Chapter 1584 — It Actually Failed!
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
So on a night when the moon was hidden and the wind blew fierce, Wei Zhao placed General Weiwu and the Heavenly Thunder Pig at his side and bade them guard him. He also spoke to Wu Chengtian, asking him to stand watch outside his door. With all preparations complete, Wei Zhao stepped into the jade pendant space, settled into his cultivation posture, and prepared to assault the peak of the late Mysterious stage through true qi compression.
All preparations settled, Wei Zhao activated the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art and drew the energies of the jade pendant space rapidly toward his body. At this point he stood only a single step from the peak of the late Mysterious stage. Under normal circumstances, he could no longer draw true qi from the jade pendant space at all -- or if he could, only in meager traces that would offer no assistance whatsoever toward the breakthrough.
Wei Zhao began compressing the energy around him. Perhaps it was because the energy within the jade pendant space was perfectly identical to the energy inside his own body, but he found he could manipulate and compress it at will. Outside in the world, however, he could not compress the ambient spiritual energy of heaven and earth -- only the energy that already belonged to him.
Nor dared Wei Zhao compress too much, for fear that the instant of sudden release would blast his meridians to pieces. Estimating that he had gathered roughly enough energy for the breakthrough to the peak of the late Mysterious stage, he abruptly sucked all of it into his body -- and then unleashed it within himself in one violent burst...
BOOM -- Wei Zhao felt as though something inside him had detonated, blasting his clothes outward until they puffed up around him... The explosion was internal, to be sure, but it still wracked him with pain so savage he nearly vomited blood.
His meridians seemed to burn like fire, an agony beyond bearing. Yet the pain came swiftly and passed just as fast. Within moments Wei Zhao had recovered to normal -- only to discover, to his utter dismay, that he had not leveled up at all. His cultivation remained at the late Mysterious stage.
"No level up?" Wei Zhao muttered to himself, perplexed.
"No." Jiao Yazi glanced at him and confirmed flatly.
"Why not?" Wei Zhao found this thoroughly baffling and could not make sense of it. "Elder Jiao, the amount of true qi I compressed this time was essentially the same as last time. In theory, it should have been enough to level me up."
"There is no mystery to it," Jiao Yazi said. "The higher your level, the greater the quantity of true qi required for a sudden breakthrough. Judging this breakthrough by the amount you used before is simply not how it works." He paused. "The true qi needed to break from the Yellow stage to the Mysterious stage and from the Mysterious stage to the Earth stage -- those quantities are obviously not the same."
"Ah!" Wei Zhao's eyes widened as sudden clarity washed over him. "Elder Jiao, do you mean I need to compress even more energy to break through?"