Prophecy Of The Stars

14.SELECTIONS

In the first week of the third month of fall, the 26th year of Tian wu dynasty corresponding to the 36th year of Long dynasty in Huanyuan.

The open ground of the Ningyi town was crowded with people. Young cultivators who came to participate, the families that accompanied them, teachers from various sects who came to search for potential candidates and the spectators.

The ground was big and packed with people. Wan Huang joined with the crowd to hide from Wan family.

It was not because she was scared of them. She could cut ties with them  and leave, but as the concept of filial piety was of utmost importance in this era, such a scandal would badly affect her. She would be blamed and ridiculed.

Presently, she is unable to free herself from the Wan family. Although she knows the truth about her situation, she cannot openly say it. Her claims will be refuted by them, and using their position as her family and elders, they can force her to return.

Her surname was the best proof for them. So any actions taken by her now would only earn her a title of an unfilial rebellious daughter.

To avoid such complications, she disguised her face, and changed her identity into an orphan using her previous name Li Huang.

Concealed among the three hundred contestants, Wan Huang moved towards the exam area.

The test was conducted inside a specially created illusory world. Tokens that allowed entry and exit into this illusory world were distributed. Participants could crush this token, in case of emergencies and the staff outside will send prompt help. Once the token is crushed, the holder will be eliminated from the test.

The participants will remain inside, till all stages of the test are completed. If anyone fails at any round, they will be eliminated and sent out of the dimension.

Inside, it was divided into various segments, where the participants were tested individually.

After receiving the token and some wound healing and QI replenishing pills, Wan Huang entered the dimension.

In front of her stood a small open pavilion. On its left side there was a tree and a cloth pouch was hung on one of its branches.

Wan Huang walked forwards and took the pouch.

Inside the cloth bag, there were two scrolls and a small bundle. The task for the first test was written on one of the scrolls.

Task 1: Refine the antidote for blue hermit poison.

On the second scroll, the ingredients for the antidote and the method of refining was written down.

The smaller bundle was filled with the herbs, required to refine the antidote.

A small barrel of water, two cauldrons, and two stoves were arranged in the pavilion.

Double checking the things she needed, finding a comfortable space, she sat down. Following the given instructions, she started refining.

The first try, failure.

The second try, failure.

The third try, failure.

Wan Huang was irked, failing five time in a row.

The wastage of ingredients and the time limit of twenty hours made her apprehensive.

Even after following the instructions, she was met with failure after failure.

She was not unfamiliar with blue hermit poison and its antidote. Back, when she was training with her master, she had successfully refined it but now, it ended up as a flop. But why?

She calmed herself and thought back of the time when she refined the antidote for blue hermit poison previously.

She recollected the whole process step by step, and realised that some trivial steps were neglected in the instructions given to her. Although they were some trivial procedures, it was indispensable for the successful refining of the pill with adequate efficiency.

She abandoned the given instructions and tried again relying on her past experience.

First, she slowly heated the iron cauldron using a low strength flame then changed to medium and then high flame strength.

Secondly, instead of using the water directly, she heated, cooled and then reheated it, repeating the same three times.

This step was a requisite, so as to squeeze out any micro impurities in the water, that would hamper with the end results. But many pill refiners would overlook this trivial step, and it  would lead to the production of less efficient antidote pills.

In the instructions, it was said that, all three herbs should be steamed together, grinded separately and then mixed.

Contrary to the given process, she boiled the herbs for a minute or two in the reboiled water separately. After drying, she grinded and then mixed them.

The process of steaming and boiling gave two different end results.

If the herbs are used after steaming, it leads to the loss of adhesion, and extra herbs should be used to glue and mould the pills. This reduces the efficiency and effects and often cause skin rashes in some people.

But if the herbs are boiled, the pure water draws out the redundant pigments from the herb, resulting in better adhesion during pill moulding thus maintaining optimum results.

This method is slow, tedious and time consuming, but the results are good.

Wan Huang refined the antidote after seven long hours, and she refined four of them with the remaining ingredients.

Outside, the masters were watching  the contestants through a projection globe inside a hidden room. They saw many contestants getting eliminated, some of them successfully refining the antidote, and some, still brooding over the task thinking what to do.

They paid little attention, as these kind of things usually happened during an exam like this.

One among them, Master Murong, his gaze was fixed over a certain person. Master Murong was a Grandmaster level pill refiner in Celestial Jade Sect.

Earlier, he saw her refining the pill according to the instructions, only to fail. Thus he became uninterested and was about to ignore, when he saw her attempting to refine again but followed with a different method.

He waited for a few minutes to see her failure, but his eyes bug out, and his mouth remained open, as he saw her, proceeding with the method.

The other masters present, saw this abnormal behavior of Master Murong who was well known for his impassive personality. Nothing in the world could ever catch his attention, other than anything related to pill refining. His reticent behaviour gained him no disciples and thus he was always in a bad mood, worrying over how to pass his mantle to future generations.

Seeing his expression, they guessed he might have found a suitable successor  to pass on his knowledge. Infected by his enthusiasm, they also started paying attention to that person.

Many plans hatched inside Master Murong's mind, about how to convince her to become his disciple. He formulated lot of back up plans to persuade her, before she gets snatched away by someone else.