In the spacious arena, the gentle breeze brushed past the people cradling them with its chillness. Michael observed the alchemists showing no expression on his blank as a slate face. The pungent smell of herbs and fire entered his nostrils, competing with the sweet fragrance coming from Eve. Today she looked gorgeous. It might be because Ghost became closer to her as a friend, which was why Michael looked at her in a different light. At first, Michael thought she was no different than a typical cold beauty such as Alicia.

The more he talked to Eve, the warmer her character became. Michael felt that she would become a good friend to him. She was open, helpful, and understanding. Eve reminded Michael of a girl he used to play with in the orphanage. Coincidentally, her name was also Eve. So Michael knew deep down he treated Eve as his friend because of his childhood friend.

Host: Michael

Cultivation Level: Soul Refining stage, level 3

Experience Points: 0 / 900,000

Badass Points: 310,000

Skills & Spells:

Wind Blast - LVL 6

Responsive Shield - LVL 8

Environment Scanning - LVL 6

Ignitia - LVL 8

Lightning Dash - LVL 6

Energy Devouver - LVL 2

Soul Eater - LVL 1

Death Range - LVL 3

Eyes of Darkness (normal) - Can sense the cultivation level of others

Eyes of Darkness (Lucifer) - Can sense the cultivation level of others, Can see through illusions

Cloud of Darkness (Lucifer) - Weak-willed enemies will lose their courage completely and surrender. Death Range will be 50% more powerful, and if activated in darkness, the host's cultivation level will be boosted 4 levels up regardless of the stage barrier.

Wordless Spell Caster(Lucifer) - In full Lucifer form, the host just has to think of the spell to cast it.

Techniques: Swords of Destiny - 98% Mastery

Ring of Fire - 92% Mastery

Serpent-Maga - 97% Mastery

Occupation: Core Disciple of Sunrise Sect

The Guardian of Sunrise Sect

Lord Lucifer of the Abyssal

The Dark Lord

King of Bradford

Status: Healthy

Goals: Control the world

Rebuild the Order of Death

Utility Function:

Banker - LVL 5 (Ratio - 1000 gold coins: 40 badass point(s))

Runic Teleportation

X-Ray Vision (Also integrated with Eyes of Darkness)

Wealth: 18,000,000 Gold

Special Trait: 5-Star Alchemist

4-Star Inventor

Subordinates: Gaya - Warrior (loyalty level 100%)

Raylene - 5-star Chef (loyalty level 99%)

Aria - Assassin (loyalty level 86%)

Heinberg - Warrior (loyalty level 45%)

Maxine - Warrior (loyalty level 98%)

Tiberius - Warrior (loyalty level 55%)

Sadie (loyalty level 50%)

Ricky (loyalty level 98%)

Titus(loyalty level 60%)

Optimus (loyalty level 60%)

The Silent Reaper Crew - Pirates (loyalty level 90%)

Base of Operation: Sunrise Sect

The Abyssal

The Crypt

Kingdom of Bradford

Familiars: Nightmare (Forest Dragon)

Vedora (Three Headed Hydra)

Elemental Manipulation: Wind (10% Mastery) Fire (10% Mastery) (Lightning 15% Mastery) (Darkness 20%)

"I should definitely upgrade my Inventor trait,"

After getting blood samples and every other possible sample from Victor, Michael planned to build some nasty weapons against the vampires. As far as Michael learned about vampires, he needed special weapons. The rest of the world was unbelievably vulnerable to the vampires.

Noah may have been somewhat astonished by the Epic Class cauldrons Leilan and Jennifer had on the open ground. However, Andreas taught him the cauldron was merely an object, and an alchemist should not depend on the cauldron to refine a pill or potion. According to Andrews, an alchemist should be able to use the alchemy fire as a cauldron and refine pills and potions without a problem. Just like Ghost.

Noah's white cauldron seemed somewhat shabby compared to Jennifer and Leilan.

Unlike the rest, Noah was not too concerned about the cauldrons. Instead, he closed his eyes and thought for a moment. Then, he flicked his finger gently and a set of the ingredients needed to refine the 'Crimson waves' potion appeared on the stone table. The moment Michael saw the ingredients on Noah's table, Michael knew what he was going to brew.

To be honest, the potion had all the wow factors to win the competition. Michael doubted anyone in the judging panel except Hendrix would know about the 'Crimson waves' potion. When an alchemist drank the potion, their alchemy fire would turn crimson red. Hence the name. The Crimson Red fire would burn hotter and easier to control than the default green flame so that the alchemist could produce pills and potions with a ten to fifteen percent higher purity rate up to seventy percent. If an alchemist could refine pills and potions with seventy percent purity, the potion wouldn't provide any effects.

Michael didn't use the potion because he did not need to. He was a 5-star Alchemist right out of the bat. So why didn't he sell them? Because it was bad for business to enhance alchemists. The fewer alchemists there were the better.

The hundreds of emerald green flames danced and flickered in the arena like fireflies made of jade glimmering in the night. The flames swayed with the wind chaotically with no direction in their mind until Noah conjured his Heaven's flame. Even after seeing it several times, Noah's sparkling blue flames drew everyone's attention. Like a King among mortals, the blue flames overshadowed the green flames with its luster.

