Chapter 91: Melting
More than two hundred mysterious weapons were aligned in order.
The middle-aged shopkeeper carried a gold plated abacus in one hand. With the other hand, he fiddled with the beads. Aside from the rather loud clacking noise from the beads, no other sound could be heard in the room. At the end of his counting, he said, “There are 220 mysterious weapons, and each has a different cost. The total cost of your purchase is 22, 000 cubic crystals.” Soon after getting the result of the calculations, the shopkeeper looked at Zen with a smile and said, “Since you have purchased such an enormous number of mysterious weapons, Weapon Pavilion will be happy to give you a discount of 10%. By rounding off the calculated amount to the nearest integer, we only need you to pay for the weapons with 20, 000 cubic crystals. May I know if you accept the price?”
The shopkeeper had agreed to sell the mysterious weapons at a lower cost. Zen thought the 10% discount was acceptable. So he nodded in agreement.
Shortly after that, Zen walked out of the Weapon Pavilion accompanied by the middle-aged shopkeeper. They found a Blessed Draft Bank at a corner of the trading market.
As Zen entered the Blessed Draft Bank, the bank's employees showed indifference to him. But as soon as Zen took his golden token out, the staff's attitude toward him changed. The staff of the Blessed Draft Bank knew that holders of golden tokens were either wealthy or noble. Thus, they had to treat these people kindly and provide them with considerate services.
A few moments later, an employee of the Blessed Draft Bank issued a bank note for 20, 000 cubic crystals and handed it to Zen, who then gave the note to the middle-aged shopkeeper.
Their transaction was concluded with this exchange.
The middle-aged man was very excited to have gotten such an enormous amount of cubic crystals from this transaction, but he tried not to show the excitement on his face. After years of hardwork at the Weapon Pavillion, he had been promoted from an ordinary employee to the shopkeeper. By working in this position, he could earn much more than before. But apart from his salary, he could also earn a considerable amount of commission from selling such a large number of top-grade mysterious weapons in this transaction.
Upon their return to the Weapon Pavilion, Zen tucked the stack of mysterious weapons he had bought into his space ring.
The space ring didn't have much capacity. Once Zen placed the top-grade mysterious weapons, almost all its space had been occupied.
With a polite smile, Zen bid the shopkeeper goodbye and left the Weapon Pavilion.
After Zen left, an old man with a goatee came downstairs from the second floor. He saddled up to the middle-aged shopkeeper and said, “That guy is only an outer disciple of Cloud Sect, but he has bought so many mysterious weapons. What does he buy them for?”
Like the bearded man, the shopkeeper was also confused. He shrugged and shared his guess. “Perhaps he has bought so many top-grade mysterious weapons to distribute them to disciples of Cloud Sect?”
The old man with the goatee shook his head. Apparently, he wasn't entirely satisfied with the shopkeeper's answer.
The two men stared at the exit of Weapon Pavilion long after Zen had left. Each of them pondered over Zen's actions. Perhaps they would spend the rest of their lives working out this mystery.
After Zen arrived at Cloud Sect, he made his way to Drizzle Peak. The sun had set for hours, and almost all disciples were settled in their rooms for the night.
Finally in the privacy of his room, Zen allowed himself to feel excited. All this while, he had tempered his emotions so that other people would not ask him unwanted questions.
Now he had 220 mysterious weapons. If five drops of heavenly essence could be extracted from melting one top-grade mysterious weapon, he would be able to get 1, 100 drops of heavenly essence from the weapons he had purchased.
If he were to allow the cyan dragon to consume that many drops of heavenly essence, it would be enough to light up over 200 dragon scales!
Up till now, Zen had only lit up seven dragon scales, and his strength far exceeded that of disciples who were at the same level as him. And so, his power would be enhanced a lot if more than 200 dragon scales were lit up at the same time.
However, this was not Zen's plan.
Naturally, Zen would not contribute all the heavenly essence to the cyan dragon.
