Chapter 1653 — Using the Qi-Gathering Pill: This Is Pure Primordial Energy — Whatever True Qi You Wish to Convert It Into, It Will Become!

As for the Qi-Gathering Pill, its energy could at most be as pure as that within the jade pendant space — or perhaps not even that pure. So Wei Zhao was not afraid that taking it would leave him with some lingering aftereffect that would keep him from cultivating any further.

It was only that wasting a Qi-Gathering Pill like this was a genuine pity. To take it while breaking through from Mystic rank to Earth rank — surely Wei Zhao was the only man alive who had ever done such a thing! But there was no better way now; that such a way existed at all was enough to make him thank heaven and earth.

"You mean to take it?" Seeing his expression, Bing Tang could more or less guess what he was thinking.

"Yes." Wei Zhao did not deny it. "Right now it is the only way. Why shouldn't I take it?"

"Have you thought about the consequences? You might be stuck at Earth rank for the rest of your life, if you can never become an alchemist and refine more Qi-Gathering Pills," Bing Tang warned.

"That is impossible," Wei Zhao said.

"You..." Bing Tang was choking with rage at his words. She had meant well. If Wei Zhao were stuck at Earth rank forever, what would become of Feng Xiaoxiao? Tang Yun was an ordinary person, so it hardly mattered in her case, but Feng Xiaoxiao was one who sought the way of heaven; she could never become the companion of an Earth-rank cultivator. So for Feng Xiaoxiao's sake Bing Tang wanted to persuade Wei Zhao to give it up — yet Wei Zhao seemed not to care at all about the flaw the Qi-Gathering Pill would bring.

"Thank you. I am going to take the Qi-Gathering Pill now. Before we set out, I mean to break through to Earth rank," Wei Zhao told her.

"Think it through. Do not harm others and yourself alike. Waiting one more year might not be such a great matter," Bing Tang said.

"Ha — little Heaven-rank girl, are you afraid that if I'm stuck at Earth rank forever, I won't be able to marry you?" Wei Zhao turned back and teased her with a laugh.

"Get lost." Bing Tang said that one word flatly, fury burning in her heart; she would not trouble herself over this thing a moment longer. Let him eat it if he wanted to eat it. Who cared.

So Wei Zhao found a quiet room in Tang Yun's house and began his journey of leveling up and breaking through...

Following his earlier experience, Wei Zhao made the Qi-Gathering Pill ready and laid it beside him, then entered the jade pendant space and began condensing an energy ball.

Having condensed one many times before, he was much improved this time in both speed and quality; he succeeded at the first attempt with no need for a second — he knew the road well.

That part did not worry him. If one attempt failed, he could make a second; at worst it would waste a little time, which was no great harm. The crucial thing was that at the very instant he rose to the peak of late Mystic rank, Wei Zhao had to take the Qi-Gathering Pill — not sooner, not later. He had to seize the timing exactly.

Bing Tang had said as much: the Qi-Gathering Pill could be taken as an experience pill, or as a wonder pill for breaking through — two different effects. Wei Zhao meant to take it as a breakthrough pill. If he had not yet reached the peak of late Mystic rank and swallowed it anyway, and the pill only did the work of an experience pill without breaking him through, that would be a thorough mess.

And if he took it too late, after his level had already fallen back, then it would again be no better than an experience pill. So this one chance allowed no slip whatsoever.

Drawing a deep breath, Wei Zhao swiftly drew the energy ball into his body, then used its energy to begin his breakthrough. His strength climbed all the way, from the peak of late Yellow rank up to the peak of late Mystic rank...

In an instant Wei Zhao withdrew from the jade pendant space, while inside his body the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art still ran, governing the energy ball as it slowly released its remaining energy — which ensured both that Wei Zhao would not immediately drop a level, and that the leftover energy would not blast his meridians apart.

Wei Zhao snatched up the Qi-Gathering Pill and swallowed it straight down. In an instant a warm current surged from his belly through his whole body, followed by a searing heat, as though every meridian in him had been set alight.

Wei Zhao made no particular effort to resist; he let it run its natural course, gritting his teeth and waiting for what would follow. After all, he had no idea what taking a Qi-Gathering Pill would be like; this time he had taken it in a spirit of experiment.

The burning grew stronger and stronger, until Wei Zhao felt he himself would catch fire. Even so he clenched his teeth and held on. The sensation was somehow familiar — a little like the natural feeling at his first breakthrough, yet different too, carrying something of that scorching heat from when he had forced a breakthrough by compressing his true qi.

It was not quite so overbearing, but Wei Zhao could feel that the clothes on his body were on the verge of being scorched. Still, by any measure this was a good thing; miserable as he was, his heart was glad.

The more painful it was now, the more it resembled those earlier breakthroughs, the more reassured Wei Zhao felt. If he felt nothing at all, he would instead be dismayed, for the Qi-Gathering Pill was his last chance.

At last the energy in the ball within his body was spent. But to Wei Zhao's relief his strength did not begin to dissipate; instead, in an instant, the heaven-and-earth spiritual qi in the air gathered around him, circling above his head and forming an extremely faint vortex.

Bing Tang had been right: the spiritual qi of the natural world was pitifully sparse, all the more so in a city. Still, this spiritual qi had merely been drawn together automatically at the moment of breakthrough, and Wei Zhao's breakthrough this time relied on the Qi-Gathering Pill, not on that spiritual qi — so how much or how little of it there was did not matter to him.

To put it plainly, this spiritual qi resonated with the true qi in Wei Zhao's body, whirling around him faster and faster, and Wei Zhao felt his own body temperature rising higher and higher.

He could even smell something scorched now — his clothes. His garments had crumbled into one burnt fragment after another and dropped to the floor.

But Wei Zhao no longer cared about any of that. So long as he could break through, it would not matter if the whole room burned down! At worst he would have Fatty Lai find someone to redecorate it.

On his previous breakthroughs Wei Zhao had always been inside the jade pendant space, and the clothes that burned there were only illusory garments within that space, so the outside world was unaffected. This time, however, he was breaking through outside the jade pendant space, and the commotion was somewhat greater.

Ordinary people could not sense a thing like heaven-and-earth spiritual qi, but Bing Tang could.

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