Wizards in the world of cultivation

Chapter 102 First! First!

Most of the pills that Su You refined were either tonifying or barrier-breaking pills.

With the addition of some identification skills, they were able to recognize the effects of more than a dozen pills.

However, compared to a hundred pills, these twelve pills are far too few.

Of course, Su You did not give up directly, but instead classified these pills based on his intuition and wrote down their effects.

The rewards for this round of assessments are also quite high; you can earn an extra fifty points for each correct answer.

The results of the third round of assessments came out quickly.

ID 76817: Points: 600, Rank: 95821st

Total points: 1520, Overall ranking: 77622st

"We're at the bottom again this time..." Su You shook his head helplessly.

This time, the overall ranking has dropped even further, from within the top 10,000 to over 70,000.

This is something that can't be helped. Whether in terms of foundation or talent, there is still a huge gap between them and the alchemy geniuses of various forces, which cannot be bridged in a short time.

Fortunately, as long as you are not eliminated, you can continue to participate in the assessment.

Moreover, even if you are eliminated now, you can still exchange for at least three Golden Core Pills.

Of course, Su You currently looks down on those who have reached the Golden Core stage.

Whether he exchanges within the sect or buys at the Void Heaven Sect's auction, he has the financial resources.

At worst, he can wait a few more years. He's only in his seventies now, while the Foundation Establishment stage has a lifespan of three hundred years. It's still a long way off.

Su You's target was those pills that were difficult to buy outside, or inheritances, or some high-aged spiritual herbs.

Just as he was pondering, the jade tablet vibrated slightly, indicating that the task for the fourth round of assessment had appeared.

Danfang Innovation!

Give them a formula for a pill and let them modify the recipe to innovate. Whether it's enhancing the medicinal properties of the pill, saving materials, or using materials with lower value, any beneficial innovation will be considered acceptable.

"The fourth level, this is the most important one!" Su You looked at the information on the jade tablet with a solemn expression.

The reason Zhao Qing chose these six people was for this test. As long as they could pass this test, they would definitely be able to exchange for the Spirit Purification Pill.

The basic reward for this assessment is 3,000 points, with a maximum of 20,000 points.

Even if you barely pass the assessment and only receive the basic reward, you can still accumulate enough points to reach 3,200.

After all, even if the previous results were terrible, two hundred points should still be achievable.

Moreover, based on information from previous years, this round of assessment will eliminate more than half of the alchemists, unlike the previous rounds which only tested the alchemists' basic abilities and were not too strict.

Su You glanced at the information on the jade tablet and immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

The pill formula on the jade tablet was a very ordinary first-tier pill formula. Although I didn't recognize it, most of the spiritual herbs used in the alchemy were quite common.

That's normal. In this level, it's impossible to directly choose some obscure medicinal herbs that you don't recognize, let alone replace.

Moreover, the more common a medicinal herb is, the more it tests an alchemist's alchemy skills.

After all, there are many alternatives, but surpassing the original formula is not so simple.

This assessment has been extended to ten days, giving alchemists enough time to make hundreds of attempts. If they still fail, it can only mean that they do not have enough aptitude in alchemy.

"It's finally my turn." Su You smiled.

Improving the formula was his favorite part and also his forte, which he could leverage with Beckham's powerful calculation abilities.

While others can only attempt a few hundred rounds of experiments, Beckham has already conducted tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of simulation experiments.

Su You transmitted the relevant data, and Xiao Bei immediately activated all the computing power to perform calculations and analysis.

The medicinal properties of these elixirs have already been stored in specific data. Now, all that is needed is to find elixirs with similar medicinal properties to combine, and then analyze some of the optimal combinations to try.

Su You didn't sit idle either; he immediately instructed Chen Yuanzong to purchase a large quantity of related medicinal herbs.

Su You and his twin clones conducted experiments on different combinations of pill formulas on both sides.

He even summoned all the first-tier alchemists from the Chen family and the Luoxia Sect to conduct experiments on new pill formulas and try to analyze more combinations.

Although the data calculated and analyzed by Xiao Bei is generally accurate, it is still necessary to refine it personally in order to draw specific conclusions.

Moreover, for some medicines with similar properties, Xiao Bei finds it difficult to analyze which combination is more effective and needs to actually refine the pills for analysis.

Ten days passed in the blink of an eye.

Su You sat confidently in front of the alchemy furnace.

Over the course of ten days, he, his twin clones, and fifty-two first-tier alchemists tried more than 20,000 combinations of pill formulas that Xiao Bei had selected from millions of recipes, and finally found the most effective pill.

