Chapter 387: The Unboxing Of Surprises
Tia and Zen had reached a consensus that both of them would get an equal share of everything they would get.
When they decided to open each box, they went for the red treasure boxes first. Each red treasure box contained a black item, the soul essence refined from the essence of the Dark Devil Phantom. It could either be traded at a decent price or used to toughen up a soul without any side effects. Zen got seven of those red treasure boxes.
After putting away their share of red treasure boxes, they opened the blue treasure boxes next. Unlike the red treasure boxes, the blue ones contained more precious treasures, the blood vigor of nine-headed dragons. Out of the six blue treasure boxes, Zen got three.
Looking at his stack of red and blue treasure boxes, Zen was filled with excitement. He couldn't wait to see what the other boxes held and how many he could get. He then stared at Tia without saying a word.
“What are you staring at?”
Tia questioned angrily. She was ill-tempered and sitting beside the half-naked Zen who kept on staring at her was a bit overwhelming. But she had to remain focused. Although she had promised to equally share the treasures with him, it was just normal for her to feel great regret. If it was any other disciple, Zen wouldn't get half of everything. Fortunately, Tia was more open-minded in practicing martial arts. She could look beyond these treasures for the greater good of the Cloud Hall. Besides, for Tia, Zen would be the most priceless treasure that the Cloud Hall could have.
Finally, Zen said while his eyes were still fixed on Tia, “With all these treasures, I'm afraid my space ring would run out of space.” He waved his hand helplessly at Tia.
The space ring that Zen was using was still the original one. Although Evil Lan's space ring didn't have a high capacity, its space had been enough for Zen.
But with all the treasures he had now, it would be hard for him to keep them all in his space ring.
Thwip!
A streak of silver light flickered in front of Zen. It was from the space ring that Tia tossed at him.
Zen caught it and looked at it for some while. He was stunned when he realized the high capacity of Tia's space ring. As Zen assessed, the space in that space ring might be enough to hold half of an island.
The space ring was quite valuable, and it was specially designed for women. Zen noted that the outer surface of this space ring was designed with a little lifelike phoenix made of heptyl gold.
“Thank you! I'll put up with this space ring for the time being,” Zen said smilingly as he admired the space ring that Tia lent to him. He started to put his share into the space ring.
After Tia tossed the space ring to Zen, her face looked colder. Zen's remarks appeared to be ungrateful for Tia. She hissed to herself, 'This jerk is really ungrateful! The more he gets, the more he wants!'
She shrugged off her annoyance and proceeded with the task at hand. After equally allocating the red and blue treasure boxes, Tia moved on to the three silver treasure boxes that she had obtained. She could feel her hands were getting cold. These silver boxes might contain more valuable treasures. She carefully opened each silver box, holding her breath for the wonder awaiting them.
As expected, the silver treasure boxes indeed contained far more valuable items. Inside each box was a soul jade slip with a record of the Blood Fiend Emperor's previous cultivation methods.
Previously, Zen had got the Blood Fiend Emperor's unique skill known as Malicious Wheel of Life and Death. Now, he didn't desire to know more about the cultivation methods recorded on the remained three soul jade slips. After all, Zen knew that it would be difficult for him to assimilate if he learned too many cultivation methods at the same time.
Hence, Zen gave the three soul jade slips to Tia, and this gesture satisfied her a lot.
However, Tia wouldn't practice the cultivation methods on the Blood Fiend Emperor's three secret books either. Though it was no use to her, she was sure that the elders of the Cloud Hall would make every effort to get these secret books if they were used as rewards and prizes.
The Cloud Hall had five grade two sects affiliated to it. Thus, it was arduous and difficult to manage all these sects well. If the Cloud Hall could offer such precious rewards, each sect would try to be the best, making the work easier for Cloud Hall. Therefore, pays and rewards should be given to the top elders, stewards, and disciples.
After Tia put all the silver treasure boxes into her space ring, she moved on to the gold treasure boxes with greater anticipation.
As Tia opened one of the gold treasure boxes, she saw a defective stone carving.
