Chapter 328: Korryn VS Marcellis - III

Chapter 328: Chapter 328: Korryn VS Marcellis - III

Chapter 328: Korryn VS Marcellis - III

An Emperor-Grade Cauldron!

In the entire Solathane Dynasty, no one, not even the Royal Family, possessed a true Emperor-Grade alchemy cauldron.

It was a mythical treasure that existed only in ancient texts!

Yet, Grandmaster Korryn had just casually pulled one out!

Marcellis stared at the starlight-infused purple furnace.

Instantly, an intense, covetous greed ignited deep within Marcellis’s ancient eyes.

For an alchemist, a True Emperor-Grade Cauldron was the ultimate, unattainable dream.

It could elevate an Alchemy Emperor’s refinement to an entirely new dimension.

For eight hundred years, his greatest dream had been to acquire an artifact of this exact caliber.

It was the only thing holding him back from reaching the summit of his path!

He made up his mind instantly. Once he won this duel and Korryn’s life was forfeit, he would demand this supreme artifact as his prize!

"A supreme cauldron is useless if the man wielding it is garbage!" Marcellis bellowed, forcefully suppressing the rabid greed in his eyes.

He raised his hands.

BOOM—!!!

A roaring beast flame erupted from his palms.

It was a flame harvested from a high-level Domain Master realm beast, radiating a blistering heat that instantly increased the temperature of the serene mountain peak.

The crowd watched in awe as the Alchemy Emperor displayed his mastery over the ferocious flame.

All eyes immediately snapped back toward Grandmaster Korryn, waiting to see what kind of flame a man with a True Emperor-Grade Cauldron would summon.

Fwoosh—!

A small spark ignited at the tip of Rhain’s finger.

It was a blue, completely ordinary spiritual flame.

It flickered weakly in the mountain breeze as Rhain casually tossed it beneath the Purple Moon Mystic Furnace.

Compared to the roaring, majestic beast flame of the Alchemy Emperor, Rhain’s blue fire looked pathetic.

"What is that? A basic spiritual flame?"a rogue alchemist muttered, rubbing his eyes to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

"Is this a joke? He possesses a True Emperor-Grade Cauldron, but he doesn’t even have a powerful beast flame?"

"Hahaha! What a waste of a supreme artifact! A cauldron like that in the hands of a man using a beggar’s flame!"

The awe that had filled the crowd just moments ago instantly shattered into baffling disappointment.

To wield an Emperor-Grade cauldron with a beginner’s spiritual flame was like strapping a rusty wooden wheel to a divine chariot!

Amidst the bewildered murmurs and mocking sneers raining down upon him, Rhain casually tossed the ordinary blue flame beneath the Purple Moon Mystic Furnace.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Both men began tossing their priceless herbs into their respective cauldrons.

Marcellis moved with the confident grace of a man who had refined the Niravana Golden Marrow Pill thousands of times over centuries.

He added the Golden Marrow Root first, followed perfectly by the Niravana Lotus petals, strictly adhering to the ancient, established sequence of the Emperor-Grade recipe.

But on the other side of the arena, Rhain’s hands moved in a completely different pattern.

He tossed the highly volatile Niravana Lotus petals in first, before the cauldron had even reached the baseline temperature, and then recklessly threw in the Frost-Veined Spirit Grass—a cooling agent that completely contradicted the ancient sequence!

The observing Royal Grandmasters immediately pointed at Rhain, their faces plastered with mocking sneers.

"Look at his sequence! He is destroying the elemental balance!"

"He completely reversed the integration of the Niravana Lotus! The medicinal properties will violently clash! That cauldron is going to explode!"

"Hahaha! This is exactly what happens when an arrogant fool believes he can master an Emperor-Grade formula in just ten minutes!"

Hearing the derisive murmurs of his disciples, Marcellis stroked his white beard with a triumphant sneer.

But the moment he thought of Rhain’s sequence deeply in his mind...

Marcellis’s heart nearly stopped beating for a moment.

His eight hundred years of unparalleled alchemical experience instantly simulated Rhain’s sequence in his mind.

And the result almost made him lose his mind.

Rhain’s contradictory order wasn’t destroying the elemental balance.

It was actively bypassing the elemental clashes entirely!

By introducing the cooling agent early, Rhain was perfectly neutralizing the volatility of the Niravana Lotus before it could even manifest, drastically increasing the baseline purity of the liquid essence to an inconceivable degree!

’Impossible!’ Marcellis screamed in his mind, his hands trembling slightly as he threw another herb in the cauldron. ’How could he deduce this?"

