Chapter 212: Zen’s Epiphany
The difficulty of each level on the Seven Star Sword Light Platform was set in consideration for the newcomers in Cloud Sect.
For example, if Zachary wanted to resist 100 shots of Magnetic Aurora with his current strength, he could only make it with the Level 4 difficulty. He would only be able to resist 86 shots of Magnetic Aurora in the Level 5 difficulty. He would be able to resist 57 shots of Magnetic Aurora with Level 6, but just 40 with Level 7. With Level 8 difficulty, on the other hand, he could only resist 21 shots of Magnetic Aurora.
Zachary had the strength at grade 8 of the nature level.
As far as the steward could remember, even the masters who had reached the consummation of the nature level couldn't resist 100 shots of Magnetic Aurora in the Level 8 difficulty. From his records, the one who got the best result resisted only 89 shots of Magnetic Aurora.
As the steward reckoned, it was impossible to resist 100 shots of Magnetic Aurora with the level 8 difficulty if one hadn't entered the Illuminating Soul Realm yet.
And the masters at the Illuminating Soul Realm would generally prefer to cultivate in the Level 9 or even Level 10 difficulty.
“No, it can't be Zen. It may be Zachary, but it's definitely not Zen,” the steward murmured. But the problem was, the steward knew about Zachary's strength and that the young man couldn't promote his strength greatly overnight to this level. When he had put his all in it last time, he could resist only 20 shots of Magnetic Aurora. But could he have resisted the 100 shots of Magnetic Aurora today? It felt like a dream to the steward.
After thinking for a while, he suddenly patted his head. The Seven Star Sword Light Platform was not far from here, so why not go and have a look?
So the steward rushed to the Seven Star Sword Light Platform hurriedly.
Whatever was happening in the magic array, he wouldn't be able to see it from outside the Seven Star Sword Light Platform. He could only see the people on the platform.
When he arrived at the platform, he saw Zachary and Zen. The latter was sitting with his legs crossed and seemed to be meditating for cultivation.
The steward climbed up to the platform from the path aside and then asked Zachary, “Who resisted shots of 100 Magnetic Aurora just now? Was that you, Zachary?”
Zachary shrugged and smiled bitterly. He pointed at Zen who was beside him, “It's him!”
“Is it really him?” The steward was startled. If Zen truly resisted 100 with his current strength, it meant that the young man could be equal to an Illuminating Soul Realm master in some ways.
Every warrior had his own special skill. People able to resist 100 shots of Magnetic Aurora could be at the same level as the masters at the Illuminating Soul Realm to comprehend the sword intent, but they might not catch up with the masters with the comprehensive strength.
That was the normal situation.
The world was never short of a genius who was outstanding in one thing. But the steward was wrong. Zen wasn't only excellent in comprehending the sword intent, but he was good at every aspect.
No matter it was his strength or speed, his middle-grade spiritual weapon body was prominent. He might have mastered the life vitality, but it was not as good as the masters of the Illuminating Soul Realm. After all, the masters could burn the life vitality and make use of the life vitality's power to the extreme, but Zen couldn't do it right now. It was the only point in which he was inferior to the masters of the Illuminating Soul Realm.
“What is he doing?” Seeing Zen sitting still, the steward got curious.
Zachary shrugged, “He must be in an epiphany.”
“What? Epiphany?” The steward's eyes widened again. For a warrior, the epiphany was fate and it could only come out by accident. It would be great if a warrior could meet his epiphany once or twice in all his life. The steward hadn't thought that this bloke could meet the epiphany after resisting 100 shots of Magnetic Aurora. He hurried to question, “How long has he been sitting there?”
“Not long. After he resisted 100 shots of Magnetic Aurora, he has kept sitting in this way. I don't know how long he will sit. But even before resisting 100, he already had an epiphany. I'm not sure why he did it again–” Zachary was puzzled. When Zen was resisting the 61st group of Magnetic Aurora, he sat down to think. Nobody knew what he understood, but he comprehended the sword intent quickly. At that time, Zachary thought Zen could only resist the maximum of 63 shots of Magnetic Aurora. However, Zen had resisted 100 unexpectedly.
“What? He had an epiphany before?” The steward's voice was trembling. One epiphany was a great chance, but this bloke had the epiphany successively. How could that be possible? The steward couldn't understand it.
Seeing the steward's expression, Zachary felt relieved. The thought that someone also felt a strange feeling after knowing Zen's strength made Zachary happy. Now he got accustomed to the astonishment brought by Zen's skill. Whatever was happening to Zen seemed natural to him now.
“There will be others cultivating on the platform of Level 8 difficulty later. If he has the epiphany here, it will delay others' cultivation,” the steward was nonplussed. Epiphany meant to comprehend something profound in a second. It usually happened in a short time, but the human's mind was mysterious, and sometimes, it would take a long time.
Zen remained sitting with his eyes closed. The eyeballs under his eyelids were rolling rapidly.
The basic swordsmanship was divided into countless parts in Zen's mind. In his brain, there were many figures showing every detail of the basic swordsmanship.
“Chop upwards.”
“Intercept.”
“Circle parry.”
“Flick the sword.”
“Raise sword...”
The basic swordsmanship was not a massive skill, but it was the purest sword method. After being revised and simplified by many swordsmen, every move was free of flowery and unnecessary action.
But there were many pictures running through Zen's mind, and even the simplest chop was explained in thousands of images. They covered even the slightest details from drawing the sword to chopping.
However, those images started to disappear simultaneously in an instant, and then vanished more and more quickly.
In the blink of an eye, there were only more than ten images left for the “chop”.
“This basic swordsmanship...” Zen stared at it. The “chop” in Zen's eyes was still the same as before, but as he looked at it longer, he had a mysterious feeling. He knew it was the basic swordsmanship, but felt like something else.
After being simplified, the swordsmanship seemed to merge all the sword intent between heaven and earth into one movement.
Zen looked at the other basic swordsmanship movements, “flick the sword”, “sweep horizontal”, “lift up sword”...
Every movement looked ordinary and basic, but each of them hid a great mystery and made people unable to connect them with the common basic swordsmanship.