Chapter 246: Chapter 47: The 5th from the Last

East Saint’s outpost, the only gateway to the outside world.

The original gorges and cliffs have been meticulously flattened by spells.

Forming a vast open area.

Cultivators come and go intermittently.

Today is again the day when Tianmen Cult centrally distributes tasks. Many cultivators, upon receiving instructions, have rushed here.

Most of them are Qi Refining stage cultivators.

Wang Ba, too, has concealed his aura and blends into the crowd.

He had received a message in his Heavenly Gate Order, instructing him to arrive here at a specific time.

Thereafter, a cultivator from ‘Secret Dao’ would allocate manpower to him.

He naturally wouldn’t dare to defy the order.

Immersed in the crowd.

Because he deliberately conceals his aura, the surrounding Qi Refining stage cultivators can’t detect at all that he is a Foundation Establishment competitor.

Therefore, the cultivators carry on their conversations without excluding him.

“…I don’t know who we will be assigned to work under this time. I hope it’s someone powerful.”

One cultivator commented with both anticipation and nervousness.

“I heard that the person from Butcher Dao will also participate. If we could get assigned under him, that would be ideal.”

“You mean Zhu Ziji? He is among the top five in the power ranking, and his battle record is remarkable. However, the places under him are probably already taken up by inner sect cultivators, right?”

A cultivator nearby joined the conversation.

Still, upon hearing this, another cultivator couldn’t help but shake their head and laugh:

“Hehe, my friend, you are wrong. High cultivation base and strong power don’t necessarily mean safety when following him. Keep in mind that Butcher Dao emphasizes survival from near-death experiences. Even Zhu Ziji himself has to face near-death situations, let alone us. Haven’t you noticed that the number of cultivators returning from Zhu Ziji’s team is always pitifully small?”

“Exactly. I also think so. Instead of looking at the power rankings, it is better to look at the ‘survival list’. That list is more relevant to us.”

Another cultivator couldn’t help offering their point of view.

The cultivators shared their opinions on Foundation Establishment Competitors they admired, and those they did not.

At this moment, a voice suddenly spoke up, politely asking:

“Excuse me, do any of you have the rankings? Could you let me take a look?”

Several people immediately turned their eyes to the source of the voice, only to see a cultivator who looked ordinary, but emanated a sense of tranquility, smiling and bowing to everyone.

He added very politely:

“If it requires spirit stones in exchange, I am willing to pay.”

Immediately, one of the cultivators’ interest was piqued and was about to speak.

However, a bold cultivator had already waved his hand:

“It’s just some publicly available information. We are all Heresy Cultivators, there’s no need for spirit stone exchanges.”

Saying so, he took a scroll out of his storage bag and tossed it to the other.

The other party thanked him repeatedly, even asking for his name.

The bold cultivator heard this and laughed heartily: “What would you do with my name… Anyway, my surname is Hua, and my given name is Meng. My fellow cultivator, if you find it hard to fend for yourself, feel free to join us.”

The other party gave a slight smile, thanked him once again, and then rejoined the crowd.

Hua Meng didn’t mind, assuming the cultivator was just shy. He then resumed his casual conversation with the others.

Back in the crowd, Wang Ba opened the scroll and immediately saw two lists full of various names.

One is the power ranking, while the other is the survival list.

Listening to the crowd for a while, Wang Ba roughly understood the origins of these two lists.

The lists were created by the low-level Qi refining cultivators based on the performance of the Master cultivators in recent days, exclusive to their whispers.

It was for survival purposes.

The former roughly recorded the realm of power and battle record of the Foundation Establishment masters.

This allows Qi Refining cultivators to understand who they are following based on the list, and what kind of character they are.

If their master is powerful, they can be slightly relieved and obediently follow orders.

If the master is weak, they better have a backup plan, prepared to retreat at any moment.

However, these low-level cultivators subsequently found that the strength of a cultivator’s power and base had some relevance to their survival, but not much.

Some people were surprisingly strong, but their teams virtually always suffered heavy losses.

Take Butcher Dao’s Zhu Ziji as a vivid example.

He always returned unscathed, but the cultivators following him almost always perished.

Wang Ba took a glance; this Zhu Ziji ranked fifth on the power list, and Bai Yu, who Wang Ba was quite familiar with, was only ninth.

However, Zhu Ziji surprisingly ranked last on the survival list.

Cultivators who followed him had a survival rate of less than ten percent.

In other words, out of every twenty people who followed Zhu Ziji on an outing, no more than two could return safely.

This is also a crucial reason why lower-rank Qi-refining cultivators list the survival leaderboard.

The power list reflects only individual cultivator’s power.

Through the survival list, cultivators can roughly gauge the reliability of a person.

Wang Ba spent a while browsing and noticed his name was not on the survival list, but on the power list.

Due to the lack of any record of him in battle, coupled with his short time since breaking through to the Foundation Establishment, he was listed fifth from last by those compiling the list.

Rank three hundred and eighty-six.

Wang Ba didn’t particularly mind, but was somewhat surprised to find that the Tianmen Cult actually had nearly four hundred Foundation Establishment cultivators.

This number was truly astonishing, even exceeding the number of Foundation Establishment cultivators on the second-floor of the Linglong Ghost Market.