Shi Xuan still harbored a trace of defiance in his heart, clinging to a sliver of hope—what if the kid had been bluffing the entire time?
But the moment he received the answer, that faint glimmer of hope vanished without a trace.
Yes. The answer was identical to what he himself had worked out, without the slightest discrepancy.
Shi Xuan wanted to find fault, but it was like a dog trying to bite a hedgehog—there was no angle of attack. In that moment, he seemed to have aged several hundred years, his expression somber and his mind heavy with worry.
There were only three questions in total, and losing the very first one was an exceedingly troublesome development for him. He was beginning to regret his arrogance.
If he had simply refused to agree to this format of wagered competition back then, he might not have found himself in such a passive position. But at the time, how could he have even bothered to take a wet-behind-the-ears brat seriously?
He had believed that on every possible level, there was no way he could lose.
It was precisely this excessive confidence that had thrust him into a deeply unfavorable position from the very first round.
Losing the first round meant he absolutely had to win the second. Otherwise, even if the final two rounds ended in draws, he—Shi Xuan—would still be considered the loser.
Since stepping into the spotlight, Shi Xuan had always stood alone at the pinnacle, sparring with countless masters of alchemy and never suffering a single defeat.
If he lost this battle today, in this venue, before so many fellow alchemy experts—forget the terrifying stakes of the wager—he would lose all face regardless.
Not to mention that he had staked a wager he absolutely could not afford to lose.
Shi Xuan had finally regained his composure. He now understood that from the very beginning, he had looked down on this young man, only to realize that the other party had been calculating his every move the whole time. The young man had provoked him at all costs with a clear objective: to set a trap and lure him in.
And he, Shi Xuan, driven by pride and arrogance, had walked right into it without a moment's hesitation.
"It's fine, it's fine. There are still two rounds left. As long as I can secure one win and one draw, I can guarantee a tie!" Shi Xuan was, after all, a man who had faced great ordeals, and he quickly steadied himself.
A master of alchemy who had achieved his level of success had to possess an unshakable will. There was no way he would panic just because the first round had gone against him.
Shi Xuan adjusted his mindset in short order.
This time, he decided he could not let his opponent go first again. If he ceded priority once more, how could he even continue?
So he spoke up first. "In the first round, I let you take the lead. In the second round, it should be my turn to go first!"
Even as the words left his mouth, Shi Xuan felt a twinge of embarrassment. The powerhouses of the Hundred Saints Holy Land behind him were similarly flushed with shame.
In all honesty, the Hundred Saints Holy Land had never been this humiliated in the domain of alchemy before. Losing face over something as trivial as who went first was deeply disgraceful.
Jiang Chen, however, was perfectly at ease. He smiled faintly. "There's no need to argue. In the next two rounds, I'll let you go first in both. How about that?"
Pfft!
Ziche Min had been in high spirits ever since Jiang Chen gained the upper hand and had just taken a sip of tea when those words struck him. He sputtered the tea right out of his mouth.
This kid truly had a venomous tongue. The words sounded harmless enough—generous, even—but as a humiliation for Shi Xuan, they cut deeper than anything else.
Consider it: a young man offering to let Shi Xuan, ranked among the top ten alchemists of the Myriad Abyss Island, go first. That was a slap in the face and a mortifying insult to Shi Xuan without question.
Sure enough, a dark vein bulged on Shi Xuan's forehead the moment he heard it.
Rage seethed within him, threatening to blow his lungs apart. Fortunately, he had not lost his reason. He knew this young man was seizing every opportunity to humiliate and enrage him.
So, though Shi Xuan seethed with anger, he refused to let it compromise his rationality. Instead, he grew even calmer, and said coolly, "Wagers are decided fairly. You need not yield. However, in this second round, I will defeat you without fail. Don't think that a few lucky encounters give you the right to look down on the heavens. Let me tell you—you are far from ready."
"Wouldn't those words carry more weight after you've actually beaten me?" Jiang Chen replied with an unhurried smile. "All right, I understand your stalling tactics. This round—go ahead and pose the question. I'm all ears."
When it came to verbal sparring, Shi Xuan was simply no match for Jiang Chen.
He dispensed with any further banter, took a deep breath to calm himself, and proceeded to pose the second question.
"This second question concerns an alchemy formation. I have inscribed a formation diagram here. Take a look at it and identify which of its lines are flawed."
Alchemy formation diagrams were extraordinarily complex. For an ordinary person, a single glance would be enough to make their head explode, let alone the task of analyzing the diagram.
It was clear that Shi Xuan's second question had escalated the difficulty considerably.
Yet the smile on Jiang Chen's face remained as serene as ever, as if this formation diagram held no particular terror for him—as though everything about this wager was firmly within his grasp.
It had to be said that this air of confidence won him a good deal of covert applause.
Among the ten great divine kingdoms of the Myriad Abyss Island, not everyone was fond of the Hundred Saints Holy Land. Over the years, thanks to Shi Xuan's rise to prominence, the Holy Land had made quite a few enemies in the field of alchemy.