Chapter 3706 — The New Rules

Never mind how Meng Jueming brimmed with ambition on his side—once Wei Zhao returned to his cave dwelling, he entered the jade pendant space as always to cultivate and consolidate his strength. The night passed without a word.

When dawn broke the next day, all the newcomers of the Welcome Pavilion gathered in the main hall early in the morning, every face bearing excitement and nervousness that were hard to conceal.

For starting today, after the one-month adaptation period that had come before, they would formally enter the real game, and from now on the Welcome Pavilion would have only one theme: competition!

By the rules that had varied only slightly over the years, beginning with the second month the newcomers of the Three-Tiered Pavilions would commence cruel and fierce ranking matches among themselves. Every newcomer around them would become their rival—either trample the other beneath your feet, or be trampled beneath theirs. There was no third possibility.

If your strength was sufficient, then even if you were the most inconsequential newcomer of the Azure Cloud Pavilion, you could openly challenge the top seed of the Soaring Heaven Pavilion, trample him beneath your feet, and claim all the finest cultivation resources for yourself.

Conversely, if your strength was too weak, then even if you were a scion of the Soaring Heaven Pavilion with powerful backing, you were fit only to be another's stepping stone; for the rest of your time in the Welcome Pavilion you could only endure the worst and most inferior cultivation resources, sinking into obscurity with no hope of turning things around.

In the end, the cultivation world had always been one where the weak were prey to the strong. Even the relatively mild Welcome Pavilion acted solely by the law of the jungle, without exception. The only concession was a certain limit placed on the competition between them, so that deaths were unlikely—and that was all.

As for this, after the preceding month of adaptation, all the newcomers had long since steeled themselves; strong and weak alike knew well what each of them would face. Yet after the Pavilion Master Hu Yunfeng took the stage and finished his first sentence, the whole hall erupted in an uproar.

"In response to the Council of Elders' call for an all-around elevation of the newcomers' strength, from this year onward the Welcome Pavilion abolishes the ranking match system. In its place will be a more comprehensive and more equitable newcomer assessment. I ask all you junior brothers to make your preparations; the specific rules of assessment are posted on the public notice."

What? Abolish the ranking match system?

The hall of newcomers instantly broke into a clamor. Many of them had spent the past month preparing with the ranking matches as their goal; some had already decided which opponents they meant to challenge. As for those like Meng Zhou and Wei Zhao who had prior grievances, they had long since proclaimed that they would wipe out their humiliation in the ranking matches.

And yet, unexpectedly, the ranking matches—a tradition the Welcome Pavilion had followed consistently for the past several decades—were to be abolished.

And when Hu Yunfeng ordered the notice, already transcribed, to be posted with its rules, the assembled newcomers buzzed all the more.

Wei Zhao and the others pushed forward and roughly scanned it. This newcomer assessment had no fewer than six stages, covering intimidation, defense, spiritual medicine, spiritual beasts, actual combat, and several other aspects; the assessment would last as long as five months, with points awarded at every stage, and the final ranking determined by accumulated points.

It was indeed as Hu Yunfeng had said—compared with the crude and simple ranking matches of old, this newcomer assessment was genuinely far more comprehensive.

Yet there was one very important point in it that quickly drew the attention of Wei Zhao and his companions.

This newcomer assessment, astonishingly, ranked the newcomers of the Three-Tiered Pavilions separately!

The top three of each of the Three-Tiered Pavilions would receive a Foundation Establishment Pill or a Foundation Establishment Barrier-Breaking Pill; the fourth through tenth places would receive three spirit jades; and after the tenth place, nothing at all.

Apart from redistributing their respective cave dwellings according to rank, and the top three being allowed to choose pills, this reward scheme was almost identical to the newcomer trial in the back mountain two days ago!

By all logic, just as with the previous newcomer trial, such rules ought to have been a godsend to the naturally disadvantaged newcomers of the Azure Cloud Pavilion; after all, their strength was generally feeble, and if they were made to compete with the newcomers of the Soaring Heaven Pavilion and the Mystic Mechanism Pavilion, they could never dream of obtaining such lavish rewards as Foundation Establishment Pills or Foundation Establishment Barrier-Breaking Pills.

But do not forget: this newcomer assessment differed from that back-mountain newcomer trial in one vital respect—its ranking would bear directly on the allocation of cave dwellings!

Under the rules of the ranking matches in years past, even a grassroots newcomer of the Azure Cloud Pavilion, so long as his strength sufficed, could in the end obtain all the finest cultivation resources, cave dwellings included; and a formidable figure like Wei Zhao could even take Cave Dwelling Number One at the summit for himself!

Yet once things were switched to this present newcomer assessment, though it might be glad tidings for the弱者 who kept to the sidelines, it was also tantamount to naturally erasing their chance to rise against and surpass the newcomers of the Soaring Heaven Pavilion and the Mystic Mechanism Pavilion!

In other words, a newcomer of the Azure Cloud Pavilion like Wei Zhao, no matter how strong, could no longer dream of Cave Dwelling Number One at the summit; even if he could effortlessly crush his opponents, it would be of no use. Cave Dwelling Number One at the summit belonged to the Soaring Heaven Pavilion and would forever belong to the Soaring Heaven Pavilion—the newcomers of the Azure Cloud Pavilion could never hope to lay a finger on it!

In the ranking matches of years past, the newcomers of the Three-Tiered Pavilions all started from the same line; what cultivation resources one obtained depended entirely on one's own strength, and it was on the whole fairly just. But this newcomer assessment, for all its many variations and its look of greater scientific rigor, in truth naturally favored the newcomers of the Soaring Heaven Pavilion!

This was the so-called more equitable newcomer assessment! Wei Zhao could not help but give a cold laugh. Though he had no interest whatsoever in Cave Dwelling Number One at the summit, at this moment a surge of indignation still rose in his heart.

"This assessment is plainly partial to the newcomers of the Soaring Heaven Pavilion! Even if their strength is utter rubbish, they can sit back without a care and enjoy the finest cave dwellings. Pavilion Master Hu, and you dare call this fair?" Qiao Hongcai at the side suddenly called out in a loud, clear voice.

He was a straight-tempered man who hated evil as his enemy; on his very first day at the Welcome Pavilion he had dared to question injustice, and at a moment like this he would naturally not shrink back.

And his challenge struck a chord not only with the ambitious newcomers of the Azure Cloud Pavilion, but even with the old-timers of the Mystic Mechanism Pavilion, who echoed him one after another—and among them, Dongfang Badao and a few others were the most indignant of all.