Chapter 3720 — The Defense Competition
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
Even taking the most charitable view, suppose one belonged to a small team in which everyone had different specialties and worked together. An exceptionally powerful defense could indeed produce unexpected results at many critical moments. But whenever mortal danger appeared, as the team's defensive expert, would you not have to stand at the very front of everyone else?
Put nicely, such a person was a powerful shield. Put less kindly, he was cannon fodder. Whenever a lethal threat appeared, the defensive expert standing at the front would certainly be the first to die.
Putting oneself in his place, who would willingly become a role that was useless in ordinary times, yet the first choice for cannon fodder when it truly mattered?
Everyone had selfish motives. Thus, during cultivation, the overwhelming majority made the same choice without prior agreement: even knowing full well how important defense was, they devoted most of their effort to offense and movement techniques, and absolutely refused to spend too much time on defense. Even if that left behind a fatal defensive weakness, they were willing to accept the risk.
This was not stupidity, but a helpless choice forced upon them by the realities of their circumstances. If they did not act this way, they might never even reach their present heights, much less have any grand future ahead of them.
Yet although the theory that defense was useless had become a bloody reality acknowledged throughout the cultivation world, that same world also shared another consensus: the truly top-tier experts had always been complete in both offense and defense, and never allowed themselves a weakness in the latter.
If someone possessed only overwhelming offensive power but had achieved little in defense, then even if he managed to make a name for himself for a time, he would never live long. Any ordinary expert of the same level could ambush him and send him to his death.
Experts who excelled in both offense and defense had no such concern. That was why they could live longer, and why their reputations naturally grew greater as well.
The Three-Storied Pavilion had spent every sort of resource cultivating these newcomers. It was not trying to produce false experts who knew only how to attack and not how to defend. What it needed were true experts, complete in offense and defense, capable of becoming pillars of strength.
Therefore, in an important newcomer assessment, an examination related to defensive ability was perfectly natural.
And the method used to test defensive ability this time was simple and brutal. In two words: take a beating.
Every newcomer taking part in the test could freely choose a full-power strike from a given level of strength. As long as he could withstand it and recover from his injuries within the allotted time, he would receive the corresponding number of assessment points.
Just as with the points for the first stage, the test of resisting oppressive force, the points for this stage likewise consisted of two parts.
One was the strength score, determined by the level of strength selected. The late Heaven-stage peak corresponded to five points, the Heaven-stage grand completion to ten, the early Foundation Establishment stage to twenty, and the early Foundation Establishment peak to thirty. There were no levels beyond that.
After all, the strongest among these newcomers were at most early Foundation Establishment experts. Being able to withstand an early Foundation Establishment expert's full-power strike head-on was already exceedingly rare. As for a full-power strike from someone at the early Foundation Establishment peak, even Kang Jingming and the others had a ninety percent chance of being killed instantly.
As for the level above that, they need not even think about it. Even if someone lost his mind and wished to challenge it, the Newcomer Welcoming Pavilion would never agree. That would not be a newcomer assessment. It would be blatant murder.
(.)RU