The sound of the conversations among the 300,000 audience members was like thunder that spread out in all directions, and was heard by quite a few of the Dao of Alchemy Division’s apprentice alchemists and full alchemists. The ground trembled and the clouds in the sky shattered.
The three tier 8 alchemists wore forced smiles on their faces as they exchanged glances.
“When I attempted the fifth level that year, I couldn’t have done that.”
“Forget about back then. Even right now, we’re probably the only people who could. Even the tier 7 alchemists probably couldn’t pull something like that off.”
Bright beams of light appeared off in the distance as more tier 8 alchemists appeared. Of course, no one present could see them. As they arrived, they looked at the Medicine Pavilion… and their eyes were filled with anticipation.
“Finally, our Dao of Alchemy Division has… a truly Chosen member of the clan!”
Back on the fifth level of the Medicine Pavilion, Meng Hao opened his eyes. Much of his tiredness and exhaustion had vanished. He took a deep breath, rose to his feet, and stepped forward toward the ancient tome. Then, he clasped hands and bowed deeply.
“Many thanks for bestowing me with such kindness!” he said softly. Each and every word rose up from the depths of his heart. To cultivators of the Dao of alchemy, Meng Hao’s experience just now was truly like being gifted with an amazing Dao.
The tome vanished after Meng Hao bowed, and a flight of stairs appeared up ahead of him. At the same time, his name moved from its previous position up to the fifth level, where, as before, it was now in first place on the list!
His expression was somber as he strode forward toward the steps and began to climb up to the sixth level. When he arrived, what he saw absolutely nothing.
There were no medicinal plants, there was no tome, there was no mist. There wasn’t even any light. There was only complete darkness. Everything seemed empty, as if nothing at all existed there.
Meng Hao gaped in shock, and he wasn’t the only one. The people outside were also staring at the screen, astonished.
The only ones who didn’t were the alchemists who had previously been on the sixth level. Their faces were grave as they stared closely at the screen. The tier 7 old woman looked on, her face grim. Now that she had seen how inhuman he was, she regretted what she had done earlier. She had offended him, but she also knew that there was little she could do about it now, and so she might as well stick to her guns.
After all, from her perspective, he might be inhuman, but he couldn’t compare to the people who had sought out her help in the clan. The compensation they had provided was incredible.
“I might not be able to do what he did in the fifth level,” she thought to herself, “but that doesn’t matter. As an alchemist, you don’t need to have such breadth and depth of knowledge regarding plants and vegetation. It’s enough to be intimately familiar with the ones that you do know.
“I failed dozens of times at this level before finally passing. There’s no way this Fang Hao will succeed on his first try. After all, the sixth level is completely different from the first five.” She smiled coldly.
The nearby tier 5, 6, and 7 alchemists were shaking their heads. All of them had challenged the sixth level of the Medicine Pavilion, so they knew how difficult it was.
“This level is a watershed,” commented one of the tier 8 Elders, his voice light.
“The first five levels require sufficient knowledge of plants and vegetation. The last four levels are completely different, and it only gets harder and harder.”
On the stone stele outside of the Medicine Pavilion, hundreds of thousands of names could be seen on the first level. There were only 100,000 on the second level, 50,000 on the third level, 20,000 on the fourth level, and less than 10,000 on the fifth level.
As for the sixth level, only 5,000 people had ever passed it.
The seventh level had 1,000 names and the eighth level only had a bit more than 200. The last level, the ninth… only had 10.
It mustn’t be forgotten that those numbers represented the accumulation of all the generations that had existed since the founding of the Fang Clan’s Dao of Alchemy Division. From this, it was easy to imagine how difficult the Medicine Pavilion was.
Furthermore, whenever anyone passed the sixth level, the first thing that would happen would be that a Dao Bell would appear in the sky above the ancestral mansion. No outsider could see that bell, and when it tolled, only the members of the Fang Clan on Planet East Victory could hear it in their minds.
That bell represented true honor and glory!