimbly and removed all of an ingredient called 'Thick-soil Ganoderma' from the other two sets of medial essences ihe cauldron.

  His powerful Spiritual Strength had clearly grasped the entire pill fusion process just now and naturally kly which step had gone wrong.

  Before long, two crisp g sounds were heard as two -green Wind Walking Pills were collected by Xiao Yan into a pill bottle.

  'inally it could have been three pills ich, what a pity to waste one.'

  Xiao Yan g Liu Ling and the Little Princess whaping at him in astonishment, then at the fbbergasted Alchemist Association higher-ups oage. His eyes narrowed slightly as he suddenly said out loud, "It seems it's better not to include the Thick-soil Ganoderma."

  ! ! ! ! !

  Fa Ma and the others immediately wideheir eyes when they heard Xiao Yan reveal the ao everyone.

  You're cheating!!