Chapter 2333 — Too Much Talk
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
Old Master Pi was not one for empty courtesies. He promptly fetched paper and brush and copied out the oral mnemonic of his martial arts heart method for Wu Chengtian, withholding not a single form. The first fifteen forms he wrote down one and all, without exception, and handed them to Wu Chengtian: "As for the specific methods of channeling the power, you should have grasped something of them these past few days. Go practice in the courtyard in a moment, and if anything is unclear, ask me again! Though I expect your achievements will surpass Zhihai's—after all, you are a master of both the inner and outer paths!"
"Yes!" Wu Chengtian received the martial arts heart method mnemonic with delight and reverence.
"By the way, Old Master Pi—things like Spirit-Gathering Pills and Minor Qi-Gathering Elixirs, surely the Hidden Pi family has no trouble laying hands on them?" Having heard Old Master Pi's words, Wei Zhao suddenly thought of the question, for at the Hidden World Clans Summit such elixirs had hardly seemed rare, unlike in the secular clans where they were scarce. And so the question arose: "Since you cultivate the inner family, couldn't you simply take elixirs to advance?"
"That..." Old Master Pi smiled bitterly. "It is indeed not hard to obtain. In fact, our Pi family has quite a stock on hand. If even a single one of our Pi family had shown the slightest gift for inner-family cultivation, the ability to draw qi into the body, our Pi family would have spared no effort to help him rise to the Earth Rank!"
"Oh? What do you mean by that? You cannot cultivate it?" Wei Zhao was somewhat puzzled.
"Outer-family cultivators seldom manage to take up inner-family cultivation midway. Even with the inner-family heart method mnemonic in hand, it is essentially useless—they can no longer draw qi into the body, cannot even manage the rudiments of inner-family cultivation. So how could they take elixirs? Taking them would be wasted..." Old Master Pi smiled bitterly. "To begin with, few outer-family cultivators can manage inner cultivation, and our Pi family line has produced no heaven-sent genius like young friend Wu Chengtian, so not one of us has ever succeeded!"
"Uh... I'm a genius?" Wu Chengtian's eyes went wide. He had never thought himself a genius; without Wei Zhao he was no genius at all—even now he was still only an outer-family cultivator of the early Yellow Rank!
Still, Wu Chengtian did not dare speak rashly. Raising another's strength and healing his injuries were two different matters, after all, and he did not know whether Wei Zhao would permit him to say it. So Wu Chengtian looked toward Wei Zhao.
"Wu Chengtian, before... was it the same for you? Unable to cultivate the inner family?" Wei Zhao thought for a moment and asked. When he had upgraded Wu Chengtian before, he had not inquired into so much.
"I couldn't before either, and neither could my grandfather..." Wu Chengtian smiled bitterly. "Generally, once someone has cultivated the outer family, one seldom hears of them cultivating the inner family!"
"Then what about cultivating the inner family first, and the outer family after?" Wei Zhao had not expected there to be such a saying.
"Cultivating the inner family first, and then managing the outer family—that too is rare..." Old Master Pi smiled bitterly. "Only a very few geniuses who first cultivate the inner family can still cultivate the outer family. But for such geniuses, the result is the same whether they begin with the inner or the outer..."
"Hmm... I don't know much about the outer family. So that's how it is..." Wei Zhao said, suddenly enlightened.
"Yes. Apart from a few inner-family masters who, having accomplished nothing, wish to switch to the outer family—they generally destroy their own meridians, breaking in order to build anew, and start body refinement from the beginning!" Here Wu Chengtian suddenly thought of an example. "That's right, it's much the same as Uncle Qing..."