Chapter 5: Clan School's Great Competition
After having a tumble with his schoolmates, Luo Shu was still very excited. While eating meat he drank a couple glasses of wine, and started babbling nonsense. One moment he said he was determined to lose weight, and then towards the end he started talking about the Demon clan's little princess, "I'm friends with her, really, you guys don't believe me, but you know, the real reason I'm not losing weight is because I'm afraid once I lose it, she won't recognize me, guhh…."
Luo Shu kept going until he was completely drunk and collapsed. Even till the very end he didn't notice that Yao Chen hadn't drunk even one cup of wine.
Yao Chen simply smiled. When fatty Luo got drunk he would start rambling, and when he would do so Yao Chen would just remain silent. The fatty also had his own problems. It was in his nature to be lazy. It's not that he didn't want to change, it's just that some traits were simply part of your nature and couldn't be forgotten. If you wanted to explain it harshly, you could say that you couldn't teach a dog to not eat crap. If you wanted to say it nicely, old habits are hard to change.
Moving the passed out from drinking Luo Shu, Yao Chen went to his family's alchemy room in the backyard.
At this moment, his mother Yao Qing was already waiting for him there. She appeared to be in a daze as she looked at the alchemy room. Collecting up her hair, she clasped it into a celadon hairpin.
"Mom, Luo Shu's drunk and collapsed."
"Heihei." Yao Qing nodded. A trace of gentleness flashed across her eyes, but it quickly turned uncompromising, "Start."
"Yes mom."
Yao Chen nodded, closing the door and talking a deep breath, he walked over.
Yao Qing stood to the side next to the medicinal ingredients. As if she had done it many times, she used her Dou Qi to lightly press against a certain mechanism, "kacha," the mechanism let out a noise as it started. The alchemy room's ground suddenly split apart, revealing a large hole. This was the family's seclusion training room.
"Go and enter."
With Yao Qing in front and Yao following behind her, the mother and son walked into the hole through a set of stairs, looking towards the training room. The room had been arranged with an exquisite medicinal cauldron on one side, and on the other side was a storage rack full of medicinal ingredients, however the storage rack upstairs was basically empty.
On the eastern wall of the alchemy room was a small door, and passing through it was another rather small isolated training room. Inside was a stone table, stone bed, and stone bench. On one side were also foods that could be stored for a long time. And then another side had a well that drew spring water from the ground.
In the center of the isolated room was an iron basin filled with water. The basin was being heated by geothermal energy, which was unceasingly boiling the water, creating traces of violet steam that overflowed out, once again falling and returning to the earth.
Yao Chen swallowed a mouthful of saliva as his body unconsciously shivered a couple times. This iron basin was filled with a water called Xian Dew. After heating it for seven days, add some special medicinal powders, and it would create a marrow cleansing bone carving medicinal soup bath. Soaking it in would give many benefits to your body's physique, your Dou Qi, and your Spiritual Perception.
However, soaking in it would cause an extremely difficult to endure prickling and itching sensation. Furthermore you wouldn't be able to scratch; the more you scratched the more it would itch, and if you did scratch somewhere, then a blister would form under your skin and wouldn't go away for a long time.
At this time, his mom was pouring in two types of medicinal powders into the water, which quickly caused the water surface to grumble, as the water started to bubble and boil over, emitting a violet steam. This was the result of mixing the Xian Dew with some special medicinal powders.
"Enter. This time you have to endure for four hours."
"Yes." Yao Chen forcefully nodded. Last time had had persevered for three hours, and had almost not been able to resist using his hand to scratch his body. However the results of the soaks were huge. Although these two years his strength had been sealed at the boundary of a nine star Dou Zhe, his body was actually already capable of withstanding the Dou Qi of a Da Dou Shi, which was largely the result of continuously enduring the medicinal bath.
Yao Chen took a deep breath. Biting his lip, he jumped into the basin with a crashing sound. He immediately felt his countless pores opening up within the hot water, and the medicinal strength started to unceasingly enter his body through them. First it entered the capillaries near his skin, then his veins and arteries. Through the veins and arteries it entered into his various organs, deeply permeating into his body, and finally entering his bone marrow.
