Fall For Me

The very next day Jun went to the inner part of the academy to meet with the Chancellor. They were situated inside a refinement roof.

Jun walked in and took a sniff of the air as thousands of different types and strands of herb overwhelms his nose a bit.

"This is a rank 4 pill refinement room. Not bad," Jun casually remarks as he took a seat before Chancellor Ning or the first elder behind her suggest it.

Chancellor Ning along with the elder tacitly skipped over the formalities and sat down too.

"Jun," Chancellor Ning began.

Jun then cuts her off, "Yes I am very talented but I am not the most talented one out there. Lets begin the test then we can discuss everything else in detail further."

Unlike many of the youngsters his age Jun followed his dad around a lot when he was younger. His dad has took him in a negotiation you want to control the tempo. Even if its rude as long as you have a strong enough leverage being rude is fine as long as you disrupt their tempo. At the end of the day talk is cheap.

Chancellor Ning and the first elder did a quick glance at each other.

"Alright lets skip over the formalities then. Our first task for you is this pill puzzle. This puzzle is call the Rudimentary Puzzle and was found in an ancient tomb by our first elder here. In the tomb they describe this puzzle to be ingredients for rank two pills. There are 9 ingredients in on the list and your job is figure out as many of these combinations as possible."

"And how many have you guys figured out?" Jun questioned with a smirk.

"Between the first elder and I, we figured out 36 with total being 48 in the last 5 years." Chancellor Ning said calmly.

"Not bad. I took a 2 second glance at the list and figured out 12. How many combinations do you want?" Jun asks completely relaxed.

From that cursory glance he could think of 22 to 24 combinations that could work. Mathematically there are 362,880 combinations. 1*2*3*4*5*6*7*8*9 would dictate the total number of combinations. In this world everything has its rules. The first is to figure out how many real combinations there were. If we use the rule of 9*9 then there are really only 81 possible combination.

If its base on that then they have only figured out a little more than half in over 5 years.

Jun said 12 because he thinks he has at least 20 real combinations. This was because 8 of those combinations he has actually used before during his time with that weird pill fanatic group at one point in time.This way he would sound impressive while if they raise the number to pa.s.s the test by double he would still be able to do it. Because it took them 5 years to figure out 48 combinations and they will not logically make me figure out their maximum.

Chancellor Ning"s eyebrows raised up in surprise. She was a pill King and with a hidden numbers of years as a pill king and her first 2 second glance was also about 12 combinations give or take a few.

"We want you to figure out 7 combinations we do not have before," the first elder interrupted while raising the bar.

Jun"s face was still in a poker expression but internally he was cursing. With 48 combinations figured out most likely all the easy ones have been done.

Instead Jun decided to smirk. "You guys really like playing with fire don"t you. If you want me to figure out 7 more then I"m gonna need you to give me the 48 combinations you already have. Or else I just be doing redundant work."

This kid is really not easy to deal with the first elder thought. He intentional raised the bar in hopes that it will make this kid work out his limits. Even through he said 7 he wanted Jun to get as many as he could this way he would be able to gauge his foundation. Even if he didn"t reach seven he would have still let him pa.s.s while gaining leverage.

"Relax," Jun chuckles. "It took you guys five years to figure out 48 combinations. Are we going to take this test for 5 years too?"

Chancellor Ning and the first Elder glance at each other and felt like they were being played by a kid.

"Its your choice. You invited me not the other way around," Jun said as he got up and was prepared to walk away.

"Alright, here is the list of combinations," the first elder sighs and produces a scroll from his inter-s.p.a.cial ring.

Jun reads over the scroll and there were exactly 48 combinations. The combinations were all over the place too.

Jun sat down as the materials combinations were being rearranged over and over again in his head. Then he used the 48 combinations already known and found that of the 48 combinations there were 40 that were the derivatives of 8 gold ratio combinations. Meaning each one of those golden ratio you can interchange ingredients to make a different pill.

That means there"s a 9th golden ratio that hasn"t been figured out. Following that line of thought Jun began comparing their 48 combination with his 22 combinations. Of the 22 only 2 were new while the other 20 were same as their"s.

Jun began by writing those down.

"Give me more paper and pen," Jun commanded. "Also a blackboard too."

Chancellor Ning waves for an a.s.sistant to do it.

Once he got it Jun went to work. After 10 minutes there were almost half a football field size worth of writing.

Once Jun gets absorbed in a task everything else becomes irrelevant. During that time the schemes he planned were forgotten. His sole focus was to figure it out. His task was to find 5 more since he already found 2 but by the time he finish all 81 were found.

