Chapter 2: Weapon Refining Method
Zen didn't care about being relegated to a slave, or being a punchbag for children of the Luo Clan, or even losing the Magical Pill, which he was robbed of by Perrin.
His biggest weakness was his sister, Yan Luo!
Yan Luo was the only hope for the oldest branch of the Luo family. Extraordinarily talented, she left home at the age of thirteen when Cloud Sect selected her as a disciple. She survived the coup within the Luo Clan for this reason.
In the past two years, Zen, as a slave, was unable to learn anything about his sister's whereabouts. Now that Perrin had commented about Yan's current situation, Zen found himself feeling anxious about her wellbeing.
Lost in thoughts of his sister, Zen was vulnerable and took several devastating blows from the Luo children. He finally gained control of his mind after several whacks.
In the evening, Zen returned to the cellar. He limped as excruciating pain flooded through his body.
“This drug will help you recover!” The steward for the Luo Clan threw the drug at Zen before turning to leave.
After all, human punchbags were not made of steel. If they didn't get the wound healing medicines, they would die from internal injuries after a few days. So the steward distributed drugs to the slaves to help them recover as soon as possible.
However, these healing drugs were not very effective.
Zen opened the paper bag and was astonished to see only one pill inside. “Darren Fang! Why do I only have one pill today?” Zen asked.
“You should be grateful for what you have now. What's the issue? Is it not enough for you?” The steward mocked.
“It is stipulated that three healing pills be distributed to each slave every day. But now there is only one. Obviously, you are embezzling the pills. It's a felony to embezzle from the Luo family. How dare you do that, Darren Fang? Aren't you afraid of death?” Zen shouted as he fixed his eyes on Darren Fang.
“Hey! Of course, I am afraid of death, but I'm not afraid of you. You are just a slave. What can you do? You want to rebel? I hate your attitude. Do you still think of yourself as the young master? Look in the mirror and face your reality, Zen. Ha ha ha!” Darren didn't quite like Zen and took this opportunity to inflict insult on the former young master.
After hearing these words, Zen calmed down instead of getting angry. Zen composed himself before glaring at Darren Fang. He intended to convey his hate through his clear eyes, unflinching glare, and expressionless face.
The effect was achieved as Darren Fang felt uncomfortable when he saw Zen's reaction. When he noted the fire dancing in Zen's eyes, he got scared. Instead of backing off, Darren walked up to Zen and poked Zen's chest as he said,“ What are you staring at? You want a piece of me? Do you think you can take me?”
Zen emitted an intense power from his chest all of a sudden. Darren's body trembled as the power spread throughout his whole body. It wasn't long before Darren Fang's knees gave way and he staggered before falling to the ground.
“You ... You ... you are a slave. Do you want to rebel?” Darren Fang stood up and tried to be authoritative. However, his panicked expression conveyed his true feelings.
Zen took two steps forward, cracked his knuckles, and snapped back,“ A steward who isn't even a member of the Luo Clan dares to be so arrogant? Do you think I will not beat you?”
Darren Fang did not want to stay in this situation any longer. So he turned and fled as soon as possible. He glared at Zen as soon as the cellar's iron gate snapped close.
“Villainous behavior!” “Villainous behavior?” Zen sneered as he shook his head. He didn't feel as though the steward was worth his time.
He sat down quietly, took out the fire starter to ignite the oil lamp, and turned a few pages of the book hastily. Zen was frustrated as he couldn't focus. His thoughts kept drifting back to his sister, Yan and what Perrin had said.
'I cannot stay here anymore.' Zen frowned as he thought about his dilemma. 'I have just reached the flesh refining level. It will be hard for me to leave this cellar, let alone go to Cloud Sect to rescue Yan.'
Zen paced in the small cellar. His chest tightened and his heart beat quickened. He looked like a restless beast trying to find a way out.
Over the past two years, Zen had come to accept his fate. He had not been motivated to think of alternatives. As time passed, he felt stripped of his talent and confidence.
