PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

Being the only person in the box who had any basic knowledge of alchemy and had even worked with Sasha on several occasions, Desmond was the one to answer. “I know Sasha well enough to know that whatever she’s doing, she won’t fail. She could afford to experiment and learn from failure when she’s in her lab, but she’s taking this tournament pretty seriously; you just wait and see, and remember that she still has one last ace up her sleeve.”

Knowing exactly what Desmond was talking about, Revna intervened. “She won’t get herself in trouble if she does that?”

As always, Cecilia held a book in her hands, an old novel of some kind, but that didn’t stop her from giving her opinion. “I’ve already read the tournament rules, there’s no ban on it, Sasha should be fine. As Desmond said, Sasha knows what she’s doing, she’s more mature and responsible than she seems.”

With a calm expression, Desmond pointed to the stage and said. “It seems like she’s starting to refine at last.”

When the girls turned to look at the stage, they realized that Desmond was right, Sasha had finally finished the initial processing of the medicinal ingredients and now she was going to move on to refining a pill. Although no one had any idea what kind of medicinal pill Sasha was refining, it was obvious to anyone that it must be something extraordinary from the method she used.

Catching the attention of basically everyone who saw her, Sasha created with her flames, different fire lotuses where she would place small portions of ingredients to be refined separately at different temperatures and with different intensities, to be added to the furnace step by step. The level of control required to perform such a task was absurd, even inhumane, but that didn’t seem to be an issue for Sasha, something that left ignorant viewers and experts alike gaping.

In one of the lotuses, Sasha was refining the inferno tulip paste with undine’s tears, making sure that the two would integrate seamlessly without affecting each other’s proportions in the process.

In another fire lotus, Sasha was refining nectars of two variants of a single fantastic fruit, the yin fire peach and the yang ice peach. Contrary to what one would think at first, the yin essence in fire came from its soothing properties while the Yang essence in ice came from its purifying properties.

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The list went on and on, Sasha was refining a wide variety of ingredients at the same time. With the fantastic and, frankly, flashy efforts, the pressure on the rest of the contestants increased, which didn’t take long to show the effect as one of the professional alchemists succumbed to the pressure and ended up making a fatal mistake.

Barely taking his eyes off the cauldron, an alchemist reached out and grabbed the wrong ingredient before tossing it inside, leading to a very spectacular explosion. If it weren’t for the security measures taken by the tournament staff, said alchemist would be dead. Unfortunately, no one had time to pay attention to the fallen alchemist, everyone was more focused on defeating Sasha.

Ai Zuling saw what was happening and replied with a tired wry smile, she hoped that Sasha would end up pulling out the big guns, but she didn’t expect that she would be so blunt about it; not to mention that Ai Zuling knew that this was just the tip of the iceberg.

The white-robed, masked girl, Sublime Lotus, was only slightly surprised by Sasha’s unorthodox technique, but it didn’t distract her from her own work. In the masked alchemist’s mind, no matter how visually extraordinary Sasha’s technique was, the only thing that really mattered was the result, and she was confident that her medicinal pill would be the best.

Minutes passed and Sasha continued, using every ounce of willpower at her disposal to maintain control of her refining technique. Little by little, the refined medicinal essences of various ingredients were being added to her alchemy furnace.

With each small medicinal essence added to the alchemy furnace, the cluster of them seemed more unstable. It was like it was going to explode at any moment, but Sasha was forcibly holding back the explosion. Every time Sasha added another refined medicinal essence, the mixture became more unstable, only to barely stabilize after Sasha herself added another medicinal essence. This process was repeated over and over again, but no matter how hard Sasha tried to keep the mixture in the oven stable, it seemed like it was going to collapse at any moment.

Despite herself, Sasha realized that she wasn’t refining the ingredients fast enough, and it was the lapse between each addition of medicinal essences that was intensifying the instability of the medicinal pill. With no other choice, Sasha resorted to the last ace of hers up her sleeve.

Probably only Desmond, Mei Fei Long, Miao Xiauyue, and the girls weren’t surprised when Sasha went up in flames. The audience panicked, believing that something had gone wrong with the beautiful, vermillion-haired young alchemist and that they would now watch her die a brutal death as her body was consumed by fire. However, there were no cries of pain or pleas for help, beyond that, the fire even began to take shape to envelop the girl’s body like a dress made of liquid fire.

Standing proudly, A pair of ruby-like crystal horns protruding from Sasha’s hair that was now a trail of vermilion fire. Now wearing a fiery crimson gown over her, Sasha showed each person in the audience why her mother had chosen to name her, Sasha Kor Ignis; a rose born of fire.

Instantly, the color of the flames controlled by Sasha changed color, becoming more intense in turn. The fire lotuses used by Sasha to refine medicinal essences became larger, more beautiful, and more detailed, greatly accelerating the speed with which they refined medicinal essences.

Due to the special properties of Sasha’s fire, she was able to afford to increase the temperature and intensity of her flames during refining without fear of accidentally destroying the ingredients, just as she had not feared burning Desmond the first time she showed this form to the world.

Feeling the power pulsing within her chest, Sasha didn’t hold back, summoning another dozen fire lotuses and using them to refine even more medicinal ingredients at the same time. Thus, the area where Sasha was carrying out her medicinal pill became quite a sight to behold.

Being fully focused on her work, Sasha didn’t notice the commotion her transformation caused, nor would she have cared if she had. The truth is that Sasha knew that in this world there were people like Mei Fei Long whose powerful bloodlines could display transformations upon activation, so her own transformation was not going to be treated as an abomination.

However, Sasha also knew that bloodlines that were capable of invoking such transformations were insanely coveted by all forces and sects, so she normally wouldn’t have revealed herself in such a public place as a tournament.

Still, Sasha had transformed and the reason was very simple, she wanted to do her best and give Desmond the fruit of her efforts. Sasha had studied hard and worked hard ever since she came into this world. While Sasha did not experience an unprecedented advancement in her fighting style and combat prowess, her alchemist skills had advanced by leaps and bounds and she was very proud of it.

Besides, no matter how many people would covet her bloodline, Sasha was absolutely certain that everything would be fine simply because Desmond was here with her. Desmond might not be the most powerful person in this city, but he was certainly the most dangerous in more ways than one, Sasha herself had seen what her beloved hunter was capable of.

Pushing all unnecessary thoughts away, Sasha released a tremendous surge of vermilion fire and all the fire lotuses under her control closed like buds, refining all the medicinal essences she needed in a single instant.

With a snap of Sasha’s fingers, all the fire cocoons around her flew into the furnace, adding their refined medicinal essences to the core of the pill currently being refined by Sasha. As expected, the medicinal pill suffered a series of violent reactions as hot and cold, strong and soft energies clashed ferociously trying to annihilate their counterparts.

Before the pill went completely out of control, Sasha released two huge torrents of vine-shaped flame that wrapped around the fire rose currently below the alchemy furnace. Instantly, the fire rose grew in size, detail, and majesty, becoming large enough to completely envelop the alchemy furnace and forcibly suppress the collapsing energies within the medicinal pill.

A whole minute passed where Sasha had to concentrate to the maximum to suppress one by one the violent reactions of the medicinal pill, finally managing to harmonize the energies and finish the refining that had taken so much time and effort.

As if it had been planned from the beginning, the time-limit bell for this phase of the tournament rang out throughout the entire venue, at the same time that Sasha’s fire rose bud finished blooming to reveal the pill. refined inside.