"A new fire controlling and refining technique? And only 12 hours to learn them?" The contestants were caught off guard by the content of the second round.

"Are the new techniques better than the current ones?" Someone asked.

Elder Godari turned his body towards the questioner and smiled. "Not really. It's just something a person comes up with while taking a massive dump."

What the heck? Is this a poop-refining technique? Shit! That person must have tried to refine his own poop.

Most of the audience had the same thought.

"Ehem, disclaimer, that person is not me. I don't have this kind of tendency." Elder Godari clarified a thing.

"Elder Godari, why can't we use our own refining technique?" One of the contestants asked.

"Hmm... because we thought it would be easier to judge an alchemist refining ability like this." He replied.

"But didn't you say earlier that the world is unfair and the competition wouldn't be fair? Why use the same technique for everyone if you're not trying to be fair?" Another contestant from a big background asked.

"You are exactly right. It is not fair. You have to use an alchemy technique that is worse than what you're using right now but others here get to use a technique that is better than what they are currently using. No matter what you try to do to be fair, it will never be fair. The most you can achieve is the illusion of being fair." Elder Godari said.

Leyvi was dumbfounded. The host elder was actually right. If you changed the perspective a bit, the first impression of what's fair and not fair immediately flipped. Elder, are you sure you are an alchemist and not a philosopher?

It wasn't just Leyvi, plenty among the audience and the contestants also had a sudden realization.

Boom!

Suddenly, some people in the crowd started to break through to the next realm. Their aura grew stronger and denser. These were the cultivator that had been stuck at the peak of their realm for a while.

When they heard Elder Godari's words, they realized something and let go of the things that had been clinging to their heart, releasing them from their mental shackles, and allowing them to break through.

Elder Godari smiled when he saw this happen. He then did something under his long sleeves and the aura from the people undergoing the breakthrough couldn't be felt anymore. They even had something covering them so they wouldn't be seen.

"Alright, it will be a while before they can finish their breakthrough process, so I have isolated them to respect their privacy and at the same time, they wouldn't be able to disturb other audience. It's not the first time this happened, so we have a contingency for something like this." Elder Godari said nonchalantly, as if his philosophy wasn't the cause of the multiple breakthroughs.

"There are a total of 119 cultivators who are breaking through right now." Layla calculated.

Leyvi nodded. "That's quite a lot." He felt that it was amazing that a few sentences could impact many people. It wasn't necessarily the word, maybe the emotion?

Leyvi turned his head and looked at Lilian and then her massive mountains. His introverted wife was unable to break through for 20 years until she went out and traveled with him. No, he shouldn't call her introverted anymore. She went outside a lot more now, at least with someone accompanying her.

Another example is his family gatekeeper, Bana. When the stress and burden he carries disappears, he advanced in his cultivation immediately even though he thought it would stagnate for the remainder of his life.

Leyvi hoped that his cultivation wouldn't be stopped by any of this emotional shackle. It would be worse than not having the resources to cultivate. At least you know what to do if you don't have resources to cultivate. If it was an emotional block, where do you even begin?

"Okay, back to the poop refining technique, ehem, the new refining technique, make sure to use only the techniques that were given for the second round or you will be disqualified."

Once again Elder Godari flicked his arm and thousands of jade slips flew towards the contestants.

"Alright, you have twelve hours from now to learn and practice the techniques. As for the audience, you are free to leave the Grand Stadium for the time being. Of course, if you want to observe the contestants, that is fine too." Elder Godari announced.

In the end, a quarter of the audience left the Grand Stadium doing their own thing while the others stayed, either meditating or chatting.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

To cultivators, 12 hours was not a long time. Even if the competition lasted for a few days, it wouldn't be a problem.

The contestants had started to comprehend the techniques given to them. Some frowned and some were happy.

To the contestants who came from humble backgrounds, what they received was massive. Even if they got the bottom place in this competition, the techniques they were about to learn were already valuable enough.

Anda was quite delighted. Both the fire control technique and the refining technique given were better than the techniques she had. After all, she came from a small sect. What the Mountain Dew Sect had were alchemy techniques mostly available to the public and if not, they would be incomplete.

She hadn't actively sought new alchemy techniques because what she owned was still usable due to the Alchemy Vision. It would guide her and maximize the potential of any alchemy technique she uses. And so far, she hasn't encountered any problems while using it yet.

But as an alchemist, it was better to have better alchemy techniques sooner or their old technique wouldn't be able to keep up with their level later, and in many cases, they didn't even realize that the techniques they had been using were holding back their progress.

Anda wondered who could casually create an alchemy technique like this while pooping. The person must be a big shit, ahem, a big shot.

Leyvi and the others also stayed in the Grand Stadium waiting. Leyvi used his free time to talk more with his women. He would frequently change his seat to talk with Lilian, Layla, Valenia, Hana, Sayu, Fifi, Nikita, and even Selene.

But he intentionally left out Nala to mess with her. Who told her to keep flashing her private parts to him? This girl really lived up to her nature.

After some time, seeing that Nala was getting bolder and bolder, Leyvi knew he had to stop her.

He brought Nala to a private place and used the same technique Anda taught him last time, whispering some sweet words. After sending her to the high heaven with just some touch and sweet words, Leyvi licked her drool and kissed her lips. Nala's eyes widened due to the sudden move.

Leyvi let go and said to her, "Make sure to behave okay?"

"Yes darling." Nala nodded, still entranced.

They returned to their seats acting like nothing happened and Leyvi resumed interacting with the rest. As for Nala, she was very obedient and behaved properly as Leyvi wished, looking forward to the time when she could finally be in bed with him.

On the cat-looking special seat, Catarina smiled amusingly witnessing what happened between Leyvi and Nala because her spiritual sense had locked onto Leyvi since earlier.

"He is getting more and more interesting. When would be the best time to approach him?" Caterina pondered.

Luna the white cat on her lap pretended she heard nothing. She knew she couldn't change Rina's mind anymore. Good luck kid, may your manhood survive.

Soon, 12 hours passed. Almost all that left the Grand Stadium had returned. Half of the cultivators breaking through also completed their process and received congratulations from the people around them.

"Alright, times up. You can keep the jade slip and master it fully later. For the second round, the time limit will be 12 hours, though I doubt anyone would need that much time to refine the essence. Take out your cauldron." Elder Godari instructed.

A few seconds later, each contestant brought out their personal cauldron, each had a different design from the other. Some had dragon carving, some had phoenix patterns and many more.

"What the heck! Why do you have a dick carved on your cauldron?"

"Bullshit! This is my family crest, a mushroom!"

"Hmph, that's clearly a dick. You can't fool me."

They usually did alchemy in private so seeing other person's personal cauldron was quite amusing.

"Look, she's only using an old beginner cauldron. Is she that poor or she's looking down on us?"

One of the contestants was talking about Anda. Even though she had another cauldron that Selene gave, she still used her old cauldron.

"Dang, I'm broke but I still had a better cauldron than her. Maybe her face scared the cauldron seller away. Hahaha!"

Anda didn't respond to them as all this talk about her birthmark didn't matter to her anymore but she suddenly craved candy.

"I hope Leyvi still has some candy," Anda muttered while looking at the old cauldron.