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The woman’s face showed a frown as she stood up from her chair. She began to walk around the many apprentice Alchemists, and as she approached them, everyone appeared very tense. Many of them had failed to perfect the herbs they were currently researching.
This lady didn’t seem to care that her presence was causing more trouble than helping those apprentice Alchemists taking the exam. In her eyes, if they couldn’t control the fire while walking, they weren’t worth her ti.
As long as they completed the task within the exam’s ti fra, apprentices were allowed unlimited attempts to try and improve the herbs. Almost no Alchemist could achieve a hundred percent success rate; even an Alchemist wouldn’t dare make such a claim.
The woman slowly observed each participant. Yan Xiaobao didn’t feel any pressure from her, even as he realized she was walking towards him.
To focus as little as possible on the task at hand, Yan Xiaobao finally perfected the first red Orchid. The ti he spent was close to what most other experts used to refine their first herb. However, although Yan Xiaobao was slow, the quality of his refinent far surpassed everyone else in the room. Many of them had already lost a lot of the herb’s dicinal energy. This was because they did not refine at the perfect temperature. Yet, Yan Xiaobao steadily refined the Orchid at the perfect temperature, thus preserving all the energy of the herb in the paste.
Doing the sa thing again, Yan Xiaobao noticed that as he fully controlled the fire within the Crucible, the woman had found him and gave him a charming smile.
At the mont of the woman supervising the exam reaching Yan Xiaobao, she stopped, standing up. She watched his every move and the herb’s refinent process.
Watching Yan Xiaobao’s slow refining speed, she snorted before turning cold again.
Everyone present thought she did it out of disdain, and they all looked at Yan Xiaobao sympathetically; however, the white-haired young man knew the reason was that she had already seen through his refining speed.
The exam had gone on too long, and Yan Xiaobao didn’t know what to do now. He completed the improvent after half an hour, fully certain it was the highest grade. Creating more seed boastful to him, but doing nothing made him feel he was being too excessive.
Yan Xiaobao wasn’t the only one to finish making the paste and placing it in a jade bottle, but all others imdiately began another paste in hopes of improving the quality. The better the quality of the paste, the higher the chance of being invited to attend the second round of the exam.
So apprentices hadn’t finished their paste because their goal was to achieve the highest quality from the beginning; Zhong Xi was such a person.
Watching these experts, Yan Xiaobao noticed beads of sweat dripping from their foreheads; their eyes focused solely on the large pots in front of them, red and green flas reflected in their eyes.
The entire room was filled with dicinal fragrance. Due to apprentices failing to control their flas, great flas would shoot up from the pots to the ceiling. Sotis cursing could be heard because others failed to refine their herbs.
However, Yan Xiaobao simply sat in the middle of the room, observing everyone else.
As more apprentices completed their paste, ti slowly but steadily moved forward. When they started looking around, they sighed deeply.
Those who remained were either the ones aiming for the highest quality red Orchid paste or those who repeatedly failed to refine their herbs.
Ten minutes after they left, Zhong Xi finally sighed, then leaned back in his chair, using his sleeve to wipe sweat from his forehead. Looking around, as his eyes road the room, he saw Yan Xiaobao casually sitting with a smile on his face, and a visible expression of shock appeared in his eyes.
Zhong Xi seed like he wanted to say sothing to Yan Xiaobao, but the woman overseeing the exam was right behind them, so he had no choice but to keep quiet and wait for the last ten minutes to finish the exam.
"Well done!" the woman suddenly shouted while clapping, then returned to the chair and desk in front of all the seats.
"Give your small bottles so I can check your results. If your results are acceptable, you will beco an Alchemist. If you have a high-quality paste, then you can follow to the second exam to see if you are good enough to be considered a two-star Alchemist."
"Now line up and co here!" the woman called out, and everyone stood up to form a line, ready to have their paste checked.
After being scolded for such low-quality paste, the first in line was sent to the door on the side, and soon the first ten people were sent out the door in the sa manner. Finally, an apprentice appeared who was told to wait by the table. Many experts were again packed up.
When Yan Xiaobao reached the front line, only three apprentices were waiting by the table.
"Your paste is... perfect quality," she said, but her words were without emotion, though her eyes sparkled. "Move to the side and wait for the second exam to begin."
Yan Xiaobao nodded as he moved to the desk, and the other three n watched him curiously. As he moved, he heard the woman tell Zhong Xi to join Yan Xiaobao at the desk as well.
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