Wang Chen had no idea what Lin Huang was currently getting into, but if he had known, his reaction would have been among the worst things worth witnessing.

For Wang Chen, disciples weren't just investments — they were far more valuable than any goose that laid golden eggs. They were the only reason he could even entertain the thought of stretching his lifespan into something that didn't collapse into dust the moment he blinked. Each of them was a thread in the tapestry of his extended life, carefully woven and delicately maintained.

Once Li Mei and Lin Huang had both broken through to the Golden Core realm, his total lifespan had ticked up to fifty years. Fifty years would have been more than enough for a mortal lifetime, more than enough to live, love, build, and fade away without ever feeling shortchanged. But for someone like Wang Chen — someone who had already tasted the quiet, sprawling eternity of the immortal realm — it was nothing more than a blink. A single breath, exhaled and gone.

Even worse, in the immortal realm, a single confrontation between cultivators of the same realm could stretch out for years. The duel he was currently involved in had already stretched for days, the stalemate so complete that the very air around them felt thick with unspent potential. Compared to that, fifty years felt like a loan that had already started charging interest before the ink on the contract had dried.

In the past years, Wang Chen had survived who knew how many life‑changing events — battles that could have shattered lesser beings, schemes that would have erased entire branches of history, moments where the difference between life and death was thinner than the edge of a blade. Yet here he was, these days, waiting for a single piece of divine stone, quietly trying to wrap his mind around a single pill recipe.

While he was lost in these thoughts, time moved on without waiting for him. The seconds slithered past like sand, the hours folding neatly into one another until the last remaining ones slipped away without ceremony.

Just as the final stretch of grace time bled away, the air changed.

A soul‑calming chime reverberated through the surroundings, soft at first, then deepening as if it were not just a sound but something that had been waiting in the fabric of the space to be released. The sound settled into the bones of every cultivator present, drawing a quiet, involuntary stillness out of them.

Nong Li let his gaze move across the gathered disciples once, that sharp, unblinking look that saw through pretense without bothering to ask permission. Then he flicked his sleeves with a single, practiced motion.

The great pillar infused with heavenly authority — the very one that had stood burning at the center of the formation for the entire enlightenment period — twisted. The stone surface rippled like water given form, then folded inward, as though space had opened a mouth and swallowed it whole. The radiant light that had bathed the area dimmed and vanished, leaving the upper realm in a comfortable half‑shadow.

"Time's over, everyone," Nong Li announced, his voice carrying without effort through the cleared air. "The first round begins now. Start refining the pill according to the recipe you have understood. You only have one day to finish the refining."

The words hit like thunder on a cloudless sky.

For a moment, the entire courtyard went silent in the way that only a collection of cultivators can go silent — not randomly, but all at once, as if the same thought had been dropped into their minds from above. Every cultivator in the area drew in a sharp, instinctive breath of cold air, the sound a chorus of collective realization.

One day.

That was it. The official window was officially over. The grace period had ended. In the limited time Nong Li had just given them, they might not even have enough time to finish preparing the ingredients properly, let alone coax the pill through the unstable, volatile stages of refining. The recipe was complex enough that even those who had spent the entire enlightenment period staring at the heavenly pillar were now staring at the empty space where it had been with the dawning awareness that they had only just begun to scratch the surface.

The questions ran through their minds almost immediately.

Why didn't they say so during the days spent studying?

Why let us think we had longer than we did?

Why go through such elaborate steps if the goal was just to humiliate us in front of everyone?

But the answers were simple, even if they weren't spoken.

If they had announced the time constraint upfront, cultivators would have panicked, schemed, argued, demanded extensions. The crowd would have gotten unruly, the competition would have turned into a circus, and the whole spectacle would have devolved into something that didn't test skill, but patience. By waiting until the very last moment, they had forced the cultivators to confront the gap between how much they thought they had and how much the world was actually willing to give them.

The disciples had been given wisdom, but they hadn't been given mercy.

Here is the revised passage, polished and expanded while keeping your tone, pacing, and narrative fully intact.

No matter what they thought, none of the cultivators dared to voice their doubts out loud.

After all, the Morning Glory Divine Alchemy Sect was not some minor faction tossed together from passing ambition. It had existed since ancient times, its name carved into the pages of history through centuries of unyielding standards and ruthless precision. Its reputation for being excruciatingly strict and methodical in its trials was well known across the entire alchemy world. To argue would be to invite not only public disgrace, but the very real possibility of being quietly erased from the competition before it had even begun.

