Chapter 3733 — Journey to the Market Again

However, those whose injuries had not yet healed needed to remain in the main hall of the Welcome Pavilion under supervision. Newcomers like Wei Zhao, who had already been examined face to face by Zhao Hongbo, were not subject to this restriction and could return early to their own caves to carry on with their daily cultivation.

Out of consideration for those newcomers who had been rather seriously injured in this round, the third stage of the newcomer assessment would begin ten days later.

Normally speaking, ten days would be enough for even the most badly injured newcomer to recover more or less completely. And if they still had not recovered after ten days, then such a newcomer clearly had no future to speak of—so what if it affected their performance in the next stage of the assessment?

They were all trash anyway, and trash had never been granted any rights.

For newcomers like Wei Zhao, who had recovered completely on the spot, these ten days were a rare and precious chance to rest and regroup.

According to the assessment rules posted on the notice board, the stages that followed would not be like the first two, which could be wrapped up within a single day. Instead, they would be a long, drawn-out war of attrition, draining not only physical strength but mental energy as well. So if one did not seize this chance to conserve one's strength, unexpected problems were very likely to arise when the time came.

And apart from resting, during these ten days the ambitious newcomers could also make preparations specifically tailored to the upcoming stages. It might be a last-minute cram, but cramming was still better than not cramming at all.

Yet while everyone else was brimming with ambition and preparing for the next round, Wei Zhao paid the matter little mind. He cultivated when it was time to cultivate and mined when it was time to mine, keeping to exactly the same routine as before.

Seeing him so carefree, the others could do nothing but look on with envy—and they no longer dared utter a word of mockery. After all, the fellow had two perfect god-level scores in hand, and his strength, surpassing all others, had been laid bare for all to see. Naturally, he had the wherewithal to take things easy.

If anyone still mocked him the way they had before, that would only prove them a fool.

During these ten days, Wei Zhao also obtained a piece of intelligence from Li Zhengming: Meng Jueming and his crowd intended to use every means at their disposal in the coming stages to sound out the true depths of his strength—especially that defensive martial skill he had concealed so deeply!

A defensive martial skill? When Wei Zhao first received this intelligence, he was struck dumb. It was only after reading Li Zhengming's explanation of how these people had arrived at such a conjecture that he understood, and he did not know whether to laugh or cry.

What had plainly been a flash of inspiration, a spur-of-the-moment stroke, had been taken for the deliberate concealment of a formidable defensive martial skill. The way this affair had unfolded was truly convoluted and bizarre, and even Wei Zhao himself felt a twinge of embarrassment over it.

Still, this was just as well. Now that Meng Jueming and his crowd believed they had reasoned out the cause, they would stop obsessing over how he had managed to withstand an attack at thirteen times the peak power of the early Foundation Establishment stage. At least his true strength would not be exposed—which, all things considered, was a good thing.

As for this so-called defensive martial skill? Since these people enjoyed speculating so much, then let them speculate—the wilder the guess, the better. Perhaps when the time came, they would tie themselves in knots before Wei Zhao even had to lift a finger, saving him no small amount of trouble!

Beyond that, Wei Zhao's daily routine for the days that followed was simply this: by day he went to the Spirit Jade Hall to mine, secretly pocketing two or three pieces of waste jade, and by night he returned to cultivate, consolidating his strength at the peak of the early Foundation Establishment stage.

However, before the next stage of the assessment began, there was still a major event awaiting Wei Zhao: the once-a-month opening day of the inner street had finally arrived!

Ever since he had first laid eyes on the Star Ink Stone at the Hong Clan Merchant Guild, Wei Zhao had thought of nothing else and had been making all manner of preparations for it. After all, that ghostly fellow had once been a figure of no small renown across the entire Cloud Terrace Island; anything even he regarded highly could not possibly be an ordinary item, and Wei Zhao was determined to have it.

Yet whenever he recalled that inner-sect disciple of the Soaring Heaven Pavilion he had encountered at the Hong Clan Merchant Guild—the one who had shown just as much interest in the Star Ink Stone—Wei Zhao could not help feeling a little uneasy.

True, the price tag of one thousand spirit jades was enough to deter the vast majority of people, and because the stone was so unremarkable in appearance, few paid it any attention, and still fewer would spend so many spirit jades on a worthless rock whose use no one even knew. But there were always those in this world who knew value when they saw it—like that inner-sect disciple of the Soaring Heaven Pavilion.

Judging from how he had behaved at the time, that disciple probably did not have a thousand spirit jades on him. And although he came from the Soaring Heaven Pavilion, apart from young masters like Xu Lingchong, whose backgrounds were impossibly deep, a thousand spirit jades was always a colossal sum for the vast majority of inner-sect disciples there—not something easily scraped together.

But if one were truly determined, truly set on obtaining it, then a thousand spirit jades might not be entirely out of reach. At least, Wei Zhao had heard from his long-suffering senior brother rumors that some inner-sect disciples of the Triple Stack Pavilion were privately running usurious loans.

Through such channels, the price would be enormous—catastrophic, even—but gathering a thousand spirit jades would hardly be difficult!

Wei Zhao did not know whether that Soaring Heaven Pavilion inner-sect disciple was as determined as he was, nor how far that man would go for the Star Ink Stone, but at this very moment he already felt an inexplicable pressure.

If that man had truly gritted his teeth and borrowed a thousand spirit jades, and if he had the right to come and go freely in the inner street rather than having to wait for opening day like Wei Zhao, then the Star Ink Stone would truly slip through his fingers!

What was more, a full month had now passed. Apart from that man, might other discerning competitors have appeared? Perhaps that Star Ink Stone had long since fallen into someone else's hands?

For a moment, Wei Zhao found himself fretting over gains and losses. But he quickly caught himself and said with a chuckle, "If I get it, it is my fortune; if I lose it, it is my fate. Whether or not I can win it, so long as I do my utmost, there will be nothing to regret."

Having calculated the date, Wei Zhao set out before dawn on the very day the inner street opened, donning the Thousand-Silk Mask and traveling under the stars and moon.

He intended to be the first through the gates when the inner street opened, to snatch the Star Ink Stone from the Hong Clan Merchant Guild before anyone else. And if he arrived only to find it gone, already bought up by someone else, then that would simply be fate—he was not the one destined for that Star Ink Stone.

By the time he reached the marketplace, the sky was only faintly light. The inner street, however, was stipulated to open at the hour of Mao proper—six o'clock sharp in the mortal world—and judging by the look of things it was not yet five, far from the opening hour. (To be continued...)

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