Chapter 16: The Initial Exam
In the ancient refining theory book that Zen had read earlier, there was no record of the furnace's usage. There had been only a few magical words which meant Zen had to explore how to use it himself.
As he cleared his mind in meditation, Zen focused, and eventually, his soul stopped in front of the large furnace. Among the nine dragon engravings, only the cyan dragon was awakened. Now the majestic dragon stared down at Zen.
On thinking of how his soul was once nearly shattered under the gaze of the cyan dragon, Zen was dismayed.
Since Zen's soul was trained in the considerable furnace, the power of his soul had been significantly improved.
Under the cyan dragon's gaze, Zen felt overwhelming pressure, like he was being crushed under a mountain, and was short of breath, all from the power of the dragon staring down at him in his mind.
Zen's soul was strong enough to resist being overwhelmed by the cyan dragon's gaze, but he needed to find a way to communicate with it.
In the face of the raw energy from the fearsome cyan dragon, Zen felt like a mere speck of dust. Zen moved to get closer to the cyan dragon relief, but the closer he got, the more pressure he felt. He struggled to resist the impulse to run away.
'Don't stop! Keep going!' Zen urged himself inwardly to rush forward. The pressure increased with each step, slowing Zen as he neared the cyan dragon until his movements were labored like he were trudging through thick mud.
The cyan dragon exuded such extreme pressure, and Zen's teeth trembled. The force was so great that Zen had a difficult time resisting the impulse to flee.
However, determination sparked in Zen's eyes, and his unconquerable will pushed him to keep moving. At last, Zen stood in front of the cyan dragon and reached out touching a strand of its whiskers.
After a while, a soft sound was emitted from the cyan dragon as the large furnace began to spin slowly. A wisp of black flame separated from the plume of the furnace's calm black fires and drifted out of Zen's mind.
“Yes, I did it!”
Just as Zen believed, the large furnace had a separate consciousness, and Zen could communicate with it.
Although Zen wasn't sure if the consciousness was the furnace or cyan dragon, he successfully communicated with it and received a wisp of the black flame.
In his hotel room, as Zen opened his eyes, the wisp came from the center of his brows and circled him once.
The wisp of black flame didn't appear terrifying or strong, and Zen couldn't feel any heat from it.
But, Zen didn't dare underestimate this wisp of black flame.
After all, a top-grade mysterious weapon like Fire Sword, merely glowed red when being burnt by the fire of Evil Lan and remained intact. But once exposed to the wisp of black flame, the same Hell Fire Sword was melted into iron essence in the blink of an eye.
Zen realized the power of the black flame was completely beyond his knowledge, and he could not make any presumptions.
It was a shame Zen couldn't wield the black flame like a weapon. He'd be invincible if he used it against enemies.
Soon the black flame found the blood-red sledgehammer that was lying in front of Zen. It sped at the sledgehammer.
The quality of the blood-red sledgehammer was mid-grade, not as valuable as Fire Sword, but it was evident that the size was bigger than the sword. Zen looked forward to seeing how much iron essence would be refined, and he wondered if it would be enough to light up another scale of the dragon.
Within a split second, the black flame melted the blood-red sledgehammer into a single drop of iron essence.
“One...? Only one? Just a single drop?!”
The mysterious weapon was huge but mid-grade, and it produced only a single drop of iron essence! Zen's mouth fell open as he sat there stunned to the point he even began to stammer.
It seemed unreasonable that he only procured one drop of iron essence from the much more massive blood-red sledgehammer even considering that the quality wasn't as good as Fire Sword.
After taking a moment to weigh the pros and cons, Zen took the rest of the mysterious weapons out of the space ring — all of which were low to mid-grade levels, deciding to melt them all together.
The wisp of black flame swallowed all the mysterious weapons quickly.
However, the results weren't what Zen expected. A mid-grade mysterious weapon could be melted into a drop of iron essence, but the size of iron essence that was melted from a low-grade mysterious weapon was a tiny bit bigger than a speck of dust and Zen had to squint to see it.
After smelting all the mysterious weapons that were in the space ring, Zen had five drops of iron essence.
Finally, the wisp of black flame rolled the five drops of iron essence up and jumped back into Zen's mind.
Zen looked into his mind at the situation. When the black flame placed the five drops of iron essence into the cyan dragon's mouth, it trembled for a while, and then a second scale on the dragon began to shimmer a green light, seeming to light up.
