203 Competition 6 (1/2)

This also marked the end of the competition. The difficulty in refining the pills increased extremely at this level. Soon even the best pill refiner had failed their three tries and the competition came to an end.

Now it was time for the points to be calculated and then displayed. Everyone was intensely staring at the screens which would soon display the rankings.

As usual, the first ten rankings were occupied by representatives from the large pill refining sects. They also had many members in the other high ranks. But here members of other large sects or smaller pill refining sects appeared as well.

It was only below the top one hundred that the first pill refiner, that didn't belong to a sect as this appeared.

And only much farther down did a pill refiner that didn't belong to any sect at all appeared.

As for the contest between Miss. Klein and Serene, Serene had won it by an extremely small number of points which she had gotten through her better understanding of herbs.

And for the bet between Ivan and that man, Ivan had won by many points. The other had already failed at the hurdles of second-grade pills, not even managing to refine the first one. He had also lost many points before because of small mistakes.

Now that the completion had ended, everyone left their simulated rooms and appeared back in the real world.

There Serene gave the herbs, which were the object of the bet to Ivan while glaring at the man who tried to protest.

”I'll come by later.”, she then told them before leaving.

The man who was still indignant about losing the bet tried to stay behind to once again find trouble with Ivan when she grabbed him by the neck and carried him along. Seeing her carry a grown man by his neck looked extremely comical and everyone who saw it could barely stop themselves from laughing at the man. In fact, only pure respect for Serene stopped them from doing so.

”Alright, let's go back.”, Miss. Klein announced. ”Also we will leave tomorrow, so if you have anything left to do here, do it today.”

This didn't come as a surprise. They had stayed here for a relatively long time already, which had enabled her to finish everything she had to do. She had only wanted to wait out the competition before leaving.

”What about the rewards?”, Ivan asked her curiously.

”This competition does focus on the skill of the participants and the organizers have always held the opinion that one shouldn't make a show out of giving the rewards. So they will just be send over until this evening.”, she explained.

”So did you learn something during the competition?”, she then asked both Serge and Ivan.

”Yes. It was truly great to see you refine all these difficult pills. Although there were many things I didn't understand.”, Serge started. He also wanted to directly ask about some things he hadn't been able to understand when their master stopped him. ”First think about it some more and if you can't find the answer ask me again and I'll explain.”

It seemed like this was exactly what she had expected. After all, he had been by her side during the competition, so she would have gotten to see his state during the refining of the pill. Even with her focus on the refinement process itself.

”What about you?”, she then asked Ivan.

He wasn't sure what to say. Although he had learned a bit during the questions and had to think about some things he hadn't thought about before, it didn't seem like he had truly learned a lot. His skill and knowledge hadn't truly been challenged before his energy had already given him the boot.