Did I want Mandakh to defeat Jon in the upcoming exhibition match? I wasn’t sure. My mind kept going back and forth, trying to decide which outcome would be best.

I had defeated Jon when we were both Martial Disciples, and my reward was a Rank 4 skill. During the competition between the Palaces, we would be Emperors. Shouldn’t that mean the reward for defeating him would be a Rank 9 skill? If I could use Jon as a way of grabbing a free Rank 9 version of Mandakh’s blessing, I would be able to explore Central Continent alchemy much more freely.

On the other hand, if I lost to Jon, wouldn’t that mean he would get something equally powerful—something that he would get to keep, permanently? Wouldn’t it be better if Mandakh defeated Jon early and eliminated the possibility of this happening? This might prevent me from snagging a free blessing, but it would also remove all the associated risks.

I honestly didn’t know which outcome I would prefer. So, in the year leading up to the exhibition match, I did my best to turn Mandakh and his team into the best damn alchemists possible.

If they won, great. I could move forward in this life with confidence. Sure, my high-profile actions had put me on the hit lists of two Saint-level forces, but at least I wouldn’t have to worry about Jon.

If they lost, then I would have 10 years to help them advance before the real competition.

Importantly, this meant that I was both openly displaying my talent in alchemy and using it to help our team, while also not being expected to take part in the exhibition match myself. When our team lost—if our team lost—I would be perfectly positioned to step in and assume the role of its new leader for the final competition.

This seemed like a foolproof plan. There was just one small problem: Mandakh.

I watched Lau CoiHung as she assisted the young bow cultivator in concocting a new type of pill that was formed from herbs of several different elements: fire, earth, metal, lightning, spear, and bow. The young man took the lead, controlling the metal, lightning, and bow herbs, while Lau CoiHung supported him by managing the fire, earth, and spear herbs.

There was no question that this young man was, indeed, among the Palace’s most talented alchemists, but there was also no escaping the fact that he was still young. He certainly had a great deal of talent, but talent needed time to develop, and time was the one thing that we were short on. All of the Palace’s youths needed to cultivate, learn alchemy, practice with their weapons, and raise their affinities—including their affinity for karmic energy.

I had needed to spend several lifetimes on each of these subjects to reach even a bare minimum level of competence. While the Palace’s youths were far more talented than I had been, it was impossible to master so many skills in only a couple of decades. Something was destined to slip through the cracks, and for most of the Palace’s youths, that something was soul cultivation.

The recipe that I had given Lau CoiHung and the bow cultivator was nearly perfect. It might not have been capable of making a pill with 200% efficacy, but using it to make a nine-patterned pill wouldn’t be an issue.

However, after the young man took the medicinal energy through its first transformation, he struggled to control the burst of power that was released as it gained its third pattern. His affinities were decent, but his soul just wasn’t strong enough to contain so much raw power.

Without even needing the young man to say anything, Lau CoiHung immediately stepped in and helped him subdue this energy. Then, relying on Lau CoiHung’s assistance, the young man pulled the medicinal energy together one last time, creating a fourth burst of power.

Lau CoiHung’s soul was slightly stronger than the young man’s, but it was still nearing its breaking point. So, after only a glance at each other, Lau CoiHung and the young man worked together to condense the energy into a pill, forgoing the possibility of imbuing it with any further patterns.

This was the difference between Lau CoiHung and Mandakh. Their skills were roughly on par with each other, but where Lau CoiHung was willing to take on the role of an assistant and help her teammates concoct a difficult pill, Mandakh needed to be the person in charge.

CoiHung was able to help that young bow cultivator concoct a four-patterned Rank 5 Rain of Spears Pill. Mandakh, on the other hand, would always insist on taking the lead in concocting any pills that he was a part of. And, since Mandakh’s highest affinity was for wood, all of the pills he made were centered around wood-based herbs.

Having the group’s most talented alchemist insist on being the one who led any group efforts might not have been too bad, but he was a wood cultivator, and everyone else cultivated weapons. I had tried to find a recipe that centered around wood-based herbs and only used weapon herbs for support, but from what I could tell, the various energy types just didn’t interact in this way. The basic elements supported weapons. Weapons did not support the basic elements.

Because of this, any pills that Mandakh took part in could only contain herbs with elemental energy.

The Nine Rivers Domain might have been the only place on the continent that focused exclusively on the nine standard elements, but herbs that contained elemental energy were everywhere. As a result, a significant amount of research had been poured into pills that contained pure elemental energy. Finding a novel pill that would allow Mandakh to receive an enlightenment was nearly impossible, and coming up with an ingenious new recipe that would surprise everyone at the exhibition match wasn’t going to happen.

This book was originally published on NovelBin. Check it out there for the real experience.

The Palace’s elders tried to fix this—they tried to force Mandakh to either cultivate a weapon or act in more of a support role—but these efforts were doomed to failure. The child was only capable of seeing himself as a traditional urgan leader. Whenever he was forced into a different role, he wasn’t able to properly focus.

Mandakh needed several years of intensive soul cultivation to fix his issues, but we didn’t have time for that. And while replacing Mandakh might have been smart, he was still one of the Palace’s best young alchemists—even without an enlightenment to help him. So, the elders had no choice but to leave him in charge and hope for the best.