"Heaven's flame. How lucky that young man is to get a Primordial Flame,"

Alred threw a covetous look at Noah's flame. The old man's eyes were green with envy.

"Indeed he is lucky. He would have become a target of many if the Primordial fire could be stolen," Weirdly, Ativan eyed Gabriel a second before replying to Atian.

On the other hand, Jennifer had twenty-five ingredients on her table, whereas Leilan had a whooping thirty. They began to put the ingredients one by one into the cauldron under the gazes of thousands of spectators.

Meanwhile, some of the alchemists on the ground had already wholly refined all of the ingredients. Additionally, they started to prepare for the next step.

The trio in the center ignored those participants and was totally focused on extracting the essence from each ingredient they put inside the cauldron.

Unlike in the previous two rounds, small beads of sweat appeared on their forehead, trickling down their nose to the ground. Yet, they did not bother to wipe it off as they continued to focus on controlling the flame and extracting the essence. Then ten minutes later, Noah carefully placed the last ingredient. Finally, the first essence bead, glowing in light pink, emerged from Noah's cauldron.

Seeing that the extracting process was this smooth, Noah heaved a long sigh of relief. He turned his head and looked around. Surprised, he discovered that Jennifer and Leilan had formed five beads.

Time slowly passed by as some of the competitors who initially had calm expressions began to pant a little. Such a huge burden and consumption of arch energy really exhausted them.

Michael was getting bored out of his mind and even yawned behind his hand. Seeing Michael yawn, Eve couldn't hold back too.

"I kinda wish I had seen your Elon battle tournament," Eve said, taking her gaze away from Jennifer.

Suddenly Michael knit his brows as his neck hair stood up, alerting him of an upcoming threat. First, the air became thick with an intense scent of blood. Then as though something was sucking all the light in the arena, the area turned gloomier.

"What the?" Eve looked up to see a dark blanket falling over the arena. The arena was the size of a football stadium on earth and currently, the blanket falling from the sky covered the entire open sky above the arena.

"What's happening?"

"Oh god!"

"The fuck?!"

Immediately the spectators were thrown into chaos.

Whoosh!

Following the darknet, a strong gust of wind in the form of a wave brushed past the hundreds of alchemists, putting off their alchemy fire.

"Ghost," Terror clutched Eve's heart as she involuntarily squeezed Michael's hand.

All the judges immediately stood up from their seats bewildered. Even Hendrix lost the calmness on his face. The sudden darkness along with the pungent blood stench in the air, terrified them.

"Lady Eve," Michael turned back to see a guard of Eve walking towards Eve holding his throat. In the dim, gloomy light, they saw blood gushing through his fingers,

"AHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Another scream quickly echoed through the arena.

Thud!

The guard collapsed to the ground while another ear-piercing scream of a girl entered their ears. When they looked in the scream's direction, they all saw a mist of red smoke among the spectators. Soon after, they saw several other bloody veils of mist appear all over the spectators' stand.

At this moment, the screams were the only sound they heard.

"Guards!" Alred shouted, but no one responded,

"Teacher.Ghostlook!" Olivia stuttered, and when they looked at where she was pointing, they saw the guard who collapsed to the ground, moving.

The guard laid down his face against the floor and slowly moved his limbs.

His libs made sickening, crunching sounds as he finally stood up on his feet.

"Guard," Eve spoke in a muffled voice and frowned, looking at the blood oozing down from the wound on his neck. When Michael looked closer at the injury, he confirmed his suspicion and took a step back,

"AH!" when the guard leaped at Alred, Olivia screamed in shock,

"Grrrrgghhhhhhhhh!" the guard ripped off a huge chunk of meat from Alred's neck in a blink of an eye. The blood sprayed from Alred's neck to Atian and Gabriel's faces. The warm blood brought Gabriel from his shock.

"Holy Blast!"

Gabriel immediately reacted by sending a golden plasma beam at the guard.

Pulch!

The beam shot right through the guard's chest, forming a huge smoking hole in his chest. However, it didn't stop the guard from taking another bite at Alred, who was clenching his neck in agony.

"Holy Blast!"

Gabriel sent another plasma beam vaporizing the guard's head. Meanwhile, the spectators were in chaos as they attempted to flee the arena but turned into a bloody mess one by one.

"Alred!" Atian came out of his shock. Everything happened so quickly that only Gabriel was able to react in time. But, unfortunately, even he was late, as the guard had already taken a huge chunk of Alred's throat with a single bite.

Immediately a sparkling blue healing potion appeared in Atian's hand. Lifting Alred's head, Atian chugged the potion down his throat, but unfortunately, the wound on his throat didn't close up.

"Welcome to the party!"

Out of the blue, a voice drenched in an evil aura reverberated in the arena. The cold, high, clear voice sent shivers through everyone's spines. A few seconds after the voice emerged, a dark figure clouded in a red mist appeared in the air right above Noah, Jennifer, and Leilan's center stage.