Chapter 3731 — Hidden Depths?

"Absolutely true!" Ma Jian nodded emphatically and said hurriedly, "If I hadn't struck with such force, there's no way I would have been caught off guard and rebounded by Wei Zhao's true qi!"

"What? Rebound of true qi? That brat Wei Zhao has that kind of ability?" Xu Lingchong was instantly astonished, and he and Meng Jueming exchanged looks.

Both of them were shrewd old hands. From Ma Jian's expression at that moment, they could basically tell that the fellow was probably not lying, and vaguely felt as though they had seized upon the crucial point.

"Rebound of true qi? Brother Liu, do you mean to say that this brat Wei Zhao has actually cultivated some kind of defensive martial skill?" Meng Jueming asked at once.

"That must be it, otherwise there's simply no explaining why the true qi inside the boy's body was able to rebound onto me. It's just that I have no idea what defensive martial skill it could be," Ma Jian nodded.

Ever since he had finished administering Wei Zhao's assessment, he had been mulling over this question. After turning it over and over in his mind, he could only ultimately attribute it to a defensive martial skill—otherwise there was no explaining it at all.

After all, setting aside those who had specifically cultivated defensive martial skills, an ordinary cultivator could at most mobilize his true qi to withstand part of the damage, and the only difference lay in how much damage could be withstood. As for someone like Wei Zhao, who took the opportunity to use his true qi to rebound the attack, that was simply unheard of and unseen.

Little did they know, this was merely an idea Wei Zhao had hit upon on the spur of the moment to deal with his opponent's attack—offensive defense, a pure stroke of inspiration born of fortunate coincidence.

If it were any ordinary time, even someone wanting to strengthen his defense would inevitably choose to cultivate some defensive martial skill; that was the most orthodox and effective choice.

If one were in the midst of battle with no chance to make a last-minute effort, then knowing full well that one's defense was inadequate, any normal person would focus on finding a way to evade the opponent's attack rather than foolishly standing in place and letting himself be struck. And even if he could not evade, he would certainly try to use his own attacks to offset the opponent's offensive momentum, rather than racking his brains for some ingenious notion of using true qi to mount an offensive defense.

This so-called offensive defense executed through true qi within the body was entirely a bizarre product spawned by the special circumstances of the endurance assessment.

Because the assessment stipulated that, in the face of the examiner's attacks, newcomers could neither dodge nor counterattack—they could only stand there and let the examiner strike them. This left the newcomers with only one choice: those who had defensive martial skills would hurry to use them, and those who did not could only rely on their true qi to endure it head-on.

But Wei Zhao had never been the sort to willingly take a beating. Even in an assessment like this, he would do everything within the rules to strike back. Because in a certain sense, offense was the best defense.

That was why he had thought of the idea of mobilizing the true qi within his body to counterattack at the very instant the examiner struck him.

Yet if he were still merely a Heaven-rank grand mastery expert, then even if he had thought of this idea it would have been useless, because a Heaven-rank grand mastery expert could only release true qi through his palms, and doing so would clearly violate the assessment rules.

The key was that Wei Zhao was no longer a Heaven-rank grand mastery expert at all, but rather a peak early Foundation Establishment expert who had concealed his strength from everyone present!

In fact, as early as when he had first succeeded in establishing his foundation, he had already discovered that compared with his former Heaven-rank grand mastery days, there was a great difference in the way true qi was released from the body—namely, true qi could be released not only through the palms, but could also burst directly out from the acupoints all over his body!

In the vast majority of situations, this was of no use whatsoever, because even if true qi could be released directly from the acupoints all over the body, true qi would always remain just true qi—it could never achieve the mighty effects of a martial skill.

That is to say, if Wei Zhao wanted to unleash the effects of the Frenzied Fire Eight Trigrams Palm, he would still inevitably have to rely on his hands; it was impossible to accomplish this through the acupoints all over his body. And if it were merely a simple release of true qi, it might serve to intimidate some small fry, but it would be hard to pose a threat to experts of the same level, so it had little practical value.

However, the fact that true qi could be released from the acupoints all over the body, when placed in the specific setting of the endurance assessment and combined with the offensive-defense idea Wei Zhao had struck upon in a flash of inspiration, produced an incredible and wondrous effect.

When the examiner's palm strike at thirteen times full power landed on Wei Zhao's chest, before it could inflict any harm, what it first collided with was the powerful true qi bursting out from the acupoints on Wei Zhao's chest!

And because the jade pendant space allowed him to replenish his true qi very quickly, Wei Zhao did not need to worry at all that the true qi in his body would be completely depleted, so he could mobilize his true qi to counterattack without the slightest scruple, to the greatest extent possible.

In this way, the examiner's palm strike at thirteen times full power fell short before it could succeed—part of its damage had already been offset. By the time that palm truly struck solidly against Wei Zhao's chest, in fact less than ten times full power remained.

As a bona fide peak early Foundation Establishment expert, Wei Zhao taking a palm strike at ten times full power from an expert of the same level head-on—no matter how severely wounded he might be, it could absolutely never be truly fatal.

And with his Xuanyuan Dragon Mastery Art working in tandem with the endless stream of pure true qi from the jade pendant space, healing injuries like this was no trouble at all. That was why the scene that had dazzled and dumbfounded everyone present had come to pass—taking a palm strike at thirteen times the full power of a peak early Foundation Establishment expert head-on, yet remaining utterly composed and recovering from his injuries in the space of a few short moments!

It was just that Xu Lingchong and the others had no idea at all that Wei Zhao had so many hidden cards to rely upon, and it was even more impossible for them to work out all the ins and outs of it. From their perspective, there was only one possible explanation for this matter—namely, that Wei Zhao had cultivated some defensive martial skill.

"I'd reckon that palm strike of mine at thirteen times full power was at least ninety percent offset by the boy's defensive martial skill, which is to say the damage that actually landed on him was less than forty percent—that's why he was only so lightly injured!" Ma Jian speculated.