Death... and me

Oligan finished announcing the results of the second phase as the first 300 were selected.

"Those who I just mentioned, you can stay where you are. There's no need to change halls this time. As for the rest, they can head to the sides and watch the exam if they wish to do so. Of course, those who failed can leave as well, but I strongly recommend you watch the rest to broaden your horizons."

The participants who failed quickly left their tables, leaving a lot of space between those who succeeded. Not long after, the assistants went to each of the remaining participants' tables and changed the materials and tools on them.

Roan looked at the new equipment and immediately understood what they would be doing next.

Oligan saw that the assistants had finished their jobs and began to explain the mechanics of the next phase.

"The third phase will eliminate two hundred participants, leaving only a hundred behind. Your objective this time is to prepare medicinal pastes. As you know, pastes are not ingested, but rather applied over the body. There are several types of it as well. Paste for body enhancement, appearance change, scar healing, etc. There are pills used for healing, just like how there are pastes for it as well. It's a different product from pills, but they are also done by us, alchemists."

Oligan then turned around and ordered the assistants at the back.

"Bring them forward."

Many Stage One demon beasts were immediately brought inside the hall, three hundred to be exact. All of them were of the same species and seemed to have around the same age and strength. As soon as they appeared, many of the spectators and alchemists recognized them.

"Green Spotted Foxes."

"It's quite a common demon beast that lives in the northwest of the Empire."

"They are also easy to tame. Look at how docile they behave."

"Well, let's wait and see what they're here for."

Oligan waited for the foxes to be brought close to the participants before continuing his explanation.

"Each one of these Green Spotted Foxes have the same level of strength. I want all of you to create a body enhancing paste and apply it to your foxes. Green Spotted Foxes are known for their neutral characteristics, so it won't matter which kind of element you use to make the paste."

"Once everyone is done, we will have these foxes attack a strength measuring dummy. The formation set inside the target can calculate the power of the attack through points. Before we brought these foxes here, we tested every single one of them several times with thousands of others. We can guarantee that these 300 foxes' strengths are all no higher than 5 points between each other. That's already considering the environment, the foxes' body state during the day, and their individual habits."

"As for their original number of points during the attacking test, all of them marked between 530 and 535 points on average."

"Considering how common and weak these demon beasts are, even a poorly made medicinal paste would increase their strength by at least a hundred points. Since their difference in power isn't higher than five, it won't change the final result much."

"One more thing. You are prohibited from preparing anything that could damage the foxes' body and life to increase its strength for a short period. The pastes must be beneficial to the user, never the opposite. It has to be a permanent and good change. Well, I don't think anyone would be idiotic enough to try it. However, we will keep our Spiritual Senses focused on your work, so you better not play any tricks on us."

"Alright, those are the rules for this phase. We have prepared the tools and a list with hundreds of common herbs and other materials for you to use. Just ask the assistant on your side, and they will fetch everything for you."

"Pastes of different elements have different times and ways of being made, so we will give everyone four hours to complete them. That should be more than enough regardless of what kind of paste you intend to prepare."

"Last but not least, the dummy is right here for the test. You can send your fox to attack it at any time you want. The result will then be put in the monitoring formation for everyone to see."

"Alright, the test has now begun!"

All the alchemists immediately focused their attention on the list. However, most of them already had an idea of what they would use in this test. Roan, of course, was no different. Old Worm had given him a lot of attention, so he also taught Roan how to make medicinal pastes. Roan even used some of it for Rean, Malaka, Calina, as well as himself. It's quite a common thing between cultivators.

'As I thought, only the most common pastes can be created with these herbs, mucus, types of blood, etc. But this is good since the others won't be able to prepare anything too different either.'

Roan then looked at his assistant.

"Bring me three Blooming Scarlet Flowers from the Ival region. The older, the better.

Five stalks of Greenlight Perfore, no more than 5 years old.

200ml of Stripped Fox Blood.

320 grams of..."

The assistant quickly noted all of the ingredients down and left in a hurry. The Alchemist Guild was very thorough with its preparation. In less than five minutes, all the things Roan asked for were already on his table.

Roan prepared the plate on the table and began to make the mix. The plate looked more like a cutting board, which was commonly used for this kind of job. The cauldron would also be utilized, but not straight away. Everyone else was doing the same thing as they prepared their own pastes.

Old Worm already knew what Roan was going to do. However, Werxa and the others were confused. That's because they hadn't seen such a mix before.

"What kind of paste is that?"

"It's not something I know."

"Well, he is a Dark and Light Element user, so it's highly likely that he came up with his own recipe."

"Oh! That's right. We don't have anyone who can use those two elements to start with."

Time continued to pass. Around two hours later, Roan finally turned his cauldron on. He asked the assistant for a specific type of spiritual redwood that contained the properties he needed for the fire.

However, it was then that something unimaginable happened.

Roan pulled the fox that the assistant was holding until now and suddenly... stuffed it inside the cauldron!

In an instant, everyone had the same reaction.

"What the hell?!"