Seeing his score, Cang Song sighed in relief. The margin of error wasn't too far from what he had expected.

'Well… not bad at all.' He nodded to himself, though his expression remained extremely serious.

From the start of the competition, he had already chosen a spot that was not only discreet but also allowed him to observe most of the competitors. His gaze stayed sharp, analyzing everyone's reactions.

It was then that he noticed a strange person, who had immediately triggered his instinct for troublesome people.

Without looking directly at the individual, he continued observing others to avoid suspicion, but kept his ears focused in that direction.

"Brother Huo, don't be discouraged. You really shouldn't have bet with Sister Ye that you'd take first place in the alchemy competition in exchange for her becoming your Dao companion — that was madness. Fortunately, she already likes you, so just apologize sincerely later and your relationship shouldn't sour."

"Yeah, Brother Huo Qing, you were really reckless this time."

He listened as the boy's friends — the one who had triggered his instinct — comforted him while scolding him for his stupidity.

But the boy called Huo Qing merely smiled calmly and didn't seem shaken at all.

Cang Song discreetly looked at the board and quickly found the young man's name… almost at the bottom of the list.

[Huo Qing – First Round: 21 points – Rank: 417th Place]

His mouth twitched as he saw the boy's score.

'That guy… he's 100% pretending to be a pig. But isn't he taking too big a risk?!'

Trusting his instinct for troublesome people, he was certain of his suspicion, but he had to admit the boy knew how to gamble. After all, betting on the lower limits of the participants' strength was much harder than gauging their upper limits.

A single misstep, and he could have been disqualified for misjudging the competition's strength.

'If this is just to make a flashy comeback and shock the crowd, that guy's being a little extreme...'

Disciple Cang broke into a cold sweat and decided that, from now on, he would keep a safe distance of two miles if he ever crossed paths with that Huo Qing guy.

Aotian, while overseeing the competitors through his avatars, had also noticed the calm young man being scolded by his friends.

Unfortunately, lacking Cang Song's instinct, he only realized the boy was concealing his skills — since he had seen him in the previous round deliberately making mistakes — but didn't think much of it. After all, there were plenty of others doing the same in this competition.

He knew the disciple, as he had occasionally taught him, but not enough to gauge the true extent of his abilities — only that he was talented.

With the end of the first round and a few minutes for everyone to settle down as the eliminated left the stage, once again a new batch of materials flew toward the remaining 500 disciples.

"The second round will be the creation of the Cold Spirit Expulsion Pill, a mid-stage, Founder-Tier pill. Since the difficulty has increased, everyone will have the time it takes for one incense stick to burn (fifteen minutes) to finish."

"Just one final reminder: points will reset after each round and will not accumulate. Therefore, do your best!"

Elder Yang Shi, the one overseeing the competition, spoke loudly. His spiritual energy amplified his voice, allowing the more than ten thousand spectators — and of course, the competitors — to hear him clearly.

Finally, he declared:

"Begin!"

Cang Song immediately grabbed his herbs and began refining, tossing them into the cauldron and processing them with care.

With the experience from the previous round, he managed to slow down the process much more easily this time, which gave him time to secretly observe the other competitors.

His eyes soon locked onto Huo Qing, and he noticed the ease with which the young man worked. Though he couldn't extend his spiritual energy to see inside the cauldron, he was certain the boy's alchemy was excellent — after all, there wasn't a single ingredient left at his side.

Most competitors didn't dare place all the medicinal materials inside at once, as losing control within the cauldron could ruin the pill entirely. It was safer to add ingredients gradually, even with the slight loss of medicinal energy caused by repeatedly opening the cauldron.

Thus, the inexperienced always chose to add ingredients in stages.

Cang Song, if he didn't have a goal of reaching second place, would have pretended to do the same. But since he had a specific objective, pretending to be inexperienced wouldn't bring him any benefit — it would only irritate others, especially considering his status as a core disciple.

