As if on cue, multiple cauldrons flared to life at the same time.

A satisfying sizzle echoed through the field as exquisite ingredients were swallowed by the intense heat of the flames, their surfaces softening almost instantly before melting into refined essences. The air itself began to change, filling with the rich, layered scent of alchemy — sharp, warm, and faintly medicinal, carrying the unmistakable weight of something ancient being forged anew.

Not a single word was spoken.

Every cultivator was fully immersed in their own task, eyes fixed on their cauldrons, attention locked onto the precarious process of refining the Fate Pill. In this moment, even the slightest distraction could ruin an entire batch. No one dared let their focus drift.

Wang Chen might not have been a grand master alchemist, but he was a grand master formation refiner — and to some extent, even a formation master. He might not know every detail of alchemy, but he was far from ignorant. The logic of refinement, the rhythm of energy control, the subtle difference between purification and waste — all of it was familiar enough for him to move without hesitation.

He took out the ingredients from the system one by one.

Each item appeared in his hand with quiet precision, and he placed them into the cauldron with measured care. The cauldron's inherent flame adjusted on its own, responding to the materials as they entered, subtly shifting its heat to fit the composition of each ingredient. It melted them cleanly, pulling out the essence with a level of refinement that seemed almost intelligent. The combustion was perfect. Efficient. Controlled. The impurities left behind were minimal, stripped away with such completeness that little of the original material's value was ever lost.

Compared to Wang Chen's relaxed, almost leisurely demeanor, the other participants were sweating bullets.

Some had narrowed their brows so tightly it looked painful. Others were already juggling flame control and ingredient removal with the strained expression of people trying to keep three disasters from happening at once. One misstep, one fraction of a second too slow, and the whole process could collapse. The pressure sat visibly on their shoulders.

Nong Li swept his gaze across the crowd, his eyes pausing for a brief moment on the participants with the most eye-catching cauldrons — the rare, gleaming ones that drew attention before a single pill had even been refined. As the one responsible for conducting this test, he had already done his homework. He knew who was here.

The young master of the Blue Dawn Clan.

His expression cooled slightly.

According to the intelligence he had received, the Blue Dawn Clan had cultivated secret ties with the Ancient Sentinental Sect. They were here to spy on the Morning Glory Divine Alchemia Sect's secrets? Dream on.

A faint, nearly imperceptible edge entered his eyes.

He was not naive. Not every face here belonged to a disciple eager to learn. Some were here to gather information, to position themselves politically, to probe for openings in the sect's defenses under the guise of participating in a public trial. That was the nature of power — not everyone who smiled at the gate came to honor the house.

As he continued scanning the crowd, one thing became increasingly obvious.

Most of the participants were struggling. Not just with the complexity of the pill, but with the more basic task of stripping away impurities from the ingredients. The flames burned inconsistently in several cauldrons, and in a few places the scent of refinement had already gone bitter with the smell of wasted material.

Nong Li could only shake his head.

Each generation is worse than the last.

The thought came with the weary certainty of someone who had watched standards decline long enough to stop being surprised by it.

No wonder we are in the dark ages. The golden age is already behind us.

Muttering quietly to himself, Nong Li let out a slow sigh.

None of what he was seeing came as a surprise. He had walked into this ceremony already holding low expectations, and the field below was doing nothing to challenge them.

During the last ceremony, the fastest participant managed to refine the pill in three days. The memory surfaced with the particular clarity of a benchmark that had never been seriously threatened. I wonder if anyone here will manage to break that record.

Even as the thought formed, he wasn't sure he believed it. Three days had stood untouched for a reason. Looking at the fumbling, sweat-drenched participants scattered across the field, each wrestling with the fundamentals while the clock ran quietly against them, the prospect of someone surpassing that record felt less like a possibility and more like a story he was telling himself for the sake of hope.

He exhaled once more and turned.

Then he stopped.

At some point — without sound, without announcement, without any of the peripheral awareness that Nong Li prided himself on — a figure had appeared.

An old man stood a short distance away, surveying the field with an expression that belonged entirely to someone who existed several layers removed from the concerns of everyone around him. His hair was white from root to end, a full, unruly mass that framed a face etched deep with age. His beard was extraordinary — not trimmed or kept, but grown freely, falling in a long, sweeping cascade all the way down to the ground where it rested against the stone without the old man appearing to notice or care. His clothes were a disaster. Stained with grime, wrinkled beyond recovery, carrying the well-worn disorder of someone who had stopped paying attention to appearances so long ago that the concept had simply ceased to register.

He looked, in every possible way, like a particularly distinguished beggar.

Nong Li bowed ninety degrees before his mind had fully finished processing what his eyes were reporting — the instinct moving faster than the thought, deep training overriding deliberation. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

"Disciple Nong Li greets the Peak Master of the Research and Development Peak."

He kept his eyes on the ground. He did not look up. He did not dare.

Inside, however, his composure was having a considerably less dignified moment.

Why is the insane Peak Master here?

The Morning Glory Divine Sect was vast — a power that had governed an entire region since ages most cultivators couldn't accurately date. Its structure was ancient and precise, divided into three peaks, each led by a peak master whose cultivation existed at a realm that Nong Li could not even begin to accurately imagine from where he currently stood. That gap was not a matter of hard work and time. It was a matter of fundamental categories.

But the Peak Master of Research and Development was a special case even among that elevated company.

According to the whispers that circulated within the sect — carefully, and always in voices kept lower than usual — the Peak Master had retreated into seclusion some time ago. Not for cultivation. Not for preparation. For research. He had sealed himself away to develop new pills, and the reason behind that retreat was one of the sect's quieter tragedies.

He had lost his only disciple.

Nong Li searched his memory for the name.

Yes. Eternal Emperor Li Mei.

Even across the enormous span of time that had passed, the name carried weight. The youngest Eternal Emperor the Morning Glory Divine Sect had ever produced in recent memory — a cultivator whose speed of advancement had become the kind of story that senior disciples told junior ones to inspire them, or occasionally to humble them. Her loss had left a particular silence in certain parts of the sect that thousands of years had not entirely filled.

And her master had never come back out.

Until now.

While Nong Li held his bow, the old man's eyes moved across the field. They drifted across faces and cauldrons without apparent purpose — unfocused, distant, the gaze of someone who was present in body while remaining elsewhere in every meaningful sense. They passed over participants without stopping, skimming the surface of the scene the way light skims water.

Then they stopped.

On Wang Chen.

More precisely — on the Three Tripod Flame Cauldron floating beside Wang Chen, its golden surface catching the upper realm light, the two opposing marbles on its sides radiating their competing energies as the inherent flame continued its quiet, perfect work.

Hmm.

The thought moved through the old man's eyes before it reached his face. Something shifted — not dramatically, but unmistakably. The unfocused quality that had characterized his expression since his arrival receded, and in its place came something clear. Something alert. Something that had not been present a moment before.

There is no mistake. That is indeed the Three Tripod Cauldron. The one lost to time.

He looked at Wang Chen again. This time with full attention — with the particular, penetrating focus of someone who has spent thousands of years developing the ability to look at a thing and see considerably more than its surface.

His gaze did not waver.