Chapter 3561 — The Welcoming Assembly

"I know, I know. Don't worry, Ninth Cousin—I won't let you down." Meng Zhou chuckled, his face fairly glowing with smugness. And by addressing Meng Jueming as he did, he had used the kinship term current in their own village, flaunting that connection before everyone.

He had been, to begin with, one of the rarest talents among this crowd—a Heaven-Tier expert at the Great Perfection—and now with a backer like Meng Jueming at his side, the days ahead needed no spelling out. Becoming the big brother of all the newcomers present was, quite naturally, a foregone conclusion.

Might made right, and the circumstances bent others to their will. At first the newcomers of Azure Cloud Pavilion had each kept to themselves, but after Meng Jueming's words, those two little circles that had formed earlier—not all of them, perhaps, but the great majority—immediately crowded around Meng Zhou. If they wanted an easier life hereafter, now was plainly the moment to pick a side; otherwise, once someone took to tripping them up in petty ways, their days would be misery.

Of course, ties formed under such circumstances were anything but solid. These people were reeds that bent with every wind, currying favor with Meng Zhou for what they could get—small wonder that Azure Cloud Pavilion was such a mess and its atmosphere so rotten.

And so Wei Zhao and Xiao Che found themselves thoroughly shut out from the company of the newcomers. Standing there beside the Miserable Senior Brother, they had become complete and utter loners.

"Brother Lin, it looks as though our prospects from here on are none too bright," Xiao Che said with a bitter smile.

Humans are herd creatures; wherever one is excluded from the group, the outcome is generally none too good—especially now, when they had only just arrived and their strength was hardly outstanding.

Wei Zhao, however, only shook his head with an easy expression. "No need to worry. Haven't we still got the Miserable Senior Brother? We won't come off too badly."

In the mortal world, Wei Zhao had always been a lone cultivator. Even when he finally stood at the very pinnacle of the cultivation world, it was by his own strength, not by any backer!

Otherwise, had he known his own background from the start, Wei Zhao could have shouted at the sight of injustice: Lin Dongfang is my grandfather, Yang Zhao is my master—and would he not then have been invincible under heaven?

To compete over backers is itself the mark of one's own weakness.

"Hey, Junior Brother Wei Zhao, don't set your hopes on me too high. I may be one of the two stewards, but the real authority lies with Senior Brother Meng. Our Azure Cloud Pavilion trusts him more, and on many matters I have no say at all." The Miserable Senior Brother shook his head with a bitter smile. He too had had a backer once—an elder of Azure Cloud Pavilion—but that backer had gone to East Island on a mission and thereafter vanished without a trace, and so he had become miserable.

Still, so that Wei Zhao and Xiao Che would not worry overmuch, he consoled them: "But rest assured, both of you, Junior Brothers—anything within my authority that I can do for you, I will."

Xiao Che gave a hollow laugh. Even the Miserable Senior Brother himself sounded so utterly lacking in confidence; the days ahead, it seemed, would truly be hard.

Wei Zhao, by contrast, was not much troubled. With a trump card like the jade pendant's space, he had no worries about cultivation; his main task now was to learn his way around, to ferret out news of the Pill God Zhang Lifeng as quickly as possible, and only then decide his next step.

As the several of them spoke, they saw the master of the Welcome Pavilion, Hu Yunfeng, and the vice master, Feng Song, come one after the other onto the raised platform at the center of the great hall, instantly drawing the eyes of every newcomer.

This was plainly the Welcoming Assembly the Miserable Senior Brother had mentioned. By rights, such a key occasion was the perfect chance to establish authority before all the newcomers, and the Welcome Pavilion's one master and two vice masters ought to have appeared together. Yet this third master, the one who had come out of Azure Cloud Pavilion, was still busy with those so-called odd jobs of his—not even managing to snatch a chance to show his face. A pitiable, lamentable figure indeed.

Hu Yunfeng swept his gaze across the hall, and wherever his eyes fell the clamor quieted of itself—even among the central cluster of cultivation second generations. This was no courtesy they offered of their own accord; they were simply cowed by his presence. Once one's strength reached a sufficiently high level, every casual gesture could overawe the hearts of others, and Hu Yunfeng, able to sit as master of the Welcome Pavilion, was plainly no empty name.

"Newcomers all, wherever you come from, whatever your background, since you have come to our Welcome Pavilion, from this day forth you are all reserve disciples of the outer sect—all treated as equals."

"Over the coming year, the Welcome Pavilion will provide you with cultivation resources beyond anything you could have imagined. And there is but one rule for the distribution of those resources: the strong hold them. Ranked matches will be held at regular intervals—the higher your rank, the more resources you receive, and the lower, naturally, the less. Everything must be won by your own strength. To rail at heaven and blame others is the conduct of the weak."

"Within the year, if any of you succeed in establishing your foundation, then congratulations—you may enter the San Diego Pavilion that everyone dreams of, gain better cultivation resources, and advance further in strength and cultivation. But if after a year you have still not established your foundation, then I am sorry: the Welcome Pavilion does not keep idlers, still less does it keep trash. You will be sent to the hardest, most bitter places on the island to perform penal labor, with no cultivation resources given you ever again. And if you cannot break through, you will spend the rest of your life in poverty and toil there—do not imagine you will ever take a single step out."

"Such are the most important rules of the Welcome Pavilion. Have any of you newcomers further doubts?" Hu Yunfeng asked in a loud, clear voice, surveying the crowd below.

"May I ask, Master, when is the first ranked match to be—today?" someone called from below.

Hu Yunfeng stroked his white beard and smiled. "Of course not. The first ranked match is set for this same day next month."

"In that case, how are this month's cultivation resources to be divided? Are all to be treated equally? I fear true fairness will be very hard to achieve!" the man pressed on.

Everyone pricked up their ears at once. The question was a fair one—not all resources, after all, could be handed out like pills, one grain at a time. Many natural resources, such as cultivation caves, simply could not be divided fairly; surely no one meant for everyone to swap caves with one another every day—never mind cultivating, they would be worn out with exhaustion.

"By longstanding rule, the first month's resources are allotted in the order of the three pavilions—the Soaring Heaven Pavilion first, the Mystic Mechanism Pavilion second, and the Azure Cloud Pavilion last. As for how the newcomers within each pavilion divide theirs, that is a matter for each pavilion's own house, to be settled by your two steward senior brothers in consultation. This master will not inquire into it," Hu Yunfeng explained.