This was a very comfortable feeling; however this kind of comfortable feeling had barely even appeared for a couple breaths' time before a wave of heat gushed out from the bottom of the basin, and a faint itching feeling appeared on his waist. This faint itching feeling started to spread, covering his whole body, and furthermore it became more and more itchy over time.
However Yao Chen's expression didn't change it all. This level of itchiness was something he had long since become accustomed to. The real thing to be afraid of, that would come later.
After a short period of time, his bone marrow burst out a wave of Dou Qi, which meant the medicinal strength had completed penetrated throughout his body and Dou Qi. In a split second, he suddenly felt his four limbs and all his bones simultaneously release a strange itchiness, an itchiness that simply could not be described in words spread throughout his body, an itchiness which practically was so painful it would make you not want to live, as if an infinite malicious ants and insects were trampling and licking every inch of your skin, a maliciousness which penetrated deep into your body….
"Ugh…."
Yao Chen's five senses were all distorted. He resisted with great difficult to scream. The itchiness was unlike pain; screaming wouldn't help, and in fact it would be the opposite as screaming would make it even itchier.
With his one breath, he endured for as long as he could.
That night from two years ago, as a result of his grief and sadness, a powerful thirst for strength caused a kind of demonic energy to break out in Yao Chen's body, causing him to jump from a six star Dou Zhe to a nine star Dou Zhe. This event caused his future potential to burn, losing over half of it. If his mother had not promptly sealed his Dou Qi and let him advance to an even higher Dou Shi class, he would have been stuck in the Dou Shi class for the rest of his life.
Overdrafting one's potential meant that a price had to be paid. The medicinal bath, other than training his body, was more importantly replenishing the burned out potential from two years ago.
The night passed without words. The second morning, Yao Chen woke up the sleep talking Luo Shu. The unprecedented four hours within the medicinal bath's suffering had exceeded his expectations on how much mental and physical energy was required.
"Wake up, today's the day the clan school is selecting the best people for the Medicine Competition."
On the face of it, the Medicine Competition was something any member younger than 24 of the Yao clan could participate in, but the reality was that in order to avoid mixing the bad people with the good, and in order to save the elder's trouble, before the Medicine Competition would be a couple of selections in order to find the best disciples to stand on top the stage during the Medicine Competition.
If Yao Chen wanted to stand out in the Medicine Competition, not only did he need to make his preparations but he also to jump over a couple of obstructions.
The first obstruction would the clan school's selection! Of course, the main bloodline's disciples had special privileges. Since many people paid attention to them, their levels of strength were generally very well known, so they didn't need to go obtain the qualifications for the Medicine Competition.
However branch disciples were not the same; not only were they very numerous, but the weak were intermingled with the strong. When it came time for the Medicine Competition, the clan school would first test all the branch disciples to see if they had the qualifications to participate in the Medicine Competition.
Yao Chen and Luo Shu hurriedly rushed over to the clan school's training yard. It was already filled with the school's disciples, and not only was it just their grade, but the people above and below their grade were also qualified to participate in this round of selection.
Yao Chen's position within the clan school within his own grade was always towards the back since it was the kind of thing that he simply didn't pay attention to.
Luo Shu was very nervous, of course, he wasn't nervous for himself. Although attending the Medicine Competition was an honor, he had no intention of participating. As a Yao clan disciple he knew a thing or two about alchemy and was capable of refining pills such as the Blood Stopping Pill or the Energy Recovery Pill, but his main focus was all spent on Dou Qi training. His thinking was very simple; once he trained to the Dou Shi class and became a clan guard amongst the clan protectors, he could stick to his big brother Luo Shan and randomly eat and drink, that would be enough. And if he was ever bored he could go find Yao Chen for some medicinal pills, and exchange them outside the clan for cool stuff. The popularity of medicinal pills from the Yao clan was something that everyone knew about.
