Chapter 4302 — Blood Aflame
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
If it was the latter, then anyone seated beside her—a top-tier expert of the Initiator Stage—must without question be a figure of tremendous consequence. Perhaps another Initiator Stage expert was about to emerge.
"So they really are all masters. This outing has broadened my horizons considerably." Wei Zhao suddenly smiled. It was an unexpected turn of events, but the sight of so many top-tier experts gathered in one place set the blood in his veins boiling with instinctive excitement.
"Mm, yes." Huang Xiaotao nodded. Given the circles she had moved in before, Mystic Ascension Stage experts were out of the question—apart from the elders of the Triple Stack Pavilion, she had rarely even glimpsed Nascent Soul Stage experts, let alone Initiator Stage experts who stood above the Mystic Ascension Stage. Before this, she could never have imagined that the world was so vast, or that Cloud Terrace Island was so immense and sprawling.
There is a saying that a person's stage is as large as their heart—but what determines all of that is their experience and breadth of vision.
If one were nothing but a frog at the bottom of a well, never knowing how vast the world was or how mighty its experts were, then no matter how great one's talent, how fine one's potential, or how diligently one cultivated, one could never stand at the peak of the powerful. If you do not even know where the summit lies, how could you ever reach it?
In this respect alone, the experience gained on this trip to Zhenduan City was of importance to Wei Zhao and his companion that might even rival the rich haul from the Rufeng Forest—at the very least, this was the first time they had witnessed what the top-tier experts at the apex of Cloud Terrace Island truly looked like.
Just as Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao's hearts surged with emotion, the academy head on the raised platform—Ling Yuanqing, the object of so much attention—suddenly cleared his throat and spoke.
"Very well. The hour for registration has arrived. Seal the plaza; no one may enter or leave." Without any amplification device, Ling Yuanqing appeared to speak as casually as anyone else, yet his voice came rolling in from every direction, clearly and distinctly, into the ears of nearly ten thousand cultivators present.
The moment Ling Yuanqing's words fell, a group of experts clad in uniform silver martial robes swiftly spread out in all directions, encircling the entire Zhenduan Plaza. An aura of solemn, austere authority instantly descended upon the plaza, leaving everyone afraid to make the slightest move.
Everyone present fell cautiously silent. No one dared resume the murmuring and chatter of moments before, for fear of bringing disaster upon themselves. Yet looking at the experts stationed around them, all felt a surge of astonishment they could not suppress—even Wei Zhao's eyelids twitched violently.
These cultivators performing guard duty were all Nascent Soul Stage experts!
Looking across the whole of Cloud Terrace Island, Foundation Establishment was the starting line, and Golden Core already meant one had entered the halls of the proficient. As for the Nascent Soul Stage—even the weakest Nascent Soul cultivator was no common, run-of-the-mill commodity. Wherever they went, they were a force to be reckoned with, at the very least qualified to serve as an elder of some faction.
Experts of the Nascent Soul caliber were usually the ones being fawned over—who would ever think to use them as guards? Never mind whether they themselves would be willing; in fact, there was simply no precedent for such a thing. At least in all the time Wei Zhao had spent on Cloud Terrace Island, and on his one trip to the Central Island, he had never seen such an outrageous display.
A full hundred or more Nascent Soul Stage experts, moving in unison and garrisoned on all sides of the plaza—such an astonishing spectacle genuinely overawed everyone present.