This elixir represents a multi-dimensional improvement upon the original formula.

Not only has the efficacy of the pills increased by 20%, but the materials used in alchemy have also been modified by eight types. This not only makes the price more affordable but also saves on some medicinal herbs, making it a truly significant innovation.

After submitting the pills, Su You quietly looked at the jade token in his hand. This was his best chance to overtake others. If he still couldn't get into the top 1,000, he would basically have no chance in the following rounds.

This time he went all out, not only with Xiao Bei's data analysis, but also with more than fifty first-level alchemists working together. If they still couldn't surpass those genius alchemists, then they might as well give up.

Swish!
The jade pendant flashed with light, and the results of this attempt finally became apparent!

ID 76817: Points: 19500, Rank: 1st

Total points: 21020, Overall ranking: 1st

excitement!
excited!

First place!
She's in first place!
Su You hadn't expected that this assessment would cause his overall ranking to soar to first place.

He was somewhat confident of winning first place in a single assessment, but getting 19500 points, almost a perfect score, was still unexpected.

It was this near-perfect score that allowed him to pull ahead of the other examinees. Even though he had been at the bottom in the previous two rounds of assessments, he caught up and even surpassed them in this round.

"I wonder how many points the second-place finisher gained?" Su You wondered.

The assessment is far from over. If the results are too poor later, the same situation as this one will occur.

However, regardless of the circumstances, the two thousand-plus points are real.

He can directly exchange for four Nascent Soul Pills, or over a thousand Divine Soul Pills. In other words, with over 20,000 points, he can exchange for a series of pills to advance from the Foundation Establishment to the Nascent Soul realm. If his luck isn't bad, he can directly break through from the Foundation Establishment to the Nascent Soul realm.

Of course, Su You wouldn't waste it like that. The only pills he wanted to exchange for were the Nascent Soul Pill and the pills above it, which were difficult to buy outside.

However, pills like the Golden Core Pill can still be purchased by spending more spirit stones.

Aside from exchanging for pills, 20,000 points are enough to exchange for a pill-refining inheritance that directly reaches the fourth tier.

Just as Su You was feeling excited, deep inside the alchemy furnace, a crimson figure looked at the round mirror in front of him, which displayed the scores of each examinee.

"When will we be able to select a suitable successor?" Chi Ding looked at the assessment results with some annoyance.

The results are getting worse with each generation. If it can't find a suitable successor, it will probably be trapped in the alchemy furnace for its entire life and unable to be reincarnated.

It is the spirit of this alchemy furnace, and for countless years it has been choosing a suitable successor for its master.

However, its requirements were too stringent, and no one could meet the standards. Although the standards have been lowered over the years, it is still impossible to find a suitable target.

suddenly!

The leaderboard has been refreshed, and the person in first place has changed, with a score more than 5,000 points higher than the person in second place.

"Hmm, could it be that some genius has emerged in the fourth round?" Chi Ding clicked on Su You's name with great interest.

His performance in this round was immediately displayed above.

"The results of improving the pills are almost perfect, which is close to the level of the master back then." Chi Ding became somewhat excited.

This is the first time in all these years that it has seen a genius with the talent to approach its master.

This gave it a glimmer of hope: if this person could maintain this level of skill, then perhaps he might actually be able to inherit his master's legacy.

"However, this person's foundation is too poor. How can someone with this level of skill modify such a pill formula?" Chi Ding looked at Su You's scores in the previous rounds and couldn't help but shake his head, feeling a bit suspicious. "Could it be that this person has just seen a similar pill formula before?"

With a gentle wave of his hand, Chi Ding rewound the scene of Su You's valley, which recorded his continuous experimentation with elixirs.

"Judging from this, it seems that he figured it out through his own experimentation, but it's also possible that he just happened to be lucky and created this pill." Chi Ding couldn't determine for the time being whether this person had genuine talent or just got such a high score by luck.

While the production of elixirs requires genuine skill and knowledge, it also often depends on luck.

Otherwise, where would all those different kinds of elixirs in the cultivation world come from?

Aside from those invented by master alchemists, most of them were created by alchemists under accidental circumstances.

"Let's move on to the next round of assessments. Hopefully, this person can refine this pill based on their own talent." Chi Ding immediately began the next round of assessments.

It is now focusing its attention only on Su You; the other alchemists are just supporting characters.

If Su You's performance in the next assessment is poor, then this year's assessment will be considered a failure.

