Chapter 251: A Surprise For Kenneth
“Younger generation? Are you kidding me? Vale, you're only a little older than me. You may have reached the Illuminating Soul Realm earlier than I do, but it doesn't mean you're more powerful than me! How dare you call me younger generation?” Zen snorted.
The participants of the All Peaks Competition were shocked when they had known that Zen might be Yan's elder brother.
When they heard the conversation between Zen and Vale, they were even more surprised to see Zen's attitude toward Vale.
Zen had shown great potential that made him the most powerful among the top disciples of the thirty-three peaks.
As a practitioner at the second-grade nature level, it was a miracle for Zen to defeat Cecil. Besides, his victory against Mess with his magical purple and black life vitality was the greatest miracle of all time.
However, both Cecil and Dick were only the top disciples of the thirty-three peaks. They were still far from Rocher, Wing, and Sheeny when it came to competence, and there was still a long way to go for them to be on par with the personal disciples.
Jacques was just at the second-grade nature level when he had participated in the previous competition. But because he was also a personal disciple, his power and competence had already been far beyond his peers.
The All Peaks Competition was held in many sessions. In each session, the first up to the third place had been won by the personal disciples, and it was seldom that the disciples of the thirty-three peaks would get the top ranks. When the personal disciples gave their best in the competitions, the disciples from the thirty-three peaks would lose their chance to be on the top twenty.
From this point, it was easy to see the gap between the disciples of the thirty-three peaks and the personal disciples. Although the number of personal disciples was small, they had easy access to abundant resources provided by the Cloud Sect and they had personal masters to teach them. Therefore, all of them were powerful enough with their own unique skills.
Vale was outstanding even amongst the personal disciples.
According to the Cloud Sect List, he was part of the top fifteen last year. However, the personal disciples' ranking in the Cloud Sect List was not reflective of their actual power and strength.
Because they seldom competed with the others and they could improve their skills so fast, the ranking list was unable to measure their real competence at all.
Even if Vale had ranked fifteen in the Cloud Sect List, it could be that he had the competence to be in the first rank.
The other disciples feared Vale and would stutter at the sight of him, just like how they would react in front of an elder.
And because of that, the other disciples thought Zen as extremely arrogant in his manner of speaking with Vale.
Vale had always been indifferent, but it was hard for him to stay calm right now because of Zen's sharp tongue. But since he had a reputation to protect, he dared not to speak ill towards Zen. But the rage in him had turned his face pale.
After all, Vale was no ordinary man. After many years of cultivation, he knew that it was very important for a practitioner to stay calm all the time. So, he summoned his life vitality and an extremely beautiful lotus formed in his hand. He crushed the lotus into pieces and then a gust of cold air came out from the lotus pieces.
After a short while, Vale regained his composure. He then said with a slight smile, “You were trying to provoke me so that I would make mistakes in our competition. That way you would have a chance to win. Am I right? I have to admit, you managed to piss me off. But now you have to pay for it!”
As Vale finished his words, sparkly red lights appeared around Vale. Like clusters of flame, the red lights brightened and formed lotus flowers, then they floated towards Zen.
'Vale has further improved again! I can see it from the lotus. But I will try my best to fight him for myself, and for Yan too!' Zen thought.
He summoned the six demonic phantoms which spiraled out from his behind. They hit towards the lotus with incredible speed and strength.
Sitting on his big chair on the platform with his hands tightly holding onto the armrest, Kenneth asked, “Xu, the members of Cloud Sect don't seem to take me seriously. Are they still considering me as the head of Cloud Sect?”
Elder Xu was surprised at Kenneth's question. He asked cautiously, “Your grace, what makes you think that?”
“Zen is not only a potential disciple but the older brother of Yan as well. But how come I didn't know about this until today?” Kenneth asked back. Even though Zen was only at the second-grade nature level, he could already be on par with the Illuminating Soul Realm masters. That meant he must be extremely talented, but Kenneth wondered why no one had ever mentioned Zen to him. He seldom appeared among the disciples, so it was no wonder he knew little about Zen. However, how could those elders, the Saints and even the stewards of Cloud Sect turn a blind eye to such a talented disciple?
The very essence of Cloud Sect was to find gifted disciples in the Eastern Region for Cloud Hall. A reasonable set of rules in finding the talents had been designed in Cloud Sect. For example, if a steward found a disciple who performed well in the secret cultivation land, he would report it to his supervisor. Then his supervisor would report to the responsible person with a higher rank. When the higher rank official validated the newly found talent, the steward would then get a reward.
