Chapter 40: The State Of Completely Forgetting Oneself
“Zen was foolish to accept Leo's challenge! If I were him, I wouldn't have accepted Leo's challenge, and I would've kept quiet!”
“Well, he's probably arrogant enough to think he's invincible. You know he just ranked first place in the entrance exam and became an outer disciple. People like him usually end up paying with their blood!”
“That's not what I heard. I heard Zen deliberately approached Leo and challenged him. What a hostile man!”
The fight was the newest and hottest gossip that spread like wildfire through the Drizzle Peak! Zen and Leo were going to fight each other!
Sitting on his bed, Zen, indifferent to the gossip, was meditating to continue practicing the Spiritual Thorn.
His engagement with Leo was days away. Since he accepted the challenge, Zen knew that if he backed out, he would be labeled a coward.
'If I can master the skill of turning my soul into a thorn, according to the Spiritual Thorn, I will have a better chance of prevailing in the battle ring, ' determined Zen silently.
'Turning a soul into a thorn... ' he murmured to himself.
'So then how do I turn my soul into a sharp thorn?'
The soul was a formless disembodiment of a person's perception of himself.
Therefore, people usually unknowingly recreated their soul as their physical form during meditation.
So, Zen's soul appeared as Zen looked in reality.
In this way, unless Zen forgot himself, his soul would remain as he was, and couldn't change into something else, not even a thorn.
'Only through fully forgetting myself will my soul be transformed into another form, ' he reasoned inwardly.
As he reasoned the puzzle out in his mind, the startling thought slammed into him.
“I see! So, the key to mastering this skill is to disregard how I see myself!” he cried excitedly.
'But, how do I achieve that state? To completely abandon how I see myself? How is that even possible?'
Zen's brows were furrowed as he weighed the concept thoroughly.
Then, he shut his eyes, attempting to forget himself.
More than an hour passed and he sensed nothing but waves of weariness.
Zen was frustrated and growing depressed. He was glad to have two top-grade refinement methods, but unfortunately, he didn't seem to have the wit to learn either of them, which was a severe blow to his ego.
Feeling glum, Zen left his room and trudged up the steep trail in the Drizzle Peak.
It was well before five o'clock in the morning, and the sun hadn't risen. There was a complete, utter stillness.
About sixty-five feet down the trail, he came to a sheer cliff that stretched out to form a natural platform for people to enjoy the scenery.
Using the natural features, the expert craftsmen of the Cloud Sect built an elaborate pavilion into the platform.
There was no one in the pavilion at the moment.
Zen strode into the pavilion, gazing out at the view stretching in front of him as far as the eye could see. A sea of unbroken clouds surrounded the rolling peaks in the distance.
The peak closest was the Jeweled Peak which ranked in twenty-first place, while the Azure Peak which was fifth place, was farther away...
These mountains had stood in the universe for thousands or even millions of years. Regardless of how outstandingly gifted the disciples were, for these peaks a disciple's existence was a passing show.
Standing among the majestic peaks, Zen felt as insignificant as a grain of sand in the ocean.
Suddenly, Zen felt his heartstrings being tugged as he looked out at the magnificence of the spectacular mountain range.
Sitting there, Zen closed his eyes and slowly imagined himself shrinking even smaller. First to dust since it was smaller than sand, and then even smaller...
Slowly, Zen felt himself becoming small enough to be ignored, into nothing...
With an internal crash, a huge golden door swung open in Zen's mind.
At this point, Zen found his way to the sphere of nothingness. When people felt gone completely, they were within reach of forgetting themselves!
When Zen opened his eyes, the scene he had been looking at was no longer in view. When he imagined himself as a tree, it was as if he were one, and when he perceived himself as a blade of grass, he was able to become the grass. In short, he sensed that he could turn into anything in the world.
In that fleeting moment, Zen decided to test a theory about his purpose in mastering the skill of turning his soul into a thorn, as described in the refinement method, 'the Spiritual Thorn.' With a brief thought, a sharp, translucent-gray thorn thrust out from the middle of his browline.
Finally! He did it!
He was successful in transforming his soul into a thorn. Because the sharp translucent thorn was manifested by Zen's soul, it was invisible to all but Zen. Therefore, there was no way for others to guard against it absolutely.
For a short time, Zen practiced the Spiritual Thorn moves. The range of his attack using the thorn was only about three feet, which fell short of what he'd read, 'People within three thousand feet are unable to defend themselves against it, ' in the refinement method. Zen had crossed a bridge of sorts by attaining the state of forgetting himself, and now his way would be much easier.
Zen couldn't help smiling proudly. The match coming up in three days had been concerning him, but now he was looking forward to it.
The next three days flew by.
At Drizzle Peak, competing in the battle ring was always a significant affair.
The audience was able to watch the actual battle along with the energy that was seldom experienced during ordinary refinement practices in the ring.
