Chapter 346: Parallel Move
“Hey! Zen is really lucky. Since he is so talented, he meets the criteria to receive a Cloudy Vastness Pill, if he can rank among the top five during the Cloud Road trial. I'll make this suggestion after that,” Fernandez Fei said calmly.
Hearing Fernandez's words, everyone, including Kenneth, was astonished.
Cloudy Vastness Pill!
This was the Cloud Hall's secret pill. Even the stewards, like Kenneth and Eddy, would find it challenging to get one. It would only be given to them if they made a vital contribution to the Cloud Hall.
It boosted a cultivator's basic strength without any side effects. It could make their basic strength more stable, and also help a cultivator break through bottlenecks quickly.
After hearing what Fernandez said, Kenneth felt as though Fernandez was unfair.
Over time, Kenneth had made great efforts to select outstanding disciples for Cloud Hall. What did he get in return? Of course, he wanted the reward offered by Cloud Hall.
Now, before Kenneth had earned Cloud Hall's gratitude for his efforts, Fernandez promised Zen a reward!
Although Zen had been discovered and cultivated by Kenneth, and Kenneth was so proud of Zen, Kenneth, as a warrior of the Internal Elixir Realm, also had a strong desire to gain the pill.
Guessing what Kenneth was thinking, Fernandez laughed and said, “Kenneth, if Zen achieves a position in the top five, I'll certainly report your contribution of selecting outstanding disciples. Your reward from Cloud Hall will not be overlooked.”
After Kenneth heard this, excitement flooded him. “Thank you, Elder Fei!”
The other people present, especially the heads of other sects, did not have any expressions on their faces, but all of them sneered at Kenneth secretly. 'The top five? Only in your dreams! No disciple from a grade two sect has been able to achieve such a high position during the Cloud Road trial!'
There were five grade two sects under the supervision of Cloud Hall, namely, Cloud Sect, Auspice Sect, Iridescence Sect, Brumous Sect and Red Sect. Each sect had selected several disciples this year to attend the trial. In total, there should be about forty to fifty disciples from the five sects. And another equal number of disciples from Cloud Hall attended the trial as well.
However, there was a huge skill gap between the Cloud Hall disciples and those from the grade two sects.
It was almost impossible for a disciple of a grade two sect to secure a position in the top ten, not to mention the top five. Over the past few hundred years, there only had been two disciples from Iridescence Sect and Auspice Sect who had managed to figure in the eighth and the ninth ranks, respectively. Aside from these two, in all the other competitions, the top ten positions were all obtained by Cloud Hall's disciples.
In the previous Cloud Road trial, Kenneth had boasted that Evan would be the champion. Kenneth had been laughed at during these past three years because Evan had failed. However, most of the leaders from the other sects had been jealous of Kenneth as Evan had secured the top rank during the first half of Cloud Road. It was a pity that Evan fell asleep during the trial and had become a joke at the end.
If what Kenneth had said was true, then Cloud Sect would attach great importance to Zen. All the other grade two sect leaders knew that Zen was a disciple at the third grade of the nature level. Thus, he was far weaker than any other disciples. How could he compete with the disciples of Cloud Hall?
Moreover, it was known to all that the disciples of Cloud Hall were already the most talented ones selected from millions of cultivators. And all the participants attending this trial had been selected from those talented ones, so they were all super-elites of the Cloud Hall!
Cloud Sect, a grade two sect, was far weaker than Cloud Hall. Its resources, including cultivation methods and other skills that inherited from older generations were minor in comparison to Cloud Hall.
So, as long as the five grade two sects could select one or two disciples who would successfully pass Cloud Road and become a disciple of Cloud Hall, the leader of the sect would be honored. How could they imagine that a disciple from Cloud Sect would feature in the top five places?
“But Zen has been standing at the gate of Cloud Road all the time. I'm worried that he will not have the opportunity,” Fernandez said while shaking his head. While they were talking, Zen remained in one place and stared at the space around him.
“This silly guy!” Kenneth became anxious. He really wanted to lash Zen with a whip. 'Why do you keep staring at the sky? What is attracting you so much?
What are you looking at?' He questioned Zen in his mind. Suddenly, Kenneth realized something and laughed bitterly. “Now, I know what Zen is doing.”
“What is he doing?” Fernandez asked curiously.
“Cloud Road is an isolated, secret place. It is a shattered world as well. There are blocks of space fragments in the sky. So, Zen is probably learning the space rules now.” Kenneth chuckled as he shook his head.
