“The first thing that we can conclude with certainty is that Wei Yi wins when it comes to quantity. Twenty-four equally well-formed pills naturally place first, with Ning Fangtie’s similarly stable but less numerous nineteen pills coming second and Chen Shujin’s fourteen pills of disparate qualities coming last,” the judges were able to conclude quickly, for there was no need to experiment with things as basic as external pill stability and quality.

Although this was what they had begun with, the actual significance of the matter was rather limited in comparison to most of the other fields, as the quantity of the pills would only become significant if their qualities, their effects, purity and quantity of stars proved to be balanced overall, at which point the victor would truly be decided by such a simple fact, although it would still be difficult to conclude that Wei Yi was the victor due to the seeming disparity in qualities of the three sets of pills. Wei Yi was most consistent, Ning Fangtie had more variety that could put him above her, and Chen Shujin’s few excellent pills could be superior to Wei Yi’s, so far as they were concerned.

Chen Shujin was not particularly impressed by this, prompting her to go on another whispering tirade, “I knew it… Those two are cooperating to-”

“Moving on, the efficiency of production. Present all of the ingredients that still remain.”

Although she continued to mutter under her breath, she and the other two did as instructed, presenting the boxes of ingredients that had only been used partially, or not at all. To no-one’s surprise, while Chen Shujin and Ning Fangtie had used a similar quantity of resources, with the latter coming out ahead by a small margin, the one to use the least was Wei Yi, as she had entirely skipped the condensation of artificial yin through the combination of certain medicinal ingredients. In combination with the general efficiency of her work, it was only natural that she also won in this particular stage.

“Nonetheless, these matters are only of significance if our results are tied in the primary aspect of our work, so why don’t you move on to the things that truly matter?” even Ning Fangtie wasn’t entirely happy with these facts, trying to move onto the most significant matter as quickly as possible.

The judges also did not intend to prolong the suffering of others any longer than necessary, as Chu Huazhi had shared a few details about Wei Yi to them and they all had a slight suspicion that they already knew who the victor would eventually be, so they did move onto the pills themselves. They quickly chose to put aside those they understood the least about to be looked at last, those being the moonlight-containing pills that Wei Yi had produced, and instead looked at the creations of those who finished after her – Chen Shujin.

In order to best ascertain the overall quality of her creation, they needed to go through every single pill and analyse them closely. It was a lengthy, dull process, one that many of the common public that had gathered to observe the Refiner’s Duel would not stay for, since the most exciting element of the many, many minutes that would be spent on this was the element of testing the pills on targets, but that was only attempted when something could not be determined any other way due to the waste of materials that would incur. After all, although these pills were not the most frequently used, they still had a variety of uses, including being sold by their creators to other districts and possibly even the outside cities for great profits that would otherwise remain unseen within the Ning District.

Naturally, if the product was damaged in some way and would instead harm the people who consume it, the refiner would not wish to sell it, but usually the entire reason for testing the pill on a target was if they had no clue whether the pill would actually function. Typically, this kind of testing would only occur when another alchemist believes that something had occurred within the refinement process that would render the pill useless or unsafe to consume, and when neither the judges nor the refiner himself is able to prove without testing it that it was indeed safe.

Even then, all that would usually occur would be an unfortunate death of some rat, perhaps a small show of various lights and colours, but it was nothing compared to the earlier moonlight and would be incredibly unlikely to ever culminate in any kind of fantastic circumstance, which was the only reason everyone was here to begin with.

As such, much of the crowd slowly returned to their homes, where they intended to have a small lunch before continuing with their day, returning to the more standard daily activities that they would typically participate in. Those that remained had some interest in the resolution of the duel, including those who had been customers of any of the three refiners and wished to see them succeed so that they might offer a kind discount and allow them to purchase more, as well as those that had knowledge of the great art or perhaps were alchemists themselves, as they would undoubtedly learn from any small commentary from the judges or the three competitors themselves.

Wei Yi, although she was interested in this and was in no way opposed to learning as much as possible about everything that could in any way be relevant to defeating the Great Families and restoring Yi City, also found herself not having all that much interest in the extremely extensive and lengthy tests that the judges had to perform. Especially since she was able to skip many of these elements due to her powerful spiritual perception, choosing to keep a piece of it here while she observed the district with the rest, she had no need to learn from their methods.

