Paragon of Sin

"Since the An Clan's the challenged party in this clash, then I select first, correct?" The initial phase of an All-Alchemic Clash was the selection of alchemical products. Each alchemist will choose two types of products, and then they would be obligated to provide a recipe for this product if it wasn't already known. The materials for this product would be provided by the alchemist who selected it, and they must be able to provide at least three portions of materials to their opponent. 

Yun Daotian's expression was slightly unsightly. However, considering they were under the watchful eyes of millions, with numerous prestigious and revered characters, he nodded with a tinge of reluctance. 

Those who selected first would have the advantage, picking their most skilled product type. This advantage was only given to the challenged party. 

"I'll choose: Pill." Wei Wuyin made his first selection and it was the most commonly picked product. Pills were useful in advancing one's cultivation or producing changes to one's body, oftentimes in an explosive or fusing manner. For example, Essence Pills contained refined essence of heaven and earth with agreeable materials, condensing and enhancing its quality, as well as its ease of assimilation. The Astral Dipper Fountain Pill was a similar pill, that allowed to swiftly assimilate high-level essence to generate new astral force or Qi Essences.

Yun Daotian sighed in relief. This mysterious alchemist didn't flip the script and went with the typical move of selections. "I'll choose: Pellet."

This caused an intrigued uproar amongst the crowd. Pellets were refined products that contained energies or substances weaponized and made compatible with spiritual energy for ease of control. It was an alchemist's tool for defense and offense. Of course, this was its most basic usage. It was rumored that said high-level pellets could be used to accelerate time and act as temporary suns.

Wei Wuyin smiled behind his mask and said, "Elixir." 

This left Yun Daotian to forcefully have paste as his last and only option. With the selections now done, they had to pick their recipes. According to the rules, they can choose any recipe of any grade in an All-Alchemic Clash. Typically, alchemists chose the most difficult pill of their specialization so they could have a better chance of obtaining victory in that category. After all, the goal was to win 3-0 or 3-1. If you lose in your selected product, your chances of victory dwindled considerably.

While the one who selects first generally had an advantage in type, the second could choose which recipe they would concoct first. This advantage balanced out things a little. 

Yun Daotian regained his posture, the bearing of an elite Lord Alchemist came out in full force. With a straightened back and uplifted chin, he declared: "Sixth-Grade, High-Tier Noxious Umbra Venom Pellet."

"Gasps!" A series of cold inhales echoed. The Noxious Umbra Venom Pellet used the toxin of the Umbra Source Flower that contained shadow energies and venom of the Noxious Hell Python. They were highly volatile materials, especially the venom, and it could cause a poisonous backlash. Those who sought to concoct this pill were at risk of poisoning themselves to death.

However, Yun Daotian was a beastman from the Noxious Hell Python lineage. While he might not have the purest bloodline, his ancestor was still one. If he failed to concoct this pill, he'd suffer minimal backlash due to his innate poison resistance. 

How calculating and cruel!

While the crowd was fuming at Yun Daotian's tactics, Wei Wuyin was entirely undisturbed by the declaration. He didn't have an innate resistance to poison, but he had little doubt in handling and completing this pellet with zero error. 

Yun Daotian withdrew a spatial ring and sent it over. Within the ring were three sets of full materials to concoct a Noxious Umbra Venom Pill. If at this point Wei Wuyin suspected an issue, he could declare such and have it analyzed. But there's no way Yun Daotian would sabotage his chances, so none of these materials were tampered with.

Yun Daotian found his location and proceeded to bring out a black cauldron that emitted a nauseous scent. It seemed to have been used to repeatedly concoct poison-based products. But its inherent level was merely at the Qi-Tier Cauldron at the ninth-rank. While this was impressive, it was severely lacking when compared to the Nine Element Eclipse Cauldron.

An Ge and Chen Xiaowei on the sidelines were anxious. Neither of them was certain of victory or defeat, and while the reasons for this were different, their hearts raced all the same. 

Wei Wuyin quietly looked over the recipe and felt it was rather simple. There were only thirty-two materials required for the pellet, and while they had different portions, the concoction method wasn't very complex. Usually, ordinary seventh-grade products required at least one hundred and many of those materials were far, far more volatile to handle.

After a brief simulation in his mind, he started to work. 

The Dao of Alchemy was divided into seven traits: Extraction, Growth, Containment, Refinement, Creation, Transformation, and Fusion. Each of these traits embodied various phases in every concoction process. This was regardless if it was Pills, Pellets, Paste, or Elixirs, or from the first to ninth-grade, they all required these phases.

Wei Wuyin's first phase of concoction was extraction. With calm movements of his hands, he withdrew material after material and briefly integrated his alchemic force within each one. His actions were so swift and discreet that no one could accurately determine his cultivation level or the level of his energies. This was deliberately done.

From each material, specks of the purest essence and innate energies from each material were taken and sent into the cauldron. These essences were incredibly varied, and the Umbra Source Flower contained shadow essence, wood essence, and toxic essence. While the term 'essence' was broadly used, each essence had its own specific differentiation and characteristic.

For example, his Absolute Zero Ice Essence could not be considered the same as Cryolife Ice Essence or Everfrost Ice Essence. 

There were specific methods on how to extract each essence to their fullest and with the utmost care. For example, extracting the Absolute Zero Ice Essence from the stone that contained it would be inherently dangerous. Unlike cultivators that absorb it and refine it directly with their bodies, meridians, and Natal/Astral Souls internally, alchemists do so externally, but the danger was even more apparent.

