In summary, she was the true living example of a beauty which would cause the various kings of numerous kingdoms to fight over for to the point of destruction.
Recognizing the King-level beauty in front of him, a gentle smile found its way to the elder"s lips as he spoke, "Astes... what kind of fortunate event has forced my genius apprentice to visit this old man?"
Listening to her middle-aged looking master"s words, a soft smile crept it"s way into Astes" face as she replied, "Master... your disciple has come looking for you because I was stuck with a problem while concocting the Small Restoration Qi Pill..."
"I see, tell me... what"s the problem?" The elder asked a little surprised because his personal disciple faced very few problems in her path of concocting pills.
But amazingly, each time she asked for guidance in her path of Alchemy, after she received the least amount of instructions from him almost to the point of not even being worthy of being called instructing at all, she would be able to fix that problem with ease at her first attempt... and this made the elder sometimes unconsciously doubt if that problem of hers was real to begin with or if she was only asking about it because she didn"t want her master to feel bad about almost never having the chance to guide her even though she was his personal disciple.
"When I"m refining the third ingredient on the recipe, I control the flame to X temperature but it still burns at the last moment..." After that, she began to explain what her problem was exactly when he was concocting that particular pill.
"Uh... is that so...As you know, you first refine the second ingredient and while it remains inside the cauldron, you mix it with the third one and begin the third ingredient"s refinement... so... your problem"s source must not be in the third ingredient... but in the second one! Or more specifically, what you do wrong is ..." Hearing the problem, with s.h.i.+ning eyes, the elder patiently described the source of her problem with a solution to it.
After he was done, Astes replied, "Thank you, master, I understand now."
"That"s nothing worthy of your grat.i.tude..." He said with a bit of depressed tone.
"Oh, right master... I heard you voluntarily went to be the elder in charge of the Inferior Disciple Recruitment this time around, why would you bother with that?" She asked filled with confusion.
"Haha, well... I was bored doing nothing, so I decided to go and be the elder in charge of the Recruitment Test, and guess what! It was truly worth it..." Listening to her query, excitement began to appear in his eyes as he uttered.
"Why??" Intrigued a bit as to why her master seemed so enthusiastic about this matter, she asked for details.
"Well, you see, at first I thought they were all mediocre geniuses... until that monster showed up! Haha, he"s probably one of a kind that won"t repeat again even in a million years when it comes to the talent of that part... can you guess what color did he made the orb turn into?" The elder began describing with great fervor.
"Eh... for master to call him a monster alike which we won"t see even in a million years... and together with a little overestimation from my part... hmm he should"ve made the orb turn pale blue... am I correct master?" She provided an answer after some contemplation and linking her master words to her final conclusion.
"Hahaha... not even close!" He replied laughing.
"Not even close? Don"t tell me... he achieved... pale azure?!" She inquired surprisedly.
"Haha... still wrong... let me provide the answer for you, cuz it seems you can"t even imagine the correct color... it"s not purple, neither pink, but white, A VERY PALE WHITE! Do you understand?" No longer able to tolerate the suspense she was experiencing, the elder just directly told her the answer with a louder voice.
"What? That"s impossible!" She said astonished to no ends. Prior to this, she had thought achieving the white color was something impossible, but now she was hearing that someone had achieved exactly that unbelievable color.
"And that"s not all, I believe that he might have gone beyond the scope of even what the ancient cultivators" recordings and history states... because he made the orb turn colorless too! Though I"m not sure what that means or if it means anything at all." The elder explained with vitality and vigor, just like a kid who had found something which he greatly admired.
Astes was shocked and even stupefied hearing the explanations, until she could no longer tolerate it anymore and inquired, "Who is he exactly? What"s his name?"
"He"s called Vee... but he"s too young for you my great apprentice, haha." Jokingly, the elder teased her while introducing him.
Without bothering with her master"s nonsense in the least, she thought, "He seems to be a person with an unforeseen and unparalleled talent at least in the body part... I should witness that with my own eyes and see what kind of prodigy he is..."
___________________
TWO DAYS LATER
Virus and the golden beauty had spent the previous day doing almost nothing other than having some small talks together or accompanying each other in a short walk outside.
Other than that, they spent the rest of the day being bored and doing nothing, when the time eventually pa.s.sed and the next day arrived.
With today"s arrival, the two days countdown of the elder ended and soon he would probably show up at the library for the second evaluation, so was.h.i.+ng up after waking up, Virus went toward the library together with the golden beauty.
When they arrived, the golden beauty waited outside while Virus began walking inside.
Inside, first, he checked out the volunteers only to see that three of them were still studying with bloodshot eyes, with the only exception of Alice who was doing nothing as she sat on a seat and hummed something very quietly to herself as she wore a happy smile on her face.
After checking them out, he began to pay more attention to his surroundings and realized the disciples were much more than before as the library was almost completely crowded.
Three inferior disciples were currently chatting with each other.
At this moment, the first one was saying, "How many volunteers did you bet that would pa.s.s the second evaluation? Also... did you specify their names?"
"Me? I bet that none of them will pa.s.s... you?" The second disciple muttered and then asked back.
"Hehe, that"s unlikely, I put my money on that Alice girl... she will definitely pa.s.s, oh also... I specified that she would be the only volunteer to qualify." The first one replied as such.
"Oh, you two... I put my luck on the first ranker of the first evaluation... I heard he"s quite a monster, you know? Also.... the odds for him was strangely twenty times... I would get rich instantly...alas, you two should"ve betted on him too..." The third disciple stated in a sad tone but on the contrary, his face seemed to be happy and excited about the thought of winning.
"Pffff... junior brother... haven"t you heard the rumor of the madman wreaking havoc in the library?" Listening to his words, the first disciple couldn"t stop himself from laughing as he inquired.
"Eh... what rumor... I just came out of closed-door training, so I have no idea what you"re talking about."
"Haha... you just made the biggest mistake of your life... listen he is a madman who..." Then that disciple began explaining how he went mad under the extreme pressure and didn"t do anything other than skimming all of the books in the library with the fastest speed possible.
"I hope that at least you didn"t bet too much of your fortune on him..." The other disciple stated feeling a little sympathetic.
But listening to them, the face of the third disciple which had just come out of his closed-door training turned ashen white and pale as he responded, "f.u.c.k... I put everything I had on this..."