Chapter 1584 — It Actually Failed!

"Settle it? Naturally, we cannot let it go. But for now, I vote for patience. The Heaven-stage Convention draws ever closer, and for years we have been preparing for it. To make enemies at this juncture would be unwise! Though our family has no shortage of Heaven-stage experts, we are hardly abundant in them, and our standing at the Convention is not high. If we provoke someone and they strip us of our right to participate, the cost would far outweigh any gain!" Feng Tianlin went on, "The minimum requirement for the Convention is the Heaven stage, but only those at the peak of the late Heaven stage can take part in the core secrets. In our entire family, only Father qualifies. We must tread carefully!"

"Tianlin speaks sense." Old Master Feng nodded gravely. "Tianhu, we must first establish the cause and effect of this matter. If someone truly wronged our Feng family, then we are no pushovers -- we will demand justice, whatever it takes. But if this was a normal sparring match or a fair contest during a trial, then let it drop for now. To provoke others without justification would only give them ammunition and could cost us our qualification for the Convention."

"Yes..." Though Feng Tianhu's heart revolted against it a thousand times over, Old Master Feng had spoken, and all he could do was nod in acquiescence. But in the depths of his mind, he was already weighing whether he could strike secretly to avenge his son.

After all, this son had always been his greatest hope. To watch him destroyed like this -- he could not accept it. This was no longer merely a matter of Feng Nitian being crippled; his own dream of becoming family head had crumbled with it, and he would not swallow that.

The discord within the Feng family, together with Old Master Feng's caution, had the effect of delaying their plan to take revenge against Wei Zhao -- something Wei Zhao himself had never anticipated.

In the days following the college entrance exam, Wei Zhao spent most of his time shut inside his room. His daily routine consisted of cultivating within the jade pendant space. Day and night he trained without pause; he had to reach the Earth stage before the Great Clan Assembly, and he could not afford a single moment of rest.

Though Wei Zhao enjoyed a cultivation environment few could match -- within the jade pendant space he could draw on the spiritual energy of heaven and earth without limit, far surpassing what others could manage -- cultivation was never something accomplished overnight. There was an old saying: a towering skyscraper rises from level ground, and haste makes waste. That was precisely the principle at work here.

Wei Zhao yearned to break through, but one could not swallow a whole ox in a single bite. For days now he had been stuck at the bottleneck just before the peak of the late Mysterious stage. The breakthrough was within arm's reach, yet no progress came whatsoever.

The Great Clan Assembly grew nearer with each passing day, and still Wei Zhao had no solution. He had already boasted lofty promises to everyone, yet he remained two full levels short of the Earth stage. Forget the Earth stage for now -- even breaking through to the peak of the late Mysterious stage had become impossibly difficult.

At last, after repeated failed attempts at breakthrough, Wei Zhao decided he had no choice but to employ the most dangerous method: compressing true qi to force the breakthrough. The technique was extraordinarily perilous -- a misstep could rupture his meridians entirely. Though he had both General Weiwu and the Heavenly Thunder Pig as safeguards, this approach was, without question, gambling with his own life.

What made it worse was that Wei Zhao had only recently used this very method to break through. His meridians had not yet stabilized from that effort. Using it again in such quick succession -- no one knew what side effects might follow.

But by now Wei Zhao had exhausted every other path. Only this one method remained.

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?"

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