"In that case, I won't argue with you. I'll let you play the man for once!" Qiu Lingshan smiled. "If you had been as decisive back then as you are now, I wouldn't have looked down on you so much."

"Haha, what's past is past. It was Wei Zhao's influence that changed me." Chen Yutian smiled with easy unconcern. "All right, Wei Zhao, I'm ready. We can begin!"

"Good, then let's begin!" Wei Zhao said no more. Chen Yutian and Qiu Lingshan were grown adults who knew what they were doing, and there was no need for him to say more. "In a moment, when I tell you to circulate your cultivation method, you begin!"

"No problem!" Chen Yutian sat down cross-legged and made his preparations.

Wei Zhao did not dare compress too much true qi. He estimated the amount of energy he himself had used back when he broke through from the Yellow Rank to the Mystic Rank; with this sort of thing, enough was enough—too much and it would burst a man open.

"That will do." Wei Zhao quickly finished compressing the energy. It was not meant to serve as a bomb, so there was no need to compress it too much.

Chen Yutian circulated his own internal cultivation method, yet found that he could not absorb true qi from Wei Zhao at all, and could not help feeling puzzled. It had not been like this before; that time just before they set out, he had absorbed the true qi Wei Zhao sent over quite smoothly!

Chen Yutian tried once more, and the result was still failure. He could not help growing bewildered.

"What is it?" Wei Zhao had not sensed Chen Yutian absorbing the energy, but he did see the puzzled expression on his face, and so asked.

"It seems I can't draw true qi from you..." Chen Yutian said after trying once again.

"Oh?" Wei Zhao frowned, recalling the bottleneck between his own rank and Chen Yutian's. He himself was a Mystic Rank expert, and once Chen Yutian reached the peak of the late Yellow Rank, he could no longer absorb energy from Wei Zhao. That bottleneck could not be changed.

At the thought, Wei Zhao felt suddenly deflated and dispirited. Earlier he had believed this trick could be used on Chen Yutian and Qiu Lingshan, yet unexpectedly it had failed! His own means of acquiring energy was the jade pendant space, which carried no rank restrictions whatsoever.

But Chen Yutian and Qiu Lingshan were different. Their way of acquiring energy ran through him, as a medium of transmission, and so the bottleneck existed.

Yet Wei Zhao was unwilling to accept it. He had gone to such trouble to think of a way to deal with Old Yu, only for it to prove unworkable.

Seeing Wei Zhao's expression, Chen Yutian guessed that some difficulty must have arisen. He did not dare make a sound to disturb Wei Zhao, and merely sat quietly to one side.

"Old Jiao, is there no way to break through this bottleneck?" Wei Zhao shifted his hopes to Jiao Yazi.

"Since when does good fortune come so easily? It's already invincible when you use the jade pendant space—and now you want others to use it too? Are all the good things supposed to land in your lap?" Old Jiao shook his head, flatly rejecting Wei Zhao's idea.

"Then there's no other way?" Though Wei Zhao had long known the answer, he still asked, unwilling to let it go.

"Hmm... you brat, all you ever do is make trouble for me. Let me think..." Old Jiao knew how serious the matter was, so though his words were full of displeasure, he truly was thinking of a way for Wei Zhao. "That's right—this bottleneck of yours only takes effect up to the peak of the late Yellow Rank, isn't that so?"

"Yes, that is exactly where the bottleneck lies," Wei Zhao said with a nod.

"Then there is a way. Whether it works or not, go and try it. This is the only method I can think of!" Jiao Yazi mused for a moment, then said, "Have him waste a bit of true qi, and then not cultivate it back. Instead, let him cultivate with the true qi you transmit. That way, so long as he cannot maintain the very peak of the late Yellow Rank, he should be able to use your true qi. At that point, send a compressed energy straight into him, and it ought to work! Only the dose will have to be a little larger!"

"Of course!" The moment Wei Zhao heard Jiao Yazi's method, he was delighted—this really was a fine idea! At the thought, he quickly said to Chen Yutian, "Brother Yutian, waste some true qi first, and don't restore it. Otherwise my true qi will have no effect on you."

"Oh? All right!" Chen Yutian asked no further questions and simply did as Wei Zhao said. He rose to his feet, circulated his internal cultivation method, and began swinging his fists at the stone wall of the passage!

These past few days Chen Yutian had scarcely expended any true qi. The only moment in which he could have used true qi was the instant he leaped down the cliff; afterward, having cultivated for a night in the ancient tomb's passage, his true qi was all the more abundant.

"All right, that's about enough. Wasting a little is all we need." After waiting a while, Wei Zhao signaled to Chen Yutian that he could stop.

Chen Yutian stopped his fists, turned, and returned to Wei Zhao's side. Without needing Wei Zhao to say anything, he sat down cross-legged again beside him and began to circulate his cultivation method...

This time the miracle finally happened: Wei Zhao's compressed energy passed smoothly into Chen Yutian's body. The next moment, Chen Yutian's face turned the color of pork liver, a truly horrifying and frightful sight!

"Ah—" Chen Yutian let out a furious roar, his eyes bloodshot, feeling as though his body were about to explode, unbearably wretched and unendurable.

But Chen Yutian also knew this was the precursor to a breakthrough—only more painful than an ordinary one. It was somewhat akin to force-feeding, pulling up a seedling to hurry its growth, except that the pulling was not too ruthless.

Wei Zhao had been through a similar agony himself, so at this moment he was not worried. So long as this energy entered Chen Yutian's body smoothly, his breakthrough could not be far off. And so Wei Zhao was not worried at all—rather, he was overjoyed!

From the look of things now, this method was workable. That meant that from now on, every time he advanced a rank, he could create an expert of his own level. Though after their breakthroughs Wei Zhao would be unable to help them further, even an early Mystic Rank would be of enormous help to him! At any rate, far more useful than the Yellow Rank, that chicken rib—tasteless, yet a pity to throw away.

"He... he won't come to any harm, will he?" Qiu Lingshan had been frightened by Chen Yutian's appearance and asked with some worry.

"He'll be fine, he's about to break through..." Wei Zhao glanced at Chen Yutian, whose face and body had turned fiery red, then suddenly cried out in alarm, "Oh no!"

"What is it?" Qiu Lingshan was startled.

"Turn your head away first. I have to help him get his clothes off, or the instant he breaks through, every stitch on him will be shredded to pieces!" Wei Zhao recalled his own breakthrough. His had taken place within the jade pendant space, so although his clothes had burst apart, they were only virtual; in the real world nothing had happened.

But Chen Yutian was different. He was in the real world, and this violent manner of breakthrough would destroy the clothes on his body beyond any doubt!

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