Chapter 3733 — Journey to the Market Again
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
However, those whose injuries had not yet healed needed to remain in the main hall of the Welcome Pavilion under supervision. Newcomers like Wei Zhao, who had already been examined face to face by Zhao Hongbo, were not subject to this restriction and could return early to their own caves to carry on with their daily cultivation.
Out of consideration for those newcomers who had been rather seriously injured in this round, the third stage of the newcomer assessment would begin ten days later.
Normally speaking, ten days would be enough for even the most badly injured newcomer to recover more or less completely. And if they still had not recovered after ten days, then such a newcomer clearly had no future to speak of—so what if it affected their performance in the next stage of the assessment?
They were all trash anyway, and trash had never been granted any rights.
For newcomers like Wei Zhao, who had recovered completely on the spot, these ten days were a rare and precious chance to rest and regroup.
According to the assessment rules posted on the notice board, the stages that followed would not be like the first two, which could be wrapped up within a single day. Instead, they would be a long, drawn-out war of attrition, draining not only physical strength but mental energy as well. So if one did not seize this chance to conserve one's strength, unexpected problems were very likely to arise when the time came.
And apart from resting, during these ten days the ambitious newcomers could also make preparations specifically tailored to the upcoming stages. It might be a last-minute cram, but cramming was still better than not cramming at all.
Yet while everyone else was brimming with ambition and preparing for the next round, Wei Zhao paid the matter little mind. He cultivated when it was time to cultivate and mined when it was time to mine, keeping to exactly the same routine as before.
Seeing him so carefree, the others could do nothing but look on with envy—and they no longer dared utter a word of mockery. After all, the fellow had two perfect god-level scores in hand, and his strength, surpassing all others, had been laid bare for all to see. Naturally, he had the wherewithal to take things easy.
If anyone still mocked him the way they had before, that would only prove them a fool.
During these ten days, Wei Zhao also obtained a piece of intelligence from Li Zhengming: Meng Jueming and his crowd intended to use every means at their disposal in the coming stages to sound out the true depths of his strength—especially that defensive martial skill he had concealed so deeply!
A defensive martial skill? When Wei Zhao first received this intelligence, he was struck dumb. It was only after reading Li Zhengming's explanation of how these people had arrived at such a conjecture that he understood, and he did not know whether to laugh or cry.
What had plainly been a flash of inspiration, a spur-of-the-moment stroke, had been taken for the deliberate concealment of a formidable defensive martial skill. The way this affair had unfolded was truly convoluted and bizarre, and even Wei Zhao himself felt a twinge of embarrassment over it.
Still, this was just as well. Now that Meng Jueming and his crowd believed they had reasoned out the cause, they would stop obsessing over how he had managed to withstand an attack at thirteen times the peak power of the early Foundation Establishment stage. At least his true strength would not be exposed—which, all things considered, was a good thing.
As for this so-called defensive martial skill? Since these people enjoyed speculating so much, then let them speculate—the wilder the guess, the better. Perhaps when the time came, they would tie themselves in knots before Wei Zhao even had to lift a finger, saving him no small amount of trouble!