I Became the Alchemy Master by Picking Up Trash-Chapter 180 - 178: Xi Yuan Tournament (Part 4)

The live broadcast arena was in an uproar, even Lin Zhian didn’t expect the random transmission array to activate so quickly.

The team almost reaching their destination was blinked away to a thousand miles away, this reversal was simply dramatic.

In the stands, Wen Dao pounded his chest hard, trying to calm himself with deep breaths. As people age, sudden excitement and shocks are the most deadly.

Luo Jun stared intently at the map on the big screen, the four green dots flickered on and off, appearing at the southernmost end of the map, and Luo Jun couldn’t help but feel uneasy.

"Isn’t it a short-distance transmission array? Why so far!"

Zhou Song pushed up his glasses and gave a lesson to this talisman-blind: "Any transmission within a thousand kilometers is considered short-distance. I told you to read more, lest your brain turn into muscle, but you never listen!"

Luo Jun rolled his eyes at him: "What’s down south? Doesn’t feel right. What’s with all the skull drawings on the map?"

Jin Hua’s face was grim as he slowly spoke: "That’s the Earth Lungs Area, also called the Star Beast Graveyard."

Everyone fell silent, the name alone didn’t bode well.

The predicament faced by the discipline enforcement team during the qualifiers resurfaced, only back then they had the Peterson River’s help. Now, with sand seas churning and numerous obstacles, can these kids still find a way to turn the tables?

"Tch, I said our Harssas team doesn’t have the luck to win easily!" Luo Jun angrily leaned back in his seat and said: "This Cui Tianxiao is more of a hindrance than help, running around recklessly!"

——————

The feeling of being pulled disappeared, and Li Xing opened his eyes to find they were no longer at the Turquoise Pool.

The land before them was red, the rocks were red, and even the few plants bore shades of red. Towering on the ground were either rocks or star beast skeletons bleached white.

The ground was webbed with fissures, some as thin as a finger, others as wide as two to three meters, revealing the red magma flowing beneath.

Ye Qingting helped Qi Ming up, surveyed their surroundings, and wore a grim expression.

"Xiao Ming, where are we?"

"Should be the Earth Lungs Area." Qi Ming’s shoulders slumped; they were now eight or nine hundred kilometers from the Turquoise Pool, returning wouldn’t be easy.

Cui Tianxiao knew he caused trouble, feeling ashamed and huddled on the ground like a steamed shrimp.

Ye Qingting nudged him with his foot: "Stop playing dead, get up quickly!" 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

"Boohoo, I’m guilty..."

Ye Qingting sighed: "It’s just an accident, your only mistake is having bad luck. Alright, get up and find a way out."

Cui Tianxiao wiped his eyes, got up from the ground, but before he could fully stand, Li Xing dashed over and kicked Cui Tianxiao’s butt. Cui Tianxiao screamed as he flew ten meters away.

Before Cui Tianxiao hit the ground, a huge spout of steam erupted where he had been lying, spraying as high as twenty meters, and the ground crack emitted a screech like a whistle.

"Holy crap—!"

Cui Tianxiao was terrified, if Li Xing hadn’t reacted quickly, he’d be cooked by now.

"Wha, what’s going on?"

Li Xing calmly explained: "Here, groundwater coexists with magma. When underground water erupts into underground rivers and encounters magma, it vaporizes, forming a large amount of steam beneath the surface. When the pressure builds up sufficiently, the steam gushes out through the cracked ground, everyone needs to be careful."

Qi Ming stuck his tongue out, no wonder this cursed place is called the Earth Lungs Area, it really seems alive and breathing.

Cui Tianxiao clutched his butt, wincing in pain, suspecting Li Xing used the rescue as an excuse for punishment but had no evidence.

"Qingtian, what now?"

Their current location was at the periphery of the competition area, traveling on foot could take ten days to reach the Turquoise Pool.

"Xiao Ming, can you sense the random transmission array?"

Qi Ming nodded: "The talisman array’s fluctuations are weak, but if I carefully search nearby, signs can be found."

Ye Qingting was overjoyed: "That’s great! From now on, I, Ah Xiao, and Ah Xing will fully protect you, focus all your energy on finding the random transmission array."

