Chapter 4630 — Distributing Pills

"I appreciate Senior Brother Jia's kindness, but I hear that Xiao Che owes his seat as the second senior brother of the outer sect stewards to your efforts as well. You truly do exert yourself on behalf of the likes of us, and I am deeply grateful." Wei Zhao thanked him in earnest, then shook his head. "Still, as for making me second senior brother of the inner sect stewards—best we let that matter drop. Senior Brother Jia, you ought to know I am not fond of such things. To be tangled up in mundane affairs is far too much trouble."

As for his plans for the future, Wei Zhao had an exceedingly clear goal, and his vision had never been confined to the Azure Cloud Pavilion. The post of second senior brother of the inner sect stewards might look fine on the surface, but it would certainly come with all manner of trivialities that would inevitably drain much of his energy. Better to spend that time cultivating properly!

"Heh, that I understand. But this matter actually comes at Pavilion Master Yu's behest, and it is awkward for me to refuse him outright—otherwise it would look as though there were some friction between you and me, Junior Brother Lin." Jia Mufan smiled bitterly.

"So that is how it stands. Even so, I truly have no such intention." Wei Zhao paused, then offered instead, "From what I know, Senior Brother Lu Bianren may be somewhat lacking in strength, but he is a veteran of our Azure Cloud Pavilion with deep seniority, and he has served in various important posts before. I hear he is on the verge of a breakthrough soon—why not consider him?"

"That is... ≮≡" Jia Mufan hesitated at once. Lu Bianren's seniority was indeed not bad, but at his present strength, to take the post of second senior brother of the inner sect stewards clearly did not meet the requirement.

Any inner sect disciple at all was a Golden Core cultivator; to serve as second senior brother of the inner sect stewards, in theory one needed at minimum the strength of the late Golden Core stage to command respect. Yet Lu Bianren was only at the middle Golden Core stage—and even if he broke through soon, that would be the peak of the middle stage at best, still a good distance from that minimum threshold.

With Wei Zhao's present strength and standing, if the post of second senior brother of the inner sect stewards fell into his hands, absolutely no one would dare utter half a word against it. But put Lu Bianren in it instead, and the entire Azure Cloud Pavilion elders' council might well erupt, to say nothing of the ambitious, restless disciples below.

Still, since this was Wei Zhao's wish, Jia Mufan could hardly refuse him outright, and so he said, "Very well, then I shall report this matter to Pavilion Master Yu and place Lu Bianren on the list of key candidates for cultivation; the post of second senior brother of the inner sect stewards may be held for him. But before that, you will have to serve in it as a transitional figure, Junior Brother Lin—only if you step down from the post and then recommend Lu Bianren will the many voices be silenced, so that Junior Brother Lu does not meet with too much resistance."

"Agreed!" Wei Zhao thought it over and consented, knowing this was somewhat forcing matters. Even if Lu Bianren were named a candidate, if he himself did not first take hold of the post and instead let others snatch it away, those others would hardly hand over a position once won. Then who knew how many years Lu Bianren would have to wait.

Only then did Jia Mufan breathe easy. If Wei Zhao set his heart on not taking the post of second senior brother of the inner sect stewards, then failing to carry out the orders of Yu Zhenyang and the Azure Cloud Pavilion elders' council would be secondary; the key was that he himself would be left living in dread. What if Wei Zhao disdained the second senior brother's post because he had his eye on his own post as first senior brother of the inner sect stewards?

Jia Mufan feared no one else, but face to face with a top-tier genius like Wei Zhao, who had come out of nowhere, he truly had not the slightest confidence. This was the next Gongyang Jun; no matter how highly Jia Mufan thought of himself, he could not stand in the way of such a man's advance!

"So you dislike being tangled in trivialities, Junior Brother Lin. That need not worry you—all the miscellaneous affairs can be left to me. As for you, Junior Brother Lin, you will be as you were before, and as you will be hereafter. That should settle it, no?" Jia Mufan said with a smile.

"Then I shall trouble Senior Brother Jia," Wei Zhao said with a nod.

"Haha, there is no trouble about it. I am a restless sort by nature, and I served a long spell as second senior brother of the inner sect stewards before; these matters are all too familiar to me." Jia Mufan smiled, then said frankly, "In truth, having you willing to let the post go is a stroke of fortune for me. You should know that one great reason this post of second senior brother of the inner sect stewards was established was to check me, the first senior brother. To have had a headstrong fellow like Ma Dangfeng sitting in it before gave me no end of headaches."

Wei Zhao smiled at that as well. A man like Ma Dangfeng, self-regarding and looking down on all beneath him, likely did not even take Jia Mufan into his eyes. To have such a creature under one's command working against one in all things—and a much-watched top newcomer king at that—no one in Jia Mufan's position would find it easy.

Still, Wei Zhao could also see that Jia Mufan was a man rather fond of power, while he himself cared nothing for it—two extremes, as it were. He would not, however, let that breed any ill feeling toward Jia Mufan.

Jia Mufan, in fact, knew well how to handle people, and working with him was no bad thing for Wei Zhao; it was, quite simply, a pleasant cooperation.

With the real business concluded, Jia Mufan chatted a while longer, then rose to take his leave. Wei Zhao saw him courteously to the door, and afterward began his closed-door cultivation.

This time the seclusion was not for cultivation but purely for refining pills. Not only did the Celestial Pill Pavilion on Central Island urgently need pills to replenish its stores—those around Wei Zhao had need of them as well. Lu Bianren, for instance, was indeed on the verge of breaking through, but without Golden Core Pills to aid him, who could say how long he would remain stuck at his bottleneck?

Drawing on his past experience, refining Golden Core Pills and other elixirs—even Nascent Formation Golden Pills—was now routine for Wei Zhao. In five days, the various pills that finally came out of the furnace numbered in the triple digits, and top-grade quality accounted for more than eighty percent. One could not help sighing that the Divine Farmer's Cauldron was truly a wondrous artifact for pill refining.

Once out of seclusion, Wei Zhao at once gathered Lu Bianren and the others together, and before them all handed a portion of the pills to Lu Bianren for safekeeping—after all, among them he was the strongest and had always conducted himself most prudently.

Wei Zhao decided to have Lu Bianren distribute these pills in due course according to each person's needs. Had they been parceled out directly into individual hands, a hothead like Qiao Hongcai might well have swallowed his down the moment he turned around...

Wei Zhao had his reasons for doing it this way—lessons learned, in fact. These past two years, because he had vanished without word on South Island, everyone had been left to rely solely on themselves. Their strength had risen far faster than ordinary cultivators', to be sure, but in the end they had lacked the aid of pills! (To be continued..) R752