Chapitre 106: Comeback Victory
At the workshop.
"Haaahh…" Finally done with the first phase of the strong blight purifying potion.
Corey wiped his sweat as he looked at his work in a satisfied manner. He looked around and saw that the other young apprentices were almost done as well.
Seeing that only two hours were remaining and Albert's trio was still not here, the young apprentices looked at each other and laughed.
"Hahahaha! I want to see the look of despair on their faces right now."
"Corey is so evil! Why would you do that to the poor things? Hahahaha"
"Getting their hopes up by getting top three but ultimately getting disqualified in the second phase! Laughable!"
While the young apprentices were laughing, three people leisurely arrived at the workshop holding a basket containing different herbs.
Albert's trio finally arrived at the workshop after quickly collecting the different herbs that they needed.
They deliberately stopped quite a fair distance away from the workshop and made a plan regarding how to piss off the young apprentices.
The plan they made was to leisurely enter the workshop as if they weren't in a rush at all.
After hearing new footsteps from outside, everyone turned to look. They all wanted to see which people returned so late that they could practically be considered as disqualified.
The young apprentices' eyes were wide open and veins popped in their heads.
While leisurely walking towards the workshop, Albert was yawning, Charles was whistling, and Marie was singing.
"These three never fail to piss me off! You're about to be disqualified and you still have time to walk leisurely?! Let's see what your face will look like when you get disqualified!"
Corey muttered to himself.
This is understandable because it takes at least 4 hours to craft a complicated and high-grade potion.
If an alchemist has amazing skills like the young apprentices, they could reduce the time down to three hours.
However, Albert's trio arrived with only two hours remaining. How could they successfully craft a potion on time?
After a few more moments, everyone stopped caring about Albert's trio including the young apprentices.
As much as they wanted to taunt the three of them, they had to focus on their potions or they would fail as well.
Albert, Marie, and Charles immediately started to work. They quickly washed the herbs that they gathered and then they immediately started to prepare the herbs carefully.
The preparation phase which normally takes two hours for average alchemists was completed by the three of them in just around thirty minutes.
If the other alchemists saw how efficiently they prepared the ingredients, they would be shocked.
…
At an office inside the headquarters, the examiners including the old man were surprised. They didn't expect this young trio to be this good in actual potion crafting as well.
They thought that they were theoretical geniuses but they might have trouble in practical application.
That seems to not be the case though as the three of them easily completed the ingredient preparation phase.
Their ingredient preparation skills were actually on par with some of the examiners in the office!
The examiners who sided with the young apprentices couldn't stand the fact that the three unknown youngsters were garnering attention again.
"Sir Wayne! Look at them, They're so young! How could they have the skills to do that?! They must be cheating!"
The old man who was in charge of the master alchemist exam named Wayne looked at the examiners who just spoke with an angry expression.
"Are you guys idiots? Or are you treating me like an idiot?! Didn't we all see how they prepared it right in front of us? How could they even cheat with all of us watching?!
Wayne's face was red due to anger.
Seeing that they couldn't convince Wayne to immediately disqualify the three youngsters, they became silent and just watched again with worried expressions.
…
"Ahhh finally done!"
Corey and the other young apprentices finished crafting their strong blight-purifying potion. They believed that there was no need to check the quality because the creation process felt good.
They knew that they'd crafted high-quality potions this time so they instead turned to look at Albert's trio.
Corey almost went to their crafting table to taunt them but they suddenly remembered that they might get disqualified if they bothered them so the young apprentices just waited for them to either fail or finish.
When there were only three minutes left, Albert's trio finally finished concocting their potion.
"What?!"
Corey was in the middle of laughing because earlier, when there were still 5 minutes left, Albert's trio was still so busy so he thought that they wouldn't be able to finish on time.
Who would've thought that after just another 2 minutes, all three of them would finish?
"Hmmph! Such a rushed potion will not get anywhere near the quality of ours!"
Corey muttered to himself.
After a few more moments, an examiner entered the workshop.
"It seems that everyone is done with their potions so I shall start judging."
A few hours passed and most of the ordinary alchemists already had initial rankings while the more unfortunate ones didn't pass the assessment at all.
Finally, it was time for the examiner to check Albert's trio's potions.
"Hmm…Strong blight purifying potions eh? This seems to be a bit different though…What main ingredient did you use?"
"We used frozendew grass and ghostfall flower as the main ingredient."
The examiner fell into a deep thought before nodding. It was indeed feasible to use these two as the main ingredients for the strong blight-purifying potions.
"Now, for the quality…90% purity! 89% purity! And 88% purity!"
Albert's trio was satisfied with how pure their strong blight purification potions were given that they were bugged so much by Corey's group.
However, Corey and the other young apprentices merely laughed at the purity level of their potions.
"Examiner, when is it our turn? Can you please show these tryhards who the better alchemists are?"
The examiner was annoyed by Corey's arrogant attitude but he had no choice. It was his job to check the purity of their potions.
He walked towards Corey's group and checked their potions one by one.
The examiner frowned after checking all of their potions.
"This is passable but the purity is only around 55% at best. Honestly, I expected more from your group…Very disappointing."
The examiner said to Corey's group of young apprentices.
"What?! How is that possible?!"
Corey's group grabbed their potion bottles and checked the quality themselves.
After a few moments, Corey's group of young apprentices fell on their butts one by one.
"H-How is this possible?! I even felt good during the creation process! Why?!"
As Corey's group was going crazy due to the low purity of their potions, old man Wayne entered the workshop.
"The reason why the quality of your potions is so low is, although the frostglaze flower can be used as a substitute when you use a yin herb as a supplementary ingredient, it will also lower the quality of the potion due to a few incompatible properties."
"If only you reviewed the properties properly before you crafted the potion, you wouldn't have used the yin herb."
The young apprentices' eyes widened and then they turned to look at Albert, Marie, and Charles with an angry expression.
Seeing that the three of them were trying so hard not to laugh made the young apprentices even more furious.
"Y-You three! You set us up! This is illegal! You bothered us! This is all your fault! Shouldn't they be disqualified?!"
Corey was going crazy due to how angry he was.
They fell for a trap and lost again to these three no-names!
"Enough! We all saw what happened back at the headquarters. You can only blame yourselves for being too careless!"
"N-No…How could this happen…First place is supposed to be m-mine…"
"Hmmph! Everyone! The results are now posted on the bulletin board. You may check them to see your rankings."
As expected, the three of them got the top three spots again. Albert, Marie, and Charles walked back to the waiting room with happy smiles on their faces.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone