Chapter 3833 — Got Away?
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
Of course, this was still only an idea. Given Hong Zhong's standing and influence, he could dispose of ordinary spirit-jade cards as he pleased; but a VIP spirit-jade card, one grade above, had to be examined and approved by the guild alliance's upper echelons—Hong Zhong possessed only a limited right of recommendation.
To hold an ordinary spirit-jade card meant that one already stood above the common run in both status and strength. To hold a VIP spirit-jade card, then, one must already have become a lord of some domain—or at the very least, possess the potential to become one.
In the span of two brief encounters, Wei Zhao—whose strength stood at no more than the peak of the early Foundation Establishment stage—had already won Hong Zhong's recognition. Yet to go a step further, he would have to reach a higher level still.
After all, if the VIP spirit-jade cards—of which there were no more than a double-digit number across all five great islands of the Heaven Tier—were truly handed out to a mere expert at the peak of early Foundation Establishment, it would be a genuine laughingstock.
A moment later, Wei Zhao finally stepped past the boundary of the inner street, and the killing intent behind him came with it.
"Boy, go to hell!" Paying no mind to the astonished stares of the inner-street guards, Nan Tianyong lunged straight out without a heartbeat's hesitation, one palm aimed to strike Wei Zhao dead.
But before that palm could land, his vision suddenly blurred; the next instant, Wei Zhao—casual and unhurried a breath before—accelerated from utter stillness to blinding speed. Butterfly Steps paired with the Wind-Chasing Lightning Boots: at this moment, amid the ceaselessly surging crowds outside, they displayed their utmost power.
"He missed? How is that possible!" Yu Jiang, following behind, could not help but start at the sight.
That palm just now—his so-called master Nan Tianyong had not gone all out, true, but the man was, after all, an expert at the peak of the late Foundation Establishment stage. Even revealing a tenth of his strength was more than a mere peak early-Foundation Establishment cultivator could handle.
And yet, even standing on the ground of irreconcilable enmity, Yu Jiang could not help but strike the table in admiration at Wei Zhao's reaction in that instant: practically without any acceleration at all, he had gone straight from leisurely ease to full-tilt flight—so much so that Nan Tianyong's palm had missed entirely!
It was not that Wei Zhao's absolute speed had grown fast enough to shake off an expert at the peak of late Foundation Establishment like Nan Tianyong. His escape from that blow owed everything to an acceleration in that single instant so swift it beggared belief—downright outrageous.
And that was something even Nan Tianyong could not do!
It was not that Wei Zhao had come by some heaven-defying cheat, nor that he had obtained any formidable movement technique or martial skill. What allowed him to do this was nothing more than the little trick from the endurance test of the last round.
Upon entering the Foundation Establishment stage, every acupoint in the body could freely release true qi. And all along the road before he reached the mouth of the inner street, Wei Zhao had been secretly accumulating true qi in the acupoints throughout his body; once all was in readiness, he unleashed it all at once in a backward burst!
It was precisely by using that tremendous recoil that Wei Zhao could, in a single instant, explode with that outrageous acceleration—and only thus could he slip free of Nan Tianyong's contemptuous palm.
Otherwise, he would already be a dead man. True, he had the Wind-Chasing Lightning Boots and the Butterfly Steps, but the opponent's strength was what it was; with his own fundamentals lacking, no equipment or skill, however fine, would have availed him.