Sweat ran down my forehead and into my eyes. I closed them. I wasn't using my vision at this point anyway.

Then, one after the other, in the order I was supposed to throw them in originally, I swiftly dropped the liquified ingredients into the main solution. The energies began to destabilize again, but that was fine because a portion of them were perfectly stable. I focused on that perfect portion and used the hand seals for forming a pill, plus one extra, just before...

Boom! It exploded as I jumped back to avoid the blast. The fiery eruption knocked the lid off Old smokey. Since I had, using a specialized hand seal and a majority of my remaining Qi, directed the energies, they burst from the opening.

Thankfully, I had controlled it enough to focus it away from the newly formed pill. Unfortunately, my poor Old Smokey, my first cauldron in this life, was no longer in working order. He had cracks that started from the opening that spread down into the bowl.

Damn, that poor old —and probably cursed— cauldron had finally concocted his last pill.

”Apprentice Lin, ” a little employee came up to me and bowed. She looked at me with sympathy. Yeah, he was a good cauldron, I did need sympathy. ”Please go wait in the seats with the other contestants who didn't concoct a pill this round.”

I huffed. Didn't concoct a pill? Who the fuck did she think I was?

After taking a jade bottle off my prep table, I walked up to the cracked remains of poor Old Smokey. With a wave of my hand, he vanished into my storage bag. My single perfect chartreuse pill dropped and I collected it into the bottle with a gesture.

The noisy room quieted down. Then I walked up to the judges at the same time as Violet Pill Fairy and another cultivator, this one at the pinnacle of Foundation Establishment. The corner of Violet’s lips turned up and she placed her bottle on the judges’ table and bowed.

Not wanting to let her have all the momentum, I did the same. And the other guy went last.

”Please judge my work, Pill Masters.”

Pill Otaku stared at the bottles as if he were eager to examine every inch of them, but he didn’t snatch them from their spot.

White Lily also didn't touch them at first. ”By rights, I should call a halt to this tournament after what happened. But the fact that a young Qi Condensation Cultivator still managed to concoct a viable product through all that... Well, it would be a disservice to her to not keep going. We had also expected a fair amount of cauldron exploding, though the guild hadn't prepared for this much.”

Pill Master Burning Tyrannical Stallion, who was turning red with the effort of holding it in, haltingly said, ”We’ve decided... To judge you based on the pill quality. The two with the best quality will go on to the final round.”

Fuck... There was going to be a final round after what happened?! My side hurt like a bitch, my legs had the stability of slightly cooked noodles, and I had given myself more internal injuries when I used a shielding technique beyond my level, while still injured from the last time. The urge to sit down and take one of my remaining cheap-ass healing pills was nearly overwhelming. But I had no strong friends here to watch my back. I couldn't allow myself to show these cultivators any weakness regardless of how safe this place was.

But I still needed to finish this tournament. There had to be some way...

“Perhaps the guild should base the winner off these pills?” Violet Suggested. “My young junior seems to have lost her cauldron in that explosion. And, I believe the guild just sold the last spare one a little while ago.”

I narrowed my eyes at her and turned to the crowd to spot Employee Stone. He gave me a sheepish look. When I turned back to the bitch, I noticed that her expression was neutral but the corners of her lips turned up.

Had she suspected something like this would happen and had someone purchase all the affordable cauldrons in the guild? Had she even been the cause of it? Perhaps by paying someone in the stock room —through a proxy— to ’accidentally’ fuck up?