Chapter 1867 — Pondering Martial Techniques, Part One

As for those minor shareholders, Gu Pengzhan did not take them to task either. Currying favor with the newly arrived chairman was only natural conduct; if blame was to be assigned, it belonged solely to Gu Pengzhan himself for not having cultivated a few true friends.

Guan the Divine Physician's Pharmaceuticals had not resumed business. Once Wei Zhao had handed over to Lai the Fatso the flaws in those several products of Kang the Divine Physician along with the methods for testing them, Lai the Fatso began quietly seeking professional institutions to issue inspection reports, and just as quietly started using the two billion that Wei Zhao had recovered to slowly buy back the factories and land he had previously sold off at low prices. Though the repurchase price was higher than the selling price, with the vigorous backing of the Wu and Sun families, it hardly amounted to anything.

Toward the conduct of Wu Gonggao and the Sun family patriarch, Wei Zhao merely laughed it off without offering any comment. He only told Lai the Fatso that if they were willing to lend the money, then take it for now—merchants chase profit, and Wei Zhao viewed Wu Gonggao and the Sun patriarch purely through the lens of businessmen. After this affair was settled, he would naturally repay them with some benefit, but to open his heart to them as he had with the Liu family was out of the question.

Of course, Wei Zhao had never expected Wu Gonggao and the others to become friends in the first place; the ones he was truly close to were only Wu Chengtian and Sun Jingyan.

As for the prescriptions to counter Kang the Divine Physician's pharmaceutical company, Wei Zhao had also written them out for Lai the Fatso. Guan the Divine Physician's Pharmaceuticals began quietly resuming operations, though no products were yet pushed onto the market.

Everyone around Wei Zhao knew that Lai the Fatso was waiting for a fitting opportunity—once the inspection reports came out, he would stun the world with a single brilliant feat!

School would soon begin, and he would have to report to East Sea City. These past few days, Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu were busy packing their luggage for East Sea City, while Wei Zhao remained in his room pondering that baffling martial technique and the second-layer cultivation method of the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art.

Though this martial technique's cultivation method contained no substantive moves, in Wei Zhao's view, since it had been retrieved from the cave, even as an auxiliary method it must have some rationale. He had to complete this auxiliary method before finishing the second layer of the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art—who knew, there might yet be even more formidable martial techniques waiting for him inside that cave.

As for the materials needed to refine the jade pendant, Wei Zhao had also made inquiries through Lai the Fatso's connections, but the results left him deeply disappointed. Of the blue crystal powder, pure yellow jade, and colored steel, Lai the Fatso said he could only try to track down the blue crystal through his connections; the other two were another matter—pure yellow jade was a thing one could not seek but only encounter, a matter of sheer luck, and as for colored steel, he had never even heard of it!

Guan Xuemin, however, knew a person of great prestige and moral stature, renowned in both collecting circles and the world of jade carving, who might possibly possess pure yellow jade. This news heartened Wei Zhao somewhat, and he resolved to pay that eminent figure a personal visit when he had the time, to see whether he might obtain some pure yellow jade.

As for colored steel, Wei Zhao could only leave it to fate. No one around him knew what it was, and colored steel—he had never laid eyes on such a thing in his life. How could steel ever form naturally in color?

These past few days at home, he had gained nothing of consequence. The second layer of the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art was proving markedly more difficult to cultivate than the first; after so many days of practice, Wei Zhao was still stuck at the initial stage, barely able to circulate it smoothly—and even that was thanks to the foundation laid when he had forced out the fire-poison true qi. Otherwise it would have been even more clumsy.

The auxiliary cultivation method for the martial technique, however—ten layers in all—had carried Wei Zhao straight through to the third layer! It seemed to pose no pressure at all, and he was already advancing toward the fourth!

Of course, the martial technique's method also stated plainly that the first three layers were meant for practitioners at the early Earth Stage—that is, even if Wei Zhao cultivated to the peak of the third layer, without his strength reaching the mid Earth Stage, it would be impossible for him to cultivate the fourth. That being so, Wei Zhao naturally slowed his pace. For as he advanced toward the peak of the third layer, he found that pushing any further was easier said than done. Though the fourth layer seemed just within sight, he was still a hair's breadth short—and that was the bottleneck of his strength.

With the remaining time, Wei Zhao picked up once more the martial technique Uncle Qing had given him—the Frenzied Fire Fist!

Previously, perhaps because of the cultivation method, Wei Zhao had practiced this martial technique rather clumsily and had never made any progress; nor could he unleash its full effect in combat against an enemy. But Wei Zhao knew that this martial technique was certainly no ordinary one!

Uncle Qing had in his day been the young master of a certain sect, and the martial technique he cultivated must surely have been a formidable one, by no means commonplace fare. The reason Wei Zhao could not master it purely was entirely his own.

But now, since Wei Zhao had found no more suitable martial technique in the cave, he had no choice but to continue practicing the one Uncle Qing had left him.

There was no one left around him to consult about martial techniques either—Old Man Wei did not know, and ** was not at his side. In all things he could only rely on himself.

The Frenzied Fire Fist—a name of domineering air. From the name alone one could tell that Uncle Qing must have cultivated a fire-element method in his day, though as to what exactly it was, Wei Zhao had never asked, for he could not possibly abandon the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art to cultivate some other internal method.

Every practitioner can cultivate only one innate method. Cultivate more than one, and far from achieving anything, one would be fettered by them and accomplish nothing at all; worse still, cultivating two mutually opposing methods could well lead to qi deviation!

That was precisely why Wei Zhao had been so careful and cautious when choosing cultivation formulas for Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu, never making arbitrary arrangements.

For some unknown reason, whenever Wei Zhao thought back on past events—especially certain things connected with Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu—his heart would always give an inexplicable throb, as though he had forgotten something, yet as though it were all only natural.

The first form of the Frenzied Fire Fist!

This form Wei Zhao had rehearsed no fewer than several hundred times, yet he still could not fully master or unleash it—let alone think of the second and third forms. Wei Zhao simply could not use them at all; he could not even unleash the first, to say nothing of the rest.

This, too, was why Wei Zhao had time and again met with defeat when facing enemies in the past.

This time, Wei Zhao rehearsed it once more—and unexpectedly, he succeeded on the very first try!

Before, when Wei Zhao practiced, he failed eight times out of ten, and only twice could he luckily manage to unleash it. Yet now, after not having used it for more than half a month, with his hands grown rusty, the odds of succeeding on the first attempt were simply too slim.