Cultivation Pet Shop

Just like that, another day passed.

Lin Fan wasn't called out early in the morning for the tournament like the past few days because the tournament was finally going according to schedule.

During the morning rush, Elder Hua and Elder Gu had come once again to question Lin Fan since they had been hearing the news of Fan Lin's performance in the tournament. 

But no matter how Elder Hua questioned him, Lin Fan just didn't reply and revealed the same smile.

While Elder Hua felt the urge to kick Lin Fan in that smile, she didn't do it. After experiencing the power of the master in this store last time, she really felt lucky that the master hadn't done anything to her the first time she kicked Lin Fan in the face.

So the only thing she could do now was trust Lin Fan, but still she wouldn't go to the tournament.

This tournament was something that the Alchemy Master's side had arranged, so she refused to go to the tournament since it meant that she was showing support for them.

When the morning rush was over and they had finished their breakfast, Lin Fan casually headed to the location that was marked on the confirmation sheet that he had received yesterday.

Once he arrived at the arena in his Fan Lin disguise, there were many people who were already gathered outside waiting to get in to watch the tournament.

Now that they were finally back on schedule, the Alchemy Tower was finally holding an opening ceremony for this tournament. At the same time, they had kept the format of the tournament a secret and the confirmation sheet had said that they would be informing him today.

When Lin Fan appeared in his Fan Lin disguise, there wasn't much attention at first. However, once one person noticed him, there was a whisper that soon spread through the crowd. Eventually there was a large portion of the crowd that was pointing at and talking about him.

Lin Fan was surprised to see this, but when he walked towards the crowd, there was actually a path that had opened up for him.

As he walked through, he could hear various people talking about him.

"Do you see who that person is? It's Fan Lin."

"Fan Lin? Who's that?"

"He's the dark horse of the tournament. No one knows which faction he comes from, but the only thing they know is that he's already refined two 100% purity pills."

"100% purity pills? Is that even possible? I've never heard of that before!"

Of course there were also other kinds of whispers being said about him.

"He's clearly a fake and the judges are all in on it too. How could someone like him refine 100% purity pills?"

"I don't know, I think that he might be a wandering expert who was lucky enough to find an inheritance."

"All I know is that I think he looks quite cute and mysterious dressed all in black like that."

When Lin Fan heard this, he couldn't help turning in the direction that voice came from, but he came to immediately regret that decision.

He didn't know what it was about him that did this, but it was the second time that this had happened.

When he turned, what he saw was a large muscular man dressed in a skimpy dress winking in his direction.

Lin Fan didn't hesitate to turn and walk towards the entrance as quick as he could, but there was still a chill that ran down his spine when the muscular man blew a kiss at him.

The guards were about to stop him from entering, but when they saw his confirmation sheet, they immediately let him in. 

They hadn't done the same for any of the other contestants, but they still remembered the order they had received from their superiors.

Once Lin Fan came in, there was someone who immediately came to receive him and he was brought to the contestant waiting room.

When he came in, he saw that most of the contestants were already here and he was close to being the last one who had arrived. However, the moment he did enter the room, every gaze fell onto him.

There were plenty of these gazes that contained hostility as they looked him over, trying to see through him. There were also gazes that were just filled with curiosity towards him.

But Lin Fan just ignored them all and found a place to sit.

After a while, the staff members came in and led all the contestants to a room that was behind the stage to prepare for the ceremony.

In that room, there was a screen for them to watch the events happen live on stage.

When the clock reached 10 AM, there was a sudden explosion that came from the screen as smoke appeared on stage. From that smoke, the host of the ceremony appeared to hype up the crowd.

After hyping them up, the host introduced the elders of the Alchemy Tower who were present and the Alchemy Master.

When everyone looked at the Alchemy Master's seat they were all focused on the Alchemy Master himself, but Lin Fan with his sharp eyes noticed that there was someone sitting beside him. It was a young man with eyes that were crimson red like blood that could pierce into one's soul.

Lin Fan didn't know who this young man was, but if he had to make a guess, he would say that this was the envoy from the upper realm. With this information, he was more certain about his plans and what he would have to do next.

After the host had finished introducing everyone, he moved into the format of the tournament, "This tournament will be a series of one on one refining matches between contestants. However, since there would be an uneven number of contestants during rounds, there will be one special bye that will be included in each round with an uneven number of contestants."

Then after pausing, the host continued, "As for how we will decide which contestant will face each other, we will now bring our contestants onto the stage one by one to draw lots."

When he said this, the staff that had shown the contestants to the room had everyone stand up and line up as they waited for their turn to go onto the stage.

Lin Fan was actually first in that line.

The host said, "Now without further ado, we will call up our first contestant. He is the most famous dark horse in this tournament, now let's see who he will face as his first opponent! He is contestant number 133769 Fan Lin!"

Lin Fan was led to the stage and once he appeared, he felt a spiritual sense fall onto him. Even without looking in the direction it came from, he could tell that it had come from the envoy, so he didn't resist it. However, based on the level of this spiritual sense, he could tell that the envoy was in the Fragmented Soul Realm.

The envoy narrowed his eyes when he looked over Lin Fan. He had already seen that he had inherited a rare alchemy refining skill, but he never thought that this Fan Lin would also be an expert. He could tell from his bone structure that he wasn't that old and yet he was already in the Platinum Realm. It seemed like he had inherited more than just alchemy knowledge, this made the envoy want this Fan Lin even more.

When he was finished, the envoy called over an attendant and whispered a few words into his ear before waving him off. After the attendant left, the envoy just sat there with a faint smile on his lips.

Lin Fan moved to the center of the stage and under the direction of the host, he put his hand into the box with a hole in the center. Digging around inside that box, he finally pulled out a ball.

The host took that ball and opened it up, revealing a piece of paper that had a large number 1 written on it.

The host immediately began doing his job in hyping up the crowd, but Lin Fan didn't care. After he finished drawing his number, he just turned and walked off the stage.

After him, the other contestants had their chances to draw their numbers, but even with half of the contestants drawing their numbers, there was no one who had drawn the number 2 to be matched with Lin Fan.

Finally the second to last person drew that number and the moment he did, there was a look like dying embers on his face.

This person had actually barely been able to qualify and now he was being matched with the dark horse of the tournament, it didn't seem like he would go far…

But that was just his luck, he couldn't do anything about it.

Finally after everyone had finished their draw, the host drew the crowd's attention to the center where five arenas suddenly appeared out of the ground. 

The tournament was about to begin.