Chapter 4212 — Shangguan Tianxia's Verdict
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
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.