Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Momo sucked in a deep breath and let it go, waiting to be called onto the stage. It was not just her that was nervous; everyone else around her was too.

Yuren, Aethersage's disciple, had talked to her for a period while they were there, but as the competition approached, he too became nervous and stopped talking. They could hear the shouts from the outside as the Alchemy God gave his welcome speech to the people who had come.

The place should have been teeming with everyone now. There had to be so many people waiting to watch them outside.

"Everyone, please line up. You will be leaving for the stage in an orderly fashion," one of the people watching over them finally said.

'This is it then,' Momo thought, getting into a line. She heard the Alchemy God announce for them to appear, and they walked outside.

Momo walked into bright midday light, with the sun shining directly down on her. The muffled cheers from before now took center stage as they filled her ears.

Millions of people clapping in a cacophony was enough to stress her out even more than it had before. Her eyes went to the crowd, seeing everyone. To her surprise, the stadium wasn't even half-filled.

Not everyone had arrived yet, or they didn't plan to come watch their competitions. Momo was certain that was good news for her anxiety, but the number present was still intimidating.

'How did Master do it?' she wondered. 'How did he stay composed with so many eyes on him?'

The first test was the Ingredients Gathering test. Momo was quite certain she would pass this one. She had trained on ingredients for so long with her master that she had no doubt she would do well, but she was still quite nervous.

She didn't just want to do well. She wanted to do the absolute best.

The Ingredients Gathering test was simple. A section of the stage had been separated to display many different ingredients on top of it. They were spread in an orderly fashion, sorted by the age they were regularly picked at.

The contestants were then handed a medallion with an assortment of ingredient names within it, all sorted randomly for each participant.

The job for these participants was to take the medallion and enter the soundless area where they would walk over to where the ingredients would be on their randomly generated list.

Once they arrived before the ingredient, they would speak out loud the name of said ingredient and then move on to the next one on the list. Every action of theirs would be recorded, and then reviewed by a panel of alchemists who would judge their accuracy with their answers.

The participants would be given points and thus ranked starting with this competition.

Once the competition was explained, they began soon after.

Momo looked around at everyone gathered, seeing the nervous look on everyone's faces. Only a few seemed confident enough, and even those looked possibly fake. She could tell that she wasn't the only one nervous about the competition.

And yet, she couldn't help but feel the eyes of the millions of people upon her. She wanted to look to the crowd far away from her, seeing how many were staring back at her. But she didn't want to. That would only make her even more uncomfortable.

The first group of participants entered the soundless zone with the ingredients, searching for the items in the list they were given. A total of 15 entered at once, and 20 minutes later, their turn was over.

The highest score among the first fifteen was 27, and the lowest score was 13.

Momo watched from afar, trying to understand better the workings of the current competition. While one part of her was incredibly nervous, another part of her kept a good eye on the early participants, trying to understand any flaws they might've had that she could use by watching them.

The second 15 were ready to go now, and she would be in the group after that. She needed to think.

She watched the 15 people walk through the place, trying to find their ingredients. Watching them move like headless chickens, Momo realized that the easiest way to lose points here was not by not remembering the ingredients but rather by not knowing where they were located.

Walking around searching for the ingredient was the main cause of time loss, per her minimal research. Could she use that on her turn?

The second group's turn came to an end 20 minutes later, with the best one doing slightly better at 29 points. The lowest one, however, did even worse than the last time at only 15 points.

Momo could not let such a thing happen to her. She had made a simple plan on how to proceed, and she decided to stick to it. When her number was called, she walked up to the group of 15 and was handed a medallion.

She was only allowed to see inside it once she entered the soundless zone, which would start her 20-minute timer.

She could feel her palms get sweaty around that time, her stomach twisting from anxiety. She did her best to handle herself, but the millions of eyes around her did not help. Each person looked upon her at the moment, judging her with their looks.

They wanted to see how she would do, how she would fail.

Momo knew she was letting her thoughts get to her, but she couldn't stop it. She felt it was real. This was going to affect her performance now.

She took in a deep breath to calm herself and thought of what her master told her before. She needed to push the people away from her mind. She needed to believe that there was no one around her.

She needed to not rely on her eyes, as that was the only way she could see them.

Momo closed her eyes and released her breath in a slow sigh. Her spiritual sense, which was floating around her without much focus from her, now suddenly became stronger and ready.

Her spiritual sense was strong, thanks to her master, reaching nearly 100 meters around her. She was sure to have stronger spiritual sense than others due to the Lilies her master had her use, so she could make use of it.

It would certainly be better than using her eyes anyway since she could see better with her senses as they weren't obstructed by random objects.

Without seeing around herself, Momo let go of a lot of the inputs that caused her nervousness. Without seeing as many people, she could feel herself calming down on her anxiety.

There were still sounds all around her, trying to break her illusion of peace by proving where she was. But this sound would only last a few seconds longer at best.

Once she walked past the barrier, all sounds would be gone.

"Prepare yourselves!" Momo heard the order from the man who stood in front of their group.

"Begin!"

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