'It succeeded?' A smile lit up Zen's face as he thought. He knew his strength would be magnified by the power of another activated dragon scale.
However, the green scale twinkled for a few seconds and then faded slowly.
Watching the scene, Zen's face darkened. Did he need six drops of iron essence to activate a dragon scale?
Yet, life was full of surprises, and you never knew how things would turn out. Just as the twinkling light of the dragon scale was about to die, the whole scale suddenly lit up again emitting brilliant green light.
Zen relaxed, for only five drops of iron essence were needed to activate a scale on the dragon.
As the scale lit up, Zen felt the amazing strength coursed through every part of his body. Zen clenched his fists consciously and stifled a roar as he felt the welcome sensation of strength saturating him.
After a while, Zen quieted down. Lighting up two of the dragon's scales was good, but at this stage, Zen needed to improve his strength quicker. If he could light a few more dragon scales, he would easily beat Perrin!
Except, Zen had smelted all of his mysterious weapons, leaving him to wonder, where he could find more.
While Zen had hundreds of cubic crystals, that would only get him one or two low-grade mysterious weapons because the price for a mysterious weapon was so high. It was just a drop in the bucket of what he needed.
Suddenly, Zen thought about the broken flying knife that was in the space ring.
Even though the flying knife was so shabby looking, it seemed to have great power, so the level must be quite high.
Zen thought about it for a while, but in the end, he restrained his impulse to smelt the flying knife. If the flying knife were really as extraordinary as he thought, it would be crazy to melt it carelessly.
First things first, Zen's priority should be gaining entry into the Cloud Sect.
Zen took a deep breath and closed his eyes to rest. The initial exam was the next morning, and though the exam was to run simply, Nory had told Zen that it would be more difficult than they thought.
Early the next morning, Zen washed up and headed out to the Cloud Sect.
When Zen signed up yesterday, he didn't see many people, but today a great number of people were crowded outside the door of the Cloud Sect.
Some of them were on horseback, and some had hiked while others were on flying chariots.
So many people were there, and they filled the open grounds outside the Cloud Sect.
Zen estimated that there were more than ten thousand people.
No wonder the Cloud Sect had to hold the initial monthly, the number of people taking part in the initial exam every month was over ten thousand. That meant over a hundred thousand people applied during the year. It was amazing! Even such a huge Cloud Sect would be overwhelmed in this situation.
Where there were so many people, there would be a lot of hustle and bustle!
Zen stood expressionlessly in the crowd, waiting quietly.
A moment later, a chariot flew overhead from the Cloud Sect carrying an old man with a white beard.
After the chariot stopped, the elder said steadily, “Applicants, please enter the door in an orderly manner to participate in the initial exam. Don't make noise, or speak loudly! Anyone violating the rules will be evicted and disqualified from taking the exam now, or ever in his lifetime.”
Even though the elder did not yell, his voice rang in everyone's ears, and everyone present heard him clearly.
The crowd quieted quickly as the white-bearded elder finished speaking. No one dared to talk or whisper any longer. It was so eerily quiet that the sound of a needle dropping on the ground would have been heard clearly.
Being disqualified for the exam wasn't a big deal, but being unable to sign up in the future to take the exam at the Cloud Sect, would be devastating.
Since the Cloud Sect was a shrine as well as the largest sect for studying the art of cultivating in the empire, everyone hoped to gain entrance. Although there were several smaller sects within the Burning Sky Empire, neither the amount of lands nor the number of talented disciples could compare to the Cloud Sect. If an applicant had no chance of joining the Cloud Sect, his prospects in the cultivation world would become bleak unless he could join another big sect.
Everyone understood the gravity of the situation and remained silent.
More than ten thousand applicants trod through the doors of the Cloud Sect and walked along a path. At the end of the path, they made a right into a vast square.
Floating in the air at the square were a couple of flying chariots with disciples who maintained order during the initial exam.
As all the applicants filed into the square, the white-bearded elder appeared in the front and announced, “I believe most of you are familiar with the rules of the initial exam, but I'll remind you again. From the square, you are to run forward. It doesn't matter whether you are at the bone, organ, or marrow refining level, you need just to keep running until the jade pendant on your chest changes color. Once the color of the jade changes, you will pass the initial exam and be qualified to begin the entrance exam.”
The rules seemed simple enough with no restrictions on refining level or limit to speed. The only requirement for passing the initial exam was to run until the jade pendant changed color. Zen kept the rules in mind as he looked into the distance of the path beyond the square.