One day before the exhibition match was set to begin, our Palace’s team of five young alchemists was called to the Hall of the Elders—the ornate building that sat atop the mountain’s summit. From there, they were teleported to the competition by an Envoy from the Temple of the Herb Saint.

The site of the exhibition match was deep within the Nine Rivers Domain, halfway between the Heroes Domain and the True Martial Domain. Considering the distances involved, and considering the limits of Sovereign-level teleportation on this continent, I could only assume that the Temple’s Envoy had been a Martial Spirit.

Finding out that a Martial Spirit was serving as a ferry for a bunch of Martial Kings wasn’t too surprising. After all, there were likely dozens of Martial Spirits in the Temple, and they would need to do something to keep themselves busy.

No, what was surprising was that, even though a Martial Spirit was serving as the group’s escort, Sovereign Enkhtuya still thought that it would be too dangerous for me to travel to the exhibition match. If this were the case, then what kind of enemy had I pissed off by making those pills? Emperor Chan had said that the forces of the Saint of Tooth and Claw wanted me dead, but the Saint couldn’t possibly intend to attack me himself, right?

Acting as the Palace’s pill savant had served me well in this life, allowing me to build a towering reputation in only a couple of years. However, this was only viable because the Temple of the Herb Saint was like a giant tree whose thick canopy was shielding me from the summer storms. In future lives, I wouldn’t be able to reveal my skills so freely.

Still, while being known as the foremost alchemist in the Palace’s younger generation was dangerous, it did come with its perks. I wasn’t allowed to attend the exhibition match in person, but I was allowed into the Hall of the Elders to listen as the results were relayed through formation stones.

The rules of the exhibition match were simple. First, the five alchemists from each team would have a single chance to concoct a pill on their own. Then, all five members would work together to concoct a pill as a team. This would leave each team with six pills, and the winning team would be the one whose pills had the greatest total value.

Of course, considering that the team-based pill would likely be worth at least 10 times more than any of the pills made by individuals, those first five pills wouldn’t have much of an effect on a team’s final result. They were just there to give each individual an opportunity to showcase their skills.

On the first day of the competition, each Palace sent forth its two weakest alchemists. Ours were a chain cultivator and a bow cultivator—both of whom were Martial Kings.

In this round, we absolutely destroyed the competition. The alchemists from True Martial Domain were barely better than the alchemists of the Heroes Domain had been when I first arrived, so they didn’t stand much of a chance. The alchemists from the Nine Rivers Domain were significantly more powerful, but they were only able to make High-Purity two-patterned pills, while ours were able to rely on my recipes to concoct Perfect three-patterned pills.

On the second day, each Palace sent out two more alchemists. The ones from the True Martial Domain were only slightly better than those who had competed previously, but the alchemists from the Nine Rivers Domain were several times better than those from the first day. Both were able to make High-Purity Rank 5 pills with four patterns.

Our guandao cultivator only did okay, concocting a Perfect three-patterned pill with marginally better efficacy than either the chain or bow cultivator, and Lau CoiHung was able to keep us in the lead by eking out a Perfect four-patterned pill.

All of the Palace’s elders were visibly relieved by this outcome, but it made me nervous.

Why had the alchemists from the Nine Rivers improved so dramatically? Were the first two competitors just weak, or had the second two been able to boost their abilities somehow?

On the third day of the competition, the leaders of each team stepped forward.

Mandakh was the first to finish, and his natural skill shone through. Even without an enlightenment or special recipe, he was still able to concoct a High-Purity four-patterned pill. Unfortunately, though, this wasn’t enough to win.

A message arrived from the formation stone, but before I could process it, a wave of powerful wood qi was released by the bulbous flower that was sitting next to Sovereign Enkhtuya.

Who is Yong JinZhan!?

My eyes snapped to the flower. Then, to the formation stone. The rightful source is novel·fıre·net

Jon had created a High-Purity Six-Pattern Rank 5 pill. With a value 100 times greater than a four-patterned pill, this one pill was enough to place the Nine Rivers Domain in a nearly unassailable position.

Six patterns was… not too bad. Sure, it dwarfed anything that Mandakh or Lau CoiHung was capable of, but once I reached Martial King, I was confident that I would be able to concoct a seven- or eight-patterned pill without too much trouble.

Of course, this wasn’t necessarily Jon’s limit, and he would only grow more powerful over the next decade, but this poor performance gave me slightly more confidence in my ability to defeat him.

On the final day of the competition, the teams worked together to concoct their ultimate pill. Unsurprisingly, the victory went to the Nine Rivers Domain. While Mandakh was only able to use his team to add a single extra pattern to his pill, Jon was able to take his pill from six patterns to eight.

The bulbous flower exploded at this news.

Damn, urgan trash! How could he let a human humiliate us like this!? I want his head!

The tangle of vines opposite the flower let out a soothing wave of energy.

Calm yourself, sister. We still placed second. If we can maintain this position during the final competition, we’ll have three spots for the Temple. That’s enough. No one will be able to complain when we give one of them to your son. After all, it’s not like this place has three decent alchemists to send anyway.

The bulbous flower let out a burst of energy that I could only interpret as an annoyed grunt. Then, I felt its attention land directly on me.

At least we’ll be able to send out our own human next time. I expect him to do better than that worthless half-breed.