Chapter 4670 — The Division
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
There was no helping it—the Mystic Ascension stage and the Nascent Soul stage, together with all the realms before them, were separated by a gulf as vast as heaven from earth.
Nascent Soul or any realm below it: though the great majority of cultivators had formed the habit of breaking through by swallowing pills—a notion so deeply entrenched it had taken root in every heart—the truth was that with sufficient talent and sufficient willpower, every one of those realms could be crossed by natural means. In principle, no elixir was required at all.
The Mystic Ascension stage was another matter. As already noted, advancing to Mystic Ascension demanded two or more spiritual root attributes; only by fusing two kinds of attribute qi could one climb to the next level. That step, to be sure, was guarded by a towering threshold and monstrous difficulty, but in itself it was like every realm before it—no elixir was needed. The problem lay in what came after.
Once the two spiritual root attributes were woven together, they could draw down a lightning tribulation!
The lightning tribulation was a heavenly punishment—heaven's merciless erasure of those who defied the natural order. Which is to say that before the Mystic Ascension stage, even at a level as lofty as the Nascent Soul stage, one could only be called powerful, never heaven-defying. After all, a cultivator who had never weathered heavenly punishment had no business claiming to defy heaven.
And since it was a heavenly punishment, it was naturally no trifling thing; a master at the peak of Nascent Soul could not withstand it at all. Even the most monstrous of prodigies, if they wished to pass through the lightning tribulation alive, had no choice but to take a life-preserving pill—the Thunder Mystic Pill!
One might say that possessing a Thunder Mystic Pill was the same as holding a ticket through the gates of Mystic Ascension. It did not mean the gates would swing open before you, but at least it guaranteed that when you went to try pushing them, the gatekeeper would not kill you.
At this, Wei Zhao's heart stirred. Had the other party offered anything else, he might not have been interested, but the Thunder Mystic Vine happened to be exactly what he needed. Indeed, even without this expedition, he would soon have had to find a way to obtain it; better, then, to seize the chance and let the current carry the boat.
After all, the Thunder Mystic Vine was no less rare than the Infant Ginseng. Relying on himself alone, Wei Zhao would have struggled to dig up even a scrap of useful information, let alone actually lay hands on one.
"Fine, then. Once we find it, how do we split it?" Wei Zhao asked bluntly. Settling the division of spoils was the crucial precondition of any partnership; if they could not even agree on that, there was no point talking further—it would be a sheer waste of time.
"Three-seven," Huo Yudie blurted out without the slightest hesitation. Clearly she had already thought it through.
"You take three, I take seven?" Wei Zhao raised both eyebrows.
"How could it be!" Huo Yudie choked on her words. Faced with that matter-of-fact expression of his, she could only shake her head in exasperation. "You know perfectly well what I meant."
"Then we're done here." Without another word Wei Zhao turned to leave, as though the Thunder Mystic Vine were entirely dispensable to him—if it was not to be had, so be it. To think such a temptation could lure him into losing his footing was pure wishful thinking.
"Brother Wei Zhao..." Huo Yudie pouted, gazing at him with wide, liquid eyes. Her tone and manner were the very image of Han Jingyi's—plainly she had studied and copied them beforehand. After all, for a beauty like her, no man could possibly withstand the assault of her coquetry, unless he was no man at all.