She wasn’t looking at anything in particular, as doing that would be a complete waste of the enormous range of her energy, but she did catch some things of interest.

There was the occasional thief or prankster that decided to operate at the wrong time, but little else was actually worth describing in any detail besides the slowly approaching influence from the northern side of the district, something that she was waiting for intently.

While she did that, the alchemist judges slowly went through the entire list of the many tests that they had to perform in order to fully ascertain whether the pills produced were suitable for consumption, and that they were indeed of the same quality as demonstrated by their outside appearance, as it was possible to fake that part of the pill and fool less knowledgeable customers into purchasing an inferior product for a greater price.

It took more than half an hour to complete this work, at which point they concluded that Chen Shujin’s greatest pill neared the quality of four stars, whereas the lowest were only of two stars, with the average being as expected of a three star pills, that being three stars. Overall, the result of her work could not be said to be too bad by any metric, since she would have a variety of qualities to sell afterward to those that might not be able to afford a three star pill, or perhaps to those that require the four star variant, but it was inferior to absolute control over one’s creation in the eyes of most refiners and alchemists, as the ability to create exactly what you desire is a greatly beneficial skill in every single one of the great arts.

Next up, it was Ning Fangtie’s turn, with his work going through the same process.

There were several moments where Wei Yi and Chen Shujin were tempted to bring up some objection and point out a flaw within the pills, just as Ning Fangtie likely was while Chen Shujin’s pills were being inspected, but the latter could not determine any certain flaws before they were shown to not be present, whereas Wei Yi could not find any particular flaw that would not be located by the judges and that would invalidate his position, as all of his pills, despite the minor inconsistencies, remained stable and well-made.

Technically, there was nothing stopping her from meddling with them without being too overt about it, seeing as she had plenty of methods to do so without being noticed by most, but one person that she could hardly bypass and fool was the creator of the pills himself, who appeared confident enough not to ascribe any random fault to himself, and instead seek out the true culprit.

If anyone here was aware of what they needed to look for to detect her activities, then they would be able to do so, unlike those who live in the Crimson Side of the Kong Prison Realm and are forced to rely only on their eyes and ears to discern all kinds of fanciful phenomena, or the population of the Silver Side, which was greatly limited in their own perception due to their lacking knowledge of the world and the inability to properly absorb the insights that the so-called savages had gathered. With proper cultivation realms, spiritual perception, and the innate sense of the dantian, detecting foreign influences became far easier than for anyone else. All that they needed was the incentive to do so, the understanding of what the thing that they were dealing with could do, and it was only a matter of time.

Since it was not necessary to do this immediately, as such complaints could be raised at any times and could simply be attributed to a revelation that she had once her own pills were being inspected, she did not interrupt the process and thus permitted the inspection of his creations to be completed.

When Wei Yi’s work was the next to be examined, the judges had to pause and reconsider their approach, as her pills differed significantly from what they had dealt with before, both now and long ago, for reasons that should be incredibly clear by now. If they carelessly performed the same processes and tests as with the other pills, they could easily breach the medicinal barrier keeping the luminous moonlight within them, thus spoiling them and potentially ruining whatever would allow the pills to function as more than just a shell and a small puddle of energy.

‘If that is what’s going through their heads, then they are right to be worried. Just shoving my physique energy into the pill does allow me to interact with any yang or yin that touches it, but it would not be sufficient to fully perform the function of the Extreme Yin Decomposition pill, meaning that I had to do a little bit of work with arrays in the outside shell to manipulate the effects somewhat,’ Wei Yi thought to herself while she made sure to be ready to intervene if they intended to do something wrong, ‘Come to think of it, one of the major bottlenecks in my improvement in the great arts is the current array technique that I am using, which lacks most info on realms beyond my current one. Furthermore, what I have heard of Master Yi Yi suggests that his Prime Star Arts might have a fatal flaw at greater realms, which would mean that combining the Excellence and the Prime Star Arts would not benefit me as much as I would like…’

While she was deliberating on her current situation, with the Truth of the Universe in the corner of her eyes so that she could better ascertain the current state of her various techniques, the judges decided on a method that they considered suitable.

“Wei Yi, would undertaking the first, seventh, sixteenth and ninety-first tests damage your creation?”

