"The cauldron exploded?"

When the crowd realized that, the alchemy room had already started emitting a layer of an appalling gas wave.

The wave was silent, but it easily sent those at the entrance of the room flying. As they were flying, they could clearly see it.

Under the cauldron, the condensed Fire Seed that had increased in temperature during the pill compression step had expanded.

Condensing Fire Seed was easy. Xu Xiaoshou had also experienced an expanding Fire Seed.

At most, it was just like one of his Lesser Fireballs.

This was a Fire Seed that had been compressed for a couple of hours and continuously gotten energy replenishment to be released at the last minute.

The amount of damage that it could bring could be seen from Xu Xiaoshou's skilled action of escaping.

Its expansion caused the surrounding gases to be evaporated, and the space around it to be a vacuum.

As the heat waves emitted from it, it eliminated all other elements within that space.

After that moment of emptiness, the air finally gushed through, causing the vacuum to disappear. A loud and frightening sound could be heard coming from the alchemy room, causing intense vibrations of everyone's eardrums.

Boom boom—

A grey mushroom cloud could be seen pushing through the ceiling of the tower as the huge blast was compressed toward the center, shattering all the walls of the Pill Pagoda.

...

Dead silence.

The streets were all silent.

The bustling streets and passersby were all speechless as if silenced by a god at the same time.

Those that had passed by a few times would know that Pill Pagoda was not peaceful at all on this day.

After some time, there would be a few sounds of explosions. Each was stronger than the previous one.

They still did not expect that the last blast would cause the seventh story to be damaged such that only half of it was left.

"Oh my god, what happened to the Pill Pagoda?"

"Is the Magic Pill Technicians Association under attack today? If that is the case, why are the City Guards not here yet?"

"Is this the effect of exploding cauldrons? Where is their big array barrier?"

"How could a big array have protected against an explosion of such magnitude? The Pill Pagoda is a respected place by both good and evil organizations. Why would they even need any strong arrays? Who would they have provoked to experience such suffering?"

"Could it be those organizations that are neither good nor evil?"

"..."

The crowd went silent for a while. Soon, everyone started to discuss and argue.

That was not the end. After the mushroom cloud, the crowd suddenly heard noises that sounded like "Poot, poot."

"What's going on? Who is farting?"

"Farting? Does your wife fart this loud at home? This sounds more like thunder!"

Some people started to panic as they could feel that the surrounding temperature rapidly rising.

Yet, to the naked eye, everything seemed to be normal.

"No!"

Suddenly someone stared at the Pill Pagoda and let out a shocking cry.

"The Pill Pagoda! Quick, look! Is the Pill Pagoda disappearing?"

Upon hearing this, the crowd turned to look and finally saw that the outer wall of the seventh floor of the Pill Pagoda rapidly melting.

Some alchemists noticed something amiss and used their spiritual senses to scan. They were terrified.

"Fire?"

"Is the Pill Pagoda on fire?"

"F*ck! Who can tell me what is happening?"

Suddenly, an old man wearing ragged clothes flew out of the window.

He looked extremely devastated. His hair and brows were burned off to a large extent. The most attention-grabbing thing was that his little belly was showing because pieces of his clothes were missing.

Yes, the old man's clothes on the front had been burned off.

His body was not hurt, but the little hairs on his body were gone.

"President Shi Ti?"

The crowd on the streets was all shocked.

Was this still the highly revered and angelic president?

"F*ck, I must be blind!"

"This can't be real. My eyes..."

"Ahh! Help me, someone pinch me!"

"..."

"Xu… Xiaoshou..." Shi Ti gritted his teeth and growled lowly.

His eyes were filled with tears. He raised both of his arms and separated the Heavenly Infernal Flames from the outer walls of the Pill Pagoda before condensing them together.

This was too scary.

These flames could burn anything. Unless one used the Way of the Heavens to put it out and turn it back into the most fundamental spiritual element, there was no other way to put it out.

For those who did not have any spiritual powers yet, they could only beg for mercy in front of this Heavenly Infernal Flames.

'If I were not in the Pill Pagoda today...'

Shi Ti dared not imagine what would have happened.

'Exploding cauldron... How can this be a f*cking cauldron exploding? You are more terrifying than that Old Man Sang!'

While the crowd was still distracted, he immediately disappeared into the pagoda to change into a new set of clothes.

...

On the other side of the Pill Pagoda…

Xu Xiaoshou flipped down from the window and entered the Magic Pill Technicians Association again through the first floor.

He was hesitant.

'Should I go up or not...'

This question seemed simple, but it could actually be a matter of life and death for him. Thus, Xu Xiaoshou had chosen to temporarily escape.

With his eyes drooping, he hid in a dark corner as he recalled the aftermath of the explosion.

'It was really just an accident!'

Xu Xiaoshou first confirmed the nature of this incident, deciding not to increase the scale of it. An accident was an accident. There was nothing much else to say.

Secondly, it was just a normal cauldron explosion.

'Yes!'

'Extremely normal!'

Whenever he had any cauldron explosions in the past, it was like that as well.

Given the experience that he had, Xu Xiaoshou had already gotten a good grasp over fire control and would basically not cause any cauldrons to explode anymore.

'Why was it like that this time?'

Xu Xiaoshou's brows tightened as he started to ponder.

Throughout the entire alchemizing process, it had been extremely smooth. The only possible time where the accident could have happened would have been when he added two skill points to his Cooking Expert.

'Could it be the heat...'

Xu Xiaoshou squinted his eyes as he suddenly realized the root of the problem.

The flame control that came along with Cooking Expert raised his skill levels.

Even though it was something that appeared in his mind straight away, the first time he used it, Xu Xiaoshou was still not used to it.

His flame control's upper limits had been raised, which allowed him to maintain stable control even under extremely high temperatures.

The amount of strength that he put in during alchemy was still that of before he leveled up.

It was equivalent to a normal person wielding a large hammer and using all of one's strength to hit a piece of metal.

There was not much of a problem with that since that was how Xu Xiaoshou usually performed alchemy.

After leveling up Cooking Expert, the control he had over the flames had increased, which was equivalent to the metal forger becoming an experienced veteran instead of a normal person.

If he still used all of his strength to play with the flames, he was bound to burn himself.

Thinking about that, Xu Xiaoshou was not shocked. Instead, he was surprised.

The Pill Pagoda burning was a small matter to him but finding out how to stop cauldrons from exploding through this experiment was a big matter for him.

As long as his Cooking Expert leveled up, flame control would level up as well. When he was able to control the Heavenly Infernal Flames during high temperatures...

Wouldn't his cauldrons not explode ever again?

"Hehe, haha..."

Xu Xiaoshou could not control his laughter. As he raised his head, he realized something was amiss.

He saw a blackened face with burned eyebrows. It belonged to an angry old alchemist

A continuously burning flame was on his hand.

"President Shi Ti?"

Xu Xiaoshou found it hard to swallow his saliva. When he did, he realized that his throat was tight.

"Startled, Passive Points +1."