The spectators were all standing behind a red line, keeping a distance away from the competitors while watching them.

“Are you guys seeing this? I told you that Leizhou City’s Liu Bingqian will be last place. Everyone else have already started to prepare their ingredients while these two aren’t even doing anything. From what I can see, she probably doesn’t know what ingredients she should use!”

Liang Nine revealed a smile, “This little brother……And here I was worrying about what sort of tactics you have to dare bet with us. It seems like you were too overconfident.”

“Hehe. Brother Nine, our group has 10 people. How are we going to use the 1200 gold coins?”

Liang Nine laughed, “That’s easy. Everyone will get 100 and we will use the remaining two hundred to have a good meal at the Classic Moon Restaurant.” The Classic Moon Restaurant is the best restaurant in Tiandao City. Their spirit wines are of the top quality.

“Great! Brother Nine is sure straightforward!”

Seeing how the Leizhou City group haven’t moved, they’ve already established them as the last place already. They all started to talk about who the fourth place was going to be.

The top 3 was able to enter the 2nd round but this time, the top 3 will be able to keep their spots in the competition next year while the other two will have their qualifications revoked.

Ye Zifeng was finally done scouting his opponents. In just a few glances, he was able to estimate his opponent’s abilities. He turned around and looked at Bingqian. He noticed that Bingqian was having some trouble with the ingredients and revealed a kind smile.

“Bingqian, just follow what I say and gather the ingredients.”

Liu Bingqian was shocked after hearing this, “No way. This Yuan Increasing Pill isn’t a qi refining realm pill. You really know how to gather and prepare the ingredients?”

Ye Zifeng smiled, “This isn’t the first time I’ve concocted in front of you. Do you still not believe me?” In front of normal people, he would hide 90% of his abilities, but in front of Liu Bingqian, he would only hide 50%. This 50% was probably enough for her to believe him.

Liu Bingqian laughed, “I don’t really know how much ingredients to gather and how to prepare them. I really need some advice from you. Come on big brother rough guy. I’ll do as you say.”

Normally, when she concoct pills, she would have a book with her and follow the book step by step. However, they were at a competition right now. Where is she going to pull her book from? This was one of the reasons why Bingqian could not unleash her full potential in the way of alchemy. Now that she has Ye Zifeng by her side, she has nothing to worry about.

“That’s better.” Ye Zifeng smiled and nodded, “Listen up. Three Fire Wind Fruits, two strands of Golden Wood Grass, Two Spirit Converging Ginseng, Three Fire Dream Leaves followed by ten drops of Dragon Swallow Dew. Put them in the cauldron first.”

“Alright!” Liu Bingqian nodded and became serious. She quickly gathered the ingredients and put them onto a plate. Now that she has someone guiding her, her movements became way faster than before.

Muyun Old Devil’s gaze swept across all the competitors and stopped when she looked at Liu Bingqian.

“Huh? When did this girl’s ingredient allocation ability get so high? I don’t think I taught her anything about that recently. Could it be that she’s been studying and preparing for the competition?”

Muyun Old Devil also noticed that Ye Zifeng was saying something but she thought that he was just chatting with her and didn’t take any note of it.

With this, Yi Hao and Xu Shen from Qushui City and Huangtu City both became very anxious. The reason why they were able to beat Liu Bingqian was because she didn’t know how much ingredient she needed to concoct the pill. When the pill formed, it would be much weaker due to the imbalance between the ingredients. However, it seems like Bingqian had learned to gather ingredients.

Without moving Ye Zifeng continued to talk, “The Profound Tier Cauldron has 32 star positions. A common tier cauldron is separated into North, West, South, and East, the four cardinal positions. Bingqian, if you want to concoct a Yuan Increasing Pill that everyone can use, you must put different ingredients into different cardinal positions.

Liu Bingqian was shocked and confused, “Big brother rough guy, then how should I position the ingredients?” If she didn’t hear Ye Zifeng, then she would have randomly put the ingredients into the cauldron without caring about the “rules”.

“Fire Wind Fruit goes to the north side. The Golden Wood Grass goes to the south side. Spirit Converging Ginseng to the west side and the Fire Dream Leaves on the east side. Also put two drops of the Dragon Swallow Dew on each side and the last two drops in the middle.”

