Chapter 4026 — The Fusion of Two Bombs
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
Wei Zhao swept a glance over the room, taking stock. Only nine of the materials remained; the tenth had already been set aside, placed beside the alchemy furnace together with the other pill-refining ingredients. Zheng Tianjie had likely readied it for refining the Beauty Pill.
Fortunately, the remaining nine weapon-casting materials already covered six of the ones Wei Zhao needed. Without the slightest hesitation, he gathered them up and stowed them into the jade pendant's space. They had been tucked away in an inconspicuous corner, after all; even if Zheng Tianjie returned, he would not notice their absence for some time.
As for the other pill-refining materials present, Wei Zhao had no designs on them whatsoever. For one thing, taking too much would easily rouse Zheng Tianjie's suspicions; and if the materials were not his to begin with, Zheng Tianjie's death would only invite further suspicion from others. Wei Zhao had no wish to complicate matters.
Time was short. Zheng Tianjie might return at any moment, so Wei Zhao at once set about preparing the new ultimate technique he had been developing.
A mid-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator hoping to challenge a Golden Core expert across the gulf of realms was a sheer impossibility by any conventional means. No matter how formidable Wei Zhao's hidden cards, no matter how exquisite his techniques and martial arts, it would all come to nothing. He would be annihilated in a single exchange, without question.
The only way was the same method he had used against Nan Tianyong, the peak late-stage Foundation Establishment expert: store up power in advance, prepare a top-grade true qi bomb, and hurl it straight into his opponent's face while he was off guard.
Yet it was that very same move which had clearly begun to fail against Xu Lingchong, who stood at the great perfection of Foundation Establishment. Part of that was due to insufficient time to accumulate power, but at the very least it proved one thing: with Wei Zhao's present strength, trying to repeat the trick against a Golden Core expert far above Xu Lingchong was plainly unrealistic.
And so Wei Zhao had lately turned his efforts to developing a new ultimate technique. The ultimate techniques of the secular world, after all, had been stretched to their limit on Cloud Terrace Island; he could not rely on them forever.
The first idea that came to him was fusion: to merge another's ultimate technique with his own. That was how the Frenzied Fire Eight Trigrams Palm had come into being in the first place.
What Wei Zhao envisioned was this: if he could fuse another person's ultimate technique with his own true qi bomb, would the destructive power not increase by an enormous margin?
He thought it over from every angle, and among the more powerful candidates, somehow his mind settled on Kang Jingming's pill-fire bomb.
There was also a line in Zhang Lifeng's notes that read: "True qi and pill fire, two utterly disparate forms of energy—when forcibly fused by an external force, the power they unleash is like nothing I have witnessed in all my life. It leaves one gasping in awe."
That single sentence opened Wei Zhao's eyes after long and agonized pondering. He was not only skilled with the true qi bomb; the pill fire bomb of an alchemist was likewise no challenge for him.
Thus this new martial technique came into being—though it existed only in theory. He had not yet put it to the test.
While Zheng Tianjie was still away, Wei Zhao found a secluded spot behind a shelf, sat down cross-legged, and divided his attention in two: one hand condensing a true qi bomb, the other condensing a pill fire bomb, straining every fiber of his being to refine both to their absolute limits at the same time.