The judge that asked this was more than prepared to remind her of the exact nature of those tests, seeing as even he struggled to recall everything he had just done, but she responded with a quick nod, adding only, “The sixteenth experiment should be performed with additional care not to influence the connection between the shell and the internal energy. It should be done by someone with a steady hand.”

“Steady hand?” that man repeated to himself before glancing down at his own, slightly shaking hands, and sighing, “Understood. If these are not sufficient, we will need to consider some other options, so having some ideas to work with would be appreciated, especially if you intend to sell these later and don’t wish to see any wasted on an experiment with a living creature.”

“I do have a few things in mind, although it would not be a huge loss for me to expend one or two pills a full experiment. I have plenty of funds.”

“Quite,” Chu Huazhi, the man that had full access to the dealings of his branch of the Chu Alchemical Store and could thus see how much she had recently earned from acquiring ingredients for Physique Awakening pills and then creating far higher quality variants of what should have been possible with them, muttered to himself, stepping forward, “I shall work on that test, then, so you can decide on the others experiments on your own. For the sake of my income, don’t damage anything beyond absolute necessity.”

They nodded, and begun, with her two opponents watching carefully to see if they can spot something about her work, whether it was a positive fact that they could keep to themselves and learn from, or something negative that could be pointed out to reduce her overall score in the competition.

As with the previous two sets of items, it was incredibly difficult to discern any faults, but with the additional element of the unconventional structure, one of the only things that they could assess with any reasonable accuracy was the outer shell of the pill, which, despite the contents being rather outstanding, appeared to be what one might expect from the usual pill, a thin, translucent gem-like surface that permitted the moonlight within shine through like sunlight would shine through water, painting everything and everyone around it in dancing silver lights, a feature that would likely make it the crowning jewel of any unknowing ordinary human’s home, as it would function both as a source of illumination and beauty that even cultivators would have to acknowledge.

Of course, this would only apply to those that are ignorant, as any reasonable ordinary individual would instead sell it as quickly as possible for the greatest price they could – before someone could steal it from them and make a fortune for themselves instead – and then live the rest of their lives in luxury without needing to bother with the world around them.

Most cultivators tended to avoid bothering the common folk or stealing from them, as it seemed an unnecessary thing to do when they could easily purchase whatever they wanted from them; earning and keeping money was far easier with any cultivation realm, after all.

With all of the powers and great gifts that a cultivator may access, one might wonder why exactly anyone would want to avoid becoming a cultivator, and why there are any ordinary people in a world so full of planar energy that it is essentially impossible to live in an area where reaching the first realm before the end of one’s life is a difficult task. The latter relied mainly on aptitude and the ability to actually cultivate, as a proper dantian is needed to cultivate and absorb energy. Some can be born with inferior dantians, such as the one that Wei Yi had found herself with all those years ago, whereas others might have suffered an injury that prevents them from successfully sustaining enough planar energy within themselves to break into the first realm. However, both of these were rarely because of one’s own will, so what may be more relevant are the reasons to avoid cultivation altogether.

For one, those with the best chance of great achievements in cultivation were those with wealth, as they could afford to acquire pills and other resources to push themselves into greater realms than they might otherwise reach, and this is especially true of those that cannot rely on families or existing cultivation groups to progress. Those kinds of people would not always want to go from their position at the top of whatever group they were in to become a weakling in another, and not everyone wanted to switch from dealing with problems through money to resolving them with some form of power, as was common amongst cultivators.

Then, there were the risks and conflicts involved in cultivation. It was difficult to get far without angering at least one person, whose friendship with someone else would eventually balloon into an entire district forbidding one’s entry and putting out a bounty of several planar shards on their head. For those used to calmer situations, it was often easier to limit one’s cultivation to the first few stages, wherein they would receive some health benefits but would not distinguish themselves sufficiently to no longer be considered ordinary.

Truth be told, had Wei Yi not had to deal with the Great Families, the otherworldly demons, the seemingly silent and absent heaven’s will and all of her other issues, if she had been born in a world similar to the one that the otherworldly demons tended to describe, without power and planar energy and so-called mystical arts, she would have liked to try out an ordinary life. To simply live, work and relax, much like many people of the Planar Continents had done at the best times of Yi City and whatever was happening on the Eastern Continent. There, she would be free, and would not need to concern herself with threats that were clearly bigger than her in every way.

