Chapter 4212 — Shangguan Tianxia's Verdict

With the close of the doubles bout, this cycle of the inner-sect tournament was over in its entirety. Tallying the points from both the singles and the doubles, Wei Zhao stood at ninety-nine, the undisputed first place—and the title of Newcomer King that had rested on his head since the Welcome Newcomer Pavilion would from now on be revised: he was the Newcomer King of the inner sect!

As for Huang Xiaotao, she had scored nothing at all in the singles, but the fifty points she had earned in the doubles were enough to carry her straight into the top fifty, where she finished thirty-second.

It is worth noting that although Xu Lingchong had been obliterated in a single blow in the doubles, as the champion of the singles he too held fifty points, and so finished tied for thirty-second with Huang Xiaotao.

As for the likes of Meng Zhou, Yu Jiang, and Nantian Ba, their totals fell far short of these three—yet in the end they all scraped their way onto the roster of the top fifty, though only at the very bottom of the rankings.

The inner-sect tournament had thus settled into dust, but the crowd of Golden Core disciples gathered at the North Island arena did not disperse. On the contrary, their hearts were now wound even tighter, stirred to an even greater pitch.

By the custom of former years, the inner-sect tournament carried a significance beyond the mere division of cultivation resources for the year to come—there was another, weightier purpose: it was the occasion on which the great personages of the Threefold Pavilion chose their disciples!

By now the high personages of the Elders' Council—even the Pavilion Master of the Threefold Pavilion himself—had all appeared one after another. They would weigh each Golden Core disciple's performance in the tournament, gauge their aptitude and potential, and on that basis decide whom to take as disciples.

Among all the Threefold Pavilion high personages present, whether by station or by strength, Shangguan Tianxia indisputably stood first, and so the choosing of disciples must naturally begin with him.

Of course, Shangguan Tianxia had always taken exceedingly few disciples; those who could pass his scrutiny were rare beyond measure. In the ordinary course of things, even across decades or a full century, he might not take a single one. Yet out of courtesy, whether he chose to take a disciple or not, the first word had to come from him.

The whole hall held its breath. Though they all knew they could not possibly be chosen by Shangguan Tianxia, still, as his majestic gaze swept over their heads, their hearts could not help but skip a beat. Alas, their faint hopes were destined to come to nothing.

Slowly sweeping his gaze across the assembly, Shangguan Tianxia at last said only four words: "Wei Zhao. Not bad."

A stir ran through the crowd at once—astonished not only that Shangguan Tianxia had actually spoken to choose someone, but still more astonished that he meant to choose across pavilion lines.

Every high personage belonged to a pavilion of his own, and so in the normal way they could only choose from within their own pavilion; choosing across pavilions was out of the question, for it trod all too easily upon taboo.

Wei Zhao might be a newcomer of the Welcome Newcomer Pavilion, but it was plain for all to see that he had long since belonged to the Azure Cloud Pavilion—while Shangguan Tianxia was the Pavilion Master of the Skyward Pavilion. This was plainly a breach of the rules.

Yet after Shangguan Tianxia spoke, it was the Golden Core disciples below who raised the outcry; the high personages, by contrast, remained seated bolt upright, one and all, not a flicker of surprise on their faces, and not the least inclination to rise and find fault.

With the Skyward Pavilion as powerful as it now was, breaking convention was no wonder at all. Since Shangguan Tianxia had spoken in person, it simply did not matter which pavilion Wei Zhao had originally belonged to.

After all, by Huang Xiaotao's own experience, if the Skyward Pavilion could demote a disciple to the Azure Cloud Pavilion, then naturally it could take disciples from the Azure Cloud Pavilion as well—and with Shangguan Tianxia himself having spoken, all the less would anyone raise an objection.

Below the arena, every gaze fixed on Wei Zhao was blazing with heat and envy—yet Wei Zhao alone remained calm and composed as ever.

Feeling Shangguan Tianxia's gaze upon him from above, Wei Zhao lifted his head and met it for a moment. He said nothing; the corner of his mouth curved very slightly upward. What he was thinking at that moment, no one knew.

And Shangguan Tianxia, at the center of the stands, after those four words, suddenly smiled—and then rose and departed, leaving the whole assembly utterly baffled.

What was that supposed to mean? He says Wei Zhao is not bad, then simply walks off—so does that mean he means to take Wei Zhao as a disciple, or was it just a word of praise?

"Grandfather, are you taking him or not?" Shangguan Lan'er was just as anxious, and hurried after him to ask.

"Little Lan'er, if I took Wei Zhao as a disciple, his seniority would rank above yours, you know? Do you agree to that?" Shangguan Tianxia laughed teasingly as he walked.

"Ah? That..." Shangguan Lan'er was stumped on the spot. She had no wish to see little Wei Zhao promoted a rank above her for no reason at all—that would be awkward on the surface, and could make trouble in certain matters besides.

"Heh heh, and that is precisely why I am certainly not taking him," Shangguan Tianxia said with a smile.

"Then... Grandfather, why did you still call out little junior brother's name?" Shangguan Lan'er asked, baffled.

"That boy Wei Zhao is no creature of the pond. Unless it were a true master of the Way, whoever took him as a disciple would only shackle his growth—the harm would outweigh the good, and it would be better by far to let him develop on his own." Shangguan Tianxia's face turned grave. "I do not wish to shackle him. And the reason I said what I said just now was to keep the others from rashly taking Wei Zhao as a disciple."

With Shangguan Tianxia's level of attainment and discernment, he could read almost anyone's potential and future at a glance—yet Wei Zhao alone he could neither see through nor fathom.

To put it in a common saying, all Shangguan Tianxia knew was that Wei Zhao's future lay among the stars and the vast sea, and that any so-called instruction could in the end only become a shackle upon him.

If one insisted on finding a precedent, the case set before Wei Zhao was Gongyang Jun, who had burst upon the world in his day. Shangguan Tianxia had employed the same strategy with him, and in the end had produced the unfathomable Hall Master of the Law Enforcement Hall of today.

And so, though Wei Zhao had been named publicly by Shangguan Tianxia, and on an occasion as telling as the aftermath of the inner-sect tournament, he could not quite be counted as his disciple—only half of one.

After Shangguan Tianxia left the field, the assembly sat stunned and silent for a moment, then the choosing resumed, proceeding down the line from the Pavilion Master of the Mystic Mechanism Pavilion to the Pavilion Master of the Azure Cloud Pavilion and on through the assembled high personages of the Elders' Council, each in the order of their accepted station and strength.

In the end, the disciples who had shone in this inner-sect tournament were each taken as nominal disciples by the high personages, leaping to the heavens in a single step. Yet it is worth noting that from first to last, all the high personages seemed to have put Huang Xiaotao entirely out of mind—not one of them so much as mentioned her.