Chapter 3769 — Taking It Back

But this was something he had no choice but to say, for since time immemorial there had been no first in letters and no second in arms; the higher-ups of the Three-Tiered Pavilion would only ever set store by the number one newcomer, and any number of second and third places beyond that counted for nothing at all.

If in this newcomer assessment, with such a favorable situation in hand, the top spot were instead snatched by Meng Zhou, it would be a bitter waste of a winning position, and for their little circle the loss would be immense.

To sacrifice the first place that Wei Zhao had all but grasped in his hand, all for the sake of Xiao Che alone, was plainly not worth the cost.

Hearing the long-suffering senior brother say this, Xiao Che bore no grudge at all; instead he nodded again and again and said, "Exactly so. Wei Zhao, as our leader and the pillar we few lean on, you must put the big picture first. Whatever you do, don't wreck your own walls for my sake, or I'll never know peace in this life!"

The only one among them who said nothing was Qiao Hongcai. Xiao Che was his brother too, and with Wei Zhao acting as he was for Xiao Che's sake, he could hardly find the words to say more.

Still, from his expression at that moment it was plain he too did not approve of Wei Zhao's course. It was all well and good for a leader to be loyal to his friends, but to be so loyal as to leap into the pit of his own accord, and in doing so hand an advantage to trash like Meng Zhou—the very thought of such a scene was enough to make one thoroughly sick.

Unexpectedly, Wei Zhao laughed. "You've got it wrong. Even if I do swap cave dwellings with Xiao Che, Meng Zhou has no way whatsoever of overtaking me. Trust me—absolutely."

"Huh?" Xiao Che and the long-suffering senior brother and the others could only stare at one another.

Yet though the lot of them were utterly baffled, the fact was just as Wei Zhao said: even if he moved to Mountain-Low No. 1, Meng Zhou still had no chance of overtaking him—at least, no chance at all in the first four assessment stages already revealed.

First, in the two stages before this, Wei Zhao had already accumulated one hundred and five points. Add the fifteen points corresponding to Mountain-Low No. 1, and that meant even if no newcomer challenged him at all in this challenge stage, he could still hold a lofty one hundred and twenty points.

And with the strength he was concealing—the peak of the early Foundation Establishment stage—any newcomer of Qingyun Pavilion who faced him, Meng Zhou, that fine hand of the early Foundation Establishment stage, included, could only be crushed. That is to say, anyone who came to challenge him would only be handing him points, making his total go up, never down.

Meng Zhou, by contrast, had seventy-two points from the two earlier stages; add the single point corresponding to Mountain-Low No. 15, and his starting total for the challenge stage was seventy-three points.

And even if he followed the point-maximizing rule and challenged his way up from Mountain-Low No. 14 all the way to No. 2, winning every match, he could at most gain one hundred and four points, which with his starting total would make one hundred and seventy-seven.

If he had the sense to choose not to challenge Wei Zhao, then after the challenge stage he would still lead Wei Zhao by fifty-seven points—a fairly considerable margin.

If, on the other hand, his blood ran hot and he challenged Wei Zhao, then not only would he lose fourteen points himself, he would also hand Wei Zhao fourteen points in turn. In and out, the final margin by which he led could only be twenty-nine points.

Given Meng Zhou's hatred for Wei Zhao and all his previous bluster, there was no chance at all he would let such a rare opportunity slip; otherwise, with so many newcomers under him watching, the face of this so-called leader of the newcomers would have nowhere to be put.

Add to that the intelligence Li Zhengming had provided earlier, and Meng Jueming and his lot would not necessarily stop him either, for they too wanted to know just how much strength Wei Zhao truly had now, and among the Qingyun Pavilion newcomers under them, Meng Zhou, the strongest, was the perfect candidate to sound Wei Zhao out.

A margin of twenty-nine points—for Wei Zhao, that could hardly be called large. After all, in the spirit herb trial stage he had chosen all forty spirit herb seeds.

With the innate advantage of the jade pendant space, even setting aside the Heart-Devouring Linglong Grass, that seed he was bound to keep for himself no matter what, of the remaining thirty-nine there was simply no problem in cultivating thirty-five to maturity. Then, even after deducting the forty points paid for taking the forty spirit herb seeds, he could still count on a clear net gain of sixty-five points.

And that was only the pessimistic estimate, already more than enough to overturn a twenty-nine-point margin. In fact, even if Meng Zhou had the good sense to choose to back down and not challenge Wei Zhao directly, his final total over the first four assessment stages would still not be as high as Wei Zhao's!

By then Wei Zhao would have at least one hundred and eighty-five points, while Meng Zhou would have only one hundred and seventy-seven.

Of course, this accounting left out Meng Zhou's spirit herb trial stage—but one must remember that for the Qingyun Pavilion newcomers, whose cave dwellings had wretched spiritual energy, this stage was a thoroughly thankless pit.

Even if Meng Zhou, like the other newcomers, conservatively took only ten spirit herb seeds, he would still have to bring at least four to maturity just to break even; bring five to maturity and he would net a mere four points. For them, lacking a cheating artifact like the jade pendant space, that alone would be a pie fallen from heaven.

As for six—utterly impossible!

So even if Meng Zhou optimistically cultivated six spirit herb seeds to maturity, his final total over the first four assessment stages would be only one hundred and eighty-four points—always one point short of Wei Zhao!

And that was the most optimistic estimate for him, while for Wei Zhao it was the most pessimistic. If some newcomer with more bravado than sense came to hand Wei Zhao points in the challenge tournament, or if more spirit herb seeds were cultivated to maturity, then Wei Zhao's total would climb even higher.

In other words, however one reckoned it, Wei Zhao would always keep Meng Zhou under his thumb, never giving the other the slightest chance to overtake him.

But these calculations were something only Wei Zhao himself could work out clearly; the long-suffering senior brother and the others could rack their brains to pieces and still not see it. After all, they did not know that Wei Zhao actually possessed a jade pendant space—an artifact that could guarantee the survival rate of spirit herb seeds.

Though they could not work it out, seeing Wei Zhao so certain and confident, for the moment they did not know what to say either. Extraordinary people do extraordinary things, and by now the miracles that had happened to Wei Zhao were no longer one or two in number.

Some things they could not understand—but that did not mean Wei Zhao could not accomplish them.

Still, Xiao Che hesitated. "But…"

Before he could finish, Wei Zhao cut him off. "No buts. This cave dwelling was mine to give you in the first place—and now that I want it back, do you have objections or something? Besides, the spirit herb seeds of you few are all in my hands, and I still want a good cave dwelling to cultivate them in. Moving to yours not only gives richer spiritual energy, but in the challenge tournament few people will come to bother me either, so I won't have to worry about the daily true qi supply—how good is that!"RS