Now it was time for the points to be calculated and then displayed. Everyone was intensely staring at the screens which would soon display the rankings.

As usual, the first ten rankings were occupied by representatives from the large pill refining sects. They also had many members in the other high ranks. But here members of other large sects or smaller pill refining sects appeared as well.

It was only below the top one hundred that the first pill refiner, that didn't belong to a sect as this appeared.

And only much farther down did a pill refiner that didn't belong to any sect at all appeared.

As for the contest between Miss. Klein and Serene, Serene had won it by an extremely small number of points which she had gotten through her better understanding of herbs.

And for the bet between Ivan and that man, Ivan had won by many points. The other had already failed at the hurdles of second-grade pills, not even managing to refine the first one. He had also lost many points before because of small mistakes.

Now that the completion had ended, everyone left their simulated rooms and appeared back in the real world.

There Serene gave the herbs, which were the object of the bet to Ivan while glaring at the man who tried to protest.

"I'll come by later.", she then told them before leaving.

The man who was still indignant about losing the bet tried to stay behind to once again find trouble with Ivan when she grabbed him by the neck and carried him along. Seeing her carry a grown man by his neck looked extremely comical and everyone who saw it could barely stop themselves from laughing at the man. In fact, only pure respect for Serene stopped them from doing so.

"Alright, let's go back.", Miss. Klein announced. "Also we will leave tomorrow, so if you have anything left to do here, do it today."

This didn't come as a surprise. They had stayed here for a relatively long time already, which had enabled her to finish everything she had to do. She had only wanted to wait out the compet.i.tion before leaving.

"What about the rewards?", Ivan asked her curiously.

"This compet.i.tion does focus on the skill of the partic.i.p.ants and the organizers have always held the opinion that one shouldn't make a show out of giving the rewards. So they will just be send over until this evening.", she explained.

"So did you learn something during the compet.i.tion?", she then asked both Serge and Ivan.

"Yes. It was truly great to see you refine all these difficult pills. Although there were many things I didn't understand.", Serge started. He also wanted to directly ask about some things he hadn't been able to understand when their master stopped him. "First think about it some more and if you can't find the answer ask me again and I'll explain."

It seemed like this was exactly what she had expected. After all, he had been by her side during the compet.i.tion, so she would have gotten to see his state during the refining of the pill. Even with her focus on the refinement process itself.

"What about you?", she then asked Ivan.

He wasn't sure what to say. Although he had learned a bit during the questions and had to think about some things he hadn't thought about before, it didn't seem like he had truly learned a lot. His skill and knowledge hadn't truly been challenged before his energy had already given him the boot.

"I don't know. There are a few things but before the truly difficult things came, I ran out of energy and couldn't continue.", he admitted in embarra.s.sment.

His master smiled at his words. "That's great. This is something many pill refiner will only understand much later. Sometimes when it is already hard to rectify. Pill refining requires equivalent cultivation. Just focusing on pill refining will only lead down a one-way street. In the end one will hit a roadblock, unable to advance. And for many pill refiners who have reached a certain high, it is extremely hard to once again focus on something as mundane as cultivating a perceived low realm. If you can refine pills for the Earth realm, then why would you want to cultivate the Mortal realm? Wouldn't it seem to be beneath you?"

"So you say I should focus more on cultivation?", Ivan asked.

"Not really. Currently, it is impossible for you to do so. Don't forget that your stats are still locked. But after that, you should absolutely try to improve your strength. And it doesn't matter what strength. The most common way would be to improve all your stats until you reach the end of the Flesh Refining Realm and then come back here and continue to cultivate with the techniques available here. But another would be to fully focus on improving your mana. It all depends on what your goal is."

"Then can't I do both?"

"You can try. But without ma.s.sive talent, this will only lead to you lacking behind. It has been shown that Qi cultivation is much faster than Mana cultivation. And doing both at the same time will mean that you have less time you can invest in either."

Her words made sense, but Ivan didn't want to give up either. He had experienced what was doable with Mana. Just look at the owner of Jacky's shop Jacky. She was someone who was able to control s.p.a.ce with her magic, based on mana. Something he was sure of since she had told him that the requirement for learning from her was to have a high enough level of Mana Manipulation.

And then there was the Qi cultivation. Something he had understood much better now that he had gotten so much information about this realm. Qi cultivation would allow one to gain control over the world, creating wind and rain, raising and flattening mountains, and in the end, even control s.p.a.ce.

"But in the end, the most important thing is to evolve your blood essence.", Miss. Klein's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Because only this can improve your potential, something that will enable you to continue on on either path and will also increase the speed at which you can move along them."

"So if I focus on cultivating my blood essence, then I can progress at the other paths as well?"

"The blood essence is the basis of all known systems of cultivation. Whether it is Mana, Qi, or Body cultivation. In the end, all of them have blood essence as the basis. But without either of them, the cultivation of blood essence is meaningless as well since it can't be used to display any form of strength."

It was just like the foundation of a building. If you increased the size of the building or added something to it, the foundation would have to be able to support the change. But with the foundation being down in the ground it wouldn't show any of its power as long as nothing went wrong. This was left to the building above.

If the blood essence was the foundation everything stood upon, then the building was an expression of the other types of cultivation. If the foundation was solid and large, then a large building could easily be constructed. If it was narrow and small then the building couldn't be build to large without risking a catastrophe.

"Then if I focus on my bloodline cultivation, can I train both Mana and Qi?", Ivan saw a s.h.i.+mmer of hope.

"Maybe. If your bloodline is good enough. I have heard that there are bloodlines, which could support multiple kinds of cultivations at the same time. When they train one kind of energy, they can simultaneously train another as well, without reducing efficiency. After all, in the end, all these energies are different."

"But aren't they all energy in the end? How can they not mess with each other?"

She chuckled, "How could a single man hope to have a large enough influence on the energy in a realm, for that to make a difference? Although they are all energy, they exist separated. Take Mana. It comes from the inside. We see it as being generated by our mana source, but in reality, this energy has to be absorbed beforehand somehow, before it is reformed and then released as mana by our mana source. But what we absorb isn't Qi. That is something that has been demonstrated by many experiments.

The same with Vital Qi which is the result of body cultivation. It is a form of energy stored inside our cells. And it's main source is food, but it can also directly absorbed if you have the right skill. It too doesn't come from the same energy source as the other two."

"But aren't they interchangeable, like during pill refining.", Ivan asked confused.