The Earth Lungs Area not only has lurking star beasts but also high-temperature steam erupting from the ground, more dangerous than the desert center.

Rationality urged them to leave quickly, but if they did, the vast desert would trap them, slowing their progress to less than a tenth of normal.

Nearly a thousand kilometers away, how long would that take them to cross?

The quickest and most efficient way to leave was to find and trigger another transmission array, no matter where it sends them, it would be closer than this place.

Rather than searching the entire desert for transmission arrays like finding a needle in a haystack, they might as well try their luck in the relatively smaller Earth Lungs Area.

Three martial masters protected Qi Ming in the middle, conducting a grid search of the Earth Lungs Area.

——————

Live broadcast site.

The host zoomed in on the discipline enforcement team’s close-up.

"Huh, in this match, contestant Ye Qingting’s performance seems much worse than last time, is it my imagination?"

Lin Zhian: "It’s not your imagination, his condition indeed isn’t good."

"Why is that? Injured before the match, or insufficient training?"

Lin Zhian shook his head: "It’s unrelated to those. The elemental attribute of an Elemental Spirit is affected by the opposing environmental attributes, the harsher the environment, the greater the influence."

"Take the Ro-Ye Desert, for example, high temperatures, heat, lots of sand, the environment is fire and earth attributes, everyone feels unbearably hot in the desert, but Water Elemental Spirit and Ice Elemental Spirit users feel it especially. This is the rule of elements countering each other, Elemental Spirits have a hard time overcoming this physiological phenomenon where their elemental powers are restrained."

"Similarly, Fire Elemental Spirt and Earth Elemental Spirit users, since their attributes match the environment, will find the heat more tolerable than other Elemental Spirits."

The host suddenly realized: "No wonder I see Li Xing moving easily, not using the temperature control talisman to full capacity, it’s because she’s a Fire Elemental Spirit user, less affected by the heat!"

Lin Zhian smiled: "The so-called lesser effect is only relative. It’s like some people find a thirty-six-degree bath too hot to bear, while others find forty-two degrees just right. There may be individual differences, but it’s only a few degrees, no one can endure an eighty to ninety-degree bath. Heat tolerance has a limit, once surpassed, regardless of the Elemental Spirit’s attribute, it’s unbearable."

Host: "Now there’s still the temperature control talisman to help lower the temperature, what will contestant Ye Qingting do to cope with the high temperatures once the Energy Stones run out!"

When the temperature control talisman operates at maximum power, one mid-tier Energy Stone lasts twenty minutes, not much time left for Ye Qingting.

Lin Zhian shook his head solemnly: "Although high-grade Crystal Stones can be used as emergency energy substitutes for Energy Stones, the temperature control talisman requires high energy purity, only the twelfth-level star beast’s Crystal Stone can be used as a substitute. If he exhausts his Energy Stones and can’t obtain enough twelfth-level Crystal Stones, he’ll have no choice but to forfeit."

The host sighed: "The desert really is unforgiving to Ice Elemental Spirit users!"

The discipline enforcement team walked and stopped, giving Qi Ming a chance to subtly sense the talisman array’s fluctuations.

The host curiously asked: "What are they looking for?"

Lin Zhian: "If I’m not mistaken, they’re searching for the random transmission array."

The host was enlightened: "I see! It truly is the most efficient and convenient way out of the Earth Lungs Area. Mr. Lin, are there any transmission arrays in the Earth Lungs Area?"

Lin Zhian had a mysterious expression: "Well, that... I do not know."

——————

Time slowly passed, and it was the Desert Boat Team’s turn to be teleported in. Unlike the previous two teams, they were directly transmitted into a heap of spherical thorny plants.

Four minutes later, the Tu Ling Team also entered.

At this point, all teams had entered the Ruoye Desert.

The map in the upper-left corner showed golden light dots in the center-northeast of the desert, green light dots at the southernmost edge. The white dot representing the Desert Boat was in the southwest, and the blue dot for the Tu Ling Team was in the center area, closest to the Turquoise Pool.

Netizens were right, the last team to enter now has the best chance of winning.

"""