Chapter 2077 — The Family's Circumstances
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
The younger generation of the other hidden clans are all Mystic-rank, some even Earth-rank, experts. Our Yellow-rank prodigies truly cannot compare.
"There is no helping it!" Han Xiaohu smiled bitterly. "In our family no renowned master has ever offered guidance. Almost everyone has climbed in strength by taking pills and consuming rare treasures—not by real cultivation of their own! It has been this way for my father's generation, and all the more so for mine! We do cultivate, but since we only grope our own way, we are forever taking the long road..."
Wei Zhao looked at Han Xiaohu beside him and felt an odd sense of shared misfortune. The Hidden Han Family had fine pills and rare treasures, yet without a renowned master to guide them, they had come to this—and he himself had neither pills nor rare treasures, and no renowned master either. This was the gap.
But for his good cultivation method and his determination to work hard, closing that small gap with the scions of the hidden clans and ancient sects would have taken him forever; otherwise he would have been left tens of thousands of miles behind.
"Since you have pills, why do your father's generation and yours not simply take pills and rise straight to Earth-rank, like your grandfather?" Wei Zhao asked.
"Grandfather is the head of the family, and he discovered the ancient ruins himself, so naturally he has priority in taking pills," Han Xiaohu explained. "The family's pills go to Grandfather first. Only beyond Earth-rank, these pills are of little use anymore, save for the Qi-Gathering Pill—and even that exists only as raw materials, impossible to refine."
"And the others? Did your grandfather eat them all?" Wei Zhao nodded and asked.
"The others naturally had their share. In the ancient ruins we discovered, the number of Spirit-Gathering Pills was actually quite large, but however large, it cannot withstand such consumption!" Han Xiaohu said. "Depending on innate aptitude, an ordinary person needs about ten Spirit-Gathering Pills to reach the peak of Yellow-rank late stage. And if one wants to break through from peak Yellow-rank late stage to Mystic-rank, one must take twenty Spirit-Gathering Pills or a single Spirit-Gathering Elixir!"
"So there was not enough to go around?" Hearing Han Xiaohu's words, Wei Zhao understood a little better. The Spirit-Gathering Pill is a Yellow-rank first-grade pill, and any Yellow-rank first-grade alchemist can refine it; but the Spirit-Gathering Elixir is a Yellow-rank second-grade pill, which only a Yellow-rank second-grade alchemist can produce—and with a success rate far lower than the Spirit-Gathering Pill, and from even rarer materials!
Thus the combined value of twenty Spirit-Gathering Pills did not equal that of a single Spirit-Gathering Elixir. Many hidden clans with a first-grade alchemist would gladly trade twenty or even more Spirit-Gathering Pills for one Spirit-Gathering Elixir, yet could find no one willing to trade!
"Exactly. Even a large supply cannot withstand such eating! My current strength is the result of taking three Spirit-Gathering Pills, which counts as rather good aptitude. With poorer aptitude, three pills can lift an ordinary person only to the early Yellow-rank!" Han Xiaohu said. "The family has so many people, and my father's generation spent vast quantities of Spirit-Gathering Pills to rise to Mystic-rank experts, so little was left for our third generation. Even if all of it was brought out, it might still suffice to lift us juniors into Mystic-rank—but that would be far too wasteful. Of the distant descendants we need not speak; but for those near, we cannot help but consider the sons and grandsons to come!"
"Can one also enter Earth-rank from Mystic-rank by swallowing pills?" Wei Zhao asked.