Chapter 4926 — Thunder Explosion

From the North Island? The two Dingcheng Academy altar masters were taken aback for a moment, then visibly relieved. A mere North Island disciple—forget stripping his cultivation, even killing him on the spot would cause no trouble at all. Surely Shangguan Tianxia would not journey all the way to the East Continent to kick up a fuss over a single North Island disciple?

"Listen well, all of you—today we punish only this brat and his insolent tongue. If anyone else interferes, don't blame us if fists and feet fly without mercy!" The two altar masters' expressions turned grim, and they moved at once to strike Wei Zhao.

Wang Xinyan and the others felt their hearts sink and hurried to shield Wei Zhao, but he only gave a light laugh and waved them off. "You lot step back and enjoy the show. I've been itching for a bit of exercise."

Huh? Wang Xinyan and Huang Xiaotao exchanged a stunned look. Seeing that Wei Zhao truly showed not a trace of nerves, they glanced at one another and retreated behind him. Much as they had absolute faith in his strength, an early Xuan Ascension fighter against two late Xuan Ascension ones—wasn't that gap a little too wide?

As for Lu Xiaozhong, he withdrew with admirable briskness. He was no fool; he did not fear trouble, but that did not mean he truly did not fear death. Since Wei Zhao himself had said to just watch the show, naturally he would not be so silly as to stand in front and serve as cannon fodder.

"Heh, a mere North Island disciple, and such a big mouth." The two altar masters laughed outright. They took Wei Zhao for one of those frogs at the bottom of a well who had never seen the world—a petty tyrant in some backwater like the North Island, imagining he could rampage just as invincibly now that he had come to the East Continent. The man's stupidity truly knew no bounds!

Daydreams always shatter in the end. Today they would be so kind as to wake him up.

As the words fell, seeing that Chang Laiting was already looking impatient, the two Dingcheng Academy altar masters dared not dawdle and at once sprang forward to strike Wei Zhao. But before they could even set their stance, Wei Zhao suddenly flung one hand high and cried in a cold voice, "Thunder Explosion!"

As late Xuan Ascension adepts, the two Dingcheng Academy altar masters showed utter contempt for Wei Zhao's move—but before that contempt could even settle on their faces, the two of them convulsed violently and dropped to the ground, a thick pillar of deep-blue lightning crowning each of their heads.

Ssss! A wave of sharp indrawn breaths swept the whole crowd in unison, rising and falling, unbroken and endless.

Before they could do a single thing, two late Xuan Ascension adepts were lying stiff and straight on the ground, black smoke curling from them. Everyone now looked at Wei Zhao as though at some kind of monster. Was this fellow really an early Xuan Ascension adept?!

"Could that thing be a spirit beast?" someone could not help whispering.

"Possible—no, highly likely! Even if a human cultivator had the one-in-ten-thousand lightning-attribute spiritual root, there is no way he could discharge a lightning strike that powerful. That was on par with a lightning tribulation! No—stronger than a tribulation!" someone beside him at once chimed in.

"Exactly, exactly. A human cultivator unleashing a lightning tribulation—never even heard of such a thing. Those mighty lightning-type spirit beasts, now that's more like it! I hear there are not only lightning eagles in there, but even the legendary thunder dragon. Could this thing be the thunder dragon in disguise?" someone's imagination ran wild on the spot.

"Right, right, right. And they say he's from the North Island—since when did North Island people become this formidable? Impossible, absolutely impossible. It must be one of those lightning-type spirit beasts inside that couldn't stand the boredom and slipped out in the confusion. It must be!" a bystander declared with great conviction.

"Makes sense. The teleportation array here only restricts entry one way—only Yuan Ying adepts can teleport in, but there's no strength limit on teleporting out. It's entirely possible!" The crowd quickly reached their conclusion.

Listening to these whispered discussions all around, Wang Xinyan, Huang Xiaotao, and the others could not help but laugh and cry at once. True, they too had been badly startled by Wei Zhao's sudden outburst, but to conclude from that he was a lightning-type spirit beast—what kind of thinking was that?

"Oh, so he's the legendary thunder dragon. No wonder he's so strong!" Ni Caiyue's eyes lit up as she listened, thoroughly endorsing the theory.

Wang Xinyan and the others were utterly floored by her. She had just helped refine your Nourishing Mystic Pill—how could he possibly be the legendary thunder dragon? Could a thunder dragon even switch trades and become an alchemist? This girl's head really did not work like normal people's!

Wei Zhao, however, paid no heed at all to the chatter around him. By now he was wholly lost in delight—for this Thunder Explosion just now, the most shaken of all were not the onlookers, but himself!

Thunder Explosion was a new technique he had racked his brains to develop along the way, and the inspiration for it had come from the thunder dragon—on that point, the crowd had actually guessed right.

Before this, although the lightning power within Wei Zhao had grown countless times stronger than before, he had never truly grasped its essence. His method of attack had been plain and simple—to put it bluntly, he simply dumped the lightning power stored in his body outward, with not a shred of technique to speak of.

It was like a wealthy miser whose house was bursting with money, yet who only knew how to use it like an ordinary man, to fill his belly and keep warm, with no idea whatsoever how to spend so much wealth—a sheer waste of heaven's gifts.

When he first received the lightning inheritance, Wei Zhao could only use electric arcs. Now that his lightning power was countless times stronger, he had mastered the so-called lightning strike, which was in truth merely an enlarged electric arc—no difference in essence whatsoever. With Wei Zhao's comprehension, it naturally did not take him long to realize something had to be wrong!

But just where the problem lay was not so easy for Wei Zhao to figure out on his own; he needed an expert to point the way. Unfortunately, the giant electric eel that had given him the lightning inheritance had long since rotted away to nothing, and the ghost thing was no master of lightning either, so it could hardly offer much advice—until he went to Thunder Burial City.

The several bolts of violet lightning that the vengeful spirit's primal essence had commanded the thunder dragon's corpse to unleash had given Wei Zhao no end of suffering, yet also benefited him greatly. Not only had the lightning power within him grown stronger still, but more importantly, he had seized the chance to glimpse a few of its secrets.

Super-powerful lightning that could reach the violet level was by no means a simple accumulation of lightning power. If that were all it took, deep blue would be the absolute limit.

With the lightning power Wei Zhao currently held in reserve, ordinary lightning strikes were more than enough to deal with the likes of Chang Laiting, but once he faced a true adept—not even a Mountain-Opening adept, merely a somewhat stronger Xuan Ascension one—he would find himself stretched thin.

After all, Wei Zhao himself could grit his teeth and withstand a lightning tribulation fifty times over, or even stronger. Those Xuan Ascension powerhouses might lack a lightning-attribute spiritual root and could not feed on lightning power as he did, but a tribulation of one or two times normal strength was no great problem for them.