Night of the Broken Gliph

Ignoring the commotion, Ping Ching and Mo-Yung Kit started their refinement. Mo-Yung Kit only glanced at the Frosty Flame before focusing on his refining. Mo-Yung Kit thought that Frosty Flame was loaned to Ping Ching by the Ping Clan; he never imagined that she would be the owner of it. 

Both the Frosty Flame Cauldron and the Dragon and Phoenix Harmony Cauldron were priceless; they were worth as much as a grade four weapon to an alchemist! There was no doubt how precious these cauldrons were, and usually, even the best disciples in a clan were only allowed to borrow them and forbidden from leaving their mark on them. 

Mo-Yung Kit couldn’t imagine the Ping Clan giving the valuable Frosty Flame to Ping Ching just like this even in his dreams. 

After a short pause, Wong Lai smiled and returned to her seat. She patted the jade on her waist slowly, revealing an orange cauldron which caused a similar uproar in the crowd again. 

“An orange cauldron with golden flames surrounding it… Is it perhaps the… Golden Sun Cauldron?” 

The Golden Sun Cauldron? That’s the treasure passed down by the Wong Clan’s ancestors! All the clan leaders turned towards Wong Ding Tin simultaneously, who let out a thin smile. “Don’t look at me. It belongs to that girl.”

Mo-Yung Yan wore an ugly expression. Both the Ping Clan and the Wong Clan were so generous to their disciples, making the Mo-Yung Clan look stingy in comparison. It was understandable for the Ping Clan, as Ping Ching was a potential divine master of alchemy. However, Wong Lai was a nobody that never even participated in the previous Outstanding Talent Gatherings… So why was she able to receive such preferential treatment from her clan? 

The crowd was in an uproar, but the trio focused on refining their elixirs as if the commotion had nothing to do with them. Ping Ching inserted her energliph into the Frosty Flame. A white flame slowly rose from the cauldron, refining the herbs that Ping Ching placed in the cauldron. This was the same for Mo-Yung Kit, except that the flame was dark purple. This was because the style Mo-Yung Kit cultivated was called Purple Linings. Since Mo-Yung Yin specialised in hallucination elixirs, the purple flame helped improve such hallucination elixirs greatly. Like how every cloud has a silver lining. 

The Golden Sun Cauldron had the strongest aura of the three. After Wong Lai inserted her energliph into the cauldron, the picture of the sun carved on the cauldron lit up brightly as golden rays shot all over the place and heat waves flowed outwards towards the crowd. Ping San Yat frowned and waved his hands, controlling and restricting the heatwaves around Wong Lai, not letting the Golden Sun Cauldron affect the other participants or observers. However, that wasn’t why he was frowning. It was the energliph he felt from Wong Lai. 

She was an alchemist that had broken through the single-gliphic stage! Amongst the three, Ping Ching turned out to have the lowest cultivation. 

Cultivation had always played a supporting role in all occupations. As they grew, gliphists had stronger energliph and mental state control and were able to form more gliph strings, similar to alchemists. The flame that alchemists used when they refined elixirs were activated by their energliph. Thus, the higher one’s cultivation and the stronger his energliph, the stronger the flame would be. Alchemists that had yet to reach the single-gliphic state couldn’t refine elixirs above grade three. 

This was a boundary that could not be exceeded. That was why Mo-Yung Yin pushed the competition forward to not let Ping Ching break through and threaten Mo-Yung Kit’s victory—but Wong Lai’s participation was unexpected. His smile fell as he stared at the battle seriously. 

The Blood Congealing elixir wasn’t complicated, and there was no gliph to be carved on the elixir. In fact, only grade three elixirs refined by great masters could be considered true gliph elixirs. 

Ping Ching stared at the Frosty Flame in front of her while sweating profusely, as if she was in great pain. After some time, she finally let out a shout. “Out!” 

She slapped the cauldron hard. 

Pff! 

The Frosty Flame’s lid opened, revealing a snow-white elixir! At the same time, a chilly aura dispersed throughout the arena from her cauldron. Around the cauldron, frost formed on the ground, but there were signs of burning on the ground as well, creating a weird contrast. 

Ping Ching held the elixir in her hands with an ugly expression as she watched her opponents continue their refining. There wasn’t much fluctuation with Mo-Yung Kit’s work, but he was frowning as he looked at Wong Lai, who looked up simultaneously, meeting his eyes. 

She stared at Mo-Yung Kit with a provoking look in her beautiful eyes. The energy wave on her cauldron grew. As Ping San Yat blocked her aura with his energliph, her surroundings looked like a gleaming golden ball of light. 

Wong Lai wasn’t her birth name. She used to take on the surname of her father, a commoner unaffiliated to the Wong Clan. She only joined the clan after she returned with her mother, a Wong Clan disciple, to pay her respects to her ancestors years ago. It was then a Wong Clan elder saw her shocking talent, taking her as his direct disciple and gifting her the Golden Sun Cauldron. 

This was the reason behind her unyielding attitude. She was why her mother had any significant status in the clan, and having lived as a commoner during her childhood, she was clear that only the strongest would survive. In order to be valued and to let her parents lead a good life, she must win today. 

The thought of this made her persevere and exert as much energliph as she could. 

“Open!” Wong Lai shouted, a bead of sweat trailing down her forehead. The golden light around her was absorbed back into the cauldron, suddenly replaced by five elixirs that popped out of the cauldron, which Wong Lai kept in a bottle. 

“Five elixirs per cauldron…” This shocked many spectators. “This is what a cauldron of elixirs is!” 

“Mister Ping… His cultivation is too low, and one elixir is his limit.” 

“Look at what you’re saying. As if you could refine a grade two elixir before you reached the single-gliphic stage.” 

“Cough… I didn’t mean that.”

“Moreover, efficacy matters too. The other two will lose if their elixir isn’t as effective as Mister Ping’s!” 

As the crowd was in a heated discussion, Mo-Yung Kit’s eyes shone. “Open!” The sound of dragons and phoenixes harmonising was heard across the entire Southern Mountain Peak. Even Wong Lai wore an ugly expression as she stared at Mo-Yung Kit’s cauldron to see how many elixirs he refined. 

The number of elixirs refined from a single cauldron mattered too, besides their effectiveness.

Buzz…

「出來了！」

“It’s out!” 

“One, two, three… Oh my god! Five elixirs as well!” 

“The fun has just started…”