NOVPUB1131: Those were their pillars?!
1131: Those were their pillars?!
Yang Qing’s eyes instantly lit up at Dong Ping’s response—the ease and confidence in his words reassured him.
He couldn’t help but feel grateful toward Fan Mei for choosing Dong Ping for the case.
Maybe my luck isn’t so bad after all, Yang Qing mused.
With Ren Shu and Shao An before, and now Dong Ping, it seemed his streak of fortune was still holding strong.
Wanting to make the most of it while it lasted, he hesitated briefly before deciding to clue Dong Ping in on the matter surrounding Li Gang—what he was transporting, who was involved, and everything he had uncovered so far.
He knew he was revealing sensitive details, but at this moment, finding Bai Chen took priority over secrecy.
If sharing the information gave Dong Ping more context, it might prove invaluable when it came to the insights he could provide.
Without concealing much, he disclosed the existence of the heart-quenching mulberry dew, the logistics behind its transportation, and the key figures involved—particularly focusing on Jiang Hao’s strength and cultivation realm.
“So why would he do that?” Yang Qing asked once he had finished laying everything out.
Dong Ping stroked his beard thoughtfully, as he leaned forward slightly.
“How much do you know about them? 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘱𝘶𝑏.𝑐𝘰𝑚
the founders of the Vast Blue Merchant Company I mean?”
“As of now?
Not much more than what everyone else knows,” Yang Qing admitted.
“They were rogue cultivators who stumbled upon a lucky encounter that changed their fate, allowing them to build everything they have today—from their merchant company to their current strength.”
“Is there more to the story?” he added, raising a brow slightly.
“No, that pretty much covers the core of it,” Dong Ping said with a shrug.
“But if I were to add a bit more…”
He paused briefly before continuing.
“Before they stumbled onto whatever heavenly treasure changed their fates so drastically, they weren’t exactly the most talented cultivators.
In fact, if I had to grade their aptitude, I’d say it was below average,” he added, drawing curious looks from both Yang Qing and Fan Mei.
They had both heard the same version of the story—the four founders of the Vast Blue Merchant Company stumbled upon an ancient ruin, had a lucky encounter that transformed them into late-stage palace realm experts, and whatever was left over had been enough to jump-start their merchant company, accelerating it past the ‘foundational phase’ to become a renowned power.
Yang Qing had never given much thought to the founders’ lives before their lucky encounter, other than the fact that they were rogue cultivators.
For him, their story began with that ancient ruin.
And even then, despite his curiosity, he knew little about what they actually found—only that it had produced four late-stage palace realm experts.
Yang Qing had assumed their lucky encounter was some powerful legacy—perhaps a top-tier blue-grade art—since it had been enough to sustain all four of them.
But with the direction Dong Ping seemed to be hinting at by mentioning their lack of talent, Yang Qing realized he might need to reconsider what their lucky encounter truly was.
While a powerful cultivation art could make it easier to reach higher realms, simply owning one didn’t guarantee success.
These arts placed strict demands on one’s aptitude—if you didn’t measure up, possessing one was no different than owning a useless rock.
For all his prodigious talent in understanding cultivation arts—enough to even evolve a red-grade art into a middle-tier blue-grade one—it had still taken Yang Qing nearly three months just to reach the beginner phase of the gold-grade art, the Phantom Void Steps.
Reaching the emergent phase had taken him close to two years.
And that was him—someone with a genuine gift for grasping cultivation arts.
For anyone else, the difficulty would be unimaginable.
If Dong Ping was right and the four founders truly had below-average talent, then their strength couldn’t have come solely from a powerful cultivation art as Yang Qing had originally assumed.
At least, not on its own.
A heavenly treasure capable of altering their aptitude—or something equally miraculous—had to be involved.
As if reading his thoughts, Dong Ping replied,
“I don’t know what they found in that ruin, but it had to be something extraordinary for it to give four cultivators—four foundation establishment cultivators—where one had white pillars and the other three had the lowest tier of red-grade pillars, the ability to reach the palace realm.”
“Those were their pillars?!” Yang Qing asked, his surprise evident.
“It was,” Dong Ping confirmed.
“I had a friend who knew them before they became what they are today—she was the one who told me about it,” he added.
“White and red…” Yang Qing muttered again, the shock still clear on his face.
How could it not be, considering the implications of what he had just heard?
White-grade pillars were the lowest pillars one could form in the foundation establishment realm.
They were so weak, in fact, that a first-stage foundation establishment cultivator with white-grade pillars could easily lose to an early-stage qi refinement cultivator with decent foundations.
They wouldn’t even need to have Yang Qing’s level of attainments at that stage.
Any early-stage qi refinement cultivator who had achieved a gold body in the body refinement realm and cultivated techniques or arts at the middle-tier orange grade or higher could effortlessly defeat a foundation establishment cultivator with white-grade pillars.
The only real advantage such a cultivator had over a qi refinement cultivator was their lifespan.
In everything else, they were thoroughly subpar.
Getting white-grade foundation pillars was so bad to the point that if you did get one, you had to forever forfeit the idea of ever reaching the middle stages of the foundation establishment realm with said pillars, and when it came to red grade pillars, while red grade pillars were significantly better, it was only when compared to white grade pillars.
They too had their limitations in that, for those who had red grade pillars, the best they could ever hope for in their cultivation journeys was to reach the late stages of the foundation establishment realm and even then, for most, the best..
the very best they could get was maybe the eighth stage.
Yet here was four people with those said pillars, who not only defied the odds imposed on them by the grade of their pillars, but they exceeded it and reached unimaginable levels.