She didn't bother with it first, but as she looked closely, her eyes suddenly gleamed.
Like Tia, Zen was also completely attracted to the golden stone carving even though it was very small. The feelings that overwhelmed him at that moment were somewhat like the feelings that he had when he saw the Sun Moon Stars Picture for the first time.
“Hey, smart guy! So, you figured this out again?” Tia asked sarcastically as she gave Zen a hard look. This time, she really didn't believe that Zen could easily see what the stone carving revealed especially that it was his first time seeing it.
The gold stone carving contained space laws. A wise disciple would be able to see through and comprehend some space laws when he mediated beside the stone carving in the Sumeru Space of Cloud Hall.
Tia was able to understand the space laws immediately upon seeing the little stone carving. The stone carving inside the Cloud Hall was defective as well. However, it was cyan blue, and its space laws were nothing compared to the golden stone carving in front of her.
In general, only those people who understood some space laws could sense and experience how powerful and awesome the space laws of this stone carving were.
A mediocre disciple would mistake such a stone carving as an ordinary stone especially if it was the first time that he encountered it. He would even discard it immediately after he picked the stone carving up.
But Tia saw how differently Zen was gazing at the stone carving. He looked at it as if he knew what this kind of stone was and seemed to be contemplating this stone carving very attentively. However, Tia had enough of Zen's showy attitude that she sneered at his feigned observation of the stone carving and didn't believe that he could actually comprehend space laws.
In view of the current level that Zen had reached, Tia thought it was rather incredible that he cultivated the consummate sword intent and could turn his sword spirit into human shape. Apart from this, Tia had also felt that Zen's soul was far more powerful than those of others who were at the same level as him. But even so, there was no way for Zen to truly see through the space laws that easily.
At first, Tia looked at Zen with a disdainful look. But her ridicule was replaced by great astonishment when she realized what was actually happening. For her, it was unbelievable.
After stepping onto the “Death Road”, Zen had never shown his power of space. He had only used that power once when he tried to get the silver treasure box. It was only Fernandez and several sect heads who had witnessed Zen's application of the power through the Picture Slab. However, Tia didn't know that until now.
As the light on the stone carving became dimmer, she realized that Zen had comprehended the power of space reflected from the stone carving and was really contemplating the space laws.
Like the cyan blue stone carving inside the Cloud Hall, the power of space contained in this type of stone carvings was not infinite. When the cyan blue stone carving was rich in the power of space, it would emit a faint light. But the light would become dimmer once the power was mediated by an elder. Upon its depletion, the power of space would be restored naturally by the stone carving. But only after the restoration could one really proceed with the mediation.
This was just the reason why strict time limits were set upon contemplating on stone carving in the Cloud Hall. These time limits were respected by everyone who contemplated the stone carving.
The same phenomenon was true for the defective gold carving. In the course of Zen's mediation, the golden light over the stone carving was dispersing. This only meant that Zen had comprehended some of the space laws and the power of space had been constantly consumed.
At first, Tia had intended to satirize Zen. But at that moment, Tia was only amazed by what Zen was doing. She had forgotten about satirizing Zen. Right now, she became more impressed by Zen's talent. Deep in her mind, she was reevaluating the potential of this young guy.
When she first met Zen, Tia merely perceived him as top talent from a grade two sect. Although he looked as though he only had relatively mediocre accomplishments in cultivation, he exhibited fairly great potential for future development.
After all, everyone who was eligible to step onto the Death Road was among those with great potential. Among several people who had started their journey on the Death Road, Frank was the most outstanding. Apart from him, all others such as Rocher, Patrick, Lewis, and Lois could not be underrated either.
But after Zen showed his Heavenly Ogre Fist and the perfect sword intent, Tia assessed that Zen could outperform Frank.
All the power that Zen had was totally beyond Tia's imagination. Now that Zen could even comprehend the power of space, Tia believed that even the top disciples from the most powerful grade five sects would be no match for Zen.
