Chapter 3753 — The Gap Is Obvious

But to accomplish all that, the most pressing task was to heal his injuries first; only after he had gotten to the bottom of that thing's true nature would it be convenient to act.

At this thought, Yu Jiang's staggering steps suddenly paused, and a venomous, vicious look flashed through his eyes: But before that, he could stir others into doing some work on his behalf—at the very least, he could try to have that thing's origins investigated first, and his own cheap master happened to be the perfect candidate!

Leaving aside how Yu Jiang, seething with hatred, was scheming to seek revenge on Wei Zhao, once Wei Zhao had obtained the Star Ink Stone, he quickly settled back into the normal rhythm of the Newcomer Pavilion's new recruits.

By day he still went to the Spirit Jade Hall to mine, punctual as ever; by night he still sat in meditation cultivating in his own cave dwelling, occasionally trading insights with the miserable senior brother and the others, chatting and shooting the breeze, swapping news of the latest happenings on Cloud Terrace Island.

Beyond that, Wei Zhao paid no further attention to Yu Jiang's affairs—after all, when it came down to it, the one who had a grudge with Yu Jiang was Lin Er, not Wei Zhao.

Recently, apart from his daily cultivation to steady his strength and cultivation realm, the only major matter requiring his attention was the next stage of the Newcomer Pavilion's newcomer assessment. Wei Zhao had no occasion to use the identity of Lin Er, so naturally he need not worry about it.

After all, so long as Lin Er did not appear, then even if Yu Jiang mustered a thousand or eight hundred top-tier experts to seek vengeance, it would be useless—because no matter how many people he gathered, they could never find this Lin Er who did not exist. And if Lin Er could not be found, then the so-called revenge naturally had nowhere to begin.

After several days of calm, the third stage of the newcomer assessment was finally about to begin. By this time, the recruits who had been injured in the earlier endurance test had all basically recovered, and everyone's point totals were duly posted on the public ranking board.

Here in the Azure Cloud Pavilion, Wei Zhao, with his commanding performance of two consecutive god-tier perfect scores and a total of one hundred and five points across the first two stages, held the top spot firmly, his lead so vast that no one could shake it.

Second place went to Meng Zhou with seventy-two points, a full thirty-three points behind Wei Zhao.

Any discerning eye could already see that so long as Wei Zhao performed normally in the later stages and made no fatal mistakes, even if he failed to repeat those god-tier perfect scores, he had already all but locked up first place in the Azure Cloud Pavilion—he was truly the pavilion's number one seed.

After Meng Zhou, third place was Xiao Che with forty-three points, fourth was Qiao Hongcai with forty-two, and Li Zhengming ranked fifth with a total of forty-one points.

The Azure Cloud Pavilion recruits ranked below them were worlds apart from these top five, their scores all under thirty, while the very last laggard scraped by with a pitiful eleven points.

Though only two stages of the newcomer assessment had been completed, the gaps among the recruits had already clearly begun to show.

Even if in the later stages some recruits' scores and rankings inevitably fluctuated because they happened to be good or bad at those particular tests, on the whole the recruits at the back could hardly pose any threat to those at the front.

Even setting aside Wei Zhao, that freak of nature, and Meng Zhou, whom Meng Jueming was pushing so hard, just the trio of Xiao Che, Qiao Hongcai, and Li Zhengming had each opened up a lead of more than twelve points over the rest.

A twelve-point gap might not look too outrageous, but one had to remember these people were not freaks like Wei Zhao who could casually pull off god-tier perfect scores. Even if they occasionally outscored those three in a given stage, their overall strength was there for all to see—they would be doing well to keep the gap from widening further.

A late surge was simply unrealistic for them; otherwise they would not have ended up with such a pitiful handful of points after two stages.

Looking at the rankings on the public board, Meng Jueming's eye twitched violently.

He was, after all, the most powerful managing senior brother in the eyes of every Azure Cloud Pavilion recruit—a man destined one day to vie for the seat of Third Pavilion Master, not someone a marginal figure like the miserable senior brother could even be mentioned in the same breath as.

And so it was in truth: apart from those three blind, foolish creatures around Wei Zhao, every other recruit had already thrown in their lot with him, his momentum so great that the miserable senior brother could not hope to contend with him.

Yet now this awkward set of rankings left even Meng Jueming, thick-skinned as he had always been, flushed red and burning with shame.

He had a full twelve Azure Cloud Pavilion recruits under his banner, yet among the top five of the leading pack, he occupied only two spots—Meng Zhou in second and Li Zhengming in fifth.

Meanwhile, the miserable senior brother, alone and outnumbered, had all three of his men on the board—and among them, Wei Zhao, the thorn in their side whom they had targeted with every scheme imaginable, had even taken first place beyond any dispute, a position no one could shake.

A contrast so stark was enough to make a man's balls ache with embarrassment!

And this was without Meng Jueming knowing about Li Zhengming. Had he known that Li Zhengming had already defected to Wei Zhao's side as a mole, he would have been furious enough to spit a mouthful of old blood. The great managing senior brother of the Azure Cloud Pavilion recruits, with only one of his men in the top five—how in the hell was he supposed to show his face?

Meng Jueming even had the subconscious feeling that these past few days his recruits had been looking at him strangely. If this went on, once these recruits gradually came to believe he could bring them no benefits—that he could not even measure up to that miserable wretch on the other side—then there would be real trouble.

And once he lost his authority in the eyes of these recruits, then even if Meng Jueming got the seat of Third Pavilion Master he wanted, he would be nothing but a commander without troops, his situation likely little better than that of Lu Bianren, who was about to be kicked to the curb.

No—he had to think of something at once to nip this in the bud!

Previously, consumed with scheming how to do away with Wei Zhao, Meng Jueming had scarcely given this matter any thought. But now that he had sensed this potential, enormous crisis, he naturally had to find a way to resolve it.

Since two successive plans to kill Wei Zhao had fallen through—and especially in the endurance test stage, where he had racked his brains to devise such a flawless, deadly trap, only for Wei Zhao to walk away completely unscathed—both Xu Lingchong, the young master Xu, and Meng Jueming himself had, for the time being, set aside any thought of moving against Wei Zhao until they had a clear picture of his true depths.

But just because he would not move against Wei Zhao did not mean he would likewise refrain from moving against the underlings at Wei Zhao's side!