"Ladies and gentlemen! Today, we solemnly hold the Wizarding World's Alchemy gala belonging to the new generation!"
"Just now, after a rigorous first round of theoretical screening, only 50 of the most outstanding young alchemists remain to continue the competition!"
"In this round, we will..."
On the rostrum, the host spoke incessantly in an exaggerated tone to build up the atmosphere.
Lynn seriously doubted this guy's professionalism; those flowery words sounded more like they were meant to set the mood than spoken by someone who actually understood Alchemy.
Out of boredom, he began to look around.
His gaze swept across the viewing stand and unexpectedly saw Edgar's parents—Edward and Anna Burns. They were waving in his direction with encouraging smiles on their faces.
"I didn't expect their official duties at the Ministry of Magic to be so light that they'd have time to come watch the competition?" Lynn muttered to himself.
His gaze fell back onto the contestants competing on the same stage.
That Katya Volok from Durmstrang was indeed still there, looking as if his nostrils were pointed at the sky.
Lynn still remembered that when the theoretical scores were announced, he had caught a glimpse of this guy's score; he could only say... it was passable.
He really didn't know how Durmstrang selected their candidates. Was it truly a dearth of talent, picking a general from among the dwarves?
"...We have prepared Alchemy items with identical degrees and types of damage for each contestant. Your task, contestants, is to use your knowledge, skill, and creativity to repair them and restore their proper function!"
The host on the rostrum finally got to the point.
"Now then... the second round of the competition... officially begins! All contestants, please enter your respective cubicles!"
The moment the host's voice fell, the arena's magic was activated.
The narrow little cubicles originally used for the written test began to stretch and widen, turning into more spacious workshops equipped with basic Alchemy tools and workbenches.
The small rooms still had no roofs, facilitating all-around observation.
Lynn walked to his workbench and looked at the Alchemy item waiting to be repaired, delivered precisely by teleportation magic. His eyes instantly widened, and he almost thought he had seen it wrong.
"Is the competition organizing committee spending this much?!" he exclaimed internally.
Quietly lying on the workbench was a complex, compass-like object engraved with countless ancient runes.
Although it was only a simplified version or educational-grade tool, that unique design and energy flow pattern were clearly the prototype of judge Vasily Orlov's representative work, the "Elemental Resonance Disk"!
Something so costly and significant was actually damaged and given to a group of students to practice repairs? This was quite the grand gesture!
"Boom!"
"Sizzle—!"
"Bang!"
Not long after the competition began, sounds of explosions, short circuits, and material cracking rang out one after another in the arena.
Clearly, repairing an Alchemy item of this level was an extremely severe challenge for most participants.
The smell of burning and the aura of magic spiraling out of control began to fill the air.
This chaos couldn't affect Lynn at all.
He took a deep breath; the vast Alchemy knowledge from [Engrave] clearly surfaced in his mind, and his [Primal Resonance] talent gave him an almost instinctive sense of harmony with the structure of the compass before him.
Lynn was completely immersed in the repair work.
He first picked up the Mithril wire beside him and used delicate Alchemy tweezers and fusion tools to carefully mend the magic-conducting circuits that were broken or twisted due to the "damage."
Lynn's movements were steady and precise.
Next, he began to check the more precise Alchemy rune core inside, sensing whether the rune's energy channels were blocked or misaligned, and testing whether the small elemental crystal serving as the energy source was intact or needed its resonance frequency recalibrated.
This was a delicate task that was extremely taxing on the mind and time.
After an unknown amount of time, Lynn finally completed the energy connection for the last rune.
The compass in his hand trembled slightly, a warm luster flowing over its surface, and the internal core crystal steadily emitted a soft light.
Lynn let out a long breath and confidently walked out of the cubicle with the repaired compass.
He thought his speed was fast enough, but he didn't expect to see Katya Volok already sitting in the lounge area at his leisure, a smug sneer hanging on the corner of his mouth.
Lynn ignored the guy and found a place to sit by himself.
After another period of waiting, the host's voice finally rang out from the rostrum:
"Time's up! All contestants who haven't finished their repairs, please stop immediately! Now, let the inspection of results begin!"
Undoubtedly, those who failed to finish within the allotted time, gave up halfway, or blew up their workbenches were directly eliminated.
More than half of the cubicles in the arena disappeared.
"We invite our master judges to perform functional testing on the successfully submitted compasses!"
The judges began to inspect the repaired items one by one.
They injected a tiny amount of magic into the compasses to test their basic elemental guidance and stability functions.
"Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle~"
A harsh energy noise came from the compass repaired by Amina from Uagadou, its needle spinning wildly.
Hearing this sound, Amina's face instantly turned pale.
"Boom~"
Before she could even react, her compass completely failed in a puff of black smoke, and the core crystal dimmed.
Amina's face turned completely green.
This seemed to be a bad start.
Following that, one compass after another either exploded directly during the test or showed no reaction at all, like a piece of dead iron.
The few who could pass the basic test and run steadily were Ryan Sanderson from Ilvermorny, Luc Leclerc from Beauxbatons, and Lynn.
Their compasses all showed a good state of repair in the judges' hands.
Finally, it was Katya Volok's turn.
He confidently handed the compass to Judge Vasily Orlov himself.
Lynn watched from the side. When the judge began testing, he noticed an abnormal dark red glow at the connection points along the compass's edge, and the energy flow carried a sense of restlessness.
He understood instantly: Is this guy an idiot... To pursue a fast repair and a short-term burst of performance, he actually used Demon Gold instead of Mithril as the core circuit material?
Although Demon Gold has excellent magic conductivity, its nature is extremely unstable and naturally conflicts with the pure energy of elemental crystals.
Problems might not be visible in the short term, but it definitely wouldn't last through a few minutes of continuous operation. A meltdown was inevitable; the timing of which was entirely up to luck.
Sure enough, the Goddess of Luck was not on Katya's side this time.
His compass ran for less than a minute before a dangerous cluster of sparks suddenly burst from the core. Immediately after, the entire compass turned red and deformed at a visible rate, emitting a tooth-grinding "creak" before finally melting into a lump of waste in a small puff of black smoke.
The confidence and arrogance on Katya's face instantly froze, turning into shock and disbelief.
Lynn, of course, would not let this perfect opportunity for mockery pass.
He slowly walked over to Katya, whose face had turned from red to white and then to a sickly green, and began his performance in an extremely punchable, sarcastic tone:
"Yo, yo, yo~ Whose masterpiece of an Alchemy master is this~" He deliberately dragged out his voice, his gaze scanning back and forth between the melted compass and Katya.
"This skill is just too 'good'~ Knowing it couldn't be repaired properly, did you decide to just melt it and get a new one? Tsk tsk, what a 'clever' way of thinking~ Truly striking out on a new path, far beyond the reach of us mortals~"
"You..." Katya suddenly turned his head to glare at Lynn, so angry his lips were trembling.
"'You' what! Your skills are inferior, you misused materials, and you produced this kind of 'disposable' product—and you won't even let people talk about it?"
"I..." Katya wanted to defend himself but was momentarily at a loss for words.
"'I' what!" Lynn didn't give him a chance to speak at all, continuing his passive-aggressive remarks.
"You can't even figure out basic material compatibility, yet you come to participate in an international competition with this level of skill?"
Katya Volok's face had already turned red. He suddenly pushed aside the people next to him and rushed out of the arena almost in a panicked flight.
Lynn looked at his back and shrugged indifferently. He never had much sympathy for those who took the initiative to provoke others but lacked the skills to back it up.
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