Chapter 4877 — Two Choices

Wei Zhao, however, was studying Wang Dianxing in the crowd, deep in thought. No wonder the man had struck him as familiar—he too was a perfect Nascent Soul. Compared to Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao, though, he was clearly far weaker.

After all, what ordinary people called a perfect Nascent Soul amounted to no more than a sip of Starmist Milk taken while condensing the soul; at best it made a counterfeit perfect Nascent Soul. In all the world, probably only Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao were extravagant enough to bathe in Starmist Milk—and only that produced a true perfect Nascent Soul.

"Well? Anyone else fancy playing the hero?" Wang Dianxing's aura, all on his own, had already overwhelmed every disciple of Chenjiao Academy and Xiangyun Academy.

Seeing what had become of Ren Zhongyuan and hearing the tales of his exploits, the crowd—numerous as it was—had lost all thought of resisting him. A pack of wolves a moment ago, they were now a flock of sheep trembling before a lion.

"Seems there's no one left. Good. Our Lei Dong Academy is, after all, one of the top academies in the Yellow-Rank Alliance—I wouldn't want it to earn a reputation for bullying the weak. With strength like yours, raising a hand against us is just asking to die!" Wang Dianxing swept his gaze over the crowd, cold and contemptuous.

No one dared to argue, because it was the truth. The two sides were roughly equal in number, but with him—the foremost Nascent Soul expert—leading them, Lei Dong Academy was ferocious as wolves and tigers, and Chenjiao and Xiangyun could only suffer being trampled.

"I'll give you two choices now. One: sleep with us. Keep us comfortable, and once we've broken through to the Profound Ascension, we'll naturally hand these tribulation points over to you. If you refuse—well, then there's the second choice. Get out of here right now!" Wang Dianxing said with a cold smile.

As he spoke, his eyes never left Huo Yudie. A veil only lent a tantalizing air of mystery; he was already itching to tear it off with his own hands and feast his eyes on the beauty of one of the Three Fairies.

Setting aside that overbearing tone, Wang Dianxing's words struck Wei Zhao as odd. Even without sleeping with them, couldn't one simply wait patiently nearby until the Lei Dong Academy group had finished their Profound Ascension breakthroughs, then go in? What was the point of such a threat?

Not just Wei Zhao. Everyone around him had the same doubt, and they exchanged bewildered glances.

"Hey, this your first time here? I've been twice already—I know this place inside out. Normally a Profound Ascension breakthrough takes ten days to half a month at most; twenty days is the limit. Once you pass that, you either make it or you don't—waiting longer is pointless," one of the older-looking onlooking disciples said, shaking his head.

"Then what's the problem? If twenty days counts as one round, three months is enough for four rounds. Just wait a bit—why put up with this kind of threat?" the crowd asked, puzzled.

"That's how it normally works, but these spots here are all prime spots—they've drawn tribulation lightning successfully in past years. If they break through, they won't just hand them over. To get one of these spots you'd have to buy it at a sky-high price; otherwise they'll just guard it and let no one in!" the onlooking disciple said with a bitter smile.

"That's going too far!" The crowd was seething with indignation. The Giant's Road trial was meant to produce more Profound Ascension experts, yet these people were doing the exact opposite—profiteering off tribulation points was despicable and shameless.

"But surely not all of them can break through successfully?" someone couldn't help asking.

Breaking through to Profound Ascension was far harder than condensing a Nascent Soul. For Nascent Soul condensation, one could use an Infant Condensation Golden Pill to help smash through the barrier; for Profound Ascension, no such aid existed. The Thunder Mystic Pill was only for preserving one's life beneath the tribulation lightning—everything else depended on oneself, especially the merging of two spiritual root attributes, something that had never been done before. The difficulty was easy to imagine.

According to the figures released by the Yellow-Rank Academy Alliance, the best result in any past Giant's Road trial had barely reached thirty percent.

In other words, even among these academy elites hailed as heaven's favored children, blessed with advantages ordinary people could never dream of, at most three in ten could break through successfully—and that was the historical limit. In a bad year, fewer than one in ten surviving was entirely normal.

If even they fared so, those who could not enter an academy faced far greater difficulty. The Profound Ascension stage was the highest realm of the entire Heavenly Dao realm, a wondrous fantasy they could only gaze at from afar—a height only the rarest genius among geniuses could tread. Everyone else could only dream.

"Exactly. If it were successful Profound Ascension experts guarding the spots, fine—but if it's the ones who failed, they'd be lucky to keep their own lives. How could they stop people waiting outside? To attempt a Profound Ascension breakthrough, you'd have to be at peak condition!" someone else said, equally unconvinced.

"We're all Nascent Soul perfection experts here. One side's exhausted and badly wounded, the other's at peak and bursting with vigor—what's he going to block anyone with? I say it should be the other way around: they should be paying a high price to buy back their own lives!" someone chimed in agreement.

"Hey, none of you have really looked into Lei Dong Academy, have you?" The older-looking onlooking disciple shook his head again and again, curling his lip. "Do you know what Lei Dong Academy's other name is?"

"What?" Everyone looked at him blankly.

"Wolf Academy! As the name suggests, the disciples of Lei Dong Academy are a pack of wolves—arrogant and unreasonable, and worse still, utterly united. Once something falls into their hands, it never comes back out. Same with the tribulation points here: success or failure, they always band together, everyone guarding the spot as one, then selling it to others—highest bidder wins!" The older-looking disciple smiled bitterly; clearly he had been burned by this before.

"That's just filthy! And then they'll have a whole pack of Profound Ascension experts guarding it—what the hell can you do then? If you want a tribulation point, all you can do is deliver yourself to their door and let them fleece you!" The crowd's hearts sank. Many among them had been nursing exactly this hope—otherwise they wouldn't have been lingering here watching the show—but now it seemed there was no way around bleeding heavily for it.

"Right, the Lei Dong Academy lot are just that crooked. Last time I bought an Infant Condensation Golden Pill in Lei Dong City, they ganged up on me—way too damn overbearing!" At that moment, someone seized the chance to shout.