……

in the valley.

Before Su You could calm down from his excitement and was considering which treasure to exchange for, a stream of light appeared on the jade tablet, signaling the start of the next round of assessments.

"So fast?" Su You looked at the jade tablet with trepidation, hoping it was in his area of ​​expertise.

Danfang's creation!
The previous round of assessments focused on innovation, but this round is about creating pill formulas, a field that only fourth-level alchemy masters can access.

Of course, the assessment will not present an unsolvable problem. This time, the pill formula they created is only a first-order formula. Although it is difficult, there is still some chance.

This round of assessment provides one hundred kinds of spiritual herbs, and then the alchemists can choose from them to combine and refine.

The requirement is that the elixir formula used must be unprecedented, and the higher the quality of the elixir, the better the results.

If you use a pill formula from the Danling Secret Realm, you will fail the test.

Of course, if you are lucky enough to have a pill formula that the Pill Spirit Secret Realm doesn't have, and the formula is from one of the hundred kinds of spiritual herbs, then you can also get away with it and even get a high score.

However, the chances of this are extremely low. After all, there are billions of types of spiritual herbs, and the alchemists who participate in the assessment are at most at the third level. The chances of someone who happens to know the corresponding pill formulas for these spiritual herbs and has never passed them on are extremely low.

This time the assessment is even more rigorous, with a basic reward of 10,000 points and a maximum reward of 50,000 points.

Whoever gains an advantage in the later assessments will have a significant advantage in the overall ranking.

Putting everything else aside, those basic 10,000 points alone wiped out half of Su You's points in the fourth round of assessment.

Overall, this assessment was not bad for Su You. He could also use external help, but it still depended on luck. If Xiao Bei's database didn't have any of these hundred kinds of spiritual herbs, then things would be bad.

Looking at the hundred kinds of spiritual herbs displayed on the jade tablet, Su You quickly transmitted the relevant information to Xiao Bei.

Ultimately, Xiao Bei's database contained information on only thirty-seven kinds of spiritual herbs, and these herbs were all very obscure. It was likely that only a few kinds of spiritual herbs could be collected on Luoxia Island.

Fortunately, Su You returned to the Void Heaven Immortal City early to prepare for this assessment.

The relevant information can be transmitted to him by Beckham through the communication jade pendant.

After borrowing the shapeshifting ability of the twin clones, Su You changed his appearance, physique, and even cultivation level before he began to make large-scale purchases in the Void Heaven Immortal City.

This is also to prevent any accidents. If information about the assessment of the Danling Secret Realm is leaked in the future, and someone in Xutian Immortal City happens to be buying related spiritual medicines on that day, anyone with knowledge will definitely notice the anomaly and conduct an investigation.

To maintain secrecy, Su You has restricted the alchemists from leaving Luoxia Island and from contacting outsiders. He will lift the restrictions when he feels it is safe to do so.

After changing his appearance, Su You began to buy spiritual herbs without restraint. This time, he brought millions of spirit stones with him, and he only bought some uncommon spiritual herbs for first-tier pill formulas, which was enough for him to squander.

He even offered double the price to buy those rare and hard-to-find medicinal herbs.

Besides buying the medicinal herbs he recognized, Su You also took the opportunity to describe the medicinal herbs he didn't recognize to various medicinal herb shops to see if he could buy them.

After all, he currently only possesses thirty-seven kinds of spiritual herbs. Through Xiao Bei's deductions and analysis of related pill formulas with similar medicinal properties, he has only found a dozen or so similar pill formulas. This is far from enough for him to stand out in this round.

Su You was quite lucky. He found more than twenty kinds of spiritual herbs that he didn't recognize at several well-established shops. He just needed to take them back and have Xiao Bei analyze their medicinal properties to find similar pill formulas, which would give him several more pill formulas.

Besides buying spiritual herbs, Su You also bought a large number of first-tier pill formulas. He felt they weren't very useful before, so he only bought a batch of commonly used ones. In addition, he also obtained some from the sect and other places, so he never lacked them.

However, he is currently in dire need of first-tier pill formulas. Only with a large number of first-tier pill formulas can he find suitable formulas for those one hundred kinds of spiritual herbs.

And they conducted simulations to create new prescriptions.

With more options, it's possible to refine elixirs with even better effects.

This assessment is not just about creating a new elixir formula, but also about evaluating the effectiveness of that formula.

Fortunately, this assessment period is longer than the previous one, lasting a full month, giving him ample time to prepare.

(End of this chapter)