Chapter 2131 — Champion Once More

But when he saw the power of Wei Zhao's single strike, he regretted it—regretted that he had not listened to Wei Zhao and made Ma Dashen concede!

At last... the flying sand and shattered stone above the platform all settled, and on the platform there stood only one person, one and only one, and that person was Wei Zhao!

Ma Dashen was gone, but from the flecks of blood and scraps of flesh scattered among the sand and stone, it was plain that he had perished!

"My disciple!" Adamantine Diamond roared, about to charge up onto the platform, but reason prevailed in the end. Wei Zhao's strike had blasted Ma Dashen into nothing, not even dregs remaining—if he went up there himself, was he a match for such a man?

And when the time came, he must not, just as Wei Zhao had said, let his temper carry him off to seek death—for then the Golden Bell Sect truly would be wiped out! At that thought, Adamantine Diamond grew calm instead. Against Wei Zhao's methods he could not fight head-on; his only regret was that he had not heeded Wei Zhao's words sooner!

"Sect Master Adamantine Diamond, do not act rashly. On the platform, life and death are decided by Heaven—such is the rule of every Hidden Family Summit through the ages, and no family may take revenge!" Elder Zhao, fearing Adamantine Diamond might charge up in a moment of rage and throw his life away, hastened to remind him.

"I know that..." Adamantine Diamond sighed in despair, as though he had aged many years all at once. He shook his head and dropped heavily into his chair...

His disciple was dead, and there could be no recovering even the body—only a blur of blood and flesh scattered among the flying sand and stone...

"The champion of the single-competitor platform challenge has been decided: the hidden Han family! Next, we proceed to the contest for second and third place!" Elder Zhao announced.

Originally, Wei Zhao and Ma Dashen should have taken first and second place, while Yu Ba and Tang Yuyi would have fought it out for third. But now Ma Dashen was dead, so Yu Ba and Tang Yuyi were left to contend for second and third place...

At first, Yu Ba and Tang Yuyi had been rubbing their palms together, eager to fight for third place—after all, third place and fourth place meant utterly different things!

But now the contest had become one for second and third place, and there was little point in fighting at all. Second and third place carried much the same treatment: each family simply took back its own stake, and as for the stake-exchange spring, that depended entirely on Wei Zhao!

If Wei Zhao wished to exchange, the exchange would be made; if Wei Zhao did not, then no treasure you produced would make the slightest difference!

So Yu Ba and Tang Yuyi went through a token exchange of a few moves on the platform, and then one side conceded according to their respective levels of strength.

"Brother Yu Ba, my strength is no match for yours, and if we fought on I would only lose. I concede in advance!" Tang Yuyi said, cupping his hands in salute.

"I accept your concession!" Yu Ba likewise cupped his hands.

Both sides knew that to fight to the bitter end, battering each other bloody and trading life for life over second and third place, would be sheer foolishness, so Tang Yuyi conceded with perfect dignity.

And Old Master Tang, naturally, had nothing to say about it. Yu Ba's strength had always been a shade above Tang Yuyi's; if they fought to the end, even a lucky victory over Yu Ba would surely come at grievous cost—far better to concede outright!

"The rankings are decided: champion, the hidden Han family; second place, the hidden Yu family; third place, the hidden Tang family. Is there any disciple who wishes to challenge?" Elder Zhao asked.

Originally, those disciples eliminated before the final four had all cherished hopes of picking up scraps—watching to see whether any of the top three had exhausted themselves on the platform, so they might step up and seize an easy advantage. But to their surprise, neither Yu Ba nor Tang Yuyi had been so foolish; they had finished their bout lightly, conserving their strength, with no sign of exhaustion at all. To step up and challenge now would leave essentially no chance of winning!

And as for Wei Zhao—no one wished to die. That formidable Golden Bell Sect disciple Ma Dashen was a warning for all to see! Your Golden Bell Shield is formidable, is it? However formidable, it will still be smashed to flesh and powder and shattered bone!

"Since there are none, I invite the top three families to come claim their stakes!" Elder Zhao cast Wei Zhao a rather complicated glance. This fellow had won again? This Hidden Family Summit had practically become a tournament held expressly for Wei Zhao, a grand assembly for Wei Zhao to show off his brilliance!

Wei Zhao glanced at the stakes of the hidden You family and the hidden Yu family, and could not help but start slightly—for the hidden Tang family's wager this time was an Ultimate Vigor Golden Pill! This kind of vigor golden pill could grant a person a burst of increased strength in the midst of battle; Wei Zhao had seen Yu Dake take one during the anti-strike competition.

Compared with the method the Black Panther had once used to boost his strength, this pill's side effects and harm were far milder. After all, the only aftereffect was a few days without vigor, requiring slow recovery, because the pill instantly drew out the latent potential of the human body.

But after those few days there were no other side effects, so Wei Zhao was rather interested in this pill! He had seen its formula and its medicinal properties and principles in Zhang Liju's notes on the alchemist's craft; the several ingredients were not expensive, but they were very rare!

As for the price, at least for the present Wei Zhao, it posed no problem—the crux was that he had no channel to obtain them! Most of these ingredients were held in the deep storehouses of ancient sects, and Wei Zhao had no means to purchase them yet.

For Wei Zhao, though, the pill's side effects would not be so severe: the excessive drain on his ultimate vigor could be replenished through the jade pendant's space, so for him the pill's flaw amounted to no flaw at all!

What moved Wei Zhao most was that it could instantly raise the latent potential of the body—that is, quicken the circulation of his heart method and drive a person's strength to its limit. Wei Zhao wondered: could this pill shorten the time he needed to compress his true-qi bombs?

The true-qi bomb was formidable indeed, but the compression time was far, far too long! Take today: had he not first faced off against Ma Dashen for so long with neither side moving, and then traded a long war of words with Adamantine Diamond, Wei Zhao would never have had time enough to compress a true-qi bomb!

But apart from fighting someone like Ma Dashen, where would such an opportunity ever arise? Whether it was Right Thirteen, who had abducted Guan Xin, or Feng Erbing, the Earth Rank man in black who had ambushed Xu Shilan, they had all struck the moment they appeared, leaving Wei Zhao no time at all to compress a true-qi bomb.

Even a small true-qi bomb could scarcely be compressed in a spare moment, let alone a top-grade true-qi bomb like this! So it was that being able to shorten the compression time of the true-qi bomb became a matter of the utmost importance!

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