Many outer disciples learned more by watching a battle and could take what they saw into their refinement process which allowed them to make breakthroughs of their own.
Plus, with how mundane the daily practices were, a fight for revenge was in itself quite entertaining to watch.
What made it more exciting was the considerable gap in the strengths between the two fighters competing with one at the organ refining level and the other half-step into the nature level!
If Leo, half-step into the nature level, was comparable to a lion, then Zen at the organ refining level was akin to a rat. They were not on the same level at all.
Most people were certain that the competition would be finished fast and that it was a given that the outcome would be an overwhelming victory by Leo.
Leo got to the battle ring early accompanied by his companions.
Today there was also a middle-aged man with Leo.
The clothing the middle-aged man wore denoted he was a servant. He was wearing a gray cloth and a bandanna on his head.
When the outer disciples noticed the pattern with the Eight Diagrams* embroidered on his gray cloth, no one dared to look down upon him.
(*TN: the Eight Diagrams were eight trigrams used to represent the fundamental principles of reality in?the Taoist beliefs, and seen as a range of eight interrelated concepts.) The emblem belonged to one of the seven top noble clans, the Zhuge family.
The top seven noble clans were the most powerful and influential families in the entire empire. Although the middle-aged man was a servant, no outer disciple at the Cloud Sect could afford to offend him, since he was a servant of the Zhuge family.
“My master said this man must die today, no matter what the cost is,” emphasized the servant strongly. There was a condescending expression in his eyes as he glared at Leo. Even though Leo was half-step into the nature level, the servant showed the barest respect to Leo.
A refiner who was half-step into the nature level was more or less a proud man; however, Leo, who was unhappy given the servant's attitude, tried not to show any expression. After all, his future depended on this servant's master. “I know.” He nodded and replied with as even a tone as possible. “Don't worry. The intensity of attacks is uncontrolled in the battle ring. The cocky maggot is merely at the organ refining level, and yet, foolishly accepted my challenge! He is doomed to die!”
Satisfied with Leo's response, the servant nodded. “Good! Don't you want to be promoted as an inner disciple? My master promises to assign you to the Blackrock Peak next month and advance you to the level as an inner disciple if you complete this task today!”
Leo was thrilled to hear the news. “Many thanks to your master!” stated Leo giving a short bow as he hastened to express his gratitude.
It was easy for members from noble clans to become inner disciples, but it was difficult for civilians like Leo.
It had been five long years since he joined the Drizzle Peak, and in that time he had come a long way. Now, he was demon-bent on becoming an inner disciple.
Throughout the thirty-three peaks, the treatment the inner disciples received differed vastly from how the outer disciples were treated. Inner disciples received the better elixirs for refining, along with various monthly payments and the places to practice their refining methods.
To be initiated as an inner disciple of a Peak though, a disciple had to stand out from the tens of thousands of other outer disciples. While Leo was powerful and ranked thirtieth of the outer disciples at Drizzle Peak, every time he competed for a spot as an inner disciple, Leo fell short.
After waiting for five long years, someone made Leo an offer to move him to the second-ranked Peak, Blackrock, and even better - Leo would be promoted to an inner disciple, just as his patience ran out, and all he had to do was to kill Zen! It was too good a deal for Leo to pass up.
It was impossible for him to not agree to the deal.
As for Zen, since he only recently entered Drizzle Peak, Leo saw him as a stepping stone to a better future for himself and didn't care about him.
On the verge of realizing his dreams, Leo's face brightened with excitement.
An hour later, Leo's thrill was turning to anxiety, and time was moving too slowly. 'That guy wouldn't back out after agreeing to fight me, would he?' he wondered starting to doubt Zen was going to show.
Because of Zen's tardiness, the other disciples standing around waiting started discussing whether he was going to show or not as well.
Drizzle Peak had quite a few members, and the credibility of each disciple was essential. If Zen were to back out, his credibility would be shot.
“Zen apparently is wussing out! Shame, after all his big talk, he has cold feet. If this is the kind of person he is, Zen definitely has no future!”
“Come on, let's go. There's nothing to see here. We might as well spend our time refining while waiting. I knew our Drizzle Peak had another loser!”
After waiting two hours, most of the spectators had lost patience and were about to leave.
Having to wait so long for Zen, Leo was restless and losing his already short temper.
“Leo, you said Zen was going to fight you today. Why isn't he here then?” demanded the Zhuge family man-servant.
Leo smiled humbly and responded, “Don't worry, Thomas. That guy wouldn't dare back out!”
Thomas Zhu sneered, “Good.” His voice dripped sarcastically, “I hope you aren't wasting my time and that you don't fail the master.”
“I wouldn't dare do that!” as Leo spoke, he glanced Zen out of the corner of his eye as he strode through the doorway and walked up to the battle.