The competition progressed until, at the ten-minute mark, the disciples began finishing their pills and waited for the time to run out.

Cang Song waited two more minutes before finishing as well, wanting to appear as someone who had worked hard to achieve that result.

As the time neared its end, about seven explosions echoed across the stage.

All eyes turned toward the seven embarrassed disciples, faces blackened with soot, hair and robes scorched, as the cauldron lids that had been blasted into the air clattered back down around them.

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They quickly exhaled spiritual energy from their bodies to cleanse themselves of the explosion's residue, returning to their normal appearance — though their red faces betrayed their shame.

Aotian didn't find it strange. Those disciples could probably refine the pills under normal circumstances, but they weren't proficient enough to do so in just fifteen minutes, so when the timer ran out, they had tried to speed up the process.

Unfortunately, their haste caused their control to collapse, and the materials — full of different energies and properties — clashed violently inside the cauldron, triggering a combustion that led to an explosion.

It was the infamous "cauldron explosion."

The scene drew only mild attention and a few chuckles from the audience.

When the time ended, the elders began moving around, opening cauldrons and inspecting the results.

The seven who had caused explosions, still embarrassed, requested permission from the elders to leave the arena early, and after a few consoling words, Aotian allowed them to go.

The process of point calculation repeated as before, and soon the new rankings appeared.

Out of the five hundred names, four hundred were in red, and only the top hundred on the list advanced.

Cang Song quickly found his name and nodded in satisfaction.

[Cang Song – Second Round: 45 points – Rank: 2nd Place]

Then his gaze swiftly moved down the list until he found the name he was looking for.

[Huo Qing – Second Round: 29 points – Rank: 96th Place]

Cang Song sighed inwardly.

'Predictable… but this could become a problem.' He began to grow a little nervous as the variables increased.

On the other hand, Huo Qing's two friends stared at him with their jaws dropped.

They had been disqualified, while their brother Huo, who had been the worst among them, had somehow risen from 417th to 96th place, leaving them completely dumbfounded for a moment.

Although they briefly thought it could have been luck, such a meteoric rise was far too absurd to explain that way… it was clearly Huo Qing pretending to be a pig.

["Brother Huo, you scoundrel, how could you deceive your brothers?! We were all worried about your future with Sister Ye, and you were just playing around this whole time!"]

["Yeah, Brother Huo Qing, that wasn't cool! Later you'll have to treat us with some high-grade spirit wine, or we won't forgive you!"]

Feeling slightly irritated and helpless for being fooled, the two who had been eliminated still cursed him lightly through voice transmission before wishing him good luck and leaving.

Huo Qing smiled faintly at his two brothers. Although they were annoyed, they still had the consideration not to speak out loud, so as not to break his act of pretending to be a pig to eat the tiger.

He could only apologize to them in his heart — but he had a woman and an entire sect to impress.

Aotian noticed all of this, including their voice transmission, and even shamelessly eavesdropped without them realizing. But he didn't pay it much mind — he simply enjoyed watching the increasingly interesting competition.

Soon, the third round began, and this time it was a late-stage Founder-Tier pill. The time limit had been increased to only twenty minutes, which made many contestants sweat; after all, even with the sect's techniques, it was little time for such a high-level challenge.

This time, no one held back. Only ten of the hundred would advance, and everyone had to give their all so they wouldn't regret it later.

Unfortunately, the difficulty had increased greatly, while the time hadn't risen proportionally, and in the end, about fifteen cauldrons exploded.

Cang Song calculated precisely how much skill he should show, and after much effort, reached a reasonable average, stopping his refinement a minute before the end.

But when the results came, he wasn't calm.

His heart was racing, and he was sweating heavily — after all, his calculations weren't perfectly accurate. He didn't truly know how skilled the others were and was basically gambling.

His nervousness was so intense that he couldn't help but close his eyes when the light curtain changed, revealing the scores.

