Chapter 3767 — The Peculiar Rules: How to Weigh the Choices So As to Maximize One's Gains Is a Technical Art Demanding Careful Thought; Otherwise, However Great One's Strength, All Effort Comes to Nothing, Yields No Benefit, and One Can Never Laugh Last

But while the other newcomers had to puzzle this question over carefully, Wei Zhao and his band of underlings had no such worries trailing behind them at all.

As far as they were concerned, the spirit herb seeds had already been handed over entirely to Wei Zhao; the task that remained was simply to throw themselves wholeheartedly into the challenge tournament, to go all out with no misgivings whatsoever. That made them far happier men than the rest of the newcomers.

Once Hu Yunfeng had explained the rules in detail, he let the newcomers of the Three-Tiered Pavilions go back and prepare as they pleased. Today was the nineteenth, precisely the day appointed for the challenge tournament, so the first round would formally begin that very afternoon, leaving the newcomers precious little time.

When Hu Yunfeng finished his announcement, the newcomers did not disperse; they gathered in twos and threes to debate their countermeasures.

Two heads were better than one, after all. To go home and shut oneself away, working everything out alone, might well be the death of one's chances; and though rivalry made true candor impossible in such huddled discussions, there was still something to be gained from them. At the very least, one would not wander off course or be left stranded on one's own.

"The rules for this challenge tournament really are a bit bizarre. Hard to make sense of them!" Qiao Hongcai scratched his head in bewilderment and said to the long-suffering senior brother, Wei Zhao, and the others.

Xiao Che nodded, sharing the feeling deeply. "They are, a little. Normally these challenge tournaments are plain and direct: you challenge as high a place as you can and give it everything, instead of all these checks and restraints that keep a man from going all out."

True enough, these few had no need to fret over nurturing spirit herb seeds as the others did, and so had far fewer burdens on their minds; yet even for the challenge tournament alone, there were many subtleties hidden in these rules, nothing like the crude simplicity of former years.

For one thing, this stage of the tournament ran a full two months. Even setting aside the question of supplying true qi to the spirit herb seeds, one still had to ration one's effort sensibly; otherwise, by spending too hard at the start, whatever points one won for the moment would be useless, and flagging strength later would lose them back — or lose even more.

For another, under these rules a higher-ranked cave dwelling was not necessarily better. True, a finer cave dwelling aided one's cultivation, and might even benefit the nurturing of spirit herb seeds.

But the catch was that it meant greater risk as well: once one lost in the tournament, the challenge points deducted would be far greater than those of a newcomer in an inferior cave dwelling.

A newcomer like Xiao Che, holding Mountain-Low No. 1, seemed at first glance to be sitting pretty: the fine cave dwelling, the abundant spiritual qi, the advantage. And under these rules his starting score would be the points accumulated in the two earlier assessment stages, plus, in this stage, the fifteen points that corresponded to Mountain-Low No. 1 — higher than any of the other fourteen cave dwellings. Everything looked lovely. But it was all surface.

In truth, judged by the challenge rules as published, Xiao Che, seated in Mountain-Low No. 1, was decidedly the most disadvantaged of all fifteen.

Quite apart from having to surrender all fifteen of those points the moment he lost, the crux of it, the deadliest point, was this: under the rule that only a lower-ranked newcomer might challenge a higher-ranked one, he had no right to challenge anyone of his own accord.

Admittedly, Mountain-Low No. 1 and its fifteen challenge points were the fattest prize of this stage, and sooner or later some newcomer would be unable to contain himself and challenge him. But the crux was that whether to challenge him, and when to make the challenge — all of that was for his rivals to decide.

If the others worked the rule out thoroughly, recognized the hidden disadvantage that Mountain-Low No. 1 represented, and saved him for the final round two months hence, then Xiao Che would truly be weeping.

To be so utterly passive from the very beginning — if no newcomer challenged him in the early or middle rounds, then no matter how hard he strove or how outstanding his strength, it would all be for nothing. He could only sit obediently in Mountain-Low No. 1 and do nothing whatsoever.

Consider, by contrast, Meng Zhou, now in the last place, Mountain-Low No. 15. His cave dwelling looked the worst, yet in fact he held an enormous advantage from the outset: he could challenge any newcomer in Qingyun Pavilion, and at the same time could follow his own will and his own rhythm to maximize the points he reaped from this stage.

To take the simplest example: if he had absolute confidence in his own strength, then over the eighteen rounds that followed he could hold still for the first four, during which no one could challenge him — an absolutely safe position.

Across the fourteen rounds after that, starting from Mountain-Low No. 14, he could challenge one place higher each round, all the way to the very last round of the tournament, when he would challenge Mountain-Low No. 1.

In this way, if he won every match, he would reap a steady harvest of points each round, and more and more of them as he went on.

Mountain-Low No. 14 was worth two challenge points, Mountain-Low No. 13 three points, and so on all the way up to the fifteen points of Mountain-Low No. 1 — added together, a full one hundred and nineteen points!

That was the most this stage of the tournament could theoretically yield, setting aside whatever points others might hand him by challenging him of their own accord — far more than the three assessment stages already finished or now under way.

Remember: even Wei Zhao, who had taken divine-grade full marks in both of the first two stages, had only one hundred and five points in all — still a good way short of this stage's theoretical maximum.

And if other newcomers came forward to challenge him and hand him points along the way, the total he could end up with would be higher still!

Of course, that maximum was theoretical only. The gap in strength among the newcomers was, after all, not so very large; apart from a peak early Foundation Establishment expert like Wei Zhao who deliberately concealed his strength, it would be extremely difficult for any other Qingyun Pavilion newcomer to win every single match.

And even for a genuine early Foundation Establishment expert like Meng Zhou, who had already made his breakthrough, the difficulty was still considerable.

Not to mention that Wei Zhao would never go easy on him; in fact, even without Wei Zhao, the others — Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai and the rest — aided by Foundation Establishment Pills, might well break through to early Foundation Establishment within these two months. By then they would all be of the same level, all newly advanced, and essentially on the same starting line; once the fighting began, who beat whom was not easy to say.