Right now he was very worried about Yao Chen. The clan school's selections were extremely severe; although he knew Yao Chen had made many preparations, but his strength was still just at the nine star Dou Zhe level. Amongst the clan school disciples, the well known ones were all one or two star Dou Shis.
Dou Shi and Dou Zhe. The difference between the two was incomparable. One was up in the sky while one was still stuck on the ground.
To an alchemist, Spiritual Perception was admittedly an important part of it, but ones Dou Qi's strength was also an extremely significant factor. It was the cultivation base's strength that determined the quality of the flame, the flame's strength, and even had an impact on the speed and success rate of refining. Consequently, many high grade medicine pills required a fire type Dou Qi that had reached a certain level, or there would simply be no way of refining it.
Within the Yao clan, 99% of practitioners had fire type Do Qi. Two years ago, Yao Chen didn't heed his father's advice to pick one of the best cultivation techniques and instead he picked the "Triple Flower Agglomerating Flame Technique." This was one of the Yao clan's three major public cultivation techniques, and it was the worst of them. Within the clan school no one would pick this cultivation technique to practice. Most disciples would pick the Coagulating Fire Technique or the Blazing Origin Technique, of which the Blazing Origin Technique was the most used. The clan school strongest people, Yao Ting, Li Yanxin, and Zuo Hongle, all practiced either the Blazing Origin Technique or the Coagulating Fire Technique.
Whether it was the Coagulating Flame Technique or the Blazing Origin Technique, they were both alchemy fire techniques that were easy to practice to a tyrannical level. However the Triple Flower Agglomerating Flame Technique was different in that each step while training was exceptionally difficult, to the point where every clan disciple who practiced this technique ended up stuck in a bottleneck that made it difficult to advance even an inch more. There was once an elder that proposed removing the Triple Flower Agglomerating Flame Technique from the three major public cultivation techniques, but eventually dropped it. At the beginning when he kept asking around, he found that a thousand years ago, an extremely famous strong ancestor (not as in Dou Ancestor/Zun) who was listed in the clan history had explicitly indicated that this technique should eternally be a public cultivation technique for the Yao clan. It was not be allowed to change.
However, although this technique is difficult to train in, it also had its good points. The Blazing Origin Technique, or the Congealing Flame Technique, for every small advancement, would consume many training resources every day. But the Triple Flower Agglomerating Flame Technique did not have so many requirements. If you had resources, it was good; if you didn't, it didn't really matter.
In addition, legend has it that if the Triple Flower Agglomerating Flame Technique was trained to its later stagers, its strength would be much stronger than the Blazing Origin Technique and the Coagulating Flame Technique. Of course, this was just the legends. No one would really go believe some nonsense folklore. And after all, it was only a foundation building Huang class cultivation technique. As long as you were steady enough, any cultivation technique was the same. Picking the Triple Flower Agglomerating Flame Technique was equal to letting the time used for building your foundation increase several times.
Training was originally based on fighting during the day, striving against the earth, and using your time battling others. So even if the Triple Flower Agglomerating Flame Technique's later stages were even stronger, no one would really pick it.
The unfortunate point is that Yao Chen was helplessly forced into picking the Triple Flower Agglomerating Flame Technique. The Blazing Origin Technique was also one of the clan's major public cultivation techniques; however it required a large amount of resources to advance cultivation bases. Without his father, Yao Chen could only choose the slower to cultivate Triple Flower Agglomerating Flame Technique.
Luo Shu was also very clear that although Yao Chen was very hard-working at training, using all his effort, but due to cultivating the Triple Flower Agglomerating Flame technique his strength in controlling the flame would be weaker compared to the top ranking first years like Yao Ji and Yao Yin, let alone Yao Tong, Li Yanxin, and Zuo Hongle who came from three influential large families.
Fatty Luo couldn't help but to recall two years ago….
Actually, if brother Yao Chen hadn't undergone that indescribable event that broke up his body to advance, and suddenly burnt through half of his potential, then the Yao Tong, Li Yanxin, and Zuo Hongle from the three large families would all have to line up behind Yao Chen.
Suddenly, a couple sharp voices came from the side, a glance would reveal yesterday's group that had slandered Yao Chen.