Under the rules, the disciples generally had little chance to be missed out if they were performing well.
Despite being a practitioner at the second-grade nature level, Zen had already defeated so many powerful disciples in the All Peaks Competition. That was enough reason to prove that he was a gifted disciple.
Based on Kenneth's assessment, Zen possessed the highest talent in the world.
People were not born equal. Some practitioners were more gifted than the others and they could progress faster.
And talents were divided into three different levels: the heaven, the earth, and the human level. According to the competence of the Eastern Region, talents at human were considered geniuses. In other words, the disciples who possessed the human-level talent would reach the Illuminating Soul Realm faster than any other normal disciples.
As to the earth-level talents, the Cloud Sect would normally pay great attention to them. About half of the personal disciples and the inner disciples of the thirty-three peaks with the highest cultivation level could be regarded as earth-level talent disciples.
Heaven-level talents were rare gems, so disciples at this level were not only valued by the Cloud Sect, but by the Cloud Hall itself.
However, the talent level was only used to measure the potential for improvement of the disciples. It was something that could only be measured through comparison.
As far as Kenneth was concerned, Zen possessed the heaven-level talent at least. From his incredible performance, Zen's talent might have actually reached the saint level.
Kenneth was surprised at Zen's talent, however, that wasn't the reason he was angry.
What made him so angry was that no one had told him that Zen was Yan's older brother!
Yan was important for Kenneth so he wanted to know everything about her. But when no one told him about her brother becoming a disciple in Cloud Sect, Kenneth felt disregarded by the Cloud Sect.
“Maybe because it was Aura who took Zen to Drizzle Peak. Nobody dared to talk about Zen due to the special identity of Aura's.” Xu reasoned out after thinking for a while.
“Aura? Is she the daughter of Kane?” Kenneth asked with a frown.
Xu nodded and answered, “Being Zen's master, Aura must have known how gifted Zen is. But I'm guessing that she deliberately did not report it to her supervisor.”
“Xu, are you trying to defend the Saints and the elders and putting the blame on Aura? As far as I know, she is only a master of Drizzle Peak. And even if she didn't want to report it, there could be others who would and she can't do anything to stop them. I'm pretty sure that Zen has cultivated in some cultivation places. But why none of the stewards reported to me? I can't believe it and I won't accept your reasoning! Find out what happened and report to me immediately! Arrange someone to check Zen's cultivation record in the past few months. I would like to ask those stewards if they have gone blind!” Kenneth said angrily.
Sensing the anger, Xu dared not to delay. He immediately dispatched someone to check on Zen's cultivation records.
While Xu was busy calming Kenneth down, the competition in the battle ring became fiercer.
The lotus flowers were blossoming and formed a stream of lotuses, then started rushing towards Zen.
Each of the lotuses was about the same weight as ten bronze cooking vessels, and once these lotuses clung to him, Zen would slow down immediately. This was becoming a disadvantage for him.
At the moment, a homicidal intent of lotus summoned by Vale surrounded Zen. Vale tried to suppress Zen with the overwhelming homicidal intent of lotus.
'Does he think I could be easily suppressed? Dream on!' Zen thought.
The effect of Vale's homicidal intent of lotus on Zen started to diminish. Now Zen took the Sword Steps and kept moving around the battle ring as the six demonic phantoms he controlled knocked down the lotuses.
“Phew! Phew! Phew...”
With the incredible force of the demonic phantoms, the lotuses were crushed into pieces. Their petals scattered all over the ground, making the battle ring look like a mess. After a short moment, the petals transformed back as original vitality and disappeared in the air. By natural law, since these lotuses came from nature, they would eventually come back to nature in the form of original vitality.
Although the demonic phantoms were powerful, Zen could only summon six of them for now. Vale, on the other hand, could summon hundreds of lotuses with just a wave of his hand. Most of the lotuses had been crushed by the demonic phantoms, but there were still a few that escaped from the gap between the demonic phantoms, and now they were chasing after Zen.
Despite that, Zen wasn't afraid at all
because he could withstand the weight of the lotus from the beginning. And with that, he was more confident that he could absorb these lotuses with demonic life vitality.
But to Zen's surprise, the moment the demonic life vitality he released touched the lotus, the color of the lotus suddenly changed from bright red to lurid red.
Zen became more cautious at the sight of the color change. He abruptly stopped and stepped backward with extremely high speed.