In front of the Seven Treasure Jewel Tower, there was already a sea of people around the arena. There were even more people than last time. The elimination round this time had drawn out many alchemy seniors.

The Pill Emperor Competition was split into four parts: the opening round, the preliminaries, the elimination round, and the finals. It was extremely simple. But the elimination stage had the cruelest washout rate.

In the past, more than seventy percent of the competitors would wash out in the elimination round.

Last month in the preliminaries, only a tenth of the competitors were washed out. Currently, there were still over eight hundred people in the arena. Their expressions were grave.

“The elimination round’s test is refining the Nine Revolution Life Pill.” The tower administrator’s emotionless voice rang out in everyone’s ears.

“What?!”

Virtually every competitor’s expression changed.

That Nine Revolution Life Pill was considered a peak difficulty pill amongst fifth tier pills. Someone on the verge of death could consume one to guarantee that they could survive for another six hours. Their life energy would not fade, nor would their soul dissipate. It bought them precious time to be healed.

In truth, a pill only needed a fifty percent failure rate to be classified as a high difficulty pill. But the Nine Revolution Life Pill had a failure rate of seventy percent. It was one of the most difficult fifth tier pills to refine. The worst part was that the seventy percent failure rate referred to refining in a private, peaceful room.

In this chaotic environment, the odds of failure would be above ninety percent. But they only had three portions of medicinal ingredients. Moreover, if they failed the first time, the odds of failing again would be even higher, almost approaching one hundred percent.

So every competing alchemist’s expression was exceedingly ugly. This kind of competition would probably depend on who was luckier.

“Each person has three sets of medicinal ingredients. The time limit is twenty-four hours, and the pill must reach the five-ring level in order to pass,” announced the tower administrator.

Hearing this, the competitors turned ashen. Even Huo Changsheng, Fang Mingyuan, and Chai Gaoyang were shocked.

How was the competition this year so abnormal? The pill formulas were harder than before, and the requirements for passing were even higher. What if no one managed to pass the elimination round? Wouldn’t this generation’s Pill Emperor Competition become a joke?

“That’s impossible! No one can refine something that difficult!” One of the competitors roared furiously. This task was essentially impossible.

“Take him out of here.”

The tower administrator waved his hand, and four white-robed men rushed onto that person’s stage. Ignoring his status as a grand Pill Emperor, they dragged him out of the arena like he was a dead dog.

“If you want to give up, then hurry up and leave. Don’t waste so many words. If anyone wants to cause such a disturbance again, they’ll immediately lose their qualifications. Let the elimination round begin!”

Following the tower administrator’s cold shout, the Nine Revolution Life Pill’s formula appeared on the stage, and a group of white-robed men distributed three sets of medicinal ingredients to everyone.

Long Chen didn’t really care about the Nine Revolution Life Pill. Looking at other people’s expressions, he saw Chai Liehuo and Fang Chang looking gravely at him. He gave them a reassuring glance, his meaning that this was nothing.

In truth, even for them, they would have a high failure rate when refining the Nine Revolution Life Pill. Furthermore, to refine a five-ring one was quite the challenge.

Long Chen looked over the alchemists whom he had drunk with several times now, and he saw that they were extremely focused and tense as they began to split up the ingredients.

Some of them were already sweating. They were under a great deal of pressure in this kind of situation.

Suddenly, Long Chen sensed someone was looking at him. He turned to see Huo Wufang sneering in his direction. Once Long Chen was looking at him, Huo Wufang raised a thumb and then dipped it down towards his butt.

The meaning was that Long Chen was only fit to stay far behind him. That action drew many people’s gazes, and even the tower administrator frowned upon seeing it. But he didn’t say anything, because as long as you didn’t speak, it wouldn’t count as breaking the rules.

“Hahaha, Huo Wufang is cursing Long San. Long San can only stay behind him and eat his crap,” laughed the spectators.

“Tch, what little people. They want to play with me?”

Long Chen directly jumped on top of his stage, drawing everyone’s gaze. He then pointed his finger at the distant Huo Changsheng with a faint smile.

Next, he pointed to Huo Wufang’s butt and put on a pleasured expression. At that instant, he threw a gold coin to the ground and then picked it up.

For a moment, everyone was confused. What was this supposed to mean? Such complicated actions made it so they couldn’t understand it.

“Hahaha…!”

“This fellow really is a marvel.”

But this world did still have some smart people who managed to figure out the meaning behind Long Chen’s actions.

“What? What did he mean? Don’t just laugh by yourself!”

