Chapter 3730 — He Gave It His All

To score an unbelievable, god-tier perfect mark in two consecutive rounds and still fail to grasp just how formidable Wei Zhao was—one could only say these people must have had their brains kicked in by a mule.

"Junior Brother Lin, you really are something! That palm just now—there's no way I could have taken it!" The Bitter Senior Brother's face rarely wore such a buoyant, excited expression.

He had seen the peril of that palm strike clear as day. If it had been him, he reckoned he could never have survived it, much less come through as easily as Wei Zhao had, bearing only a few trifling light wounds.

What he did not know was that Wei Zhao's injury from that blow was not as light as it appeared. Though he had the foundation of a peak early Foundation Establishment cultivator, and had even improvised on the spot a trick for using true qi in an offensive defense, the killing power of that palm had been comparable to a thirteen-tenths strike at the peak of early Foundation Establishment—a force not to be underestimated even by Wei Zhao.

Still, thanks to the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art and the jade pendant's space, even a fairly serious injury could be healed quickly and effortlessly, which was how he managed to remain so composed and thereby blind the eyes of everyone present.

And not only the Bitter Senior Brother—Xiao Che, his wounds already healed, was now gazing at Wei Zhao with burning eyes, giving him an excited thumbs-up, admiration written all over his face.

One had to know this fellow was a steady, reserved sort who had never been good at expressing his feelings, much less losing his composure. But today's spectacle had truly opened his eyes to what Wei Zhao was capable of!

Wei Zhao's being the first to succeed at Foundation Establishment could be put down to exceptional talent, but that alone did not prove he was truly formidable. Yet as a newcomer from the mortal world who had been at the Welcoming Pavilion for barely a month, to withstand a full-power strike at the peak of early Foundation Establishment with such serene ease—now that was genuinely formidable to the extreme!

Not so far as to say unprecedented and unrepeatable, but to call him a walking display of overwhelming dominance would be no exaggeration at all.

Previously Xiao Che had thought only that this leader of his, Wei Zhao, was decent and upright in character and superb in strength, but from today onward a new label had to be added: peerlessly domineering.

Steady as Xiao Che had been since childhood, even he felt his blood run hot now. Following a leader as domineering and forceful as Wei Zhao, the future was surely boundless!

And if that was how Xiao Che felt, then Li Zhengming—Wei Zhao's planted follower—was all the more shocked. After all, unlike Xiao Che, he had not only been born on Yun Terrace Island but came from Qiushui Manor, with a family background a cut above the rest; the world he had seen since childhood far surpassed anything a mortal-world newcomer like Xiao Che could compare to.

Yet even so, Wei Zhao's performance today had nearly made him bite off his own tongue, and he had even felt a surge of reverent awe rise involuntarily from the bottom of his heart.

Li Zhengming could not help murmuring under his breath: no wonder Leader Wei Zhao, knowing full well the other side had rigged the game, still dared to calmly accept the challenge of a peak early Foundation Establishment cultivator. It seemed his eye for talent was truly not bad—he had latched onto something extraordinary!

"Hee hee. This young lady was right after all—little Junior Brother Wei Zhao really does hide his depths!" Shangguan Lan'er, unable to openly show how thrilled she was, could only whisper excitedly to the little Curly Bear in her arms.

"Woo woo woo woo!" Thelittle Curly Bear wrinkled its nose smugly—as if that needed saying!

"Hmph. And I wonder who it was just now, shrieking and fussing in a panic!" Shangguan Lan'er shot it a look, torn between laughter and exasperation.

Wei Zhao was the last of Azure Cloud Pavilion's newcomers to take the assessment, so with his finish, all of Azure Cloud Pavilion's newcomers had completed their trials. All that remained was to wait for the newcomers to finish healing before the final points for the second round could be tallied.

After Azure Cloud Pavilion came Mystic Mechanism Pavilion, and only then Soaring Heaven Pavilion.

With the performance of Azure Cloud Pavilion's newcomers as a reference, the newcomers of both Mystic Mechanism Pavilion and Soaring Heaven Pavilion clearly made more sensible, reliable choices, and since their strength was already above that of Azure Cloud Pavilion's newcomers to begin with, their overall showing was naturally a cut above.

Worth noting, however, was that apart from Meng Zhou and Wei Zhao, no newcomer from the other two pavilions dared challenge the peak early Foundation Establishment difficulty; even Kang Jingming and Zhong Yongliang, those two capable early Foundation Establishment hands, dutifully chose the early Foundation Establishment challenge without any thought of punching above their level.

After all, they were neither monstrously strong like Wei Zhao nor in possession of a fourth-grade Great Return Pill like Meng Zhou. If they challenged the peak early Foundation Establishment tier, even with the examiner deliberately going easy on them, there was still a strong chance of being killed in a single blow—better to play it safe.

In any case, the points for the Three-Tiered Pavilion assessment were calculated separately, so no matter how many god-tier perfect marks Wei Zhao racked up, it had nothing to do with them at all!

Meanwhile, as the newcomers of Mystic Mechanism Pavilion and Soaring Heaven Pavilion underwent their assessments, that examiner in charge of the peak early Foundation Establishment tier was dragged off to a corner by Xu Lingchong and Meng Jueming. They wanted to know how Wei Zhao could possibly have survived in what should have been a certain-death situation—and survived so effortlessly at that!

"Ma Jian, what exactly went wrong just now? Did you even go all out against Wei Zhao? Or did you secretly go easy on him, holding back three-tenths of your strength like you did with Meng Zhou earlier?" Xu Lingchong demanded, his face dark with displeasure.

What had happened today was truly beyond his comprehension, and after turning it over and over in his mind, the only explanation he could settle on was this fine enforcer of the Law Enforcement Hall named Ma Jian. Apart from the man secretly going easy on Wei Zhao, no reason whatsoever could explain how Wei Zhao had passed so calmly!

In truth, even if Ma Jian really had secretly held back three-tenths of his strength for Wei Zhao, Wei Zhao's passing so calmly would still have been impossible.

Think about it: Meng Zhou, nominally on the same level as Wei Zhao, had taken a fourth-grade Great Return Pill—a heaven-defying elixir—in advance, and after receiving a palm at seventy percent of the peak early Foundation Establishment power, he was still half-dead to this day!

Still, incomprehensible as it was, compared to the absurd notion that Wei Zhao could easily withstand thirteen-tenths of the peak early Foundation Establishment power, this explanation was clearly the more convincing.

"Young Master Xu, you wrong me! I truly went all out just now—I didn't hold back a shred of strength!" Ma Jian's face went pale at Xu Lingchong's suspicion, and he hurriedly protested his innocence.

Everything he had today was entirely thanks to Xu Lingchong speaking well of him before Xu Yuanzheng. If he were to fall under Xu Lingchong's suspicion from now on, he would not only lose a great patron but might even make an enemy of him—and then he wouldn't even know how he died. (To be continued...)

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