A single misstep and the essence could go berserk, affecting the world or even yourself. After extracting all the essences within thirty-two materials, the next step was growth. The basic level of essences was often too low to handle any further processing, so it needed to be nurtured to a sufficient amount. Furthermore, each essence had a ratio at which it needed to be to safely interact with other essences without disastrous results.

A recipe denoted these ratios of strength, so doing so wasn't a blind guess. These recipes were determined by centuries and millennia of testing, and they followed basic rules. For example, if he wanted to concoct an Absolute Zero Blizzard Pellet, the Absolute Zero Ice Essence required the highest degree of nurturing.

Alchemic Qi and Alchemic Force could do so. 

When Wei Wuyin had entered the Eden Earth Sect, this trait of the Alchemic Dao was used by herbal boys to nurture herbs and plants. With a strand of his alchemic force, his piercing Celestial Eyes, and unfathomable level of mental awareness, it took a mere breath to nurture the essences to their correct ratios.

After, he moved on to the third phase: Containment. The purpose of the cauldron wasn't just to support alchemical energies or the process, but contain the essences into a single melting pot. This part was both simple and immensely difficult. Keeping a perfect ratio was of the utmost importance. These essence ratios allowed for the perfect cohesive bonding to prevent any sort of volatile reaction from occurring, and many alchemists fail at this point due to it. They lacked a keen sense of balance which inevitably causes the product to fail or reach a much lower quality.

Wei Wuyin's containment was perfect, keeping each portion in their specific area under a set arrangement while maintaining their unity within the cauldron. The next step was refinement, and this wasn't the type of refinement that required lifeforce, but alchemic qi or alchemic force. It removed the inherent impurities and allowed for an easier merging process.

With a thought, he started to formulate handseals with incredible swiftness and precision, executing a refinement method. He integrated a wisp of spirituality within as the various essences were melded together with his alchemic force as the cohesive. The process turned essence into energy. It was incomparably quick and simple, like creating dough, and it soon became a mass of black energies within the cauldron the size of a baby's fist.

On the outside, the runes and formations on his cauldron started to light up as various pure elemental and spiritual energies integrated within to support the refinement process. This would innately improve the rate of refinement to another level, one of the many benefits of an Astral-tier Cauldron. 

The next phase was creation. This was where the product was determined to be a pill, pellet, paste, or elixir. It was to create its state of existence, but this couldn't be determined willingly, allowing any compiled mass to become any type of product. To determine that relied heavily on the refinement process itself. Pellets, specifically, refined essence into energies during that step while adding spiritual adaptability to it. Elixirs, Pills, and Pastes did not do the same, so attempting to create them after executing a Pellet Refined Mass of Essence to Energy Method was ill-advised.

After clenching his fists slightly, the black mass of energy became a perfectly spherical object the size of a marble. But this only created its form, and it lacked the qualities of a pellet as well as its completed state. The last two steps, Transformation and Fusion, were handled simultaneously by Wei Wuyin. Normally, these steps were deliberately taken with the most extreme degree of caution possible, but he didn't need such precautions. With a few handseals, the various energies started to rapidly start changing on a fundamental level, under the direction of his alchemic force.

Within a blink of an eye, the energies transformed and fused into a new type of melded energy: Noxious Umbra Energy. He combined this new energy with his alchemic force until it completely became a solid marble that faintly emanated dark, toxic, and spiritual auras. This was the last process of the Alchemic Dao and was specifically designed for pellets. It was called the Solidification Step. While pills, paste, and elixirs have their own last step. For example, elixirs were called the Liquidize Step.

With a swipe of his hand, the pellet was completed.

While this process was being completed, Yun Daotian was still performing the first phase: extraction. He struggled to extract essences from each material, attempting to not waste it with poor methods. It was like surgically removing a heart, and this process typically required sufficient patience and skill. In truth, this first step often gated many alchemists as their control or strength was insufficient to extract certain essences properly.

Wei Wuyin sighed in his heart as he reached into his cauldron and touched the newly concocted pellet. Its surface was gleaming with faint black light and miasma-like gas was circulating like a planetary ring. "A peak-quality pellet." In the end, concocting with alchemic force was a thousand times easier than with alchemic qi.

It was unbeknownst to the crowd that Wei Wuyin had succeeded. He quietly waited, closing his eyes and recalling the experience of concocting with alchemic force and their inherent differences. It was quite stellar to dissect this difference, and it only fueled his belief that he could now concoct ninth-grade products. 

Three hours later, Yun Daotian failed his first concoction at the Containment Phase. He had measured the ratios wrong, growing some a little too much and others too little, causing the toxic essences within to overpower the others, turning the entire batch into a horrible mess of poison. The backlash of this was resisted by his bloodline, so besides his complexion turning a shade paler, he held on. 

However, he was unperturbed by this failure, even expecting it. After all, he was merely re-familiarizing himself with everything once more. He would get serious during the second concoction! 

Just as he calmed himself down with an internal pep talk, and about to restart the process, Wei Wuyin's cauldron lit up in black light. The black light shot into the air like a pillar, and it emitted the aura of Noxious Umbra Energy. This phenomenon was what usually accompanied a successful concoction of a sixth-grade pellet, a byproduct of the fusion process.

Wei Wuyin lifted his faceless mask towards Yun Daotian. He said, "Finished."