Time quickly slipped into the seventh day — the final day.
Every contestant wore a grave expression. Every one of them, that is, except
Jiang Chen, at this moment, was brimming with confidence. Under the control of the Spirit Gathering Technique, these five Saint-grade, seventh-rank spiritual medicines were growing splendidly. Even if judged right now, they would easily earn top marks.
The twenty spiritual medicines on the left, however, had stayed small the entire time, as though they simply couldn't grow. Naturally, this was because of the Spirit Gathering Formation — their spiritual energy, refined through the formation's purification, had entirely become fertilizer for the five plants on the right. As a result, their growth had become nothing more than a pipe dream. They could only barely sustain the formation's operation and avoid withering.
But if the five spiritual medicines on the right were removed, the left-hand plants would recover their original vitality, and their growth would not be affected.
On the seventh day, all the major figures began appraising each contestant's spiritual medicines from afar.
Although the distance was too great for close inspection, one could still make out certain things — the size, color, and texture.
By this seventh day, Jiang Chen's spiritual medicines were already far ahead of everyone else's.
Most importantly, every single one of Jiang Chen's plants was remarkably uniform, as if they had all agreed beforehand. Their length, size, quality, color, and texture were all so perfectly even that not a single flaw could be found.
That kind of uniform growth was the most terrifying thing of all.
By contrast, although
Wei Xing'er possessed the Innate Fire Spirit Body, but this advantage was almost entirely useless in the realm of cultivating spiritual medicines. In this round, her performance was unremarkable — middling at best.
The seven days finally came to an end.
Amid a chorus of sighs and murmurs, all contestants were instructed to leave their competition areas.
After a complex process of tabulation, the scores were once again compiled.
Jiang Chen once again secured a perfect score for this round — beyond any dispute — completing a stunning three-peat.
With this, his total score reached an astonishing fourteen hundred points, virtually locking in his position as champion of the Huanbo Mountain Alchemy Tournament's genius division.
The runner-up was Ding Tong, who earned five hundred and forty points this round, bringing his total to twelve hundred and seventy — second overall.
The most surprising result came from Mu Gaoqi. In this third round, he also scored five hundred and forty points, his total reaching an incredible twelve hundred and fifty, rocketing him all the way up to third place overall.
Wei Qing, thanks to his strong showing this round, overtook Wei Xing'er. With a total of twelve hundred and twenty points, he claimed fourth place overall.
Wei Xing'er, whose performance this round had been rather ordinary, sat in fifth place with twelve hundred points.
Following her,
In other words, from fifth-place Wei Xing'er to eleventh-place Wang Han, the spread across seven people was a mere twenty points.
This meant that among these eleven top-tier geniuses, one of them was inevitably going to be pushed down to eleventh place.
It might seem like the difference between eleventh and tenth was trivial — just a single spot. But the treatment was worlds apart.
The top ten could enter Huanbo Mountain to gather herbs for twenty days, while those ranked eleventh through twentieth could only enter for ten days, and only after the top ten had finished their first ten days. That dramatically reduced their chances of finding anything worthwhile.
So, after three rounds of competition, the battle for a top-ten spot had ignited into a white-hot frenzy. The fight for tenth place had actually become more intense than the fight for the championship.
As for the championship itself, it had basically narrowed down to a contest among the top four.
But after three rounds, Jiang Chen had scored perfect marks in every single one and taken first place each time. That kind of momentum was enough to drive his opponents to madness.
He had simply left no room for anyone else. Faced with such monstrous performance, the others could only feel powerless.
No matter how optimistic they tried to be, they had to acknowledge Jiang Chen's dominance. They had to accept one simple truth: as long as Jiang Chen didn't completely botch the fourth round, there was virtually no hope of snatching the championship from him.
Ding Tong was the most furious of all. When he learned that Jiang Chen had earned yet another perfect score, he nearly erupted on the spot. He had used a heaven-defying spirit elixir this round — it practically counted as cheating.
Yet even so, not only had he failed to close the gap with Jiang Chen, the distance between them had actually widened further. If this kept up, what was even the point of the fourth round?
Ding Tong had come here gunning for the championship. Settling for runner-up was, to him, nothing short of failure.
But there was nothing he could do. Facing this version of Jiang Chen, he truly had no recourse but to grit his teeth and glare.
The real surprise, though, was Mu Gaoqi. Apart from Palace Master Danchi, who knew what was going on behind the scenes, the leaders of every major sect were completely baffled.