As he thought of the price of the heavenly essence, an idea came to his mind.
Fifty drops of heavenly essence could be auctioned for 120, 000 cubic crystals. Perhaps 1, 200, 000 cubic crystals would be gained from selling 500 drops of the heavenly essence.
Zen understood that only rare items were valuable.
If he auctioned so many drops of heavenly essence at the same time, there would be too much heavenly essence in the market. In that case, the heavenly essence would not be worth a high price. After weighing all the pros and cons, Zen decided that he had to sell the heavenly essence in batches.
But before he reached the stage of auctioning the heavenly essence, Zen needed to melt the top-grade mysterious weapons inside his space ring.
Immediately, Zen searched through the top-grade mysterious weapons in his space ring and chose a pair of short cyan blue swords.
Zen laid these swords in front of him. Afterward, he interacted with the huge furnace in his mind. He hadn't summoned the black fire for a long time. The fire flashed across his mind like a happy bird and swiftly spread to that pair of cyan blue swords.
“Sizzling...”
In the blink of an eye, the two cyan blue swords were replaced by seven drops of heavenly essence. Zen marveled at the drops that were now floating in the air over his head.
As the black fire was about to engulf these drops of heavenly essence, a bottle showed up in one of Zen's hands. The drops slid into the bottle before the black fire could touch them.
The black fire flew around Zen's body like a human soul as though it were protesting against Zen for plundering the heavenly essence that it should have gotten.
At this sight, Zen flicked his space ring open with one of his fingers and took out a big golden axe.
With the same enthusiasm as before, the black fire swept toward the weapon.
Among the top-grade mysterious weapons owned by Zen, this big axe looked the best. Zen thought that more heavenly essence could be extracted from melting this weapon.
Previously, seven drops had been obtained from melting that pair of short swords. Thus, Zen inferred that the big golden axe would produce more heavenly essence.
However, it was beyond his expectation that only three drops of heavenly essence were obtained from the melting of the axe.
At this moment, Zen was a little confused as to how much heavenly essence was contained in a top-grade mysterious weapon.
He felt lucky that he owned a variety of top-grade mysterious weapons. In terms of quality, it appeared as though some were superior, while others were not.
As per Zen's experience, depending on the quality of a top-grade mysterious weapon, the number of heavenly drops that could be extracted varied from two to nine drops. He had never come across a weapon that yielded more or less than that range.
As expected, five drops of heavenly essence could be obtained from a top-grade mysterious weapon on average.
He spent the whole night melting weapons.
Each time, Zen manipulated the black fire to melt the top-grade mysterious weapons. After about 100 weapons had been melted, Zen was the proud owner of more than 500 drops of heavenly essence.
Since the black fire had been used unceasingly from the last late night to this morning, it seemed to have lost its energy. Earlier, it had been relatively happy, but now it appeared to be powerless and didn't fly as forcefully as before. At last, it hovered in front of Zen.
The black fire seemed capable of feeling fatigue too.
Seeing the black fire in that wretched state, Zen felt a little pitiful and thus stopped melting.
At the same time, he took two hundred drops of heavenly essence out of the bottle and tossed them at the black fire.
Like a little dog that had smelled a bone, the black fire was suddenly filled with vitality. As soon as it engulfed the two hundred drops of heavenly essence that Zen had isolated from the bottle, it gained a little enthusiasm. Then it retreated into Zen's mind.
After Zen took a breath, all two hundred drops of heavenly essence were poured into the mouth of the sculpture of the cyan dragon inside the huge furnace.
Soon afterward, a dragon scale emitted a clear, bright, and green light.
Within seconds, more dragon scales lit up one after another.
After a while, forty dragon scales had lit up on the sculpture of the cyan dragon.
So far, Zen had lit up a total number of forty seven dragon scales on the sculpture of the cyan dragon.
Those dragon scales were placed together side by side. On observing them, Zen found that all the lit dragon scales looked like a small magnificent landscape.
