Chapter 4189 — One Year's Time
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
As for precisely how to prepare, the advice Di Xingdao gave coincided remarkably with Wei Zhao's own thinking: shutting oneself away in blind seclusion was the most foolish and senseless of choices. To seize the opportunity for breakthrough, there were only two paths.
Either do battle with others, constantly consolidating one's realm through actual combat, or consume natural treasures, using external stimuli to strengthen one's foundation.
Yet for the moment Wei Zhao had neither. His Golden Core elixirs had long since run out, and the days now passed quietly and peacefully. The only sworn enemy whose strength was sufficient—Xu Lingchong—had for some reason kept his troops in check, while everyone around him was simply too weak, leaving him unable to find even a sparring partner.
At present, the only thing Wei Zhao could rely on was the trial combat of the Threefold Pavilion. Though there was little challenge within the Newcomer Pavilion itself, if one looked at the Threefold Pavilion as a whole, it was a place where experts emerged in droves—no small number of them were stronger than Wei Zhao.
In the blink of an eye, the one-year term in the Newcomer Pavilion had arrived. The newcomers of the Threefold Pavilion gathered in the great hall, every one of them anxious and uneasy, awaiting the crucial final examination that would decide their fate. Whether they could smoothly join the Threefold Pavilion now rested on this single day.
The Grand Contest of Newcomers was the most important event of the Newcomer Pavilion. The Threefold Pavilion sent elders to attend and lend their support, while Hu Yunfeng, as Pavilion Master of the Newcomer Pavilion, presided over the contest from the platform.
"It has now been a full year since all of you joined the Newcomer Pavilion. I, as Pavilion Master, wish to congratulate you newcomers here—you finally have the chance to formally join the Threefold Pavilion and become official disciples of the outer sect," Hu Yunfeng said with a smile, opening the proceedings before the assembled crowd.
All the newcomers immediately showed expressions of excitement. A year of hardship had been for this very day. Once they shed their newcomer status and became official outer-sect disciples, both their standing and their treatment would rise by a great margin—this was what they had dreamed of. Yet Hu Yunfeng's very next sentence made certain faces darken abruptly.
"However, regrettably, this opportunity is reserved only for those newcomers who have successfully established their foundation. As for those who could not even manage foundation establishment, I can tell you frankly and directly: you do not even have the chance to take part in the Grand Contest of Newcomers. In the future, mine well and cultivate well in the Spirit Jade Hall, and perhaps one day you may still turn your fortunes around—but unfortunately, today there is certainly no hope for you." Hu Yunfeng's gaze fell upon those newcomers who had not yet established their foundations.
Because of the support from the Middle Island Elixir Hall this year, the cultivation resources provided to the newcomers had been far more abundant than in previous years, and the proportion of newcomers succeeding in foundation establishment had reached fully eighty, even ninety percent. Yet in the end there were always a few hopeless cases who could not be propped up—Zha Wu of the Qingyun Pavilion, for instance.
Hearing Hu Yunfeng's "verdict," Zha Wu's face turned ashen at once. To be banished to mine in the Spirit Jade Hall was the most pitiful of fates. True, there had been cases of dramatic reversals there, but they were exceedingly rare—ordinary people could not count on such a thing at all. Now he truly had not a shred of prospects left.
Zha Wu cast a helpless glance at Qiao Hongcai and the others. He considered himself not much inferior to the former Qiao Hongcai—how was it that their present circumstances were now worlds apart?