Chapter 4552 — The Effect Is Obvious

The Five-Element Killing Qi generates and restrains itself in turn—five fundamental elemental killing auras blended into a single whole. That is by no means as simple as one plus one. Take the aftershock that had just washed over Wei Zhao: had any one of those elemental auras been singled out, even with no protection at all, his present physical constitution would have been more than enough to shrug it off. It could not have harmed a single hair on him—utterly negligible.

But now, with all five fused into the Five-Element Killing Qi, its power had multiplied not a thousandfold but ten thousandfold. Even though Wei Zhao had been extremely cautious, that one brush nearly finished him—he had almost pitched headlong off the platform and only caught himself in time, jamming his hands down and gritting his teeth until he rode it out.

"Being carved to pieces by ten thousand knives"—before this, Wei Zhao had only ever said such a thing in passing. This time he truly experienced it. Even with his formidable body and his iron resolve, without absolute determination he could never have endured it. Lacking that resolve, no amount of strength would have been enough.

The time he spent caught in the Five-Element Killing Qi was in truth only a fleeting instant—less than the blink of an eye. Yet to Wei Zhao's senses that instant stretched endlessly. Men speak of a day feeling like a year; here, his body racked as though by blades, it was truly a second feeling like a year. In that brief moment, Wei Zhao was soaked through as if he had just bathed, every inch of him from head to toe drenched in his own cold sweat.

"Hoo…" Having finally survived his first intimate encounter with the Five-Element Killing Qi, Wei Zhao exhaled a long, turbid breath like a man spared from death. Even the pressure the Old Sect of the Western Hills had brought to bear on him had not been this much. Shaking his head with a bitter smile, he said, "The Five-Element Killing Qi really is terrifying. To think there could be such a dreadful thing under heaven—I've certainly learned something today."

"Count yourself lucky, kid. The power of the Five-Element Killing Qi is something no human or spirit beast can withstand. Any other expert—never mind the mere Golden Core stage, even a Nascent Soul cultivator—would have been dead beyond any doubt from just that one brush. It is only a freak like you, with a five-element spiritual root constitution, who could take it head-on and come away with all limbs intact." Ghost Thing's tone actually carried a note of envy.

Even in his former days at full power, he would never have dared to use the Five-Element Killing Qi to temper himself the way Wei Zhao just had—it was unthinkable. Only a freak like Wei Zhao could possess such opportunity and such fortune.

Understand this: the fiercer the tempering, the faster the improvement—an eternal truth. The premise, of course, is surviving it. Otherwise it is simply seeking one's own death.

"If the Five-Element Killing Qi is that terrifying, Senior, why didn't you say so earlier? Good thing I was cautious and didn't jump straight in. I only caught that insignificant little aftershock—if the Five-Element Killing Qi had struck me directly, I'd have been dead for certain." Wei Zhao stuck out his tongue, still shaken.

That was the truth. The experience just now had made it clear to him: though his unique five-element spiritual root constitution allowed him to cultivate by means of the Five-Element Killing Qi, to fully withstand it was pure fantasy. At most, his capacity to endure was far greater than that of other cultivators.

"Tch, I'm not a five-element attribute myself, and I've never truly come into contact with the Five-Element Killing Qi—how was I supposed to know it was this formidable?" Ghost Thing curled his lip dismissively. Still, he knew Wei Zhao's temperament well enough to know the boy would not rashly plunge ahead; otherwise he would never have been so "irresponsible"—at the very least he would have offered a word of warning.

"Uh…" Wei Zhao was speechless for a moment. Still shaken, he lifted his eyes to the sky above. A moment's carelessness, and those Five-Element Killing Qi bursts that surfaced from time to time could become the death-dealing King of Hell—this was no joking matter.

"Don't just stand there gaping. Tell me—how did it feel? What was the effect?" Ghost Thing asked with keen interest.

"In just that tiny instant? What effect could there possibly be—" Wei Zhao could not help laughing at the question, but halfway through his words he stopped short, as though struck by lightning, and froze.

By all reason, every method of cultivation is slow, grinding work; only through years and months of perseverance can obvious results appear. There is no cultivation method in the world that shows results instantly. Even heretical cultivation arts are not that fast—unless one takes pills, and only top-grade pills at that, could an effect be seen immediately.

Yet at this moment, that deeply ingrained understanding of Wei Zhao's was shattered. Had such an incredible thing been mere hearsay, he would have scoffed. Now that it had truly happened to him, however, he had no choice but to believe it.

The whole thing had lasted only a brief instant—less than the blink of an eye—yet Wei Zhao had unmistakably felt a genuine effect. He dared not claim more, but at the very least the strength of the true qi within his body had clearly changed compared to a moment ago. And not by a small margin either. In the past that would have been utterly impossible!

Even cultivating within the jade pendant's space, Wei Zhao had never seen such absurd, astonishing results. He was now completely dumbstruck. Even taking pills, one had to wait for the medicinal power to take effect—how could anything produce such immediate results?

"Even a boy who stays calm in the face of anything is stunned—so the effect is just as I expected. Truly absurd." Ghost Thing cackled.

"How can this be? This is way too absurd!" Beyond the shock, Wei Zhao felt not joy but worry. The effect had come too fast, too suddenly; he rather feared he might have suffered a deviation. After all, in the understanding of any normal person, haste makes waste—advance too quickly and grave problems are easily bred.

"It's fine, this is within my expectations. Quite normal," Ghost Thing said with a laugh, trying to reassure him.

"You call this normal?" Wei Zhao was somewhat at a loss for words. If this counted as normal, then his previous rate of cultivation must have been nothing short of a turtle's crawl—yet even that had already been at least a hundred times faster than an ordinary cultivator's. If this was normal, how were other people supposed to survive… (Good news, everyone—the television adaptation of *The School Beauty's Bodyguard* has finished filming and will air on iQiyi in July. Don't forget to watch! For more news, follow Yuren**yuren22) (To be continued…)