He felt a little excited when observing the green light in a blaze. Now, his strength had increased tremendously. Zen wondered how much his strength could be enhanced if he channelled the power from all forty-seven dragon scales at the same time.
If this were possible, Zen would be powerful enough to free himself from Jesse's sky-binding hoop when he was trapped in it again.
Based on his enhanced strength, Zen would be capable of smashing nature creatures, who had just reached the nature level, using only his fist.
After melting over a hundred top-grade mysterious weapons, Zen stopped to take some rest. Even the black flame had diminished with all this melting. And so, he wanted to let the black fire to rest for a few days before starting his melting again.
During these few days, Zen went out at times, but he spent most of his time cultivating inside his room.
Several days later, all top-grade mysterious weapons purchased from the Weapon Pavilion had been melted by Zen. He poured half of the heavenly essence obtained from the melting into the mouth of the sculpture of the cyan dragon in his mind. In doing so, more than a hundred dragon scales twinkled with a bright, green light.
Zen still held over six hundred drops of heavenly essence, and he planned to sell them all.
However, he had some misgivings.
At the previous auction, 50 drops of heavenly essence had been sold. But they had caused the bidders to become overexcited. The participants in the auction had bid competitively for the heavenly essence, and its price had risen astonishingly high.
Hence, Zen was a little worried about whether he would bring attention to himself if he put all six hundred drops of heavenly essence for sale at the same time.
As the saying goes, an innocent person might bring attention or troubles to himself for something precious he owns. Zen feared that he would become a target once people knew that he had so much heavenly essence.
Zen trusted Wurth and even contemplated giving the heavenly essence to Wurth for safekeeping. What worried Zen was that Wurth did not have final authority in the Zhang family. Once his family members discovered the quantity of heavenly essence, they might pressure Wurth into disclosing the identity of the seller. Then they might question or pressure Zen for more heavenly essence. Zen could think of all troubles that would be caused after that.
Given the situation, Zen had to reconsider the auctioning of the heavenly essence carefully.
These days, it was very peaceful on Drizzle Peak. The disciples were assiduously cultivating and mediating, and there was no in-fighting.
Everything with Zen went smoothly as well.
Despite the mighty power of Heavenly Ogre Fist, this tier five cultivation method was rather hard to practice.
It was still very early in the morning. The darkness was slowly being replaced by the first wisps of sunlight from the east. Zen was practicing the mind method. He closed his eyes and focused on the task of flinging his fists toward the sky one after another.
Only after all the demonic life energy inside his body had been consumed did Zen sit in silence to meditate. He practiced the mind method of the Purple Light Fist to cultivate life energy that the demonic life energy needed to consume to grow stronger.
In spite of extremely great difficulties in practicing the Heavenly Ogre Fist, Zen had gradually become more and more skillful in his cultivation after repeated attempts.
Now, he could not only easily and proficiently make the first move of the Heavenly Ogre Fist, namely, Ogres Shaking the World, but he also mastered the second move, which was known as the Swarm of Ogres Surging.
Although the second move was not as mighty as the first, Zen could attack many targets simultaneously. He thought it would be beneficial if many enemies confronted him.
Part way through his meditation, Zen heard tolling sounds from the hillside of Drizzle Peak. Since he was cultivating at an unnoticed corner of Drizzle Peak, Zen couldn't find anyone around him to ask why they were being summoned.
“The toll only sounds when all outer disciples are required to gather together. What on earth has happened?” Standing on a cliff, Zen stared at the hillside. He watched quietly as several disciples walked towards the plaza on the mountain peak. Curious, Zen stopped his cultivation, jumped off the cliff, and rushed toward the plaza.
When he arrived, almost all outer disciples had gathered in the plaza.
In the center of the plaza stood Aura. She wore a light blue dress, and beside her, stood a huge thing.
A yellow curtain full of magic symbols and incantations hid the thing from the outer disciples.