Chapter 4950 — Settling the Academy Feud
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
Keep a certain distance from a man like that, and you remain allies standing on equal footing—Zhuang Yifan would have to pay you the proper courtesies whenever he needed something. But let that distance close, and you became his underling; and when a leader calls upon an underling for help, where is the need for courtesy? That is simply the natural order of things!
"Since that is how it is, I shall not press the matter. Master Lin, you have done me an enormous service this time. I shall keep it in my heart, and you will be repaid in full." Zhuang Yifan nodded gravely, then suddenly asked, "Master Lin, I have met Earth-Rank, First-Grade alchemists before, but I have never heard of one who can bring a pill to completion in a single day. I fear you are rather more than a mere Earth-Rank, First-Grade alchemist, are you not?"
Wei Zhao nearly laughed aloud at that. Zhuang Yifan's reaction was cut from precisely the same cloth as Qing Xuanzi's had been back then—except that what he had refined then was a Seventh-Grade Great Return Pill, and he had been suspected of being Earth-Rank, First-Grade; now he had refined an Earth-Rank, First-Grade pill, and he was being suspected of being Earth-Rank, Second-Grade...
A delightful misunderstanding, of course. Wei Zhao would have been far too naive to deny it on the spot. In dealings with a man like Zhuang Yifan, the higher one's standing, the better—an Earth-Rank, Second-Grade alchemist was worth far more to court than an Earth-Rank, First-Grade one, was he not?
Still, Wei Zhao was not fool enough to simply admit to being Earth-Rank, Second-Grade. It would have been an impressive bluff, true—but what if the man promptly proposed that he refine an Earth-Rank, Second-Grade pill?
Wei Zhao had only just become capable of refining Earth-Rank, First-Grade pills. Should he attempt a Second-Grade one, his true qi might not even be strong enough—and would he not then have dug a pit for himself?
"You flatter me. I am still striving toward Earth-Rank, Second-Grade," Wei Zhao said with a faint, inscrutable smile.
That single answer was guaranteed to set the imagination racing. It was the plain truth, yet to ears that did not know better it sounded like modesty—and it plugged the pit neatly at the same time. Surely Zhuang Yifan could not ask a man still striving toward Earth-Rank, Second-Grade to refine an Earth-Rank, Second-Grade pill?
"Just as I thought. Master Lin is truly extraordinary. I have been blind." Zhuang Yifan was at once filled with solemn respect. The standing of an Earth-Rank, First-Grade alchemist alone was enough to put him on a par with Zhuang Yifan himself; and should the man become an Earth-Rank, Second-Grade alchemist, Zhuang Yifan would not even feel worthy of sitting beside him as an equal—at the very least he would have to take the lowest seat at the table.
"Not at all, not at all. I am still a hair's breadth from Earth-Rank, Second-Grade. President Zhuang knows as well as I that at such a level, an insurmountable barrier may appear at any moment. So near and yet so far—a man may spend his whole life and never cross it. There are more such cases than one could ever count." Wei Zhao's manner remained thoroughly "modest."
"Indeed, indeed. But that is true of other men. For a peerless prodigy like you, Master Lin, such a barrier is merely a matter of sooner or later." In his excitement Zhuang Yifan had unmistakably slipped into the honorific. His mind was racing now—if Wei Zhao truly could become an Earth-Rank, Second-Grade alchemist, that would be an immense temptation for him.
With his present cultivation at the late Heaven-Opening stage, barring that mishap when he had forced his way toward the late Heaven-Opening peak, under normal circumstances he no longer had any use for an Earth-Rank, First-Grade pill like the Earth-Solidifying Pill; only a pill of the higher Earth-Rank, Second-Grade could carry him further.