Chapter 254: Chapter 254: Greatest Alchemist Competition

[Greatest Alchemist Competition, About to Commence, Hosted by the Alchemy Guild, Will Be Livestreamed on the Magic Net Throughout!]

Greatest Alchemist Competition, competing for the title of world’s strongest alchemist!

As soon as this news came out, it immediately caused an uproar.

Alchemists—the most special group among mages. Almost all traditional mages couldn’t do without this group. Whether magic items or magic potions they used, all were produced and manufactured by alchemists.

But all along, most mages actually didn’t know what level the alchemists they found were. They generally relied on word of mouth, finding people based on reputation.

Getting scammed was basically something every mage would encounter.

But if this competition proceeded smoothly, in the future couldn’t they just look at each person’s ranking to make decisions?

Especially after seeing the schedule, quite a few people had this thought even more.

According to the announcement released by the Alchemy Guild, the competition was divided into two stages—preliminary stage and finals stage. The preliminary stage mainly competed for each nation’s strongest. Each nation would formulate preliminary rules according to actual conditions for selection.

The suggested selection method was points.

Various city competitions could earn points. The one with highest accumulated points could advance.

The reason for this was that each alchemist was good at different things. Some might be good at crafting magic items, some good at crafting potions. So they could only use more competitions to accumulate points and make the results stable.

After competing for each nation’s strongest, they could be sent to the City of Alchemy for the preliminary finals to determine the final participants for the finals.

Of course, as long as you reached this step, the Alchemy Guild would cover expenses to the City of Alchemy until you returned home. All these costs could be reimbursed. Even more, anyone who reached this stage could watch the finals for free.

The finals would have 64 matches total—48 group stage matches, 8 round of 16 matches, 4 quarterfinal matches, 2 semifinal matches, 1 third-place match, and 1 championship match, determining the final rankings.

Fair, just, and open.

"Awesome!"

"They actually thought of using Magic Net video livestreaming to ensure the competition’s fairness."

"Actually I feel this is the Alchemy Guild wanting to use this to promote and sell goods. After all, those internet celebrity big shots recently seem to have made a lot selling stuff!"

"Isn’t that pretty good though? Alchemical products sold by the Alchemy Guild should be more stable than those made by regular independent practitioners, right?"

"The strongest part is this ranking! I’ve long wanted to custom order a magic item as a family heirloom. Prepared 300,000 gold coins and materials worth at least 500,000 gold coins. Just the preliminary preparations already cost me nearly 100 years of time, but I’ve never found a suitable candidate. After the competition ends, I’ll just directly find the number one ranked person and perfectly solve the problem, right?"

"Whoa—what kind of big shot is this, preparing over 800,000 gold coins for one magic item!"

"Recently, I really don’t understand anymore. Your world and my world are completely different. Any number casually mentioned online is something I could never earn in a lifetime."

"I, an alchemist, it’s finally time to prove myself. I will definitely achieve an excellent ranking. I want everyone to know that I am no longer that useless person from back then!"

"By the way, do you think Master Carl will participate? If he participates, what would his ranking be?"

"Why would he participate? Master Carl is already so famous. In this world you can’t find another alchemist more pecul... creative than him. Without ranking he’s already the most special existence. If he ranks, wouldn’t his prestige instantly disappear?"

The Alchemy Guild’s move was like a fish in water. As soon as it moved, the entire Magic Net’s attention seemed to be drawn over.

Many other guilds, like the Hunting Guild, Assassin’s Guild, Craftsmen’s Association and other organizations also seemed to get inspiration. They all started discussing whether they should also hold similar activities.

Even the Thieves’ Association was discussing it. But later, considering that once famous, it might actually have negative impacts on future work, the matter was dropped. They just said they could do it secretly behind the scenes, push a few people out to compete with other guilds.

"This world really makes me understand it less and less."

In the divine realm, while operating a combat mech they’d just created, Ren said somewhat helplessly.

"Is there a problem with this mech?" Hearing this, the Goddess of Magic couldn’t help but pause. Divine power enveloped it, but She couldn’t find any problems with magic power transmission. It should be able to achieve Ren’s vision!

"No, I’m not talking about the mech. I’m talking about the people in the mortal realm. They’re now already thinking of using video livestreaming to conduct continent-level competitions... Oh, this competition is also somewhat related to you."

Ren quickly explained about the alchemist competition. "Forget everything else, at minimum this competition’s schedule arrangement is pretty reasonable."

"Indeed, this model is more fair than continuously competing one-on-one." The Goddess of Magic also looked at all this with great interest. "This competition really is good. Maybe after seeing this competition, many people will choose to become an alchemist, or have a dream of becoming an alchemist."

"Yeah, after this competition ends, maybe our school plan can be implemented." Ren nodded slightly and proposed further ideas.

The school plan—he’d decided on this very early on. Right now, knowledge on the continent was almost monopolized by nobles or mages. Viscount Roster was an anomaly, but he only taught ordinary people things to become workers in his own territory.

But this wasn’t enough to provide sufficient talent reserves for the magic-tech industrial era. Establishing more professional schools everywhere became the top priority.

These schools could uniformly teach basic knowledge in the early stage, then provide different guidance according to different talents later. Workers, farmers, mages, alchemists, druids, knights, merchants, administrators... Everything could be taught.

"I feel it’s not time yet. If it’s just literacy, to cultivate enough workers, those nobles will compromise. But if we want to cultivate their kind of ’superior people,’ nobles won’t easily compromise."

The Goddess of Magic shook Her head slightly. She’d once been an ordinary mortal too. She knew the operating rules of the mortal world, and knew even more what kind of thoughts those so-called upper-class people had.

"Of course I understand this can’t be accomplished overnight, but proceeding in some regions is still possible." Ren said with a smile. "For instance... that newly established Hill Lands Commonwealth."