Chapter 4299 — Now They Could Not Leave Again
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
Since they had come back, Wei Zhao took Huang Xiaotao along with the current, drifting with the vast tide of humanity on a circuit of the place until at last they arrived at Zhenduan Plaza.
They had been here before. Back then many people had gathered here to form teams and recruit hands; it was here they had met Guo Dengtao and joined Chu Bubai and the others to enter the Lu Feng Forest as a group—which was how all their subsequent gains had come about.
And now the crowd gathered at Zhenduan Plaza was larger than before, not smaller. By Wei Zhao's rough estimate there were at least several thousand, and still cultivators kept pouring in; it seemed only a matter of time before the number reached five digits, and perhaps even more.
Yet despite the great numbers, order on the scene was much better than before. At least no one was shouting themselves hoarse recruiting for teams anymore, nor raising a clamor; even when people discussed matters among themselves they deliberately kept their voices low. All the cultivators sat on the ground of their own accord in neat rows, from time to time craning their necks in anticipation—every one of them seeming to be waiting for something.
Looking ahead, at the front of the crowd—the very center of Zhenduan Plaza—a ring of towering fences had appeared at some unknown hour, splitting the plaza into two worlds: outside the fence was one world, within it another.
Compared with the dense, jostling crowd outside the fence, the space within was much emptier. In it stood a temporary raised platform, upon which a long row of tables and chairs had been set out.
By now quite a few people were already seated on the platform—at least thirty of them—and even so, some seats remained empty. Whether they had been reserved for someone or were simply surplus, one could not tell.
Given the circumstances, those who could sit up on the platform must surely all be from that legendary Morning Star Yellow-Rank Cultivator Academy of the Eastern Continent.
And since they had come all this way to recruit, if appearances did not deceive, those seated up there were most likely personages on the order of the academy's headmaster—perhaps even greater figures still, such as a vice-chancellor of the academy.
Only, Wei Zhao had never even heard of any Morning Star Yellow-Rank Cultivator Academy before; he had only just recently heard people speak of the Eastern Continent at all. So of course he could not possibly recognize a single one of the figures seated on the platform now. But one thing at least he could see: not one of them was a common sort!
He recalled how, when he had first come to Cloud-Rank Island and gone to the back mountain for his first trial of newcomers, he had been so shaken by the mighty aura of the three elders guarding the back-mountain hall that his heart pounded and awe rose in him.
To become an elder of the Threefold Pavilion of the Northern Island, one's strength had to be at least at the Nascent Soul stage, while Wei Zhao at the time had been no more than a capable hand of the early Foundation Establishment—so it was only natural that their aura overawed him.
But times had changed. Wei Zhao was now a golden-core cultivator of the early stage who had achieved a perfect breakthrough; facing an ordinary Nascent Soul expert, he would feel not the slightest awe—indeed, genuine Nascent Soul experts had already died at his and Huang Xiaotao's hands. (To be continued...)