It took an hour but Jun felt like only 5 to 10 mins pa.s.sed.

"Alright done. I found all the rest of it. There are 81 combinations total. Anymore I cannot think of right now. But this will fill your requirement."

There were shock in both the elder and Chancellor"s eyes but they hid it well.

"Well done," Chancellor Ning applaud. "You did fantastic. Now for the next test refinement. We will give you the formula and ingredients to refine a rank 5 pill."

"…" My capability is only at rank 4 pills not rank 5. Jun thought. I haven"t read any materials on rank 5 since that"s the Pill King rank. In Ziren city any pill manuals above rank 4 are not buyable. Even if she gives me the pill formula and refinement method I won"t be able to do it. Furthermore I current realm won"t even let me support a King"s realm pill.

"You do realize I am only a rank 2 pill master right?" Jun remarks.

"Would a rank 2 pill master really be able to solve this puzzle?" Chancellor Ning muses. "If you truly were rank 2 then we wouldn"t even bother recruiting you. Furthermore we don"t know if your answers are correct but from our research and experience we can tell that all of them are well sounded in theory and practical."

"I have a better idea. Lets have a compet.i.tion. Rank 1 pill refinement." Jun said.

Both the elder and Chancellor Ning chuckles like Jun was joking around.

"Young Man we are Pill Kings and refining Rank one pills are a breeze for us. There wouldn"t be much of a challenge." The first elder explains.

"If we are using high rank refinement techniques then that might be true. I"m proposing the elementary pill refinement technique. Not only that but it must be at the transcendent tier for final product."

"You"re crazy," the elder said shaking his head.

"No I"m serious," Jun said. "You might be gauging me but I am gauging you too. I"m still young and just lack resources right now. For you an old man and," Jun pause before continuing, "this beautiful madame here it should be a breeze for you to beat me. As long as you can refine a rank one pill of your choosing and beat mine I lose."

That was close! Jun thought almost called her an old lady. -_- Luckily I"m quick witted.

Chancellor Ning nodded in approval.

"Fine then rank one pill blood ascension." The first elder glared feeling a little annoyed because there"s a chance Chancellor Ning might be even older than him whose at the age of 150.

"Fine. You can refine first. I"ll go after," Jun said as he controlled the tempo.

The first elder steps out and order an a.s.sistant to go gather all the ingredients.

With ingredients in place the first elder brought out his cauldron which was about 2 inches big before expending to 6 feet by 4 feet wide.

With a snap of his finger a maroon orange flame was lit underneath.

Oh? A first tier lava flame? Jun thought in amus.e.m.e.nt.

The first elder was mentally measuring and grabbing ingredients from around him before throwing it in. If anyone didn"t know any better they were have thought he was composing a symphony with the way he smoothly moved around.

After about 30 minutes a pill burst out of the cauldron shining in a bright white light. Follow by 4 other pills.

Out of the five pills there was one transcendent level pill while the rest perfection level.

"One transcendent and 4 perfection. Not bad old man," Jun complimented.

The first elder held himself up to a higher standard and dryly replied. "My pill refinement is done. Show us your skills young man." He particularly emphasizing the word young.

Jun gave him a half smirk smile before ice cold blue flame appeared in his hand. The star freezing flame blossoms into a lotus before floating into the air in front of him.

"Parlor tricks," the first elder coughs.

"Mhmm first elder do you know what the key is to refining a transcendent level pill is?" Jun off handle remarks.

"Precision, and balance." the first elder said.

"If you were a common person I would accept that answer but no," Jun said shaking his head while throwing in ingredients after ingredients like he was eating hotpot.

"Then what is it?" The first elder asks a little amused that the text book answer wasn"t right.

"Its knowledge and practice," Jun said. "You can find all the precision and balance you want but if the method is wrong it will always be a gamble. Everything has a cause and effect. Our predecessors gave us their knowledge base but it doesn"t mean its always right. Honestly we will never know if it is right or wrong but that wouldn"t even matter."

"…"

"If it can reach the result we want then it is right," Jun said and then release the essence flames. From there a ball of white light release their divine light. Then the pills dropped down and landed in his palms. "With the right method and with enough practice transcendent pills are no different from common level pills."

Both Chancellor Ning and the first elder jaws dropped to the ground and felt like they got trampled by a horde of rhinos. Chancellor Ning at that moment knew she has to require this gem at all cost. Even if he is so f*cking irritating when he talks!