Chapter 2980 — Speaking Against One's Heart

"Enough. Here's how it is..." Zhao Qitan had harbored the same misgivings before, but once Zhao Qijiu explained it to him, he understood, so he laid the whole reasoning out for Wei Zhao.

Although Wei Zhao was an alchemist, he was not all that clear on the principles behind such uncommon pills as the Qi Gathering Pill and the Intermediate Qi Gathering Pill either. But after hearing Zhao Qitan's explanation, he was thrilled. "You mean it can break through to the Heaven rank... that's wonderful..."

"Boss, you're going into seclusion right now?" Zhao Qitan was even more anxious than Wei Zhao himself. After all, Wei Zhao's injuries were his doing, so he felt deeply guilty and desperately hoped Wei Zhao would recover as quickly as possible.

"Yes, I'll take them now." Wei Zhao nodded. "Still, all our scheming was for nothing—we don't need to go back to West Star Mountain Village. At least it turned out to be a near miss."

"We don't have to go back..." The eldest young lady sounded a little disappointed, but then she smiled. "Wei Zhao, congratulations. Xiaoshu and I can finally breathe easy! It's good that we aren't going—now we can take our final exams and won't have to retake them next semester."

"Yao Yao, you sound a little like you don't mean what you say?" Shen Yushu blinked.

The eldest young lady's face flushed slightly, but she pretended not to have heard. "Wei Zhao, so you're going into seclusion now?"

Wei Zhao nodded, stood up, picked up the pills, and walked toward the room. In truth, he was rather worried himself. These past few days, having abruptly lost his strength, he had felt powerless against one sudden crisis after another. If he had his power, he still could not have contended with the Dark Night Palace, but at the very least he would not have been as wretched as this.

While Wei Zhao went into seclusion, the others kept watch over him in the living room, for if anything went wrong while he took the pills, it would be too late for regret.

After shutting the door, Wei Zhao sat cross-legged on the bed and set the three Intermediate Qi Gathering Pills before him. Having taken a Qi Gathering Pill before, he was not nervous this time.

After all, the last time he took a Qi Gathering Pill had been a harrowing affair—the timing had to be perfect, neither too early nor too late. Back then he had also been stricken with a strange poison and had been losing levels continuously, so the pill had to be taken at the exact instant of an upgrade breakthrough for it to work as a miracle cure that shattered the level barrier.

This time, all Wei Zhao had to do was calmly swallow and refine the three Intermediate Qi Gathering Pills, and everything would be fine.

Drawing a deep breath, Wei Zhao solemnly picked up the three Intermediate Qi Gathering Pills before him, put them into his mouth, and with a forceful gulp sent them straight down into his belly!

"Hiss—" Wei Zhao could not help crying out. The instant the Intermediate Qi Gathering Pills entered his belly, a warm current surged from his dantian through his whole body, and then every meridian in him felt as if it were on fire—searing hot!

Having taken a Qi Gathering Pill before, Wei Zhao again chose to let nature take its course this time rather than deliberately resisting. To be honest, even if he had wanted to circulate his mental cultivation method to fend off the heat, he could not have—poisoned as he was, he simply could not operate the method at all.

As time passed, the searing sensation grew ever more intense. Wei Zhao felt as if his whole body were about to ignite. Even so, he gritted his teeth and endured. The feeling was one he knew intimately—exactly the same as when he had first taken a Qi Gathering Pill.

Gradually, Wei Zhao could feel his clothes beginning to scorch from the heat radiating off his skin. Yet this, in any case, was a good thing. Wretched as he felt, he was deeply relieved at heart, for this sensation was identical to last time—the sign of an imminent breakthrough!

Late Earth rank, peak late Earth rank... Wei Zhao sensed the power within him rising bit by bit—slow, but steady, neither hurried nor sluggish.

It seemed the Intermediate Qi Gathering Pill's effects were truly formidable. Wei Zhao thought that if only his cultivation speed could always be this fast... Huh? In that case, wasn't the Intermediate Qi Gathering Pill the equivalent of a Qi Gathering Pill plus Wang Xinyan?

Wei Zhao could clearly feel that the Intermediate Qi Gathering Pill's energy was absorbed far faster than a Qi Gathering Pill's—just as if he were taking a Qi Gathering Pill while holding Wang Xinyan. It seemed there must be something in the Intermediate Qi Gathering Pill connected to Wang Xinyan!

But since Wei Zhao urgently needed the Intermediate Qi Gathering Pill to restore his strength, he had no way to break one down and study it slowly. He lacked the skill to reverse-engineer the formula for refining pills anyway—that was a different matter from a medicinal prescription, and at least for now, Wei Zhao had no such ability.

Great completion of the late Earth rank—he was about to break through to the early Heaven rank. beads of sweat already covered Wei Zhao's forehead in a dense layer, and his clothes, like cloth left long under a blazing sun, had turned brittle and weathered, splitting apart and dropping onto the bed. Yet he had no mind to spare for any of it; the energy within him was growing at a furious pace.

Around Wei Zhao, the heaven-and-earth spiritual energy in the air gathered toward him—more and more of it, swirling above his head into an exceedingly faint vortex!

The heaven-and-earth spiritual energy in the natural world was, after all, pitifully sparse, especially in the city. But this spiritual energy had been drawn together automatically during the breakthrough. Wei Zhao's breakthrough this time, like the last, relied on the pill rather than on this spiritual energy, so how much of it there was made no difference to him!

In plain terms, this spiritual energy resonated with the true qi inside Wei Zhao, racing around him faster and faster, and Wei Zhao felt his body temperature climbing ever higher!

Wei Zhao could even smell something burning—it was the trousers on his body. His clothes had already crumbled into brittle scraps that fell onto the bed, but the trousers were still on his legs, pressed beneath him, and had begun to smolder on their own. (To be continued

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