Chapter 3731 — Hidden Depths?
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
"Absolutely true!" Ma Jian nodded emphatically and said hurriedly, "If I hadn't struck with such force, there's no way I would have been caught off guard and rebounded by Wei Zhao's true qi!"
"What? Rebound of true qi? That brat Wei Zhao has that kind of ability?" Xu Lingchong was instantly astonished, and he and Meng Jueming exchanged looks.
Both of them were shrewd old hands. From Ma Jian's expression at that moment, they could basically tell that the fellow was probably not lying, and vaguely felt as though they had seized upon the crucial point.
"Rebound of true qi? Brother Liu, do you mean to say that this brat Wei Zhao has actually cultivated some kind of defensive martial skill?" Meng Jueming asked at once.
"That must be it, otherwise there's simply no explaining why the true qi inside the boy's body was able to rebound onto me. It's just that I have no idea what defensive martial skill it could be," Ma Jian nodded.
Ever since he had finished administering Wei Zhao's assessment, he had been mulling over this question. After turning it over and over in his mind, he could only ultimately attribute it to a defensive martial skill—otherwise there was no explaining it at all.
After all, setting aside those who had specifically cultivated defensive martial skills, an ordinary cultivator could at most mobilize his true qi to withstand part of the damage, and the only difference lay in how much damage could be withstood. As for someone like Wei Zhao, who took the opportunity to use his true qi to rebound the attack, that was simply unheard of and unseen.
Little did they know, this was merely an idea Wei Zhao had hit upon on the spur of the moment to deal with his opponent's attack—offensive defense, a pure stroke of inspiration born of fortunate coincidence.
If it were any ordinary time, even someone wanting to strengthen his defense would inevitably choose to cultivate some defensive martial skill; that was the most orthodox and effective choice.
If one were in the midst of battle with no chance to make a last-minute effort, then knowing full well that one's defense was inadequate, any normal person would focus on finding a way to evade the opponent's attack rather than foolishly standing in place and letting himself be struck. And even if he could not evade, he would certainly try to use his own attacks to offset the opponent's offensive momentum, rather than racking his brains for some ingenious notion of using true qi to mount an offensive defense.
This so-called offensive defense executed through true qi within the body was entirely a bizarre product spawned by the special circumstances of the endurance assessment.
Because the assessment stipulated that, in the face of the examiner's attacks, newcomers could neither dodge nor counterattack—they could only stand there and let the examiner strike them. This left the newcomers with only one choice: those who had defensive martial skills would hurry to use them, and those who did not could only rely on their true qi to endure it head-on.
But Wei Zhao had never been the sort to willingly take a beating. Even in an assessment like this, he would do everything within the rules to strike back. Because in a certain sense, offense was the best defense.
That was why he had thought of the idea of mobilizing the true qi within his body to counterattack at the very instant the examiner struck him.
Yet if he were still merely a Heaven-rank grand mastery expert, then even if he had thought of this idea it would have been useless, because a Heaven-rank grand mastery expert could only release true qi through his palms, and doing so would clearly violate the assessment rules.
The key was that Wei Zhao was no longer a Heaven-rank grand mastery expert at all, but rather a peak early Foundation Establishment expert who had concealed his strength from everyone present!