Liu Bingqian’s eyes lit up. While doing what she was told, she asked Ye Zifeng,

“Big brother rough guy. How come you’re so familiar with the Yuan Increasing Pill? Could you have concocted it before?”

The amount of pills that Ye Zifeng had concocted had already exceeded Liu Bingqian’s knowledge already. This mere Yuan Increasing Pill was easily something that he had concocted before. Right now, he didn’t want to fully answer her.

“Don’t worry about it and concentrate. If you put the ingredients in the wrong place, then it will affect the concoction process.

“Hmph. You never tell me anything.” Liu Bingqian pouted. She then nodded and finished up putting the ingredients into the cauldron. At that time, Ye Zifeng had started to light up the firewood under the cauldron.

All of the competitors were all minding their own business and didn’t care about anything else.

What they didn’t know was that everyone was chatting in the audience.

“This….. This is!” A few senior alchemists that Muyun Old Devil invited stared at Liu Bingqian and their faces turned white and then red.

Some of them who are here for the first time were shocked, “No way. She’s so young. How does she know the ancient concocting method? How does she know how to put the ingredients in each cardinal position? Didn’t you guys say that she’s always been last place?”

“Last place…. This….” The other judges felt their head go numb.

If someone can use the ancient concoction method and still get last place, then the level of the alchemy competition must be extremely high. However, this was not the case.

Even some outsiders can tell that something wasn’t right.

Some people returned to their senses and nudged Liang Nine, “Brother Nine, could it be that Liu Bingqian had been practicing all year for this? How come it seems like she’s a completely different person. Say…. Are we going to……”

Liang Nine furrowed his brows, “Shut up you jinx! I’ll admit that this Liu Bingqian had grown a bit but look at her helper. He hasn’t even condense his common tier flame yet and is still using firewoods. I’d like to see how long they can last.”

“Hold on. Brother Nine. look. That guy looks like he wants to condense his flame right now!”

“What?!” Liang Nine rubbed his eyes and looked towards Ye Zifeng.

They saw that Ye Zifeng was guarding his dantian with one hand while he was trying to condense a common tier flame with his other hand.

Everyone had been watching him and was holding their breath. When they saw that Ye Zifeng had condense the flame on his fingers, they all gasped. Now that he has condensed the flame, it would make Liu Bingqian’s life easier.

In the next moment, Ye Zifeng sat down and inserted the flame qi into the cauldron while adding firewoods.

Yang Jing was standing on the side watching Ye Zifeng. It reminded her of how he concocted the Pure Yang Dan. His movements were elegant and perfect.

“Brother Zhen…. Look at that guy. What… What is he doing?”

Xu Zhen’s assistant couldn’t help but ask.

Xu Zhen revealed a cold smile, “Don’t worry about it. From what I can see, his flame isn’t enough to boil the ingredients so he’s using the firewoods to supplement it. However, even though it is smart idea, it is very hard to control your flame to match the intensity of the firewood. From what I can see, the fire will go out of control soon and they will make a pile of slag. They’re basically looking to die!”

He looked at his helped and said, “Remember this. Don’t worry about what Leizhou City does. Yi Hao from Qushui City is our true opponent. If you’re so free, go look at what they’re doing.”

From what Xu Zhen can see, even if Liu Bingqian’s abilities went up by a bit, it won’t be that much. It’ll still be easy to beat her.

“Bingqian, when I’m controlling the fire. Don’t let any of the ingredients fall. Add some of your own qi into the cauldron.

“Alright!” Liu Bingqian was in her follower mode and would do whatever Ye Zifeng tells her. She had been following his every step and can hear the praises from the audience.

Ye Zifeng saw that it preparation was almost done and after he inserted the last firewood, he looked up.

“Bingqian, you’ve already secured the ingredients in place and the flames are strong enough already. From now on, I’ll only be guiding you with my words and won’t help out anymore.”

Liu Bingqian’s expression changed, “No way. No way. If you don’t do anything, how can I beat them? What are you thinking?”

Ye Zifeng revealed a smile, “Don’t you think that it’ll be better to let them show off first and then beat them down in front of everyone? It’ll feel much better this way!”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep