"Wow. Blue flame?" Seeing the bright blue flame he had conjured, waves of exclamation immediately sounded throughout the arena.

Since every alchemist, including Leilan and Jennifer, had emerald green fires, Noah's bright blue flame became the center of attention in the arena.

Many spectators gasped in shock as they stared at the dancing blue fire without batting an eye.

"Primordial flame?" Eyeing the cluster of blue flame hovering above Noah's palm, Hendrix was astonished.

"This young man has godly luck to possess a Primordial flame. The sky's the limit for him,"

"That's my friend Noah Winston yah sons of bitches!" A childish voice echoed through the arena from the spectators. Michael looked in the direction to see the golden babaroo bouncing up and down atop Alicia's shoulder. When Alicia saw Michael's gaze landing on her, her eyes flickered, radiating immense killing intent. However, Michael turned his gaze away from her, completely ignoring her. As far as he was concerned, she was not even worth fighting. With her Core Formation cultivation level, killing him would only be possible in her dreams and imaginations.

The blue flame danced around lively on Noah's palm like a fairy. A moment later, Noah waved his palm gently. The blue flame was shot out from his palm, surrounding the cauldron. The Primordial flame swiftly raised the temperature of the icy cold cauldron as the pearl white surface slowly turned bright orange.

Noak kept his palm pointed at the cauldron until the orange glow turned bright blue. At the moment, the caldron looked as though it was carved out of a giant sapphire stone.

Under the control of Noah, the blue flame suppressed its temperature obediently. It did not pose the slightest resistance. After the fire swirled around the cauldron for a few more minutes, Noah slowly took a red claw-like ingredient from the table and dropped it in the cauldron. Immediately, a puff of green mist shot out from the cauldron as Noah placed another ingredient into the cauldron. His movements were slow and steady as a single misstep could result in the caldron exploding in his face.

Each time Noah dropped an ingredient into the cauldron, a green puff of mist shot out from within.

To refine a pill or a potion, the ingredients must be purified to a certain degree. Sometimes, even if the purity was just a tad bit less, it could result in the refining process failing. Hence, an alchemist must know the properties of an ingredient and when to take it out from the fire.

Otherwise, the pill or potion would have less purity or completely dissolve after coming out of the fire.

Fortunately, Noahpossessed the needed knowledge about the ingredients in the formula. Thus, no explosion had happened yet.

"So he's training him to fight me more than alchemy," Michael thought when he noticed Noah's slow refining skills. Michael felt as though he was watching a sloth refining a pill. It had been fifteen minutes still Noah didn't even extract the essence from the ingredients.

While extracting the essence, Noah glanced at his two sides to notice Jennifer and Leilan had similar serious faces as him. However, their movements did not show any signs of being flustered. They may look serious but did not sweat like most alchemists in the arena.

Both Leilan and Jennifer had everything under control.

"Bang!"

Just as Noah withdrew his gaze, a cauldron on a jade not far away exploded into pieces. However, a golden light appeared around the table, sucking the fire before it could harm the alchemist,

Following the cauldron explosion, the jade mirror placed within the table let out bright red light, signifying the elimination. Although the golden light saved the alchemist, unfortunately, it didn't save his hair.

The man's face had streaks of ash as he stood there foolishly watching the flickering red light with a stunned look on his face. A long while later, he finally cursed out loud before leaving the platform. As the man walked past Noah, Noah was surprised because he had met him before. When Noah met the man, he was a three-star alchemist in Kingdom Dreidel.

"A pity..." Noah laughed somewhat gloatingly in his heart. He then threw aside the small interlude and continued to extract the essence from the ingredients one at a time.

While Noah was extracting the essence, Michael talked to Eve, getting an idea about what was going on in Awor, especially in Nagaland.

...

As time slowly flowed by, the jade mirrors repeatedly flashed red lights in the arena. Whenever the red light flickered, one left the arena with either a sad or a mad face.

While the test was quite difficult, one could say that alchemists who participated in the competition were people with great skills. Apart from the eliminated alchemists, many silently continued to refine the pill so they could move to the next round.

After nearly half of the sand within that ghostly hourglass had fallen, Noah finally formed colorful beads of essence above the cauldron. Even though Noah refined the pill slower than Michael expected, he did not waste any ingredients.

The next thing was to merge the colorful beads into a ball of essence and turn them into the burn healer pill. Compared to the extracting part, combining was the trickiest and required absolute focus. A slight deviation in focus would result in failure, and Noah would have to start from scratch again.

Knowing the last step's importance, Noah closed his eyes for a moment, canceling all the noises around him. Then he opened his eyes with his mind completely focused on the essence beads. Finally, he exhaled and pulled his hands together as the essence beads floating in the air slowly moved towards each other.

The blue flames gradually faded away as Noah pulled the beads closer and closer to each other. He felt the beads resisting as the same poles of magnets. It took a little bit of raw strength for Noah to merge them.

Nonetheless, Noah showed no signs of struggle. On the contrary, he looked just as calm as ever.

"Why is he taking so long?" Eve asked Michael. After talking for some time, Eve felt comfortable with Michael. Hence, she whispered to Michael, slightly leaning towards him,

"He's trying to merge all the beads at one go, instead one by one like the others," Michael explained to Eve. He had to say. She became a good friend in such a short amount of time. When he travels to Awor, Eve would definitely welcome him with open arms, not literally of course.

With her help, he could expand his business empire and sect to Awor. But, for now, he focused on two things; assassinating Tanulia for Peyton and judging the competition.

"He is a fool to try that," Gabriel snickered,

"It's way too early for us to judge him, Lord Gabriel," Ativan defended Noah as Edith frowned from behind. Then, she closed her eyes and began to pray for Noah silently.

The sand within the enormous hourglass swiftly scattered down.

Ding!

Leilan, who struggled to merge the last bead, finally succeeded. As soon as the beads became one orb of purple liquid, Leilan once again conjured the emerald green flames and kept the orb above the flame for it to harden into a pill. Gradually, the purple ball shrunk until it became the size of a tablet.

Additionally, the pill radiated a bright glow, unlike the pills concocted by the other alchemists.

"That's how you do it," The pride on his face was difficult to hide as he banged the table loud enough for everyone to lose their focus for a moment. Michael frowned, looking at his actions. But since the other judges remained silent, he didn't raise any concern.

"Done," Jennifer raised her voice and revealed the purple people looking the same as Leilan's pill to the spectators.

"Good," Eve murmured. In her voice, Michael could sense the joy and pride.

"Time is almost up..." Alred stared at Noah in the center spot, who was still yet to merge the beads. On the other hand, Atian looked at the ghostly sand in the hourglass that had almost completely fallen. His hand abruptly tightened.

Within the large arena, countless gazes landed in the middle where Noah was. They then eyed the sand in the hourglass that was splashing down. All of the spectators wanted to know if Noah, who stood in the center, attracting the most attention, would be able to complete the test.

"What do you think Ghost?" Eve asked curiously Michael, who was still looking at Noah with a calm face,

Unlike the rest, Michael was sure Noah would finish the pill and surprise everyone with his purity level.

"He will surprise everyone," Michael said, calming Edith's nerves.

The very little sand within the hourglass quietly descended. Then, at the very last moment the last piece of sand rolled down, a pitiful sound came from the audience and the VIP seats.

The blue flames suddenly shot out of Noah's hand and enveloped the beads. As soon as the blue flames disappeared, a round pill flew out at the very last moment, radiating dazzling bright light. Noah's pill glowed brighter compared to Leilan's and Jennifer's. The instant the pill landed on his palm, the little remaining sand finally fell. Hundreds of red lights in the arena, behind those alchemists who had still not finished refining the pill, lit up.

Disappointedly looking at the flashing red light, those alchemists smiled bitterly and took back their respective cauldrons. Then, with disappointed looks, they exited the square.

Standing behind the jade table, Noah looked at the contestants leaving the arena one after another. This was just the first round of the competition, yet one-third of the participants had been eliminated unexpectedly. He let out a sigh as he thought about the difficulty of the competition.

Playing with the pill in his hand, Noah turned his head to the nearby Leilan whose face was full of bright smiles. Despite having less brighter pill than Noah, Leilan seemed arrogant and proud because he finished first.

He looked at Noah with his pill steadily grasped in his hand, and said a smile, "You truly have good luck. Even with the Primordial flame, you only managed to refine the pill at the last moment,"

However, Noah just responded to Leilan with a calm smile,

"It's not so important who starts the game but who finishes it,'

"In this grand competition, attended by countless outstanding Alchemists, refining with the fastest speed in an undeniable skill," Leilan laughed. He was unwilling to let Noah's higher purity pill outshine his achievements.

"If you say so," Noah shrugged as he no longer wished to quarrel with Leilan. Instead, he turned his head toward Jennifer and smiled. Then, looking up at the VIP seats, he saw Hendrix waiting for his turn to speak.

"Sigh"

In the VIP seats, Atian heavily exhaled. He used his sleeves to wipe off the cold sweat on his forehead.

"Why does this brat have to be so dramatic every time?"