"Oh, so you finally showed your face. I actually thought you wouldn't dare to come, trash."
"Ha, sounds about right, complete garbage, these two words are exactly what he measures up to.
"Not bad, not bad. Very correct. Yesterday I beat him him, yet he unexpectedly didn't even retaliate, and it was even just in front of his house. Later, it was even his mom that saved him, hahaha…."
Luo Shu's face turned green, he couldn't help but to immediately rush over there. Yao Chen was nevertheless smiling slightly, holding back Luo Shu's arm, "No need to lower oneself to a maggot's level. To be bit by a bug, later it'll be fine to just step on it to kill it. It's not worth it to go and bite back at the bug."
"Haha, well said, maggots!"
Luo Shu finally cooled down at this moment. Changing his savage expression to a fresh one, he turned around, planning on no longer paying any attention to this group of dregs.
Currently it was the clan school's selection time. It was also the time for the Great Competition that would occur at the school every three months. To fight with schoolmates before the Great Competition, or even being the first to initiate an argument, would cause you to be put in detention. And since the Great Competition was combined with the selection, naturally their confrontation would fizzle out and have no way of occurring. Luo Shu endured. Even if he didn't have to endure for himself, thinking about it he still have to take into consideration Yao Chen. Although he didn't think Yao Chen had any tricks, but if this time he could get a good result at the Great Competition in the clan school, it would be pretty good. After all, the clan school's resources were distributed based on the Great Competition's rankings.
"Che, coward. An incompetent good-for-nothing.
The harsh words were continuously coming through, but Yao Chen merely turned a deaf ear.
This time he must obtain a top 8 placing in the Great Competition in order to participate in the Medicine Competition.
There were only eight spots, but within the clan school's ranking, Yao Chen's strength placed him at above forty plus. Within the clan school this would be nothing remarkable, causing him to miss out on all kinds of opportunities. In the clan school, if you wanted to improve, just relying on effort wasn't enough. Medicinal pills had to be paired with it. The clan school arranged for many special opportunities, and only some of the top rankings, or some people with some special backgrounds in the clan could have these opportunities.
Within the clan school, disciples would not be over 17 years old. This time, amongst the students within the three grades that were allowed to participate, if one were to count the number of people who could refine second tier pills, it would number around one hundred people. However, the number of people that could refine third tier pills would not be greater than ten.
Obtaining the qualification to attend the Medicine Competition was an extremely important opportunity. Although the number of spots was limited by the clan school's Great Competition, but the reality was there was a large gap to bridge. If Yao Chen wanted to obtain a spot, then he could only refine a tier three medicinal pill, which would require all of his effort….
So, this time, he must exhaust all his strength to go and put his all into this fight.
Previously, Yao Chen's best result was the second tier pill Azure Flame Pill. It would increase the strength of one's fire attribute cultivation technique in a short period of time. However the Azure Flame Pill was only considered a second tier pill, which would be classified as lower tier. If it was placed outside the Yao clan, it would be something that most people would fight over, but within the clan's school it would only be considered too inferior to show in public.
Yao Chen didn't have Luo Shu's nervousness. His eyes were looking forward, and he quickly found the clan school's numerous elders standing in a line. The elders were solemn, and their robes[i] were completely new. Obviously they attached a very great importance to this time's clan school's Great Competition.
The Medicine Competition was an extremely high honour within the Yao clan; any selection that had to do with it could actually be considered as being a part of the Medicine Competition. In the Yao clan, nobody would treat this scenario with laziness, not even the senior elders would.
"The clan school's Great Competition is about to start, students of the clan school, take your places."
Everyone loudly consented, each person took out their respective preparations, with the chamberlains to the side watching them, they lit the refining flame in their medicinal cauldrons for this time's Great Competition.
"The Great Competition has now begun!"
Following the clan school's elder's declaration, every clan school disciple took their place according to their ranking. Yao Chen also found his place. A standard grade medicinal cauldron as well as some rather basic medicinal ingredients were placed to the side.
