The Silly Alchemist

Pre-Competition Preparations (1)

“Teacher, when are Ye Lanyu and the rest coming back? We’ve got to head to Sheng City to prep!” a student asked Strongman.

This was the tenth day they’d arrived at the city. After the first day Ye Lanyu and the two other girls stepped into the House of Confusion, they never returned, as if they had already forgotten what they were here for.

Forget about attending training, they still hadn’t shown up despite having to leave for the inner city soon!

This did not mean the inner city was already open to everyone. Only participants from academies, after registration, could enter the inner city to prepare for the competition.

Participants naturally had special privileges!

“I don’t know when they’re coming back either. We don’t have to wait for them, we can enter the city first. I don’t think they need to register to enter!” frowned Strongman, but it didn’t bother him.

The students asked again, “Why? Sheng City’s not open to the public right now, and we can only enter because we registered first. Do you mean they’ll only enter when the city opens to the public?”

He waved, “That won’t be necessary. Don’t you know who that messenger was? Also, haven’t you all heard of Ye Lang’s status in this area?”

“The messenger? Who?” none of the students noticed, they thought the messenger from the other day was just a regular person.

“He was a Light Rider, a very high-ranked one too! He was a Di Level fighter!” said Strongman.

“What?! No way...” The students were a little, no, very surprised!

“You can ask Ye Zhiqing too, she’ll definitely know! Think about it. If they could get a high-ranked Light Rider to send a message, how hard would it be for them to enter Sheng City?” said Strongman.

“Also, didn’t you notice how the Light Rider talked about Ye Lang? He said ‘sir’! Not only the Light Rider, but the entire city also seems to either call him sir, gentleman, or genius doctor- all with respect!”

Someone among the students nodded, “Yep! That’s right! Ye Lang is one of the most respected figures in this area! We’ve heard many stories about him during our stay here. His alchemy skills have reached a godly state, almost no one is even close to his level!”

“When they used to say Ye Lang was an alchemy genius, I was a little sceptical. Now it looks like I must believe them!”

“Yep, looks like our Ye Academy will at least win in the alchemy category!”

No one questioned Ye Lang’s ability to win in the alchemy competition. Even the rest of the participants would not deny this fact, other than the ones who did not know his true capabilities.

Not many people specialized in alchemy. Among people his age, there was no one good enough to challenge him. The only ones who were as good as he was were the very experienced alchemists and they were all very old. Naturally, they would not be in a student competition like this one.

Every team including the ones who came before the Ye Academy’s team, and after, all received news. They all knew that there was an alchemy prodigy among them.

They knew one thing too, Ye Lang was not proficient in fighting or magic- in fact, he was born a slow kid with no attributes at all!

No one dared call him an idiot though because that would mean they could not beat an idiot.

So what if he didn’t have douqi or magic? He was already a hero here with powerful alchemy skills. And what did the rest achieve?

Although people across the mainland placed a lot of focus on magic, often using magical skills as a measure of their status, every faculty had their own prodigies. And these talented individuals would still grow to earn the public’s respect. This was especially true for Ye Lang. Although there were few alchemists around, people still paid attention to him.

It was even more obvious in the medical field. Everyone was bound to fall sick at some point. While magic can cure most diseases, these doctors were still needed for serious illnesses.

And there were already people who had been following Ye Lang’s achievements since the beginning. After hearing this, their reactions varied from happiness to frustration, to...

They all shared one emotion: shock!

Among these people included the top three teams: Academy Number One, Ai La Empire’s Violet Academy and the Soaring Sky Empire’s Royal Institute of Education. They paid extra attention because they personally knew Ye Lang!

As usual, our Ye Lang, the core of all the commotion, was clueless about everything else. He was still at the House of Confusion, happily robbing rich people, spending a lot of money and treating the poor. Don’t think Ye Lang couldn’t spend money when he was treating patients, it was the opposite. He spent a lot of money on buying huge quantities of ingredients- most of them precious herbs.

These ingredients were supposed to be provided by Sheng City. There were piles and piles of ingredients in their stores, accumulated from thousands of years. He could get any ingredient he wanted, however much of it!

Even Ye Lang admired this place because there were things here even our super prodigal son couldn’t buy because they were not in the market.

And these ingredients were all at Ye Lang’s disposal at no cost. However, Ye Lang refused to take advantage of this, buying them at market price or higher. He could send Sheng City townsmen to help buy them for him, so his emptied space ring was filled once again. Only this time it was mainly filled with alchemy ingredients for medicine.

We don’t have to tell you where his funds came from- you could say it was also the blood and sweat of the people. Perhaps that was why Ye Lang only used ingredients he bought to avoid owing the city a favour. This way, he did not need to return the favour in the future. This time, only the city would owe him a favour.

Sometimes, being a prodigal son had its benefits. At least prodigal sons did not owe anyone favours, only other people owing them favours. This, of course, excluded their family but a prodigal kid like Ye Lang spent his own money. This sometimes even brought benefits to his family so he was on another level! A godly level of prodigal-ness!

Ye Lang was robbing the rich, but it was still considered an exchange of goods and services. And business was such- it seemed unfair, but it was fair... depending on your values!