Chapter 4318 — Between a Rock and a Hard Place
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
At this, the crowd exchanged uneasy glances. Quitting halfway was no great crime—at worst, it meant forfeiting one's place, and any penalty would surely be a mere formality. None of them had imagined the academy staff would come down so brutally hard.
"Hmph! A mere ant at the peak of the late Foundation Establishment stage dares to sneak in and pass himself off as a candidate? This is but a small warning. Since you mean to enter, you had best think it through beforehand. If anyone else dares to disrupt the order of this selection and waste everyone's time, this old man will not be so lenient next time!" the academy staff member said coldly to the assembly. Such an obvious warning to the rest by making an example of one made everyone involuntarily shrink back.
Only then did the crowd understand. No wonder the man had suddenly faltered at the last moment—he was merely a cultivator at the great consummation of the Foundation Establishment stage. To dare come and pad the ranks at an occasion like this—who knew how that creature's brain was wired? He had only himself to blame for being crippled.
At that moment, however, amid the crowd, Wei Zhao watched the scene unfold and felt a chill creep into his heart. He lowered his head to look at the test token in his hand, and cold sweat broke out at once.
Judging by the look of things, was it possible that even quitting halfway was not permitted? Unlike that great-consummation cultivator, Wei Zhao met every selection requirement, but he had no intention of taking part in the selection at all. Was he not about to follow in that man's footsteps?
Had he never received this test token, there would have been no problem. But the trouble was that, because he had not been paying much attention earlier, both he and Huang Xiaotao now had test tokens in hand!
"Brother Ge, does taking a test token at the start mean you can no longer withdraw from the selection? Not even to forfeit voluntarily?" Wei Zhao drew a deep breath and asked Ge Wei, who stood nearby enjoying the spectacle. This man was the king of information—he ought to know every trick and byway of such matters clearly.
"Of course not! Once you have gone and taken a test token, you must step onto the stage and take part in the selection!" Ge Wei answered with a look of perfect matter-of-factness. "Think about it, brother—there are nearly ten thousand people present. Arranging a selection for so many, how much work is that? If you had no such intention, why go and take a test token in the first place? Wouldn't that just be making trouble for others for nothing?"
"Uh, put that way, I suppose it makes sense..." Wei Zhao could not help but grimace speechlessly, secretly regretting how careless he had been.
Had he known earlier, he should have handed the tokens back when the academy staff member tossed them to the two of them. Now it was too late—what had been a trifling test token had become a hot potato.
"Some people, well, they bring it on themselves. Who knows whether they've been kicked in the head by a donkey or have water sloshing around in their skulls, daring to come muddy the waters even over something like this. Do they ever stop to think whether there's any chance of success? In the end they can only end up like that creature—realizing at the last moment that they're incurably stupid, too late to take it back, and all you can say to them is two words: serves you right!" Ge Wei, without so much as glancing at Wei Zhao's expression, prattled on and on.
"Then what if that man just now hadn't backed out halfway and had forced himself to take part in the selection? What if, once on stage, he was found to be only at the great consummation of Foundation Establishment—what then? Would it still be like just now, making an example of him and beating him into a cripple?" Wei Zhao pressed on.