Chapter 213: Extraordinary Rewards
When the results of the Grand Competition were announced, the happiest person wasn’t Tang Chen, the champion—it was his father, Tang Yi, the head of the Tang family. He grinned every day like a morning glory in full bloom, telling everyone he met, “Do you know who won first place this time? My son—my own flesh and blood!”
At first, the various sect leaders politely congratulated him. But soon, they couldn’t stand his smugness anymore and started privately discussing which alley they might drag him into for a well-deserved beating.
Hmph! Your son took first place, not you! What are you so proud of? They were all from the same training class, and everyone knew their own test scores—did he really have no self-awareness?
Aside from the first place, second place went to a disciple of a Celestial Masters’ Hall elder, while the third place had two winners. During their duel, the two contestants had fought each other to exhaustion without determining a victor, so they shared the rank.
Yun Jiao was quite pleased with the overall outcome of the Grand Competition. After several years of effort, the Celestial Sect’s strength had indeed grown tremendously. Especially the top ten contestants—each already had remarkable talent and insight, most of them being elite disciples from various sects. With improved instruction, their progress had skyrocketed. Their power was now scarcely different from that of many elders and sect masters.
As this was the first Grand Competition, every sect took it very seriously. The Celestial Masters’ Hall even organized a full awards ceremony. Hall Master Xu stood atop a high platform and gave an impassioned speech before all the students and instructors. He invited the top ten disciples onto the stage one by one for commendation, urging everyone to train diligently and strive for even better results next time.
As expected of the Hall Master, Xu’s speech set the entire crowd ablaze with excitement. Even the sect masters of the awarded disciples straightened proudly in their seats.
After a long round of praise, he finally announced the prizes.
Originally, the top ten contestants were each to receive a single Heart-Nurturing Pill, refined jointly by the Medical Valley and several alchemy sects. Yet, whether it was due to excitement or perhaps because Yun Jiao had happened to pass by the alchemy room during the process and arranged a few spirit-gathering and flame-controlling arrays, the success rate of refinement had increased significantly. The sect leaders discussed the matter and decided to increase the reward—from one pill to one full bottle per person.