Pill dao battles were one of the most popular in the world of martial dao. It was a method of competition only slightly inferior to martial dao. Beginning with pill dao and finishing with martial was a way of generating anticipation.

Of course, it was difficult to come up with topics for pill battles of this level. Though Emperor Petalpluck was the judge, he wasn’t proficient enough to compose a sufficiently challenging and fair question. Therefore, he asked the two sides to agree on the method of competition themselves, with the caveat that they had to agree on it.

The second part was the significantly harder of the two. After some lengthy negotiations, the two sides finally arrived at an agreement. There would be three rounds, each involving different pill-related fields.

The first was refining pills; a rather straightforward and primitive way of doing things.

The second was pill analysis. This round required both sides to present the other with an unknown pill. Each party was to analyze...