Chapter 1475 — Wei Zhao's Surprise: He Had Once Reached Out a Helping Hand to Zhang Naipao When the Man's Family Was at Its Darkest; What Was More, Wei Zhao Was Zhang Naipao's Enemy, and the Very Memory of Being Trampled Under Wei Zhao's Feet Sent a Surge of Humiliation Through Zhang Naipao's Heart
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
He was a disciple held in the highest regard by the Sect Master and the Grand Elder of the mighty Tomorrow-Upon-Tomorrow Sect — and yet he had been trodden underfoot by Wei Zhao, a mere nobody from the mortal world. If he did not avenge that wrong, Zhang Naipao felt he would be letting down his entire sect.
So he cultivated with desperate, sleepless toil, day and night. Methods others dared not try, feared to try, he threw himself into without hesitation. Pain others could not bear, he bore.
Poison bees, poison insects, poison snakes, poison herbs — Zhang Naipao stopped at nothing in his cultivation. The demonic path did not cultivate the way orthodox martial practitioners did. Orthodox practitioners absorbed the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and turned it to their own use, whereas the demonic path employed every crooked and perverse means to convert venomous qi and baleful qi into personal cultivation.
What was more, Zhang Naipao's Chrysanthemum Codex had already reached the Great Perfection of the first layer, making him the fastest cultivator in the entire sect.
There was, as it happened, a story behind the Chrysanthemum Codex. It was said to have been handed down from Chi You, the great deity of antiquity, but the method was so evil and domineering that the orthodox martial world held it in contempt and joined forces to destroy it.
Years later, a demonic sect suddenly rose through the martial world — the Tomorrow-Upon-Tomorrow Sect. It took the Chrysanthemum Codex as its supreme treasure, and its other arts were much the same in wickedness: cultivating with corpse qi, fresh blood, the dead, and poisons was everywhere to be seen.
A sect like that naturally drew attacks from all the other sects. But because the cultivators of the Tomorrow-Upon-Tomorrow Sect trained so fast and reached such heights of power, in the end it was a standoff. Neither side could do a thing to the other. And so from then on, they kept to themselves — the well water never offending the river water.
Still, most ancient sects maintained a respectful distance from a demonic gate like the Tomorrow-Upon-Tomorrow Sect. But there were always oddities like the Ice Palace.
The Ice Palace was a mighty presence even among the ancient sects. Its Palace Master was every bit as powerful as the Old Ancestor of the Tomorrow-Upon-Tomorrow Sect. And the people of the Ice Palace lived up to their name: they were ice-cold toward everyone and everything. Over the years they had not been especially friendly with the other ancient sects, yet neither did they refuse when disciples from those sects came to take part in the trial.
The Ice Palace had earned the right to be aloof. Even so, the other ancient sects still had no choice but to greet its people with smiling faces.
Before Zhang Naipao set out for the trial, his master had instructed him: toward everyone else he could deliberately put on airs, so as to highlight the transcendent standing of the Tomorrow-Upon-Tomorrow Sect. But toward anyone from the Ice Palace he absolutely must wear a smile, because the Ice Palace was no weaker than the Tomorrow-Upon-Tomorrow Sect.
And yet, though the Tomorrow-Upon-Tomorrow Sect possessed the Chrysanthemum Codex as its supreme treasure, no other disciple practiced it. The reason was that the Codex was too vicious in its demands: unless one took up a blade and castrated oneself, those of unstable will would be trapped by lust and fall into demonic deviation. Several disciples who had attempted it before had all died when their qi ran berserk and their bodies exploded.
Those disciples had once been judged by several elders to be the most gifted in the sect, yet none could cultivate it successfully. Only Zhang Naipao, without a second thought, took up the blade and castrated himself — something that had never happened before.