“And… you are the final contestant, I believe?”

Grandmaster Dun looked at Xuan, who gave a brief nod. Brushing past the sea of people, he stepped onto the stage. As he went by, however, Zhao Hai couldn’t help but burst out in laughter after seeing through his cultivation, which was practically public without any sort of concealment artifacts.

“Pfft-! What’s this, a Body Tempering stage cultivator? Someone like this dares to come to Open Sky Alchemist Guild’s entrance competition? Friend, even if you’re trying your luck, this is going a bit far, isn’t it? Hahaha! Grandmaster Dun, may I ask that you hand me my due ‘special reward’ now? I cannot hold back my anticipation any longer, and I still have work to sort out back at home.”

Apparently confident a mere Body Tempering stage cultivator would never be able to handle a pill like this much less beat his time, Zhou Hai chuckled boldly. After all, who could blame him? This exam was one of mental fortitude and endurance, after all. With the Soul Strength and Soul Defense of a Body Tempering stage cultivator who still had yet to even use Qi, how could he endure the pain and agony of that pill?

Not only that, but the very appearance of a Body Tempering stage cultivator at any alchemy-related event was simply ridiculous to the point of laughter. After all, to perform alchemy and refine pills, the ability to channel Qi was a necessity. Without a condensed Core, how could one do that?

As such, the rest of the crowd, following Zhou Hai’s lead, joined in in fits of sneers and laughter.

“Haha! There was actually a Body Tempering stage cultivator among us? Hidden quite deep, hidden quite deep!”

“Oh, this is going to be a good show, haha! Grandmaster Dun said the pills weren’t lethal, but against a Body Tempering cultivator… well, who knows?”

“Oi, keep it down! See those clothes? He belongs to the Sky Cloud Sect!”

“So? The Sky Cloud Sect has long had a policy where after one leaves the sect, they’re no longer a sect member of theirs, even if they’re wearing the sect’s clothes. They wouldn’t send a Body Tempering stage cultivator out like this for an errand, so clearly he left of his own will.”

“Really, I pity this poor guy. Kid, if you know what’s good for you, don’t go up there! Not only will you never be able to endure it, you’ll also make a complete fool out of yourself!”

“Are all Body Tempering stage cultivators so arrogant nowadays? Why are you even here? You cannot perform alchemy without being able to channel Qi…”

Xuan ignored all of these worthless imbeciles and instead carried on, taking the pill from the servant’s hand like all the others before him. Unlike for any of the other contestants, Grandmaster Dun watched Xuan’s every moment closely, as if trying to find a flaw, a hint. Xuan noticed this, of course, but he didn’t care and instead focused on what he was doing—inspecting the pill.

Rather than just gulp it down like everyone else, he took the time to observe it. The markings, the aura, the Qi stored within. With his years of experience, as long as he had the chance to examine the pill closely like this, he could roughly tell what function this pill had. But unfortunately, the crowd below was apparently infuriated by his actions, and began yelling to stop him.

“Hey! Why are you just sitting there and looking at the pill? Go on, eat it!”

“Yeah, coward! If you’re so hesitant, don’t go up there in the first place! Now you’re just wasting everyone’s time! We want our alchemist tokens!”

“That’s right, that’s right! It’s not like a Body Tempering stage trash like you would be able to gain anything from observing Grandmaster Zong’s pills anyway, so just get on with it!”

Eventually, Xuan grew tired of all the ringing in his ears, and he sighed before closing his eyes.

“… Grandmaster Dun, was there anything in the test rules that specified I wasn’t allowed to inspect the pill before eating?”

“No.” Grandmaster Dun shook his head. “You may examine it for as long as you would like. There are no rules against that matter.”

“Is that so? Then…” Xuan reopened his eyes and glared at the crowd below, eyes filled with contempt. “… Why do I hear dogs barking?”

“Wha- hey! Who’re you calling a dog-!”

A bunch of pissed off cultivators attempted to rush onto the stage, but Grandmaster Dun stopped them.

“Which one of you dogs want to interfere with my Alchemist Guild’s entrance competition?”

A powerful aura protruded from his body, eyes dead cold. The angry mob had no choice but to back away, suppressed by the immense pressure given off by this old man.

“Tch…”

“… However. I would ask that you refrain from provoking your fellow contestants, boy,” Grandmaster Dun said, turning to Xuan. “If you do anything to disrupt the test again, I will have you disqualified.”

