Chapter 4897 — An Attempt at Fusion
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
Take the present moment: Chang Laiting's true qi contained three attributes at once—wood, metal, and fire. To oppose him with a single-attribute technique meant being suppressed no matter which of the basic attributes one chose. And when an expert of equal rank found their true qi attribute countered, the outcome was only too easy to imagine.
It might not be utter helplessness, but it was certainly being trampled from head to toe—and the difficulty of turning such a fight around was, in some ways, comparable to fighting above one's level.
"Scared stiff, are you?" Chang Laiting saw Wei Zhao frozen in place, motionless for so long, and doubt stirred in his heart. Yet he would not hold back on that account; the black sword only quickened by a fraction, sworn to cleave Wei Zhao clean in two from the crown down.
Then, at the final instant—when even Wang Xinyan and the others felt their hearts catch in their throats—Wei Zhao finally moved. It was not the lightning strike whose power had soared so wildly of late, nor the five-element killing qi that served as his hidden trump; it was merely a plain, simple Wildfire Fist.
At the sight, Chang Laiting's mouth split into a grin. As expected, everything that came from the Northern Island was trash. Even a freshly advanced early Xuan Sheng expert of the Eastern Continent would surely know the qualitative transformation that came after the Xuan Sheng stage—that one must never use a single-attribute technique against an opponent of equal rank was the most elementary of common knowledge, for it was absolutely certain to cost one dearly.
But before Chang Laiting could laugh aloud, the black sword in his hand had already clashed head-on with Wei Zhao's Wildfire Fist—and the result made jaws drop. Chang Laiting did not cleave Wei Zhao dead as he had wished; instead, each was forced back half a step, an even match!
"Impossible!" Chang Laiting felt at once that his eyes had played tricks on him. That sword strike had not been at full strength, true, but it was still a mighty move fusing three attributes—how could it be evenly matched against the other's single-attribute technique?
After all, he was one of the illustrious Four Young Masters of the Nascent Soul, one who had stormed the Xuan Sheng stage on the strength of his profound foundations—and a three-spirit Xuan Sheng expert at that. Never mind an early Xuan Sheng like Wei Zhao, fresh from the Northern Island; he could hold his own even against a mid-stage Xuan Sheng. How could he fail to overpower a single-attribute technique?
Turning it over and over, Chang Laiting could conceive of only one possibility: his eyes had indeed deceived him. The other's move was no single-attribute technique at all, but one laced with a second attribute—only he had been careless and failed to notice. Add to that the fact that his sword had not been at full power, and that was how the fellow had gotten off by sheer luck.
What he did not know was that Wei Zhao had used the pure fire-attribute Wildfire Fist, and nothing more—he had simply been using the man as a test subject.
Wei Zhao was not like the other Eastern Continent Academy disciples, who had been schooled in all the matters of the post-Xuan Sheng stage before they even began their assault. He had to grope his way through everything himself, and observation and conjecture alone were clearly insufficient for that. Deeper understanding demanded experiments of every kind—and this former member of the Four Young Masters of the Nascent Soul, Chang Laiting, was, conveniently enough, a rather decent subject for testing.
That one exchange had already yielded Wei Zhao a conclusion: a single-attribute technique was indeed at a great disadvantage against a multi-attribute one. Otherwise, given his strength, a single Chang Laiting should never have been able to fight him to a draw.
Since single-attribute techniques would not do, then why not try a dual-attribute technique?