Back inside the alchemy trial, Qing Yi had taken her first step inside the maze that led inside the mountain. Only to discover that the all too familiar mist had once again appeared and silently covered up the entrance to the maze behind her.
After entering the maze, she had no way back out! Not that she really had any plan to leave, as it would mean she gave up on the alchemy trial!
Having entered the maze, the first thing Qing Yi noticed, was that the cave walls around the entrance had completely disappeared. Replaced by a sea of mist that had formed into high walls reaching far up into the sky.
Even the rocky cave floor had changed to become the same as the sea of mist she had seen surrounding her own along with the other mountains inside the alchemy trial. The only thing catching her off-guard, was the fact that she could walk on top of the mist without sinking through it.
Finished observing her new surroundings, Qing Yi began to make her way deeper into the maze of mist that she now found herself inside of. Hopefully, she would soon find out just what the maze of mist was about…
…
Observing as Qing Yi entered the maze of mist from the outside, Fang Shi could not help smiling a bit to himself as he looked forward to her performance.
The third test was quite special compared to the last two test where the participants only had to make a pill or potion.
For them to proceed, they would be forced through several different challenges. From something simple like identifying an unknown spiritual herb, to brewing a specific pill within a certain timeframe.
In the end, the main difficulty from the third test came from the different challenges that the participants would encounter inside of the maze itself.
Without completing said challenges, the participants would have no way to move forward!
The only saving grace for the participants was the fact that they would always have more than one challenge to chose from. Instead of just being locked to a single choice.
The main reason why this had been implanted in the alchemy trial, was because the success rate for passing the third test without more than one choice, had dropped to nearly zero percent for alchemists not yet at the peak of the Expert Alchemist Realm…
The third test was only made to test Expert Alchemists! Not Peak Expert Alchemists!
Focusing his attention back onto Qing Yi currently making her way towards the first challenge inside the maze, Fang Shi prepared to closely observe her this time around. At the very least, he did not have too many other people to keep an eye on now that most of them had been eliminated.
Other than that, both the crown prince from the Dark Sky Kingdom and the young girl who had entered the third test before anyone else were stuck at one of the challenges for now and the other participants who had also reached the third test were not really doing too well at the moment…
…
Back inside the maze made up of mist, Qing Yi encountered her first challenge and finally understood what the maze inside the alchemy trial was about, as she quickly decided to pick the easiest challenge presented to her. Identifying an Earth Grade Spiritual Herb.
Even if she did not know about too many spiritual herbs yet, Qing Yi still managed to easily pass through the first challenge as it was not too difficult for her and even if she couldn't figure out what spiritual herb it was, she could always turn back and try the other challenge.
Feeling extremely relaxed as she followed the path opening up in front of her after completing the first challenge, Qing Yi suddenly saw a large hourglass that turned around the moment she passed the first challenge.
"After passing through the first challenge, you will have three hours to pass through the maze of challenges before the time runs out. Good luck… I have a time limit!?" Reading out the words that had formed next to the hourglass, Qing Yi could not help but feel herself panicking a bit before quickly making her way over towards the next challenge.
Now that she knew that she only had a limited amount of time to make it through the maze to complete the third test, Qing Yi felt that she couldn't waste any time just standing around.
The most important thing now was to make it through the maze before the time ran out!
Like this, Qing Yi began making her way through the challenges inside the maze. Given that the participants would only have three hours to make it through the maze, the challenges inside were mostly designed to be short and quick to go through. So, within a short period of time, Qing Yi had soon found herself face to face with her with her first ever dead-end.
"Hah… It is after all a maze…"
Qing Yi who had taken the easiest challenges along the way so far could only let out a sad sigh as she began making her way back towards the other challenge, she had decided to ignore earlier for the easier challenge that just needed her to find a fire based spiritual herb among a few dozen different spiritual herbs…
The challenge really was way too easy for her to ignore and in the end, she had just ended up finding a dead-end on the other side after completing the challenge…
Reaching the crossroad where she had chosen to take the easier path, Qing Yi regretfully made her way over towards the harder challenge that required her to concoct a pill…
Yes! Instead of a potion, the challenge wanted her to concoct a pill!
Even though it was only an Earth Grade Pill, it would still be difficult for Qing Yi. After all, she had spent most of her time making potions instead of pills like most mainstream alchemists did.
Even if the two were pretty much the same when it came to preparation of ingredients, there was still a few unique aspects to pill making that Qing Yi was not so confident in. Mainly the fact that she had to use a pill furnace instead of a cauldron.
"A cauldron is so much easier to use compared to this thing…"
Having made her way to pill furnace, Qing Yi began reading through the instructions for the challenge before looking over the spiritual herbs available to her. At the very least she did not have to learn a new recipe, but just had to use the ingredients already present to make a pill that had reached the Earth Grade.
Remembering the easiest and quickest pill that she could make with the present spiritual herbs, Qing Yi quickly prepared all of them before preparing for the next step.
"I really hate this part…"
Picking up one of the spiritual herbs she needed, Qing Yi conjured forth a small flame and began to slowly refine the already prepared spiritual herb with it.
Compared to potion brewing where she could just directly add in the prepared spiritual herbs, pill making required an extra step, the refining of the prepared spiritual herb to remove any impurities inside of it!
This entire process was completely removed when brewing a potion, as the impurities would automatically be burned off during the brewing phase, but pill making was not the same, as it required the spiritual herbs to be liquified before being slowly formed into a pill shape.
During this process, there was no time to slowly allow the impurities to be burned off. If the impurities were not removed earlier on, they would end up becoming a part of the slowly forming pill inside the pill furnace with no way to escape as they would end up merging together with the pill itself.
After a gruelling half hour of refining the spiritual herbs, Qing Yi finally threw the spiritual herbs inside the pill furnace as she carefully controlled the flames around it to make sure that the pill came out smoothly.
At this point in time, Qing Yi suddenly understood why there were so many fake alchemists out there… If she had to go through the boring and tedious refining process every time, she wanted to make something, she would probably also end up skipping it at some point to save a little time…
The only thing that left her a bit confused, was the fact that those fake alchemists had not turned towards potions instead of pills.
After all, in Qing Yi's eyes, potions were way easier to make compared to pills that required one to go through a gruelling refining process every time one wanted to make something!
"Finally finished!"
After another twenty minutes, Qing Yi let out a sigh of relief as a small pill rolled out of the pill furnace and into her hand.
Whoosh~
Placing the small pill on top of a nearby empty pedestal, Qing Yi watched a path reveal itself. This time around, it was not a dead-end!
She really would not know what to do if she had used close to a third of her time on a dead-end path…