It was an improvement to an ancient recipe that had stood unchanged for thousands of years!

And he had deduced it in just ten minutes?

And why hadn’t he, an eight-hundred-year-old monster, ever thought of those simple, yet paradigm-shifting adjustments?

Panic gripped Marcellis’s soul.

He desperately wanted to alter his own sequence and copy Rhain’s method, but it was already too late.

His herbs were already melting in the golden cauldron.

He was forced to follow the traditional path.

What Marcellis didn’t know was that Rhain had not spent ten minutes mastering the formula.

He had mastered it in the very first minute.

Thanks to the knowledge directly integrated into his consciousness by the System, Rhain’s foundational understanding of alchemy stood at the unsurpassable, untouchable pinnacle of the Grandmaster realm.

When he had asked for half an hour, Rhain had genuinely expected that an Emperor Grade Pill formula would be complex, and obscure, and it may take him some time to fully master it even with his level of comprehension.

But when Rhain read the scroll, he was surprised.

The formula was... easy.

He didn’t know that it was only easy because Marcellis had deliberately chosen a standard pill, a relatively easy Emperor Grade Pill which was his own specialty—a pill he had perfected over centuries.

So, after comprehending the entire recipe in sixty seconds, Rhain had spent the remaining nine minutes fixing the several inherent flaws of the ancient recipe and repeatedly confirming his improvisations.

As the duel progressed, Rhain continued to casually toss herbs into the purple furnace in bizarre, completely contradictory orders.

And each time he did, the Royal Grandmasters behind Marcellis murmured in mocking delight, wondering why his cauldron hadn’t exploded yet

But with every murmur of his ignorant disciples, Marcellis felt as if a knife was being twisted in his gut.

He realized with frightening clarity just how profoundly Rhain had mastered the formula.

’If I let this continue, I might actually lose!’

Terrified that he was on the verge of losing this historic battle and being forced to kneel before the entire dynasty, Marcellis gritted his teeth.

He forcefully sealed his own hearing, completely blocking out the distracting, idiotic murmurs of his disciples.

His ancient eyes burned with a desperate maniac light.

He focused every single ounce of his eight hundred years of unparalleled experience, his vast soul power, and his roaring Beast Flame entirely onto his golden cauldron.

’I am the Alchemy Emperor! I cannot lose!’

Driven beyond his limits by the crushing fear of humiliation, Marcellis poured his every last bit of knowledge and skills in this refining.

Hours ticked by.

The sun began to rise further over the Cloud’s Apex.

"CONDENSE!" Marcellis roared suddenly.

CLANG—!!!

The lid of the golden cauldron blew into the air.

A blinding pillar of golden light erupted into the sky, accompanied by an intoxicating medicinal fragrance that instantly spread over the entire mountain peak.

Hovering gracefully above the furnace was a perfect golden pill.

All Royal Grandmasters stared at it, and then dropped to their knees in worship.

"Zero impurities..." one of them wept. "One hundred percent flawless! Lord Marcellis has done it!"

The entire Solathane Dynasty erupted.

"A FLAWLESS EMPEROR-GRADE PILL!"

"He broke his own limits! Alchemy Emperor has achieved perfection!"

On the mountain, Emperor Haldrion nodded in pride and satisfaction, "Lord Marcellis has showed once again why he is the Alchemy Emperor of my dynasty."

Crown Prince Lucius smirked triumphantly.

The duel was already won.

At the very best, Grandmaster Korryn could only achieve a flawless pill as well, resulting in a draw.

But looking at Korryn, who was still sweating profusely and refining his pill with a completely wrong herb sequence, the crowd only wondered why his purple cauldron hadn’t exploded into a million pieces yet.

On his side of the arena, Rhain was still refining.

His golden eyes were filled with grave solemnity.

Through his vast Spiritual Sense, he had already realized that Marcellis had miraculously condensed a 100% flawless pill.

’I still underestimated the power of eight hundred years of experience,’ Rhain thought inwardly.

During his sleepless night of practice, Rhain had relentlessly refined batch after batch.

But limited to this ordinary blue spiritual flame to protect his identity, he had never once managed to reach 100% purity. His highest had been a miserable 99%.

Without the incinerating purity of the Red Tribulations Heavenly Flame, removing those final microscopic impurities was a mountain he hadn’t yet crossed.

But he couldn’t fail.

If he failed this time, if he produced anything less than perfection, he would lose his life, his Pavilion, his wife, and his family to the Royal Court.

’I must win this.’