'Ugh… please, not too much or too little…'

Opening one eye slowly in fear, he sighed in relief at what he saw, almost crying over the "difficult task" his master had given him to perform well in the competition.

[Cang Song – Third Round: 48 points – Rank: 2nd Place]

'Haah… yes, I must always stay in second. That way, it won't draw much attention if I remain in this position in the next round — after all, it'll be expected, and the expected doesn't attract eyes. At the same time, my master can't blame me as long as I stay among the top three.'

Satisfied with his reasoning, he quickly scanned the rest of the ranking board.

The curious audience did the same.

[Huo Qing – Third Round: 41 points – Rank: 9th Place]

"Huh? Who's that Huo Qing in ninth place? I hadn't seen him before."

"Huo Qing? Where? Eh… really, that guy wasn't in the top 20 earlier."

"Damn, that's true. Wait, I remember seeing that name in 96th place in the second round."

"Actually, I participated before being disqualified in the second round, and I saw that name just below mine in the first round. He was in 417th place!"

"What?! That much?! This guy's a total dark horse. He was pretending to be weak, no doubt about it. The question now is how far he can go."

"I think he's already used up all his luck. He probably pushed his limits to get this far. But reaching 9th place is already super impressive."

The crowd immediately noticed the discrepancy and began to chatter excitedly, astonished by the dark horse Huo Qing.

The others in the top 10, though they hadn't shown their full abilities from the start, had still been consistently among the best. The first place, Lan Jun — an inner disciple of the Alchemy Pavilion — had maintained the lead since the beginning.

Huo Qing was also an inner disciple of the Alchemy Pavilion, but he was usually quiet and unremarkable, rarely drawing attention in daily life — which made his sudden rise even more shocking.

As for Cang Song, no one was surprised to see him in second. In fact, some were even a bit disappointed, since he was the only core disciple of the Alchemy Pavilion and should've been in first. Struggling so much just to barely hold second seemed dull.

Thus, people ended up forgetting about him entirely, making Cang Song's face look rather gloomy and dejected.

'Hahaha!' The gloomy and dejected Cang Song was laughing happily inside, relieved that no eyes were on him — everyone's attention was focused on Lan Jun and Huo Qing.

But his joyful mental laughter died in his mental throat when he felt a particular gaze that made his hair stand on end.

Turning his head stiffly, he saw none other than Elder Zhao leaning against the spectator wall, stroking his beard and watching him with an amused smile, as if saying, "Keep pretending, keep pretending — I'm having a great time watching this!"

Cang Song froze and forced a smile uglier than crying at the elder, begging inwardly for his arch-nemesis not to do anything that might harm him at such a delicate moment.

Aotian, among the audience, smiled faintly but had no intention of interfering — he only wanted to tease a little.

Yang Shi, on the stage, waited for the excitement to calm down and for the eliminated disciples to leave. Then he smiled at everyone.

"Well, first of all, I want to congratulate all ten of you who made it this far. But even though you've won this time, I hope you'll never become complacent or slack off, because your fellow disciples who were eliminated have surely redoubled their efforts."

He spoke firmly, and everyone nodded, especially the eliminated ones now sitting in the audience, their eyes burning with determination.

"Well then, that said, before we begin the final match, let's talk about the rewards."

"From 11th to 100th place, participants will receive five thousand contribution points."

"From 4th to 10th place, participants will receive thirty thousand contribution points."

"Finally, from 1st to 3rd place, participants will each receive a Golden Core cultivation technique, and respectively one hundred thousand, seventy thousand, and fifty thousand contribution points."

Upon hearing the rewards — especially those for the top three — the eyes of all present disciples glowed green with desire, and many had to struggle to remain calm, breathing heavily.

Seeing the crowd's excitement and the participants' determination, Yang Shi smiled kindly, then declared loudly, making the entire audience erupt in cheers.

"Then, without further delay, let's begin the final round!"

"OOOAAAAHHHHH!!!"

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