Chapter 1686 — The Drawback
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"Don't tell me you don't have any?" Uncle Qing was just as astonished as Wei Zhao by the look of disbelief in his eyes.
"For now, I really don't." Wei Zhao smiled bitterly. "The things I obtained are different from what others have. The mental cultivation method and oral formulas I practice share no similarities and no common ground with anyone else's, so for the time being I have no martial arts techniques at all!"
"The only martial arts technique I can still remember is the one I cultivated myself, and even then it's just the first three forms. I never had time to learn anything beyond that, and as for the manuals and secret tomes of martial arts, they were all kept in our sect's scripture pavilion, long since gone..." Uncle Qing smiled bitterly. "If you need it, I can certainly teach you."
"Only three forms? And who knows whether I can even learn them..." Wei Zhao sighed helplessly. Setting aside whether he could master Uncle Qing's martial arts at all, even if he could, three forms really did seem a little too few!
But Wei Zhao had no other choice now. He suspected that a matching set of martial arts techniques ought to exist alongside the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art, yet he did not have them in hand at present, and whether any lay behind the second stone gate was something he did not know either. And if there were none, when the third stone gate would open was anyone's guess. So Wei Zhao was in no position to be picky—since Uncle Qing's martial arts were available, he might as well learn them and see!
So long as the technique was not of the extreme yin and extreme soft variety like those of the Ice Palace, Wei Zhao could still force himself to try learning it. The Ice Palace's martial arts were the polar opposite of his own mental cultivation method; if he forced himself to practice them, he feared he would suffer a qi deviation.
"I'll spend the next couple of days recalling them and organizing the techniques for you. You can give them a try," Uncle Qing said. "It's been so long since I last used any martial arts. It rather fills me with emotion..."
"I'm an Earth-rank expert now. If you want, I can raise your strength right away!" It suddenly occurred to Wei Zhao that if he also raised Uncle Qing to the Earth rank, then having Uncle Qing personally teach him martial arts would surely be far easier than studying dull text on his own—simpler and easier to understand, wouldn't it?
"You can raise it again?" Uncle Qing's eyes lit up at once, then filled with the flame of hope! The Earth rank—a cultivation at the Earth rank! Once Uncle Qing recovered his Earth-rank strength, it would be as if he had returned to the state he was in at the peak of his life. And that would bring him one step closer to his dream of revenge!
"It should be possible!" Wei Zhao said. "By the way, during this recent period while I was away, has your strength recovered at all?"
"Recently? Oh, if you hadn't mentioned it, I'd have forgotten all about it!" At this, Uncle Qing's expression turned grave. "I was puzzled before—ever since you helped raise my strength, it's as though I no longer absorb the spiritual qi of heaven and earth from the natural world at all. When I cultivate on my own, there's not the slightest progress!"
"Not the slightest progress?" Wei Zhao was taken aback, but then a very important thought occurred to him! Since the Qi Gathering Pills contained vast amounts of pure true qi, anyone who used a Qi Gathering Pill would become somewhat resistant to the spiritual qi of heaven and earth. And the energy in his own body was even purer than that of a Qi Gathering Pill. Once someone had used his energy, wouldn't they be even more resistant to the spiritual qi of heaven and earth?