‘Well, with what I have seen of the behaviour of the otherworldly demons, I do not doubt that if I had been born into such a world from the start, I would be thinking the exact opposite. I would be doing everything to gain some kind of unusual power, and would thus fall for whatever had allowed them to be here now, with powers that ruin the mind… Speaking of which…’

She raised her head in a manner that might appear innocuous, but that was in no way random, looking towards the great iron walls that protected the Ning District.

For a moment, there appeared to be nothing. The district continued on calmly, as it always had. Some hunters were selling their wares to traders and craftsmen, a few beginner alchemists were running around and trying to convince others to purchase their wares over those of their better-established competitors, some children were playing around as children often did. Most of this happened indoors, as the empty space outside was highly limited and used extensively, meaning that if the casual observer looked at the district without spiritual perception, all they would see is a large number of buildings and a small gathering in one of the few empty areas of the district.

Then, it all changed.

Something akin to an enormous wave struck the wall. It trembled as the wave flowed over it, light breaking, bending and reflecting in manners that should not have been possible as it streamed down the wall and washed over the district, covering it all in a layer of broken, mirror-like surfaces that darkened the entire district.

Darkness, both hot and cold, poured from this layer onto everyone observing the Refiner’s Duel, as well as anyone else that stood within its path, flooding their bodies with an immense yin that could not be compared to anything lesser than the very essence of cold itself, and yet it inspired an odd warmth of terror in those with weaker minds. Everything about it and the mirrors above was contradictory, unnatural, and the very sight of one’s twisted reflexion above them was a far greater attack upon a human than any mental techniques beneath the third realm.

“Who amongst you misuses my name? Which one imitates us!” the powerful voice of the Great Aberrant thundered from the layer of mirrors, the darkness of terror pulsing with his voice as if it was his very lungs, “Your blasphemy shall not go unpunished, people of this district! Suffer the plane of terror!”

Once the decree fell upon the people of the Ning District, so did the horror that he forced upon them. Terrifying abominations fell from the mirror shards, coalescing from many broken pieces of all kinds of glass and polished metals into creatures that resembled humans, and yet differed greatly from them, with proportions and limbs that would never fit upon a real person. Enormous claws the size of one’s torso, horribly bulging and stretched stomachs that glowed with some kind of noxious substance within them, singular and multiple eyes that contained a power that was immediately apparent to anyone that beheld them – these terrors also radiated power that was unmistakable to all present: the fifth realm.

“Witness the true depths of your-”

“There you are.”

A single pill of moonlight suddenly flew up from the ground, flicked in a particular manner by Wei Yi, soaring towards a point in the sky.

It flew and flew, for so long that any who watched it thought that it might hit nothing, but then it struck the empty air just below the mirrored layer, bursting into a miniature moon that completely consumed anything within it. The horrible darkness, the mirrors, and the very voice of the Aberrant suddenly disappeared from that spot, dissolving together with the pill into naught but dark grey fluid that splashed onto the ground, quietly and slowly flowing towards Wei Yi after a short while.

After a few moments, the rest of the layer followed, the mirrors and the terrifying creatures shattering and bursting into nothing, as if everything about them was a lie and everything that they had witnessed been an unfortunate hallucination, brought on by some unknown cause.

One of the judges was about to ask if anyone else had witnessed the same thing, when he suddenly found his legs going weak, causing him to fall to the ground before a word could come out of his mouth. Following him, more of the judges, the bystanders and Ning Fangtie all fell, their faces becoming pale and a darkness filling the veins on their face.

Women were affected less than most of the men, and they were still able to remain standing, although it was clear that they would fall at any moment.

Perhaps the only one that was in good condition was Wei Yi, who had absorbed the yin that had spread throughout her body with her physique energy in the same way that she had turned the temporary mirror plane to naught.

“Everyone, I might have a solution to this, but you must obey immediately,” she declared.

As forcing them to answer her would simply drain more of their energy, she assumed that none of them were interested in meeting their end right there and grabbed the pills she had created from the table, throwing them out to select individuals in the crowd and amongst the judges and competitors, doing so in order to best affect everyone equally. All of them had enough strength to catch a pill and hold it in their hands, at which point she instructed them to consume the pill but not immediately dissolve them with their planar energies.

“Wait, is this not yin-type energy? How is the Extreme Yin Decomposition pill going to help?” one mind that remained keener than the others questioned.

