Chapter 3824 — The End of the Challenge Tournament

Even if the whole lot of them went down in utter defeat, the two of them would at most lose ten points apiece—and to men who were now formidable figures of the early Foundation Establishment stage, what did that even matter?

Meng Tong, likewise an expert of the early Foundation Establishment stage, had already been completely suppressed by these two. And apart from Wei Zhao, their leader, no other newcomer in Qingyun Pavilion had the strength to stand against the pair; the newcomer challenge tournament to come had become, for them, a feast of points to be taken at will.

In the rounds that followed, Xiao Ran and Qiao Hongcai could almost certainly seize over a hundred points between them. Set against that, the ten points deducted for the spirit herb trial was a trifle hardly worth mentioning.

Nor was it only the two of them. Even for Wei Zhao, who had entered forty spirit herb seeds, the consequences of total failure were nowhere near as disastrous as they imagined. On the foundation he had laid with two successive perfect, god-tier scores in the earlier stages, even a forty-point deduction left the other newcomers no chance whatsoever of catching him.

Across the whole of Qingyun Pavilion, the only newcomer who might pose a threat to Wei Zhao was Meng Tong, ranked second.

If Meng Tong could now, in this newcomer challenge tournament, crush his way upward and plunder points madly, and if Wei Zhao were docked forty points on top of that, then a sliver of a chance would still remain to drag Wei Zhao down from his altar.

Unfortunately, Meng Tong was still in the middle of recovering from his injuries. To say nothing of dealing with Wei Zhao, he could not even clear the two great mountains of Xiao Ran and Qiao Hongcai beneath Wei Zhao. And if things went on this way, Meng Tong would never in this lifetime catch up to Wei Zhao!

That being so, for Wei Zhao and his two companions, whether the spirit herb trial ended in total wipeout, whether how many points were docked, had ceased to matter in the slightest.

Having thought this through, the long-suffering senior brother could not help but smile. When one's strength grew great enough to tower over everyone else, then no matter how tortuous the process, no matter how great the blunder, the outcome had long since been decided.

But at this moment Wei Zhao spoke, his tone indifferent: "That said... whether you two are short of those points or not is none of my concern. Only—who ever said my spirit herb seeds were going to be a total wipeout?"

"Huh?" The long-suffering senior brother and the others were struck dumb on the spot. The results of the other newcomers' first batches had long since come out; any spirit herb seedlings successfully cultivated would surely have been delivered to the spirit herb garden for scoring.

The environmental demands of spirit herb seedlings far exceeded those of the seeds themselves. Given the conditions available to the newcomers of the Welcoming Hall, even the newcomers of the best-provided Chongtian Hall were nowhere near meeting the basic requirements for seedlings. And if one did manage to cultivate them but kept them in one's own hands instead of turning them in, the outcome was a hundred percent certain: they would wither and die in one's keeping, and all that effort would come to nothing.

Therefore, anyone who succeeded in cultivating even a single spirit herb seed would rush it to the spirit herb garden at once. Otherwise, no matter how many seedlings one raised, it was all for naught.

And from what the long-suffering senior brother and the others knew, Wei Zhao had not set foot in the spirit herb garden once during these days. Which meant that, no matter how many seeds Wei Zhao had planted in his first trial batch, one thing at least was certain: he had not yet successfully cultivated even a single one.

For one who had always been invincible, this blow was severe indeed. And with Kang Zhaoming having come by earlier to mock and jeer, the long-suffering senior brother and the others had feared Wei Zhao was stewing in gloom, which was precisely why they had deliberately raised the subject to console him—never expecting that the fellow seemed not the least bit like a man who had taken a hit.

"Rest easy. Since this business was handed to me, there's nothing to worry about. Just wait and see the results," Wei Zhao said with a smile to the group.

The long-suffering senior brother and the others exchanged glances. They still could not work out where Wei Zhao's confidence came from, but they nodded in unison nonetheless, convinced—after all, ever since they had come to know him, not once had this fellow failed to deliver on something he said he would do.

So this time, surely, would be no exception!

The sixth round of the Qingyun Pavilion newcomer challenge tournament, apart from that opening stir, proceeded entirely in the rhythm everyone had anticipated. Qiao Hongcai and Xiao Ran—the two great mountains beneath Wei Zhao—challenged upward one after another and reaped points.

As for Meng Tong, the only one among the remaining newcomers capable of posing any threat to them: although quite a few people, Wei Zhao included, had assumed after seeing Young Master Xu appear at the last match that he would make some big move next, judging by at least this round, Meng Tong was still biding his time.

In truth, he had no choice but to bide his time now. His injuries from that mutual ruin with Qiao Hongcai last time had not yet healed. And even once they did, at his early Foundation Establishment strength he was not necessarily a match for Xiao Ran and Qiao Hongcai.

So the only thing Meng Tong could do now was to follow behind Xiao Ran and Qiao Hongcai after they had challenged upward, picking off the soft targets.

Though this course of action left one who fancied himself the leader of Qingyun Pavilion's newcomers utterly stifled, for the moment it was the only way. Otherwise, in his present condition, to face either Xiao Ran or Qiao Hongcai was to invite a beating.

And apart from these three, of the other two among Qingyun Pavilion's top five, Wei Zhao—the number one newcomer—was as ever idly coasting along, while Li Zhengming likewise had no chance to take the stage.

Yet even without taking the stage to display his strength, Wei Zhao's golden finger had already shown him that the fellow's whole aura had been utterly transformed compared to before. Without question, thanks to those two Foundation Establishment Pills, Li Zhengming had finally succeeded in breaking through to Foundation Establishment and become the fifth early Foundation Establishment expert among Qingyun Pavilion's newcomers!

However—whether because no one else present had paid it any mind, or because Li Zhengming had concealed it too well—people like Meng Jueming had simply not noticed the change in Li Zhengming at all. In their understanding, Li Zhengming was still merely at the peak of the Heaven rank, not an early Foundation Establishment expert who could stand shoulder to shoulder with Meng Tong and put up a fight against Wei Zhao's faction.

This outcome was precisely the situation Li Zhengming, deliberately keeping a low profile, most wished to see. Otherwise, that fellow Meng Jueming might well have demanded that he go deal with Wei Zhao, and that would have been rather awkward to handle.

Thus the sixth round of the newcomer challenge tournament passed without wind or wave. But when Wei Zhao returned to his cave dwelling and, as was his habit, entered the jade pendant's space, a casual glance around at the scene before him gave him a great shock.

At his present level of strength, and given all his past experiences, frankly there was not much left that could shock Wei Zhao. Yet the sight before his eyes left him standing there, jaw hanging open for a good long while.

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