This eventually led to complete disbelief in his powers. Zen stood in the center of the room rationalizing with himself. 'I'm a slave now. Years of being forced to be the human punchbag for children in the Luo Clan has weakened me. What's worse is that my daily injuries have prevented me from practicing when I return to the cellar. But if I stay here, I will be killed by one of these children sooner or later. I need to take drastic measures.'
The more he thought about it, the more anxious Zen became. He cast his gaze toward the table where the dreadful book, Heavenly Principles lay quietly.
“This book is nothing but a bunch of life theories. And so far, none have worked out for my father, nor me. Reading it does me no good. Why should I keep reading it?” Anger and helplessness consumed Zen. He stomped toward the book, grabbed it from the table, and held it over the lamp till it began to sizzle and crackle.
A smile grew on Zen's lips as the book was ignited.
However, a moment later, Zen regretted his action. He whispered in despair,“ Zen, Zen, why did you bother to get angry at a book?” Looking at the burning book, Zen regreted, complaining,“ This book teaches people to be good. It tells people what is shameful and wrong, as well as what is wise and right. The book cannot be blamed for adversities. You should blame yourself for not being strong enough, for being like a little lamb who is easily controlled by others.”
Unfortunately, by then the book had become a pile of ashes.
Suddenly, Zen saw a ray of golden light flash from the ashes. For a moment, Zen was dumbstruck.
“What is that ?”
Zen pushed the ashes aside, and picked up the small piece of gold that had emitted the ray of light. Zen studied the thin gold foil.
He hadn't come across this gold foil when he was reading this book. Presumably it had been hidden in the inner-layer of the book.
'What is the use of a piece of gold foil?
For a great family like the Luo Clan, gold is as worthless as clay.'
However, when Zen focused on the gold, a strange vision appeared!
The gold foil was engraved with countless words, shaped like tadpoles. Zen didn't understand any of them.
As his eyes swept across the gold foil, it disintegrated in his hands. Thousands of small pieces of gold, each carrying a word came flying toward him.
Face, eyes, neck, arms, body, legs ...
Every part of Zen's body was covered by these small gold fragments.
The last piece of small gold foil pushed its way past his scalp and burrowed into Zen's brain. Zen felt as though he had been hit by a large iron hammer. His whole body shook violently as the fragments of gold foil joined together before emitting a bright light.
After the golden light gradually faded, these small gold fragments penetrated Zen's body. Some memories, which did not belong to him, emerged out of the void.
“Grand Weapon Refining Method...”
“The First Ancient Weapon Refining Method...”
“Use the flesh as a weapon. Use your body as the soul, temper and practice thoroughly, clean the body for great vitality ...”
'Is this the weapon refining method?'
Although Zen didn't know how to refine a weapon, he clearly knew that becoming a weapon refining master was a rewarding career. Despite all the strong financial resources the Luo Clan had, they couldn't even hire a weapon refining master of the lowest level. That was enough to show how advantageous it was to be a weapon refining master.
But use the flesh as a weapon? What did that mean?
'Does this method imply that I need to refine myself to be an effective weapon?'
As soon as the thought crossed Zen's mind, something incredible happened.
His body temperature rose sharply. He inhaled deeply with surprise when he first felt hot and then cold and then hot again.
So hot! Zen felt uncomfortable as his body temperature rose. Soon he felt as though he was burning from the inside out.
Quickly, he rushed to the water tank at the end of the cellar. This was where they left water for Zen to use for his daily routines.
He jumped into the tank without thinking.
He closed his eyes as his body sank deeper into the tank. The water around him began sizzling.
As the water bubbled and frothed, the tank began to shake. Soon, steam began billowing out of the tank. Before Zen's body could cool itself, all the water in the tank had evaporated. The whole cellar filled with mist.
The water failed to lower Zen's body temperature. On the contrary, Zen felt as though his body temperature was still rising. Unable to take it any more, he writhed at the bottom of the now-empty tank. Slowly cracks appeared on Zens skin and a dark red light, like a piece of red hot iron, broke through.
He thrashed around at the bottom of the tank as the mist swirled around him.
