護花近衛 - 第3701章 動了殺機 - 翰墨軒

Kang Jingming hesitated for a moment, then suddenly spoke up: "Young Master Xu, I've heard tell of a kind of Foundation Establishment Spirit Liquid that, taken together with the Foundation Establishment Pill, can greatly increase one's chances of success?"

Xu Lingchong glanced at him and nodded. "That's right. In your current state, taking the Foundation Establishment Pill alone gives you only a thirty-percent chance. But if you combine it with Foundation Establishment Spirit Liquid, the odds rise to at least seventy percent. And with top-grade spirit liquid, the success rate can reach as high as ninety percent. The trouble is, this liquid has a very short shelf life—once it's brewed, it must be consumed within a single day. That's why it's so rarely seen on the open market. Most of the time you can't buy it even if you want to; it has to come through special channels."

Kang Jingming and the others exchanged glances, their eyes burning with eagerness. A thirty-percent chance was hardly worth the gamble, but seventy percent or better was far more dependable—and with top-grade spirit liquid, the success rate could reach ninety percent!

"Then... given Young Master Xu's background and connections, procuring this Foundation Establishment Spirit Liquid shouldn't be difficult, I imagine?" Kang Jingming ventured cautiously. "Young Master Xu, you know as well as we do that the lot of us are sworn enemies of Wei Zhao. If we sit idle these next few days, then face an early-stage Foundation Establishment Wei Zhao at the ranking tournament, I fear we'll only bring shame upon you."

Xu Lingchong mused for a moment, then looked at Kang Jingming and the others, whose faces were full of hope, and said: "Very well, then. Tomorrow I'll make a special trip to the Pill Hall. With my standing, getting a bit of Foundation Establishment Spirit Liquid from them shouldn't be a problem."

"Thank you, Young Master Xu!" Kang Jingming was overjoyed on the spot, and Zhong Yongliang and Meng Zhou beside him chimed in with their own thanks.

Xu Lingchong cast a glance at Meng Zhou. Foundation Establishment Spirit Liquid was no common commodity. His original intention had been to give it only to Kang Jingming and Zhong Yongliang—after all, those two were his core lackeys, while Meng Zhou at best counted as an outsider. What right did he have to the same treatment as those two?

But on second thought, his foremost purpose in coming here today was, after all, to deal with Wei Zhao, and Meng Zhou was the cannon fodder standing at the very front line. If the man's strength was too pathetic and he ended up being thrashed too brutally by Wei Zhao, that would hardly be fitting. Let him have this one favor, then—it was a trifling matter done in passing, anyway.

Li Zhengming watched all of this with cold detachment, thinking to himself that Meng Zhou had truly stumbled into a stroke of dog-shit luck this time. Yet he felt not the slightest envy for such luck. His foremost task now was to keep a low profile; breaking through to Foundation Establishment too early would only draw attention, which was no good thing.

Moreover, he came from a prestigious family with deep roots. Given time, achieving Foundation Establishment through his own strength would be no difficult feat. By contrast, taking the Foundation Establishment Pill and Spirit Liquid as these people before him did might look enviable, but compared with cultivators who broke through by their own power, there was an inherent gap in depth and foundation—hardly the optimal choice.

Still, if Xu Lingchong really did procure Foundation Establishment Spirit Liquid for them, then this intelligence had to be passed to Leader Wei Zhao ahead of time. Otherwise, even if Leader Wei Zhao was already a peak early-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator, suddenly running into three early-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators like Kang Jingming and the others would still catch him off guard.