744 Struggle

44%.

'That's bad, but it is a new pill that no one has made before, so maybe I didn't do so bad,' Alex thought.

With 19 other True Heaven Alchemists here, that was a bit of hope, but that was all Alex had at the moment. He was sure he could've knocked it out of the park if he had a regular body, but he didn't, so he was stuck with the 44%.

Alex got his pill tested by the staff and waited for the rest of the people to finish making their pills. A few minutes later, most of them did.

42%. 31%. 45%.

All sorts of different numbers popped up in the tester as Alex counted only the points that numbered above him.

There were exactly 4 different people that got more points than him, making his 44% the 5th highest in his group of 20.

'16 points,' Alex thought. That was better than whatever his pessimistic self today was expecting to get.

After the first round was over, Group 1 was taken to their next round which was the speed pill making. Whoever made the pill the fastest won.

Everyone was handed their ingredients as soon as they entered and the host started explaining the competition.

As expected, the one that made the pill fasted and had it tested got the 20 points. Everyone after that got fewer and fewer points until the person in the last place got 1 point.

Alex didn't want to be that person.

'Worst case scenario, Zhou Ren and Xue Meirong get 20 points, putting them 2 points ahead of me. If I can get 20 points in this round, I can stay at a comfortable distance from them.'

'With only 2 points difference, I can easily beat them in the final competition which is all about making the highest grade pill,' Alex thought.

"You will need above 30% to have considered passed."

"Alright everyone, go to your seats," the host said and waited for everyone to sit in front of the furnace.

"Begin!"

Alex immediately brought out his cauldron and used the Dao of Heat to get the cauldron's temperature to the appropriate amount.

It should have been instant considering he had the Dao, but due to his body, he overshot a bit and had the bring the temperature down.

At the same time, he put in the first ingredient. He managed to do that before most of the other people's cauldron was even half heated.

Alex had an advantage in this regard and he was going to use it. He moved around the first ingredient when he realized the fire was going up way too fast.

Since this was a speed test, he was worried he would be slow if he spread his attention between the fire and the ingredients, but he didn't have a choice.

When the fire got hotter, he had to move away from his focus and deal with it.

Once the first ingredient was powdered, he prepared the second ingredient and readied the temperature by dropping it to the appropriate level.

However, due to him compensating for the fact that his Qi was heating up his fire, he ended up overreaching and made the fire colder than it needed to be.

So, to counteract that problem, he heated it up again. However, because he was scared of making the same mistake again, he did it in small increments until he was at the perfect temperature.

Only when the temperature was correct did the 2nd ingredient go into the cauldron. Alex moved around the ingredients like normal while constantly checking the fire to make sure he wasn't screwing it up.

When it came time for the 3rd ingredient, he slowly increased the fire and it took a few moments to reach the proper temperature.

Then he put the 3rd ingredient.

While he had a headstart, these common mistakes started dragging Alex more and more down. By the time he had the 5th ingredient ready, his headstart no longer made a difference as most of the others were starting to catch up.

'I need to be faster,' Alex thought and increased his pace to match up with the others, but it was hard, especially when he kept on making mistakes.

By the time he was done turning all ingredients to powder, everyone was basically on the same stage as he was in.

Alex hurriedly poured energy onto the pills and started forming the pill.

As he did that, from the corner of his eyes, he saw a few people stand up and move forward.

'Dammit! Faster,' Alex thought and pushed himself hard to finish forming the pill.

As soon as it was done, he pulled the pill out and rushed forward to put it into the tester.

He didn't even see how many other people were around him as he waited for his pill Harmony to go above 30%.

He shouldn't even have waited for that as it obviously would. Alex turned around the moment he reached above 30% and counted the number of people that had finished before him.

6.

6 people had finished before him and had earned the 15 through 20 points, leaving Alex with 14. Combining with the previous 16 points, Alex now had 30 points for the 3rd day of the competition.

Alex sighed and started walking away from the stage when staff stopped him again.

"What pill will you be making for the final day?" the man asked.

Alex thought for a moment and said, "Body Rebinding Pill." It was a healing pill that Alex was used to making and was one of the very first pills he ever refined the recipe for.

As such, he had the most practice with it and hoped it would be a lot easier to get his points with it.

Once the staff took the note, Alex walked back to the audience.

"Hey," he said to his mother with a sigh of dejection.

"Aw, don't be sad. You did well. You did very well," Helen said. "Come sit, I'm sure the rest of them will make a lot of mistakes too."

Alex sighed and sat down to watch the match. He looked at the stage and noticed only one person from the top 10, who was towards the bottom of the group.

He didn't really care for that person so he ignored him and looked at the 3rd group that was doing their new pill competition.

Xue Meirong was there and she was sitting around doing nothing. 'She must be reading her recipe,' Alex thought.

He looked up at the rankings and saw his name still in the first place with 102 points, but people were getting close.

And not a single one of the top 10 rankers aside from him was even done.

Alex went back to watching Xue Meirong make the pills. When ignoring the prideful side of her, one could see a really hardworking girl that was doing what she loved and had been doing it ever since she was very young.

There was nothing fantastic about her alchemy, no flourishing moves or crazy techniques. It was all simple Alchemy that anyone could do. However, even if it was simple, she worked hard to do the simple thing precisely and perfectly.

Once she was done with the pill, she had it tested and as expected, she did amazing by getting a solid 56%. That put her in a league above most of the other participants in her group.

Which also meant she got the 20 points and was now at 90 points total.

Even if she did her absolute worst and got 12 points in the next round, which she wouldn't, she would still catch up to Alex and have exactly the same points as him.

If Alex wasn't aware of how the scoring went for the final competition from all the records he read, he would've likely thought that his chances at victory over the whole tournament were over.

While Xue Meirong moved to the speed competition, Zhanrou came out to the new pill competition.

Xue Meirong scored 20 points as expected, finishing nearly a minute earlier than all of her contemporaries.

'110 points,' Alex thought with a grave face. 'I will have to get at least 8 points more than her in the final round to just catch up. If I want to win, I will have to get 9 points higher than her.'

'This is going to be hard.'