Kenneth was in a dilemma. On the one hand, he was proud of having such an extraordinarily outstanding disciple as this had brought him a great honor. On the other hand, he felt anxious about the current situation. Zen's performance was very important to him, but Zen insisted on learning and didn't go further! Did he forget he was competing in the Cloud Road trial?
“The space rules? Kenneth, are you kidding me?” Although he was the Elder of Cloud Sect, Fernandez was astonished by Kenneth's reply and had to ask.
“Stop talking like that! Kenneth Shi, you have been praising this guy, a disciple at the third grade of the nature level for a long time. You claimed that he learned consummate sword intent. That's believable. Now, you are saying that he is learning the space rules. Do you have any limits, Kenneth? I'm warning you. Do not be as ridiculous as the last time!” The glum old lady from the Iridescence Sect said impatiently.
Except for Kenneth, no one else had seen Zen perform his skills. Kenneth had spoken so highly of Zen's abilities that the leaders of the other sects felt terrible.
The leaders of Auspice Sect and Brumous Sect didn't say anything. But the old lady was really bad-tempered and burst out first.
“Lady Long, I never lie! I can't force you to believe me. When I brought Zen into the transmission array, we encountered space windstorm. He...” Kenneth continued.
“Okay. You can keep exaggerating!” Lady Long said with a cold smile.
Just at this moment, Fernandez said, “Look, Zen is moving!”
All of the people turned their attention to the Picture Slab and started observing Zen.
Frankly speaking, each leader preferred to watch disciples from their respective sects. But only one Picture Slab was available to them, and Fernandez was interested in Zen due to Kenneth's introduction. He had insisted on watching Zen. So, there was no chance for the other leaders to view their disciples. This was another reason why the leaders of other sects were angry with Kenneth. 'Every sect selected their geniuses to participate in the trial. Why should we only watch Zen? We should also be monitoring our disciples!' all the leaders thought this way.
While inside Cloud Road, Zen seemed to see more lines in the sky.
He watched the space fragments moving slowly like clouds. They were being blown by the space windstorm and drifted slowly. Then, they collided with each other, divided into pieces, and merged into a big one.
But this was probably happening at a very high altitude. Thus, Zen did not have the opportunity to examine these movements closely. Even if he could fly that high, he would probably be shredded by the space fragments as he was too weak to do much now.
Zen turned his eyes to the ground and smiled bitterly. Though he had been enlightened after his close observation, Zen found that the number of lines hadn't reduced. On the contrary, he saw more.
Previously, when he was standing by the gate, Zen had only seen outlines of the architecture and mountains.
Now, Zen could see other lines as well. Although they were only an inch or a foot in length, Zen understood that there were lines everywhere in the world!
“What are these lines? They cannot be the cracks of the space fragments. If they were, no one could live in such a space!” Zen walked to one of the lines. Hesitantly, he raised his hand and tried to touch it.
But he felt nothing! It seemed as though he could see the line, but he could not feel it.
However, when Zen's hand stayed there for a few seconds, he felt something!
Zen's figure suddenly turned blurry, and he felt as though he was following this thin line.
The thin line was only one foot long! It was almost as long as an adult's stride. But Zen felt he could move freely inside the one-foot line and his speed was incredible!
The excessive speed at which Zen was traveling made it look like there were countless shadows of Zen inside the one-foot space.
However, these shadows did not appear due to the high speed. A shadow appearing due to high speed was an illusion of a person's eyes. All of Zen's shadows appeared and vanished at the same time.
Zen's legs didn't move, but his body shifted about a foot as he followed the thin line. Even Zen felt strange as if he had become a ghost and made a parallel move in the space.
'This way of moving is weird and also interesting, ' Zen thought. When Zen left that line, he found that there was another one in front of him. This line was about a half foot in length. The moment he touched it, Zen moved forward another half foot as the ghost did.
The more he looked, the more lines Zen found. And as with previous lines, Zen touched the lines and moved inside them.
In this way, he didn't move forward very fast as each line was only half a foot or so long, and some were a little longer. And Zen had to make an effort to look for the line and get close to it. The reason why he did so was that he found this phenomenon fascinating. At the same time, he thought about the implications of this ability.
Zen didn't know that his behavior had stunned the leaders of all the sects as well as the Elder of Cloud Hall who were watching him outside the trial.