Chapter 3767 — The Peculiar Rules: How to Weigh the Choices So As to Maximize One's Gains Is a Technical Art Demanding Careful Thought; Otherwise, However Great One's Strength, All Effort Comes to Nothing, Yields No Benefit, and One Can Never Laugh Last
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
Admittedly, Mountain-Low No. 1 and its fifteen challenge points were the fattest prize of this stage, and sooner or later some newcomer would be unable to contain himself and challenge him. But the crux was that whether to challenge him, and when to make the challenge — all of that was for his rivals to decide.
If the others worked the rule out thoroughly, recognized the hidden disadvantage that Mountain-Low No. 1 represented, and saved him for the final round two months hence, then Xiao Che would truly be weeping.
To be so utterly passive from the very beginning — if no newcomer challenged him in the early or middle rounds, then no matter how hard he strove or how outstanding his strength, it would all be for nothing. He could only sit obediently in Mountain-Low No. 1 and do nothing whatsoever.
Consider, by contrast, Meng Zhou, now in the last place, Mountain-Low No. 15. His cave dwelling looked the worst, yet in fact he held an enormous advantage from the outset: he could challenge any newcomer in Qingyun Pavilion, and at the same time could follow his own will and his own rhythm to maximize the points he reaped from this stage.
To take the simplest example: if he had absolute confidence in his own strength, then over the eighteen rounds that followed he could hold still for the first four, during which no one could challenge him — an absolutely safe position.
Across the fourteen rounds after that, starting from Mountain-Low No. 14, he could challenge one place higher each round, all the way to the very last round of the tournament, when he would challenge Mountain-Low No. 1.
In this way, if he won every match, he would reap a steady harvest of points each round, and more and more of them as he went on.
Mountain-Low No. 14 was worth two challenge points, Mountain-Low No. 13 three points, and so on all the way up to the fifteen points of Mountain-Low No. 1 — added together, a full one hundred and nineteen points!
That was the most this stage of the tournament could theoretically yield, setting aside whatever points others might hand him by challenging him of their own accord — far more than the three assessment stages already finished or now under way.
Remember: even Wei Zhao, who had taken divine-grade full marks in both of the first two stages, had only one hundred and five points in all — still a good way short of this stage's theoretical maximum.
And if other newcomers came forward to challenge him and hand him points along the way, the total he could end up with would be higher still!
Of course, that maximum was theoretical only. The gap in strength among the newcomers was, after all, not so very large; apart from a peak early Foundation Establishment expert like Wei Zhao who deliberately concealed his strength, it would be extremely difficult for any other Qingyun Pavilion newcomer to win every single match.
And even for a genuine early Foundation Establishment expert like Meng Zhou, who had already made his breakthrough, the difficulty was still considerable.
Not to mention that Wei Zhao would never go easy on him; in fact, even without Wei Zhao, the others — Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai and the rest — aided by Foundation Establishment Pills, might well break through to early Foundation Establishment within these two months. By then they would all be of the same level, all newly advanced, and essentially on the same starting line; once the fighting began, who beat whom was not easy to say.