Chapter 1784 — Something Went Wrong: With Wei Zhao at the center, ever more pure energy in the jade pendant space gathered and converged, waiting to enter his body...
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
Such a feeling, Wei Zhao realized on reflection, he had indeed known ten years before — only then the process had been slow. Foundation Establishment alone had taken a full two years, precisely because the spiritual energy of heaven and earth in the outside world was far too thin.
But now, Wei Zhao seemed to sense that completing the second layer of Foundation Establishment would take him a single short day — perhaps not even that long...
Gradually, Wei Zhao could even feel the changes occurring inside him: his muscle tissue seemed to grow denser, his bones harder, and his meridians tougher and thicker still...
It was a deeply pleasurable sensation, and Wei Zhao simply remained quietly immersed in it...
In the blink of an eye the better part of a day had slipped by. The energy and true qi crowding around Wei Zhao were no longer so dense as before, thinning out by degrees, while the speed at which his body drew the true qi in also began to slow.
Yet the earlier comfort too was fading, replaced by a burning that swept over his entire body. At first Wei Zhao hardly gave it a thought, taking it for a necessary step in tempering the body through Foundation Establishment.
But as the burning grew ever fiercer, an unnatural flush crept across Wei Zhao's skin, and he seemed even to smell smoke — his very clothes beginning to scorch!
His body grew hotter and hotter; in the span of a single instant it had turned scorching, and the clothes he wore dissolved into ash with it. From Wei Zhao's forehead wisps of white smoke began to rise, as though steam were evaporating off his skin...
Jiao Yazi, who had been sitting quietly off to one side, changed color all at once. In disbelief he opened his eyes, stole one glance at Wei Zhao, and cried out at once: "Boy Lin, stop — something's wrong!"
What? Something's wrong? Wei Zhao froze, and the speed at which the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art circulated within him lurched. Because this was his first time practicing the second level of the art, the sudden interruption threw everything off balance at once: the direction of flow in his meridians veered from its course. Far from coming to a halt, the true qi he had drawn into his body reversed its current instead — and at that very moment Wei Zhao's body turned utterly scarlet, like a lump of charcoal burned red-hot...
Watching what had become of Wei Zhao, Jiao Yazi groaned with inward regret! When one cultivates, nothing is more taboo than an interruption — least of all for someone like Wei Zhao, attempting the second level of the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art for the first time and not yet proficient in it at all. Should he truly be disturbed and fall into qi deviation, the consequences would be unthinkable!
But it was already too late for regret, for in Jiao Yazi's eyes Wei Zhao had already fallen into qi deviation!
Wei Zhao's cultivation had gone awry moments before. In whatever memory Jiao Yazi possessed there had never been such a case — that is to say, after drawing in true qi and completing Foundation Establishment, Wei Zhao should never have been seized by this burning fever. Yet seized by it he was.
That was precisely why Jiao Yazi had hastily called for him to stop — but who could have guessed that this one cry, instead of saving Wei Zhao, would only hurry him deeper into qi deviation...
And Jiao Yazi's words became the last thing Wei Zhao heard in his final moments. The next instant his body lurched sideways and toppled to the ground without another sound — yet the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art inside him kept on circulating, still ceaselessly absorbing the pure energy of the jade pendant, so that his body remained like a lump of red-hot charcoal, its heat refusing to subside...