For the clan school's Great Competition, it was not allowed to use your own cauldron. This would also test the disciples' foundations. If you weren't a true genius, using an unfamiliar medicinal cauldron would cause your success rate while refining to decrease; for those comparatively easier to refine pills at or above the second tier, the regular disciples would naturally not be able to lightly attempt it, while truly strong people would naturally not have to take the cauldron into consideration.
As far as the medicinal ingredients required for refining, the clan school prepared many of the common medicinal ingredients, which would be sufficient to refine most pills at the fourth tier or below. For this Grand Competition, it was more formal than past ones, but the same protocols were followed. Therefore, Yao Chen had already long since familiarized himself to this kind of situation. Taking a couple deep breaths, adjusting his breathing, he entered a kind of state where he forgot about himself and the situation. His Spiritual Perception swept over the medicinal ingredients on the side, before carefully selected some.
On the stage, the numerous elders looked towards the ten disciples at the front. These ten people had attained the best results from last time's Great Competition from out of the many clan disciples. No matter if one was talking about their abilities as alchemists or the strength of their Dou Qi, within the clan school they could be considered above their level for the rest of their lives. Oftentimes they would receive special attention from the elders, and they had also had the experience of participating in some of the inner clan's missions, causing each person to have some unique benefits.
"This time's Medicine Competition, anyone of these ten people might be able to get one of those eight spots."
"Haha, the top three names don't even need to be brought up, it will definitely be Yao Tong, Li Yanxin, Zuo Hongle. Their strength has long since surpassed regular people. Even if they had to compare to the main bloodline, they'd still be able to put up a fight."
"Indeed, but from the fourth to the tenth disciple, although they are ranked accordingly, their strength does not differ by much. Which two will end up being kicked out this time is still difficult to say."
The numerous elders were roving over the movements of these top ten people, while commentating on their opinions.
"Boom."
At this moment, a loud rumbling noise came out. You could see that a clump of black smoke was exploding out from one of the last rows.
"Yao Xiao, disqualified."
After the elders confirmed the identity, they immediately passed judgement, sentencing the disciple who had caused the cauldron explosion to remove himself from the arrangement, in order to avoid influencing the rest of the disciples' refinements.
Everyone knew that the purpose of the Grand Competition this time was to pick out the people for the Medicine Competition. The disciples that were ranked towards the back didn't have the slightest intention on getting one of those spots. Instead, they simply wanted to use this opportunity in order to test their limits. If they happened to succeed they might become well known, and if they did fail then there was no loss. Consequently the first dropout came from their midst, and after only a short amount of time too… following the first dropout, one after another a continuous stream of failed concoctions came out. Using an unfamiliar medicinal cauldron, if they could really succeed then they would really have a dogshit luck.
The continuous stream of dropouts unavoidably reached Luo Shu's position. Originally his skill in alchemy was just average. With just one tremble of his hand, a failure in controlling the flame caused a burst of black smoke to come out of his medicinal cauldron. The medicinal cauldron immediately extinguished this fire; although he was a bit better and didn't cause a cauldron explosion, the medicinal ingredients had already combined into a clump that could no longer be refined into a pill. His refinement this time would have to count as a failure.
Luo Shu was indifferent, originally his goal was not on alchemy, and in this scenario when he didn't even use his own medicinal cauldron, it really was not easy to control it. He left the refining region, arriving at the waiting region. Luo Shu turned his head looking for Yao Chen.
If he didn't see him he wouldn't have noticed, but seeing Yao Chen caused Luo Shu to jump in shock. Heavens! What is Yao Chen doing?
A strange black smoke ring was unceasingly coming out from Yao Chen's medicinal cauldron. It appeared that it he was forcefully suppressing an already failed refinement, and was trying to forcefully succeed in refining the pill.
"Not possible right…" Luo Shu couldn't believe it, muttering under his breath.
In terms of alchemy, Yao Chen was a hundred times better than him. From his viewpoint, it was impossible for Yao Chen to cause this kind of black smoke while refining!
