Rise of the Alchemy God

Chapter 165: Xiang Hua’s Determination

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As the competition progressed, many people experienced either despair or joy.

From those who were proud of their results to those who were disappointed due to defeat or mediocre performance, there were all kinds of emotions.

And within this group of people, Ethan's companions were certainly no exception.

The two participants from the first category were anxiously awaiting the next day, as that would be the day of their category's practical test.

Both had barely passed up until now.

They didn't have a second theoretical test, so the number of eliminations in their category was somewhat limited.

Of course, the eliminations from the talisman test weren't few at all, and just those alone exceeded the number of disqualified participants in the experts' category.

This alone indicated the skill gap between the two groups of contestants.

Currently, both the girl and the boy from Ethan's group were watching closely, impatiently awaiting the start of Ethan's trial.

But they weren't the only ones.

Xiang Hua and Yan Mei, who had been part of the first theoretical test group, also had their eyes fixed on him.

Both of them had contrasting expressions, with a sea of thoughts overwhelming their minds.

Yan Mei had, to some extent, already accepted that she wasn't on Ethan's level yet, but the same couldn't be said for Xiang Hua.

She gazed at him deeply, recalling the events before the tournament began.

After the day of the competition that selected participants for the tournament, she had been quite frustrated.

And the main cause of this frustration was none other than Ethan.

"That bastard, I'll make him pay," she said, breaking the composure she usually maintained in public.

Normally, it was hard for anything to make her lose her usual composure, but the events of that day had been too much for her to bear.

She had gone to the selection, thinking she would pass the test with relative ease, which she did in a sense, but she hadn't expected to see someone who was apparently on her same level, possibly even more capable.

And just when she was finally about to face him, he decided to withdraw from the match since he had already secured one of the spots.

This infuriated her.

She knew he was a strong opponent and that she would have little chance of winning against him, but not even having the opportunity to face him sent her into a frenzy.

What should have been a simple selection had become a source of stress for her.

As soon as she returned to the sect, she immediately got to work.

She went to the residence given to her as a disciple of the sect master and locked herself in there for days, refining and honing her alchemy skills.

That flame which had dimmed reignited, burning stronger than ever.

The drive that constantly pushed her to improve had returned.

She spent nearly a whole month like this, and although she achieved good results, she wasn't satisfied.

She was now able to refine high-grade level 2 pills with relative ease, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't refine level 3 pills.

She was fortunate to have the level 3 pill recipes she had requested from the sect master, and she trained with those, but even after days of refining, she didn't see any significant progress.

The purity of her pills never exceeded 10%, far from the minimum threshold required for a low-grade pill.

Taking a pill with that amount of impurities would do more harm than good, and in many cases, it would bring no benefit at all and could even lead to certain death, depending on the pill.

In the end, she gave up and decided to do something she had never wanted to do, not regarding alchemy.

She decided to ask for help from the sect master.

Few people knew, but even the sect master had once been a very famous alchemist.

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Before becoming the sect master, she had dedicated herself to both cultivation and alchemy.

It's unknown why she stopped, as being an alchemist wasn't an easy path; it required a lot of time and dedication, as did cultivation.

Pursuing both at the same time was considered madness by most alchemists and cultivators.

And this didn't even take into account that alchemy also required a certain level of innate talent, without which it would be extremely difficult.

Just like she had started studying and practicing alchemy from scratch, she had also stopped at a certain point.

Many believed the reason for this was that she was about to be appointed as the new sect master of the Phoenix Sect, but this didn't explain why she had completely stopped.

After learning this, Xiang Hua wanted to become as skilled as her, and now that she didn't know how to proceed, she could only ask for her help.

It was normal to turn to one's master for these things, but for her, it wasn't an easy choice.

She believed the sect master had already done enough for her and that there was no need to ask for more.

She was a grown woman who now knew how to stand on her own and take care of herself.

That being said, she eventually went to her, and upon seeing the smile on her master's face, it seemed as though she had been expecting this day.

As much as she was happy to receive teachings from the sect master, Xiang Hua had to admit that when she made that smile, it meant the training wouldn't be fun at all.

And just as she thought, it wasn't.

The hell she went through for two months to improve her skills under the sect master's guidance was something she hadn't experienced in a long time.

Just thinking about it sent chills down her spine, but despite that, the results of this intense teaching weren't insignificant at all.

The level of progress in her alchemical skills that she had made in these two months was something that would have taken her at least a year to achieve on her own, if not more.

Now that the tournament had started, she didn't intend to hold back against anyone.

She would defeat all her opponents until she finally faced him.

"This time, you won't be able to escape."