Chapter 3781 — The Next Target
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
In the first round of the Azure Cloud Pavilion newcomers' challenge tournament, those first three opening duels were truly a succession of surging waves and bizarre turns.
Counting them up, not one was a proper contest of strength, yet each was deeply layered, and a single misstep could cost a life. The peril in them went without saying.
After that, however, whether it was Wei Zhao's group or Meng Zhou, these few most dazzling newcomers of Azure Cloud Pavilion had all finished their challenges; and owing to the cave-dwelling rankings, no one else was in a position to challenge them either. So there was nothing more in it for them.
As for the remaining newcomers, in both strength and capacity to stir discussion they fell far short of drawing the same attention as those few. They fought a scattered handful of bouts, some won, some lost, but on the whole there was nothing noteworthy—flat and flavorless.
Among these people, Li Zhengming's strength ought to have stood out and pressed down the other newcomers.
Unfortunately, the situation he faced now was as awkward as Wei Zhao's: stuck fast in the Number Two Cave Dwelling at the foot of the mountain, possessed of strength but with no place to use it. There was nothing to be done—he could only stifle himself honestly and wait for other newcomers to come challenge him of their own accord.
As for sending him to challenge Wei Zhao—first, he was secretly one of Wei Zhao's underlings, so that was hardly likely; second, it would be pure suicide, and he wasn't that sick in the head.
In the end, the first round saw seven duels in total. Apart from the clashes between Meng Zhou and Wei Zhao's faction, plus Zha Wu, that overreaching unfortunate, which still offered some spectacle, the rest were a matter of some rejoicing and others lamenting, with no further surprises.
Within a mere hour and a half of the opening, all seven duels were finished, and the first round of the Azure Cloud Pavilion newcomers' challenge tournament thus came to a close.
The newcomers dispersed. Those who needed healing went to heal, those who needed to scheme went to scheme, those who needed to cultivate spirit-herb seeds went to cultivate them—each and every one busily making ready.
After all, with the spirit-herb trial and the newcomers' challenge tournament stacked together, the intensity was self-evident. Apart from freaks of nature like Wei Zhao who played by cheat codes, no one could afford to idle.
"Not bad, not bad—in this first round of the challenge tournament, several junior brothers have all opened with a win. Congratulations!" The long-suffering senior brother looked at Wei Zhao and the others with a face full of gratification.
Not a word of that was false. Counting up Wei Zhao's three: Wei Zhao, one battle one victory, earning four points; Qiao Hongcai, one battle one victory, earning four points; and Xiao Che, though worse off by two points from his loss, had forfeited of his own accord and never let Meng Zhou land so much as a scratch on him. So in a sense, that too was already a victory.
More crucially, leaving aside Wei Zhao, that top newcomer whom no one dared provoke, neither Xiao Che nor Qiao Hongcai had expended any true qi. That meant that for the period to come, they need not waste time recovering true qi and could press straight ahead with their plans to break through to Foundation Establishment. Once they succeeded, the situation against Meng Zhou would be altogether different.
Of the two, Xiao Che already had deep reserves, and now, situated in the Number Fifteen Cave Dwelling at the foot of the mountain, favored by every condition, his prospects for Foundation Establishment were bright indeed.