"Haha a bunch of garbage rubbish sealed inside his furnace. It's even started to emit black smoke yet he still doesn't let it go, does he think he can forcefully refine a pill still?"
"Even if he does make a pill, it would be a garbage pill."
"Obviously trash, don't you think you should hope that he realizes and tell him to give up?"
"Hahaha."
At this time, the group from yesterday once again gathered beside Luo Shu, coldly ridiculing and trying to irritate him. It was evident that they had already failed at refining. This was very natural considering that with their temperaments, they could only continue to pad the bottom of the clan school's ranking. Truly talented disciples would not have the time to waste on fighting with words, as they already didn't have enough time just to study.
Luo Shu suppressed with great difficultly the rage that was building in his heart. Not lifting his hand to fight, "Peh, you dregs, if you have the skills then duel me!"
"Duel? You're still tiny! Haha."
"The friends of trash are also trash. Nowadays, there are still people asking for duels?"
Luo Shu grinded his teeth, looking towards Yao Chen he once again forcefully compelled himself to ignore these maggots.
This look once again caused him to be surprised. Brother Chen's medicinal cauldron, how could it stop emitting black smoke?
Logically, if a refining failure caused black smoke, then there was no way to recover from it. Forcefully suppressing it to form a pill would still only result in a useless garbage pill. It would practically be equal to coal with just the shape of the pill.
But at this moment, Yao Chen's medicinal cauldron was only emitting a streak of rising white vapor.
"Oh? This fellow…."
"He's just putting on an act is all. Watch it until the end, most likely at the end he'll completely burn his garbage pill to ashes. Everyone's watching, he might be able to fake it now, but at the end he won't be able to hide his failure, foolish."
"Haha, every Great Competition would have a couple of these dumb birds."
"What can you hope that good for nothing will be able to refine?"
"Why stop at good for nothing? He burnt up all his potential yet he's just a nine star Dou Zhe, I really just don't know what kind of words to describe him, can 'garbage' even be used in this way?"
"If he couldn't even manage to refine some coal, haha, I'm afraid that his result might even be worse than just garbage.
This group of people's ear-piercing ridicule was clearly directed towards Yao Chen and fatty Luo. These people didn't have intention of making progress. In the clan school they just let each day lazily pass by, provoking their classmates was the only entertainment they had. Of course it all depended on if that person was a soft persimmon. They all knew that two years ago Yao Chen had burnt through his potential, so everyone could be unrestrained.
As for Luo Shu… he was also ranked at around one hundred which would be the dregs of the clan school. Adding to it his natural fat disposition, he would often meet ridicule for his physique and have to suffer through these people's bullying.
Time slowly passed. After two hours, a sharp sound come out from the region people were still refining in. The first medicinal pill was finally completed.
"It's Yao Tong."
The ranking's first place, a youngster wearing a black robe, was facing his medicinal cauldron, and collected his pill in a quick motion. As his Dou Qi rushed out, his furnace released a white gas, forming an auspicious cloud over his cauldron. The youngster had starry eyes and sharp brows, he was extremely handsome and tall, and most rare of all was that even when he accomplished his refining, his eyes continued to stay steady and didn't have the slightest trace of arrogance.
Only now did the elder's start to look at the other disciples who hadn't finished their refinements, however their eyebrows were wrinkled.
Although the clan school's aim was to educate all the disciples of the clan, they only taught the most basics of the basics. Later, the excellent disciples would be apprenticed to other masters. But human nature dictated that people wanted to have relationships with the strong, but looked down on the weak. If your ranking was weaker than 20 it would be hard to be chosen.
Unless you had some kind of special background it would be hard to get their attention. Although they wouldn't hate you, they wouldn't pay you as much attention.
"Actually it's not that urgent, it's just that I'm afraid time is running out."
It was impossible to let them have a limitless time to refine. Right now there was only one hour left. And as for those people who still hadn't finished, they were still far behind on their pills, and probably wouldn't finish.
Unless, as time drew near, their skill advanced to a new level. It's just that such a thing would be a lunatic's ravings.
[i] A traditional Chinese men's robe. 长袍