Chapter 195: The Search For The Best Weapon
When the others saw Nory's reaction, they understood his excitement. Nory said to Zen,“You're right! As long as I am alive, I have a chance to avenge my father's death!”
Seeing Nory fired up immediately, Zen smiled and said,“That's right! Use that as a motivation for cultivation!”
Wurth and Sean smiled at each other. They both admired Zen's charm to encourage Nory to fight back.
“Hey! Have you eaten enough at the Mo house?” Nina scoffed as she was being ignored for a while now.
Wurth touched his fat belly, shook his head and replied,“Of course not! I haven't had a bite fo food for a while. Where can we get a meal now?”
“I didn't eat anything either. Why don't we find a place to have a meal?” said Nina.
“Sounds good! Count me in!” Sean said as he raised his hands above his head.
After the battle between Zen and James, everyone was hungry and all they wanted to do was to find a restaurant to eat in.
There were many business districts in the Imperial Capital, and it would be difficult to navigate one's self in the Imperial Capital. Luckily, Nina, Wurth, and Nory all grew up in the capital and they were familiar with the business districts. In no time, they all figured out the best restaurant and headed there.
While having their meal, Nory drank a lot of wine but was still sober. The more he drank, the more active and lively he became. It had been a while since they all gathered for a meal despite all being in the Drizzle Peak. So, as they were enjoying a meal, they all chatted until midnight.
When they were about to finish, Nina's cheeks were noticeably turning red from the alcohol she consumed. She wore her long, ebony hair loose that fell on her shoulders like a waterfall. The curly bangs covered her forehead like a cloud. She looked almost like a beautiful fairy in the pictures.
Nature creatures usually had high resistance to alcohol especially when they deliberately controlled themselves.
But perhaps Nina was happy to meet Zen that she drank a little too much. The two girls who came with her had already walked behind Sean and Nory as they chatted with each other.
Meanwhile Nina and Zen walked together side by side.
Although it was already late in the evening, the nightlife in the Imperial Capital had just begun. Lanterns on the roof of the pavilions lightened the street as if it was daytime. People who walked along the road cast long shadows over the ground.
Zen could not help but notice the charming appearance of Nina and her beautiful face under the moonlight. He felt his heart beat faster the longer he stared at her.
“Hey, you haven't answered me yet. Why didn't you come to my peak and play with me?” Nina asked again. Given Nina's noble identity, it wasn't fit for her to say such things. However, she was happy and slightly drunk at the same time – which was obviously not the right mix.
This was how Nina usually behaved when she liked someone – that guy would be stuck in her mind for a long time.
But when she was sober, she could not dare ask Zen this question. Alcohol could make Nina pluck up enough courage to speak to Zen and that was why she had too much wine that night.
When Nina asked Zen the same question a few hours ago at the Mo Mansion, he did not answer it. But this time, he had no way to avoid it.
Zen tried to come up with a good excuse but ended up saying,“Well, I've been quite busy recently, and I just forgot it.”
Nina curled her lips in slight disappointment. She knew that Zen was busy cultivating martial arts, but she thought he could have lied to her just to make her feel good.
However, Nina also knew that Zen was always forthright – the character that made him stand out amongst the playboys in the city. That was what she liked about him more.
Chatting for a while, they didn't notice that they already walked so far. They continued to walk on the side of the Gold River and finally parted ways in the middle.
Both Wurth and Zen had other things to do and did not return to Cloud Sect.
Wurth had to deal with the fifty drops of the heavenly essence that Zen had commissioned him.
Last time at the Blessed Auction House, the Zhang Clan auctioned a few drops of heavenly essence. After which, many people wanted to inquire if the Zhang Clan had more heavenly essence for them to buy.
Among these people were the powerful masters living like hermits and some members of noble clans.
The heavenly essence had many uses, one of which was to improve the quality of almost all kinds of weapons.
The possession of a high-grade weapon was the lifetime pursuit of every martial artist.
However, once a weapon was built, it was impossible to upgrade it unless it was thrown into a furnace for refinement, which was almost the equivalent of building a new weapon.
Therefore, the heavenly essence was the only hope for them. But the essence was rare and hard to obtain.
When people heard that fifty drops of the heavenly essence had been bought by the elder from the Huang Clan at the price of 120, 000 cubic crystals, they all regretted not attending the public auction. If they had taken part in the public auction, the hammer price of the fifty drops of heavenly essence would have been pushed up higher.