Xuan, hearing this, let out a soft chuckle. In reality, Grandmaster Dun was saying this to the crowd below, but just made it seem like he was talking to Xuan in order to balance things out. The old man was on his side—why, he didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to complain about it.

After observing the pill one last time, Xuan calmly placed it into his mouth, and wrapped his tongue around it. Immediately, the taste kicked in—all kinds of horrible and disgusting flavors, mixed into one.

It was just as bad as the previous contenders’ reactions warranted—but Xuan remained completely unaffected. His eyebrows didn’t furrow, his fists didn’t clench, his forehead didn’t begin sweating, and his expression didn’t contort into something that looked like it came out of a magazine ranking the top ten ugliest photos taken of people in the world.

From an outsider’s perspective, it was like his sense of taste had completely gone numb—hence the crowd’s shocked expressions as they watched on in awe.

“No way… how’s he able to remain completely calm even after taking the pill into his mouth?!”

“Does he not have taste buds?!”

“Taste buds? No! Does he not have a tongue?!”

“Tongue? No! Does he not have a mout-”

“Idiot, his mouth’s right there!”

“Hmph, just a really good actor, that’s all,” Zhou Hai snorted, dismissing this sight as nothing more than an annoyance. “Watch—in a few seconds, he’ll be breaking down crying, regretting not going to work for a theater instead.”

A few seconds passed as the crowd continued watching.

And yet, nothing happened.

Xuan’s expression remained as calm as ever, and really, his body remained so completely still that the only sign that he wasn’t outright dead was the light rise and fall of his chest, signaling that he was breathing evenly.

It was a shocking sight to the crowd, who had just experienced the torture of the pill for themselves moments earlier. If even they couldn’t handle it, how was this Body Tempering stage cultivator doing this like it was child’s play? They couldn’t accept it—and for the first time since being born, Zhou Hai felt fear and anxiety in his heart. What if… what if this Body Tempering stage trash truly beat his time?

No… he couldn’t let that happen. ‘This must be a joke,’ he thought, attempting to convince himself. ‘Surely, this brat was going to soon break down crying, possibly even dead. Yes, that would be for the best.’

But from Xuan’s perspective, all this going on in the outside world was of little concern to him. He was focused on one thing and one thing below—refining the energy from this pill.

Everyone else had been blinded by the pill’s taste immediately after putting it into their mouths. No one had the thought of outright ignoring the taste and delving deeper, actually attempting to comprehend the mysteries of this pill—and even if they did think about it, they did not possess the Soul Defense necessary to pull that off.

For Xuan, however, this was a piece of cake. With a Soul Defense of 16 billion, what was this to him? With ease, he saw through the disgusting facade of the pill, and realized its true form beneath the surface.

‘Huh? A Soul Nourishing pill, and one with pill veins at that…!’

A pleasant surprise indeed. This was a type of pill used to increase a cultivator’s chances of developing a mutated knowledge sea, which was an incredibly rare possession amongst cultivators.

And since this pill had veins as well, that meant the chances were amplified threefold. Adding that to the extremely high energy levels of this pill, this one Soul Nourishing pill was about equivalent to ten market ones in terms of raw power. It was an unbelievable blessing to those who were able to see the true form of this pill and absorb its energy, essentially guaranteeing them a mutated knowledge sea.

‘Why wasn’t I able to obtain something like this in my past life before reaching the Venerable realm…?’

Xuan sighed internally, filled with regret. No matter how many Soul Nourishing pills he had consumed in his past life, he had been unable to develop a mutated knowledge sea, and eventually was forced to simply develop a normal one after breaking through to the Venerable stage.

While a normal knowledge sea was fine and many powerhouses across the lands had one, mutated knowledge seas were infinitely times better. Not only could they be developed earlier than normal knowledge seas, they also raised the cultivator’s aptitude for a certain attribute by a long mile and increased their skill in a certain craft as well.

For example, the Inferno knowledge sea increased one’s aptitude for artifact refining, forging, and fire-attribute skills, while the Flora knowledge sea increased one’s aptitude for alchemy and plant-attribute skills.

But as for Xuan… he could feel something far more sinister than both of those forming in his Soul. In his mind, he saw his Soul image hovering over a vast purple ocean, the only source of light in the beautiful darkness surrounding him being the massive white moon over the horizon. All around it, the sky was a deep violet, creating the color of the water below.

‘This is…’

He recognized this at a glance—the Devil’s knowledge sea, commonly renowned as the strongest but also the most dangerous mutated knowledge sea one could develop. In fact, Xuan had personally experienced something like this once before, when he lived through a memory he found within the inheritance cave of an ancient demon king.

This mutated knowledge sea, while well-known, was exceedingly rare to develop, since one could only develop something like this after killing hundreds if not thousands of people. That’s also why developing something like this was considered to be dangerous—if anyone ever found out you had it, you’d be hunted down and killed by powerful masters for all the murdering you’ve done in the past to develop something like this. Because of that, the knowledge sea’s appearance was renowned and infamous across the world.

Since Xuan had done none other than kill in his past life, it seemed to have carried over to his current body just like his former Soul strength. Grandmaster Zong must’ve created these pills for this alchemy competition with the hopes that someone would develop a Flora knowledge sea to become a peerless genius in alchemy, but… Xuan did not play by the rules.

The Devil's knowledge sea was incredible in terms of raw benefits. Not only did it grant the user insane aptitude for Devil arts, some of the most powerful techniques in existence, it also had the special power of devouring other cultivator’s souls, and with them, their knowledge seas.

In other words, if anyone tried to attack Xuan through his knowledge sea, they’d practically be offering themselves up as food on a silver platter. This also complimented his Chaos Devouring Body, which was all about taking from others to fuel himself.

This Soul Nourishing Pill was truly a blessing from the Heavenly Way’s karmic attributes for saving that huntress from before—and Xuan intended to take full advantage of it.

Like usual, the Heavenly Way always delivered—and in the matter of a few minutes, he’d finished absorbing and refining all the energy from the pill and turned it into fuel for his newborn mutated knowledge sea. Triumphant, he prepared to open his eyes, but-

‘…’

Xuan froze. He’d completely forgotten about the whole announcements thing. Now, if anyone saw the system notification appearing in front of him, alerting him of being the first player to accomplish this achievement… his identity could very well be exposed.

Thankfully, when he opened his eyes, all he found was a shocked crowd staring up at the sky. Players more so than NPCs, the latter of which who were mostly still just confused over the whole announcements matter.

Quickly, Xuan dismissed these notifications in front of him with a quick swipe of his hands, and looked around. Most of the crowd seemed too intrigued by the announcements to be bothered with him.

“Incredible- Zero has already developed a knowledge sea, and a mutated one no less? As expected of the former—and current—rank 1 player!”

“But we’ve only been in the game for a day! What kind of cheats is he using?!”

“Who is this Zero person anyway?! First, a Divine-Grade Spirit, then something about leaderboards… and now this?! Is this some kind of god playing a joke on us?”

“You NPCs wouldn’t understand…” Hu Bao sighed. “But still, even for Zero, this is…”

‘Good, good… it seems most of them have not made the connection between the announcement and I,’ Xuan thought to himself. ‘It would be troublesome if someone were to discover my true identity here given how weak I still currently am, so… I’ll just make it seem like I was disturbed by the announcement as well.’

Even though he already had dual Soul stats of 16 billion each, his physical body could still easily be overwhelmed as a mere Ninth Layer Body Tempering stage cultivator. Xuan decided it was best not to take any risks, so with that, he looked up at the sky just like everyone else, pretending to wonder what was going on.

Amongst the crowd, however, there were two people staring directly at him, not the sky. Xuan noticed this, of course, but pretended to have not.

The first of the two was Zhou Hai with his mouth hanging wide agape, unable to process what just happened. He, the child prodigy of the Zhou Family and a renowned talent in Cloud Catcher City, had just been bested by a mere Body Tempering stage cultivator. Not only that, but Xuan had beaten his time by not one or two seconds. He’d beaten him by a whole five minutes, all while having a calm and relaxed expression on his face like he could do this forever if needed.

It was an unbelievable attack to his ego, and his public face as well as this supposed ‘child prodigy’ of Cloud Catcher City.

The second of the two individuals looking at Xuan was Grandmaster Dun, who already long knew what the true nature of those pills were. Thus, he had a good idea of what really happened just now, and was starting to connect the dots between the announcement and the boy sitting in front of him.

For the first time in many years, this old man had a shocked expression on his face.

‘To think the renowned Zero that keeps being broadcast in these announcements is only a Body Tempering stage cultivator… no, no, that can’t be right. The name Zero sounds very familiar, like it once belonged to some powerful figure. This young man must be hiding his true cultivation… but if that’s the case… why did he come here?’

“So…” Xuan calmly stood back up, wiping away the dust that had gotten onto his clothes while the crowd below the stage continued shouting in disbelief at the announcement. “… I passed, I take it?”