“Long San’s meaning is: Huo Wufang’s family head likes to prostitute himself, while Huo Wufang likes to sell his butt. They’re all sluts.” [1]

“Hahahaha….!”

Uncontrollable laughter rang out from the crowd. Long San had definitely reached the peak of cursing people.

The thunderous laughter included Fang Mingyuan and Chai Gaoyang. Long San was truly peak grade. He was even able to do such a thing. Then seeing Huo Changsheng’s twisted expression, they felt incredibly refreshed. Their stifled anger from so many years was finally being released.

“You…!” raged Huo Wufang.

“Shut up! If you make a ruckus, you’ll immediately be eliminated!” The tower administrator finally opened his mouth.

Huo Wufang shook and hastily shut his mouth. Normally, his Huo family could dominate the entire Eastern Wasteland, but here he was facing Pill Tower’s tower administrator. He didn’t dare be arrogant.

He had no choice but to suppress his anger. He looked over and saw that Long Chen was mouthing something. Although he didn’t speak, it seemed he was saying, “Slut, now you should be more well-behaved!”

The veins on Huo Wufang’s head were bulging, and he was clenching his teeth so hard it seemed they might break. This Long San was too infuriating, and if this continued, let alone refining pills, he might just die of anger.

He turned away and closed his eyes, focusing himself. He had to calm down first, or he wouldn’t be able to refine the Nine Revolution Life Pill.

Now that Huo Wufang was no longer looking at him, Long Chen had no way to enrage him any further. He could only jump off. He saw Fang Chang looking at him, and his meaning was that he should calmly focus on refining the pill as that was more important.

Long Chen gave him a gesture meaning that he had confidence. He then started warming up his furnace and began to refine his ingredients one by one.

“Excellent. Long San has advanced a great deal over this month. He knows which ingredients to refine first, and his technique has improved. There are almost no flaws at all. He really is an alchemy genius.” Fang Mingyuan nodded.

He had clearly seen Long Chen’s progress this month. His work ethic was practically monstrous, almost reaching a kind of obsession. The reason he had his current accomplishments was not a coincidence.

Suddenly, a muffled bang rang out and smoke began coming out of a person’s pill furnace. The slightest carelessness from that person had caused all his work to be ruined just as he began merging the powders.

Clenching his teeth, that person once more began to refine. The spectators couldn’t help shaking their heads. Although the competitors were all geniuses, they were still too young. They didn’t have enough experience.

At this time, the best thing to do was to calm down first. Only once you recovered to your peak mental state should you continue refining again. This kind of rashness would multiply his odds of failure.

As expected, the next time, he only managed to merge seven powders when his flame jumped in power. All the medicinal powders were instantly turned to ash.

“AHH… no!”

That person suddenly let out a furious roar, causing the people around him to jump, and as a result…

BANG!

A dozen explosive sounds rang out. Quite a few people had been disturbed by his roar, ruining all their hard work.

“You bitch!”

“Fucker!”

“...”

Furious roars rang out. They had originally been completely focused on refining, but this person’s shout had ruined all that work. It was extremely impactful.

“Expel anyone who made a ruckus,” ordered the tower administrator. White-robed experts immediately began kicking people out.

“No, we’re innocent! It was that bastard who implicated us! We’re the victims!” Several of them were unwilling. Cursing people had just been an instinct.

But the tower administrator didn’t give them any chance to explain. The white-robed men kicked them out of the arena. Those people who were furious but hadn’t had a chance to curse hastily shut their mouths.

The arena was deathly silent for a moment as everyone focused on refining. Six hours later, one alchemist suddenly laughed.

“I’ve failed! I’ve fucking failed, hahaha!”

That person’s laugh immediately caused quite a few people to fail their refinements. Those people hatefully glared at him. That bastard had done it intentionally. He had failed all three refinements, and he was fated to be eliminated. He wanted to bring others down with him.

People were just that evil. If they couldn’t obtain something good, they wouldn’t want anyone else to obtain it either. Several people repeated this, implicating quite a few people. But the tower administrator merely watched. Anyone who spoke was directly eliminated.

Long Chen’s expression was calm. Those people’s little tricks were useless against him. He was focused on refining. Suddenly, the person behind him left his stage. He had already publicly announced that he had failed.

But when that person walked past Long Chen’s stage, he suddenly opened his mouth, and his entire body’s spiritual qi began to surge. That caused the distant Fang Mingyuan and Chai Gaoyang’s expressions to change, while a pleased smile appeared on Huo Changsheng’s face.

[1] There’s a pun here based on 賤逼 and 撿幣. The first one is slut, the second one is to pick up a coin.