Instead, the placement of the stone statues was so conspicuously contrived that it cheapened the effect.
But the way the Hundred-Knowledge Pavilion had acquired these Dao-Merging Grounds had never been fit to see the light of day.
They had relied on opportunistic tricks, and even certain unsavory methods unknown to outsiders, taking advantage of the struggle between the snipe and the clam before the other cultivators or the Aquatic Race of the Endless Sea could react.
With the timely intelligence they had gathered and a few underhanded tricks employed in secret, they had claimed the Dao-Merging Grounds for themselves.
Thus, they had leaped from an insignificant third-rate faction in the Northern Endless Sea to a true immortal sect with a Tribulation-Crossing Pseudo-Immortal Powerhouse.
It was precisely the enormous gains they had risked everything to seize during that contest for the Dao-Merging Grounds that had given the Hundred-Knowledge Pavilion's cultivators a taste of success.
It had planted a thought in their hearts: To rise from humble beginnings and climb higher in the chaotic Northern Endless Sea, we must dare to gamble and dare to fight.
Once an opportunity appeared, they needed the courage and daring to stake their lives on one desperate gamble.
And so, little by little, a delusion had taken root in the hearts of the Hundred-Knowledge Pavilion's cultivators.
Since they had managed to acquire their first Dao-Merging Grounds, surely they could find a way to acquire a second.
As long as they dared to fight, the Hundred-Knowledge Pavilion would sooner or later leap from a middleman peddling intelligence to a truly powerful immortal sect in the Northern Endless Sea.
It was not impossible for them to surpass and replace the Mountain-Shaking Immortal Sect, currently the nominal foremost immortal sect of the Human Race in the Northern Endless Sea.