Chapter 3769 — Taking It Back
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
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