In Tia's book, there were very few talented figures in the Eastern Region. And in the past years, no disciple there had been found to be especially gifted or outstanding. So, how could such an extraordinary person like Zen be suddenly cultivated in a grade two sect? This puzzled Tia a lot. In the assessment of Cloud Hall, the disciples in the Eastern Region lagged far behind those in the Central Region in terms of inheritance of cultivation methods and distribution of resources.
It was like participating in a long-distance race where one had already failed at the starting point. The Eastern Region had nothing to brag about with other regions.
“Now, I remember! The fiery dragon spirit wasn't killed by me! But why...” Tia's eyes widened as she realized that she had overlooked that.
Earlier when she was fighting against the fiery dragon spirit, Tia mistakenly took some overpowering drug. As a result, she was not quite conscious and thus unable to resist attacks of the fiery dragon spirit. She didn't know what happened next after she lost her consciousness. When she came back to her senses, the fiery dragon spirit was already dead and only Zen was with her. Now that she remembered it wasn't her that killed the fiery dragon spirit, it was Zen after all.
Over so many years, Tia had never been so intimate to any man. Zen was the only man that she had ever been physically attached to. She couldn't help but blush every time when she remembered her moments with Zen. But she didn't want him to know, so she tried to forget those times. Hence, she unconsciously overlooked all about the death of that fiery dragon spirit.
Remembering those times, Tia's face became red and she felt embarrassed to look into Zen's eyes. She took a deep breath to regain control over her body.
Tia still had a doubt about the death of the fiery dragon spirit. She thought that no matter how mighty Zen was, he couldn't have been able to confront and defeat the huge fiery dragon spirit with his current cultivation level. But now that the fiery dragon spirit was dead, was it really killed by Zen? How was that even possible?
Tia knew that Zen wouldn't reveal the truth unless she asked him. But whatever it was, Tia was sure that there was still something she didn't know about Zen. This intrigued her so much that she wanted to get to know him better.
'This young guy will surely enjoy great fame in the world in the future...' Tia mumbled to herself in a daze as she stared at Zen who was still seriously contemplating the golden stone carving.
After quite a while, the light over the stone carving was getting dimmer until it finally completely vanished. It left Zen's eyes stained with a tinge of the golden color. Apparently, he had substantially comprehended the space laws.
Zen slowly turned his eyes away from the golden stone carving to Tia. He subtly smiled and spoke to Tia, “What did you say?”
To sneer at Zen, Tia would have said, “You've figured out what it is again?” However, what Zen had just accomplished slapped Tia on the face. Tia could do nothing but snort coldly as a response to Zen's question. By that moment, it had become useless and meaningless for her to further dispute over Zen's strength. Without formally replying to Zen, she shifted her attention to another gold treasure box and opened it.
When she opened the gold treasure box, she found an array pattern which was for protecting the grade six sect.
It was useless for Zen but would be of great value for Tia. With this array pattern, the Cloud Hall would become more powerful in defending against its enemies. But it would be uneasy to deploy an array to protect the Cloud Hall. Tia showed it to Zen and told him what it was used for.
Zen raised no objection to Tia's possession of this array pattern. Although it was helpful for protecting a sect, it was of no value for him.
By now, there was only the final unopened box, the black treasure box.
With all the wonders they had seen so far, Tia's hand was still shaking. The gold treasure boxes proved to have far more valuable items than those of the first boxes they had opened. Now that they were moving onto their last box, a black treasure box, Tia's expectation became higher. What could be more valuable than those in the gold treasure boxes?
Tia examined the box first. On the outside, this black treasure box looked a little weird. All other treasure boxes were either red, blue, white, or gold. Only this one was colored black.
If there were some gears or magical spells inside the treasure box set by the emperor himself, both Tia and Zen would be in danger.
But as Tia carefully pulled the lid of the black treasure box, they saw a swarthy oil lamp inside.
Tia pulled it out and looked at it closely. It looked nothing special, but was like the small oil lamps used by ordinary families. Zen also looked at it closely while Tia was holding it. He was still baffled when he saw that Tia's eyes became wide in astonishment again.
“This is the enchanted lamp from the celestial tomb!”