Chapter 3710 — Departing the Stage One After Another
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
One must understand that for cultivators who had reached the level of great consummation of the Heaven Rank, even the most violent exertion or the fiercest heat around them could never produce the fatigue of ordinary mortals—not so long as the true qi within them had not run dry.
And once such fatigue appeared, it meant that their present condition was not far removed from that of a frail ordinary mortal.
Sure enough, after only half an incense stick's time, the first to withdraw appeared—a newcomer from the Azure Cloud Pavilion. A mere half stick had passed, yet by the time he stepped off the platform his legs were trembling and he was soaked through with his own sweat.
He turned his head for one unwilling look back, but in the end could only hang his head in dejection and shuffle with heavy steps over to the rest area at the side.
Failing to last a full incense stick meant his time-limit score for this assessment was zero; being the first to withdraw meant his ranking score was a single point. Add the two together, and his score for the first stage of the assessment came to a pitiful single point.
This was already the lowest score theoretically obtainable. Even had the others wished for a lower one, there was no way to get it.
Yet no matter how unwilling he was, the result of a single point was settled. Both Meng Jueming and that long-suffering senior brother, the two managing senior brothers of the Azure Cloud Pavilion, had already entered it into the record, and afterward it would be handed to Kang Jingming, the newcomer steward, to be announced in unified fashion. There was no possibility of change.
Were he given another chance now, even knowing he would become a shameful laughingstock, he could only grit his teeth and make the same choice. After all, to keep forcing himself to remain inside, overestimating his own strength, would not only win him no further points—it might well cost him his life. That was no joke.
With the first precedent set, a second and then a third quickly followed. By the time Pavilion Master Hu Yunfeng ordered the second incense stick lit, a third of the places on the field already stood empty. In other words, a third of the Tri-Layer Pavilion's newcomers had failed to last even a single stick's time and could only choose to withdraw.
This bore out a line from the notice board: in the six stages of the newcomer assessment, every single point is hard-won.
And to this moment, Wei Zhao remained utterly at ease, feeling no obvious pressure at all. Though thanks to the spiritual oppression a trace of mental fatigue had begun to show, it had not affected the circulation of true qi within his body, which in turn lightened the pressure on Wei Zhao himself, sparing him the vicious cycle of mind and body dragging each other down.
Every newcomer, Wei Zhao included, knew perfectly well that once such a vicious cycle set in, one's elimination was not far off.
When the second incense stick was lit outside the field, many newcomers within plainly breathed a sigh of relief, and before long they began to withdraw one after another.
This torment of twofold oppression was truly more than any ordinary person could endure. To hold out a full incense stick's time and earn the five-point time-limit score was, for them, already a thoroughly satisfying result.
Since they knew full well there was no hope of lasting until the second incense stick burned down, then rather than stubbornly clinging on in hopes of that one ranking point, it was better to withdraw cleanly—at least then they need not risk their lives.
And by the time the third incense stick was lit, all the Tri-Layer Pavilion newcomers remaining on the field together numbered no more than ten.