Chapter 2568 — Yet Another Batch of Qi-Gathering Pill Ingredients
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"Blue crystal, pure yellow jade, colored steel... Hmm, we have no pure yellow jade, but we do have pure purple jade. Will that do?" Old Master Zhuang thought for a moment, then asked.
"Pure purple jade? No need for that." Wei Zhao shook his head. "The Qi-Gathering Pill ingredients are quite enough. These will do!"
"Er... you will not look any further?" Old Master Zhuang felt somewhat uneasy. The Qi-Gathering Pill ingredients were precious to be sure, but in his view they were chicken ribs. Wei Zhao might think he had obtained a treasure now, but once he returned and found he could not refine them, these things would be of no use to him, and he would surely feel the trip had been wasted—that he had not obtained anything better.
"No more looking. Let us go to the scripture pavilion and see the martial techniques and mental cultivation methods," Wei Zhao said. He was not a greedy man. Since Old Master Zhuang had pledged allegiance to him, he could come back for whatever he needed at any time; there was no need to cart everything off in one go.
"That will do as well..." Old Master Zhuang in truth did not think much of mental cultivation methods and martial techniques. Though a family's methods and techniques were never taught to outsiders, in his view these were even more like chicken ribs to Wei Zhao.
Wei Zhao was now a formidable expert at the peak of the mid-Earth rank; it was absolutely impossible that he would scrap his own internal-family mental cultivation method and start over. And the Zhuang family had no external-family methods either, so there was no use in Wei Zhao examining the Zhuang family's methods.
As for martial techniques, each corresponded to the attributes of a mental cultivation method, and not everyone could use them. What was more, mastering even one technique to true comprehension was arduous enough. Wei Zhao already possessed formidable martial techniques—why should he bother studying another's?
So in Old Master Zhuang's eyes, Wei Zhao's trip to the scripture pavilion would be nothing more than a look around, at most copying a volume or two for his collection. There was practically no real use to it.
But since Wei Zhao had asked, he could only follow him and turn toward the scripture pavilion.
Zhuang Birdgun and Zhuang Birdcannon, for their part, rather envied the Qi-Gathering Pill ingredients in Wei Zhao's hands. This was the Qi-Gathering Pill! If it were successfully refined, whoever ate it would reach the Heaven rank. They could not understand why their grandfather was so lukewarm about it.
The two were still too young, and they did not understand much about pills—hence such thoughts. Old Master Zhuang was different: old age had sharpened him, and he no longer harbored the unrealistic hopes of his youth.
Following Wei Zhao into the adjoining scripture pavilion, Zhuang Birdgun and Zhuang Birdcannon stood respectfully to one side, while Old Master Zhuang began to introduce the books kept within.
The Hidden Zhuang family's scripture pavilion held far more books than that of the Hidden Han family. After all, books were not like treasures, which were gone once used up or given away; books could be copied and reproduced even when traded with others. And with the Hidden Zhuang family's long history, it was hardly surprising that they possessed a great many volumes.
"So many? Are these all mental cultivation methods and martial techniques?" Wei Zhao asked.
"The useful ones are in fact just these few volumes on this shelf. The rest of the collection is all useless martial techniques and methods, kept for show." Old Master Zhuang smiled bitterly. "Most were obtained in trade with others, and what is traded away is always the unimportant stuff—no one parts lightly with anything useful. These few volumes on this shelf, for instance, are what my ancestors brought back from the Tomorrow Upon Tomorrow sect all those years ago. Apart from our own Zhuang family, only you have seen them, Senior Lin."