Not just his body, Zen's mind was also undergoing incredible changes.
Suddenly a huge black furnace with nine dragon reliefs on the wall came to his mind.
Each dragon was painted with different colors, including cyan, black, white, purple ... Each of the dragons had bared their fangs and seemed to be clawing at the air around them.
Eight of them closed their eyes, while the dragon at the bottom opened its eyes and stared at Zen.
With deep eyes that reflected the experience and wisdom of having survived tens of millions of years, or hundreds of millions of years, the dragon looked at Zen without emotion. He could feel the power emanating from the dragon.
“Cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle ...”
Zen's soul trembled under the intense gaze of the dragon. Soon he felt as though his soul would split wide open.
Just as Zen felt as though every inch of him was about to shatter, he heard whispers coming from the dragon. Then the giant furnace spun around continuously, and the flames lit up in the furnace.
A giant black flame rose.
Zen had never seen anything like this before. The flame flickered ferociously in the dark, quiet cellar. For a moment, Zen felt as though it would burn everything in the world!
The giant furnace covered Zen and shortly after, he felt the blazing fire wrap itself around his soul. It happened so quickly that Zen had no time to marvel at what he had seen.
Any ordinary person would have been devoured by the flame. Only someone very special would be able to endure the pain of their soul burning. Zen couldn't lose consciousness to this unbearable pain because it was his soul suffering, and this all happened in his mind. The only thing he could do was to grit his teeth and hope it would finish soon.
“Ah ah ah, let me die!”
Soon, Zen's limit had been reached and he screamed in agony. He would have done anything, even embrace death, to relieve himself of the pain he felt.
But for him, death was a luxury. In this state, a person couldn't do anything, not even bite his tongue to commit suicide.
As soon as his soul could not sustain the pain and was about to break, the furnace emitted a colorful glow to repair Zen's soul immediately.
Burning, crushing, repairing and then burning, crushing and repairing all over again ...
the torturous cycle seemed to be repeating itself endlessly.
Zen didn't know how long this deadly pain continued. It stopped finally.
He took a long breath and welcomed the respite. He barely had time to get over the experience when he found his soul exuding a golden light.
After a long time, Zen finally sobered up slowly.
In his mind, the giant furnace had stopped revolving, but the black flame in the furnace never extinguished. The fire was under control and looked less horrible.
Zen had already understood that his soul and body had been refined in that furnace.
In the great world, wonders never ceased to happen. Some weapon refining masters used all kinds of strange ways to refine weapons. Some masters committed innumerable murders to gather human blood for refining. What was worse, some masters even stole the souls of humans to fuel their weapons, thus making them a kind of evil weapon.
However, this weapon refining theory advocated refining a person's own body and turning it into a magical weapon. Zen had never heard of it before. It seemed so crazy ...
Misfortune might be a blessing in disguise, and vice versa. After calming down, Zen figured that what had happened to him might not have been a bad thing!
A magical weapon needed to go through five stages in this world, with the first being the mysterious weapon stage. After this, the weapon would become a spiritual weapon, a fairy weapon, a sacred weapon, and a divine weapon in succession. Each of these stages was further divided into top, middle, and lower grades. All had extremely high value.
Zen's body had just been refined into a magical weapon. Even though it was on the lowest level of a mysterious weapon, Zen felt powerful.
It was a strange thing to think of himself as a magical weapon. Zen's face revealed a bitter smile.
As he turned to look out from the only vent in the cellar, Zen saw that dawn was breaking. He had been so consumed by his experience that he had lost all sense of time.
Despite his sleepless night and this strange, harrowing experience, Zen didn't feel tired. Instead, his spirit felt rested, even uplifted.
After taking a deep breath, he calmed down. All the anxiety that had prevailed the previous night had disappeared. What the book said was absolutely true, everything happens as per destiny. Even eating and drinking are predetermined. Only with a stable mind, can one deal with every difficulty.
After he cleaned the ashes of the burned book carefully and moved the water tank back to its original place, the sound of the cellar door being unlocked filled the silence. Zen frowned. It was time to receive a beating.