After submitting his formation inscribing results, Jiang Chen left the alchemy chamber and headed straight for the outer area where spiritual medicine seeds were being cultivated. He applied another round of spirit fertilizer.
Based on his understanding of these spiritual medicine seeds, he was more than ninety percent confident that they wouldn't even need three full days—he could already guarantee germination.
With that, the only remaining task for his final round was to wait for the seeds to sprout.
Two days later, the seeds Jiang Chen had been nurturing successfully sprouted. After submitting the sprouted spiritual medicine, he was officially done with everything.
Even after submitting his results, Jiang Chen didn't leave. He waited calmly in Shenli Palace for everyone else to finish.
The scoring for the fourth round couldn't begin until every contestant had completed all their tasks. Only then would the final rankings be determined.
The elders who had suspected Jiang Chen of receiving outside help were surprised to find that he was once again the first person to complete the fourth round's assessment.
In their view, Jiang Chen's sweeping success in the first three rounds had to be the doing of Palace Master Danchi and Elder Yun Nie conspiring to help him. During the practical fourth round, he would surely be exposed. They had all been waiting to watch him humiliate himself.
But what they absolutely did not expect was that Jiang Chen's speed and momentum remained as strong as ever.
If he were cheating, how could he have finished the fourth round so quickly and so effortlessly?
A flicker of doubt crept through the minds of those skeptical elders. Ouyang De in particular was utterly baffled.
"Could it be that this Jiang Chen truly possesses such monstrous talent?" Ouyang De was reluctant to entertain that thought. He felt that with the resources and foundations of the Sixteen Kingdoms, it was simply impossible to produce such a prodigious alchemy genius.
Suspicions aside, all he could do was wait for the results.
Ouyang De didn't have much mental energy to spare on Jiang Chen at the moment. His concern was Ouyang Chao.
"Chao'er, if this Jiang Chen secures one of the slots, you'll have no margin for error—you must claim the remaining one. Otherwise, our Ouyang clan will lose face entirely."
Ouyang De's heart was torn with anxiety.
Aside from Jiang Chen, the contestant who navigated the fourth round most smoothly was none other than Mu Gaoqi. The baptism of the Wood Spirit Spring had fully transformed him into an Innate Body.
Upon entering the fourth round, the first task was cultivating spiritual medicine, and the second was refining Origin-Base Pills. Both were effortless for Mu Gaoqi.
When he reached the third task, it was nothing unfamiliar either. Knowing he had no backers, he had always studied diligently, putting in grueling effort in the field of alchemy formations as well.
So none of the three tasks posed much difficulty for Mu Gaoqi—especially the refinement of Origin-Base Pills. Having attained the Innate Body, his understanding of the medicinal properties of the Origin-Base Pill was as intimate as it could possibly be.
Under his careful refinement, a supreme-grade Origin-Base Pill emerged from the furnace.
As for formation inscribing, Mu Gaoqi was confident he had no issues there either.
The advantages from his Wood Spirit Spring baptism truly shone through in this round. Most notably, he completed the cultivation of the spiritual medicine in just two days, achieving sprouting even faster than expected.
That made Mu Gaoqi the second contestant to walk out of the fourth round.
Seeing Mu Gaoqi emerge right after Jiang Chen, the assembled elders were greatly astonished.
In their eyes, Ouyang Chao—the one with the solid foundational skills—should have been the frontrunner in this round. Yet Mu Gaoqi, this unorthodox outsider, had finished so quickly? It was genuinely unexpected.
Ouyang De watched Mu Gaoqi walk out of the fourth round with a confident air, and something in his chest tightened without warning. He couldn't quite call it a premonition of anything bad, but he felt a nauseated discomfort he couldn't articulate.
Then, roughly half a day later, Ouyang Chao also completed the fourth round, emerging third.
When he stepped out and saw Jiang Chen and Mu Gaoqi waiting in Shenli Palace, a brief flicker of surprise crossed his eyes, followed by a complex mix of emotions.
"Chao'er, how did it go?" Ouyang De asked immediately.
Now that all the competition tasks were finished, there was no point in maintaining his usual composure.
Ouyang Chao answered honestly: "Aside from the Origin-Base Pill being only high-grade, everything else should be fine."
Ouyang De nodded. "Good, good."
If he only lost ten points on the Origin-Base Pill, that was perfectly manageable. Ouyang De refused to believe that Mu Gaoqi could score a perfect mark in the fourth round.
Mu Gaoqi's face remained expressionless upon hearing this.
That was because Jiang Chen had already sent him a quiet voice transmission, telling him not to say a word and simply wait for the results.
The fourth person out was, as expected, Ling Hui'er.
One after another, contestants continued finishing the fourth round's tasks.
Several more hours passed, and finally all thirty assessment participants had completed everything.
Immediately, the judges—who had been busy verifying results—set to work examining each entry.
For the first task, cultivating spiritual medicine seeds, virtually every contestant had finished within the expected timeframe, with only a handful of exceptions. That meant all twenty points for this task were safely in everyone's pocket.
The real differentiators were the second and third tasks.
Thirty pills, each placed in its own spirit box, were labeled with corresponding numbers.
"Number one, Jiang Chen—supreme-grade Origin-Base Pill!"
"Number two, Ouyang Chao—high-grade Origin-Base Pill!"