Chapter 3731 — Hidden Depths?
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
In fact, as early as when he had first succeeded in establishing his foundation, he had already discovered that compared with his former Heaven-rank grand mastery days, there was a great difference in the way true qi was released from the body—namely, true qi could be released not only through the palms, but could also burst directly out from the acupoints all over his body!
In the vast majority of situations, this was of no use whatsoever, because even if true qi could be released directly from the acupoints all over the body, true qi would always remain just true qi—it could never achieve the mighty effects of a martial skill.
That is to say, if Wei Zhao wanted to unleash the effects of the Frenzied Fire Eight Trigrams Palm, he would still inevitably have to rely on his hands; it was impossible to accomplish this through the acupoints all over his body. And if it were merely a simple release of true qi, it might serve to intimidate some small fry, but it would be hard to pose a threat to experts of the same level, so it had little practical value.
However, the fact that true qi could be released from the acupoints all over the body, when placed in the specific setting of the endurance assessment and combined with the offensive-defense idea Wei Zhao had struck upon in a flash of inspiration, produced an incredible and wondrous effect.
When the examiner's palm strike at thirteen times full power landed on Wei Zhao's chest, before it could inflict any harm, what it first collided with was the powerful true qi bursting out from the acupoints on Wei Zhao's chest!
And because the jade pendant space allowed him to replenish his true qi very quickly, Wei Zhao did not need to worry at all that the true qi in his body would be completely depleted, so he could mobilize his true qi to counterattack without the slightest scruple, to the greatest extent possible.
In this way, the examiner's palm strike at thirteen times full power fell short before it could succeed—part of its damage had already been offset. By the time that palm truly struck solidly against Wei Zhao's chest, in fact less than ten times full power remained.
As a bona fide peak early Foundation Establishment expert, Wei Zhao taking a palm strike at ten times full power from an expert of the same level head-on—no matter how severely wounded he might be, it could absolutely never be truly fatal.
And with his Xuanyuan Dragon Mastery Art working in tandem with the endless stream of pure true qi from the jade pendant space, healing injuries like this was no trouble at all. That was why the scene that had dazzled and dumbfounded everyone present had come to pass—taking a palm strike at thirteen times the full power of a peak early Foundation Establishment expert head-on, yet remaining utterly composed and recovering from his injuries in the space of a few short moments!
It was just that Xu Lingchong and the others had no idea at all that Wei Zhao had so many hidden cards to rely upon, and it was even more impossible for them to work out all the ins and outs of it. From their perspective, there was only one possible explanation for this matter—namely, that Wei Zhao had cultivated some defensive martial skill.
"I'd reckon that palm strike of mine at thirteen times full power was at least ninety percent offset by the boy's defensive martial skill, which is to say the damage that actually landed on him was less than forty percent—that's why he was only so lightly injured!" Ma Jian speculated.