“As you should have noticed, my pills were not produced in the normal fashion. Now, swallow it.”

They all wanted to know more, as the human mind was rather inquisitive when on the potential precipice of death, but they complied as they either understood that they will not get a chance to do so otherwise, or because they were intimidated by the small burst of killing will that burst out of her body.

At once, they suddenly shattered, and a similar burst of moonlight emerged as when she had thrown one of the pills at the mirage of the Great Aberrant, covering everyone in soft moonlight from within and through the skin and flesh of others around them, although this did not look as terrifying as one might imagine, with the light seemingly phasing directly through them as if they were not even there. This light touched the essences of all of these people, seeping into them and scouring the darkness from their minds, most of the light vanishing while the rest collected into small spheres of grey liquid that floated into the air and flew towards Wei Yi’s hand, where it seeped into her skin leaving nothing behind it.

“Is anyone still experiencing the effects of the darkness?” Wei Yi asked without looking at the new line that appeared on the Truth of the Universe, mostly to not appear more omniscient than she should be.

“No, I’m fine…”

“So am I…”

“And I…”

With enough responses, she turned towards Chu Huazhi, who got up and caught his breath and was now looking around in an attempt to find any remaining traces of the strange layer of mirrors that had beset them only moments ago, “Earlier, we had discussed certain possibilities about the group that called themselves the Mirror Plane Aberrations. What is your current view on this?”

“Current? Huh… Well, I find this slightly confusing. Before that, however,” he turned to the crowd that remained, “Everyone! Go back to your own homes and shops and check whether anything is missing, or whether anything has appeared! The guard will probably have other instructions, but for now, make sure that nothing has made it in, and nothing has disappeared. This invasion couldn’t have been as simple as this!”

“I’m guessing that you don’t presume this to be a mere attempt at intimidation.”

“No, that would be unlikely,” the local manager stated once most of the ordinary folk had retreated, “Assuming that their leader is not incompetent, there is no possibility of a secretive group not making use of the fear created by some offshoot or imitators to advance their own goals. Even if they considered this group to be a significant affront to them, dealing with them in the open would not be wise, considering the fact that they had never been seen before, and since their leader was apparently incapable of handling a single pill being tossed at him.”

“No, I’m sure that the leader himself is fine. This was probably a projection or technique of some kind serving as an anchor and conduit, if he is in a lower realm, or that he had simply centred his abilities on that point of the mirror layer and was thus thwarted rather conveniently.”

“Oh? That is more plausible, I suppose. Your pills were rather extraordinary, frankly.”

“If this is not exactly what it appears to be on the surface, perhaps if their group is actually a part of the Aberrations and this is some sort of setup, then what would you assume?”

Chu Huazhi frowned at the rather extensive list of questions already being presented by her, but answered, “Then they are likely doing as I had assumed, using this event to mask something else, perhaps stealing from the people, or perhaps preparing for a later infiltration by placing something inside of the people’s homes.”

“Huh. Is there any situation that you think would lead to a leader doing this without any good reason?”

“Perhaps if the group is passed down from leader to leader, they could have a child responsible for their actions, and that child could have become aggravated that he was not being taken seriously and sent out a force to teach that other group a lesson.”

“Effectively, the person would need to be incredibly immature or unreasonable?” she repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“That’s what I presume.”

“Alright, good to know. Now, I wish to discuss the victor of this Refiner’s Duel before purchasing a few things from you, so, seeing as you have witnessed the effectiveness of my creations first hand, I don’t think that there should be much argument about who that is, should there?”

The Chu Alchemical Store’s local manager wasn’t sure whether he was even qualified to conclude anything about the duel, so he instead turned to the other two, who had recover similarly through Wei Yi’s supposed variation of the Extreme Yin Decomposition pill, which he was beginning to believe wasn’t actually what she claimed it to be and was instead some kind of miracle sealed within the relatively feeble shell of a pill.

Out of her two competitors, the first to reply was Ning Fangtie, who looked at his own pills and then at himself, observing the results of her creation, “I’m afraid that I fail this particular duel. I concede.”

Then, all eyes were on Chen Shujin, who, for a moment, did nothing at all.

It was as if she needed a little longer to realise that she was being looked at, at which point her eyes widened, her angry aura disappeared in its entirety, and she suddenly looked into the sky, shouting at the very peak of her voice.

“MOM!”