Since Zen commissioned Wurth to auction fifty drops of the heavenly essence, Wurth did much advance publicity. The more affluent people participated in the auction, the higher the transaction price would be.
As Wurth came back to the Blessed Auction House, he began to deal with the heavenly essence.
Although the Zhang Clan did not assess the fighting ability of its members, there were high demands for business skills to all the children.
Since at the age of ten, every member would get an account to record the money that they had earned for the Zhang Clan.
And on that ledger, Wurth always came in fourth place.
The top three were the elite children of the descendants of the Zhang Clan – one of whom was Wurth's eldest brother, Wick.
As Zen commissioned Wurth to auction the crystal core of the fire scorpion lion, it was a big deal on Wurth's personal account.
At the moment, there was a huge gap between Wurth's sales performance and that of the person in third place. The deal of the crystal core of the fire scorpion lion would help Wurth to close the gap.
And if this time Wurth managed to sell the heavenly essence, he would finally get into the third spot.
Furthermore, Zen had told Wurth that he had more than fifty drops of heavenly essence and he could provide them to Wurth continuously.
The Blessed Auction House had few valuable things that were worth more than a hundred thousand cubic crystals. If Zen could indeed steadily provide the heavenly essence to Wurth, the latter would even have opportunities to surpass the auction achievements of the other competitors and would eventually rise to the first place.
Whether it was for business or cultivation, Wurth was not the kind of person who would give up easily. But since his talent for martial arts was not as good as his brother Wick, he would be proud of himself if his auction achievements could exceed that of Wick.
Zen didn't worry about the price that his heavenly essence would fetch at the auction. He believed that because of the professional means of the Zhang Clan, the transaction price would exceed his expectation.
Moreover, since Zen had the black fire in his head, he could get heavenly essence whenever he liked. The fact that the black fire could extract heavenly essence was really a windfall for him.
During his battle with James yesterday, a considerable weakness of Zen was exposed.
Whenever Zen met a special kind of attacking method and his demonic life vitality could not play a role in the battle, he would be helpless.
When Zen could not deal with the sword energy released by James, he just fled. He also knew that even if he was able to dodge the sword energy, James would have used other killing skills. After all, Zen still couldn't stand a chance against a cultivator at the Illuminating Soul Realm.
If only Zen got a great weapon, the situation would have probably been different.
At present, Zen's body was like a mid-grade spiritual weapon. Any general weapon could not hurt him. But if encountering an enemy who used a high-grade or fairy weapon, he wouldn't be able to survive it.
Although Zen's broken flying knife was his trump card all along, it could only be used in sneak attacks.
It was not a good idea to use the broken flying knife to fight against people in face-to-face combat.
At that time, the All Peaks Competition was about to take place.
The All Peaks Competition would bring together all the elite disciples of the Cloud Sect, and there was no shortage of powerful geniuses.
And Zen had been preparing for this competition all along.
Fortunately, the All Peaks Competition would be held after the Chinese New Year, so there was plenty of time for Zen to prepare.
As for the weapon, Zen had to find the best one to use.
The conventional weapons were hacking knives and swords. In the Eastern Region, most of the people preferred swords to knives.
Swords were deemed to be the best among all kinds of weapons. They could be used to hack and stab, and the cultivation books had more swordsmanship methods than any other skiils.
The knives, on the other hand, were also a handful. They couldn't be used to thrust someone, but they were more powerful since their blades were thicker.
But aside from knives and swords, other choices of weapons were bows, hammers, axes, spears, and so on.
Considering for a moment, Zen eventually decided to use a sword.
He remembered that his father once used a top-grade mysterious sword called the Green Wind Rider Sword. Unfortunately, it got lost.
Since his father used a sword, he believed he was also equipped to handle the said weapon.
After finally determining what weapon he wanted, Zen rushed to the Weapon Pavilion.
The business of Weapon Pavilion was booming as usual.
When Zen went inside, the waiters didn't pay attention to him. But the middle-aged shopkeeper who attended to him last time noticed him, his face lit up.
Last time Zen was there, he bought more than two hundred swords. That impressed the middle-aged shopkeeper and he remembered Zen since then.
The deal had brought the middle-aged shopkeeper a considerable amount of commission.
So when he saw Zen again, he couldn't contain his happiness and hurried to greet Zen.