Arguing would only waste time.

It would be far better if they simply started moving.

And so, they did.

Across the field, the air began to tremble with the soft hum of activity. Sensible disciples had already pulled out their cauldrons without hesitation, placing them on the ground with the careful, almost reverent attention one gives a fragile relic. Alchemy flames flickered into life above the cauldrons, their color and shape betraying the cultivator's understanding of the art — some steady and clean, some wild and unstable, all of them burning nonetheless. The temperature of the space ticked upward as the first preparations began, the hiss of heat meeting metal already imminent.

Wang Chen could only stand there, watching the scene unfold with a faintly dazed expression.

He realized, with a slow, uncomfortable certainty, that he wasn't holding a cauldron at all. He hadn't even thought about it during the enlightenment period — had been too busy dealing with the Eternal Flame Divine Core, the Garden of Eternity, the Absolute Concealment Formation, and everything else that had kept his mind fully occupied. The very first prerequisite of pill refining had slipped through the cracks of his awareness.

He stared at the empty space in front of him, then at the dozens of disciples already firing up their cauldrons.

Of course. Before even beginning, I need a cauldron and an alchemy flame.

The conversations around him had given him the rudimentary outline. The specifics were still vague, but the broad strokes were clear enough.

His gaze shifted inward.

The still‑unused Non existence authority rune on his body glowed steadily, bright and full, the magical energy within it pooled to the brim like a reservoir that had been waiting for a reason to spill. He had enough leeway there — enough stored power to experiment, to fabricate, to stall. He still had room to play.

On instinct, he called Bai Xeitian closer.

The younger man had been walking along the periphery of the field, trying to blend into the crowd without drawing attention to himself, but the familiar voice calling his name immediately pulled him out of that illusion. Bai Xeitian approached slowly, his posture carrying the same carefully guarded wariness it had carried since the day they first met.

Although it had been a year, the memory of that first encounter remained sharp in his mind — the casual, infuriating confidence with which Wang Chen had swept through the scene, the disorienting sense of standing beside someone whose depth he couldn't quite measure. That feeling had not faded with time. If anything, it had hardened.

He forced a smile onto his face — one that did not reach his eyes — and asked, "What is it, Fellow Daoist? Do you need something?"

Wang Chen shook his head, but the motion carried a faint, almost wry amusement. "Nothing much. I just wanted to ask a few questions. I hope I'm not bothering you, Fellow Daoist Bai."

For a moment, Bai Xeitian's expression darkened by a shade — not enough to be obvious, but enough to register in the way the lines around his eyes tightened. The words that formed in his mind were anything but polite.

Of course you're bothering me! The thought burned hot and clear. We each have one day. The entire alchemy world is watching. And here you are, wasting my time with questions?

But he swallowed the words before they could reach his tongue. Bai Xeitian had learned, the hard way, that the kind of person who could casually talk like this and win didn't handle confrontation the way normal people did. He had come this far without burning bridges. He wasn't going to start now.

He forced his voice into something marginally softer.

"Oh," he said, with a controlled, slightly clipped tone, "just some questions? Then go ahead, Fellow Daoist."

Wang Chen took a breath and let his mind gather the phrasing.

He had already narrowed down what he wanted, but the way he framed the question would determine whether Bai Xeitian gave him a useful answer or simply walked away.

"Fellow Daoist," he began, his tone measured, "do you know of any famous alchemy flames or cauldrons throughout history that have been lost through time?"

Bai Xeitian blinked.

"Huh?"

The word slipped out before he could catch it. His eyebrows lifted, then drew together, the expression written plainly across his face: What sort of question is this?

He had been half‑expecting something related to pill refinement techniques, to cauldron tempering, to the correct order of ingredient fusion — the usual practical questions that every disciple would ask when the clock was already ticking. Instead, Wang Chen had thrown him something that sounded like a history quiz pulled from a scroll written in an ancient, forgotten language.

There was no obvious head. No obvious tail. Just a bizarre non‑sequitur that landed in the middle of a field where the very air carried the weight of competition.

For the first time, the fear in Bai Xeitian heart took a step back, replaced by something more immediate and sharper — irritation.

He resisted the urge to sigh theatrically and managed to keep his tone from rising to shouting range, but the edge in it was unmistakable.

"Are you seriously asking me about lost cauldrons and flames right now?" he replied, the words clipped. "During a trial where we only have one day to refine a pill?"