Chapter 397: The Great Present From Tia
“Did I really punch a hole through the floor of the Cloud Hall?” murmured Zen in surprise. A look of horror spread across his face.
The power of the Exterminating Wheel had far exceeded his expectations. The raw power it produced shook him to the core. A ray of light shone through the tiny hole on the floor of the practice room.
“All disciples in the practice room clear out!”
Amidst the long wailing warning tune of the flute, Steward Xiao's voice boomed.
Steward Xiao was one of the two stewards who handed out Cloud Hall Tokens to the disciples a few days ago. Upon hearing the summons, Zen reluctantly removed the Exterminating Wheel and took a deep breath before he started for the door and promptly walked out.
Outside, he found several disciples of the Illuminating Soul Realm looking at Steward Xiao in states of confusion. It seemed that they all had no idea why the alarm was sounded out of nowhere, nor did they know why Steward Xiao called them out there while they were busy cultivating.
“Who was it...” Steward Xiao asked in an expression of barely concealed anger.
Before he could finish his question, Zen stepped forth and presented himself. “I apologize, Steward Xiao. I accidentally punched a hole through the floor in my practice room.”
The practice room on this floor was located at the lowest level of Cloud Hall, and not far below was a floating stone, surrounded by warning runes. No one had ever touched the floating stone before.
All the practice rooms in Cloud Hall had myriad layers of protection. To use the practice room on this floor, one only needed to show the red Cloud Hall Token. So all those who practiced martial arts in this level were mostly new disciples of the Elite House. Given that the new disciples were relatively weak compared to the other batches, it was expected that they would cause little to no damage in the practice room, and so there were no strong shields on this floor.
No one could have ever expected Zen's Exterminating Wheel powered by the malicious aura could be so powerful as to punch a hole through the practice room shields and break the floating stone of Cloud Hall.
If the culprit were anybody else, the stern steward would have punished him accordingly without hesitation. Unexpectedly, upon learning that it was Zen who broke the shield, Steward Xiao's face immediately relaxed and all fury dissipated from his expression. His mouth formed into a huge grin and he said, “Oh, it's you, Zen. It's not your fault. The shields of the practice room on this level are weak. If you want to keep training, you can make use of the upper floors. This kind of accident will be avoided for sure!”
Once a purple Cloud Hall Token was obtained, this qualified Zen to use the best practice room in Cloud Hall, which could only be used by the elders. Those rooms were made with the mightiest pig iron, and could withstand even the full force of a cultivator at the early stage of Internal Elixir Realm.
Noticing the sudden change in Steward Xiao's mood, several other elite disciples were struck dumb for a moment and eventually sighed in unison upon realizing how fickle the steward was.
However, they could not help but admire Zen. Zen, after all, had strong forces backing him, while they didn't have a single one.
When Zen was conversing with the steward, the vitality that resided in between heaven and earth became erratic and suddenly converged towards the direction of one of the practice rooms.
Steward Xiao's face darkened yet again as he sensed the movement of vitality. Before he could speak, another explosion burst forth and the room that gathered the vitality blew to pieces. In the blink of an eye, a dark figure flew out of the practice room and stumped to the ground. The very next second, the figure slowly stood up and rubbed his forehead.
It was Rocher...
Steward Xiao's head immediately ached as he surveyed the scene. This batch of elite disciples seemed to be stronger than any other batch. Zen just punched a hole through the floating stone mere moments ago, and this guy apparently decimated the practice room.
Rocher shook his head to shake off the grogginess. At the sight of the stern steward's face and Zen, he sheepishly muttered an apology, “I'm sorry for the ruckus I caused, Steward Xiao. I lost control of my strength for a moment while practicing.”
“What's your name?” snapped Steward Xiao. He was unkind to everyone except Zen.
“Rocher Hua,” Rocher answered plainly.
“You will compensate for the destruction you have caused. Since you have just arrived at the Cloud Hall, and lack the necessary points, I'll record it first and then deduct the necessary points when you earn later!” Steward Xiao declared boldly.
“Steward Xiao, Rocher and I are from the same sect. If you really want to charge him for the accident, you can just charge it to me,” Zen interjected.
“Charge it to you?” Steward Xiao froze for a moment and then his face relaxed and his tone became noticeably softer. “In that case, I'll have to let it go,” he said with a faint laugh. “I must warn you, though, to avoid the destruction of the practice room from now on!”
When Steward Xiao left, Rocher heaved a sigh of relief and turned to Zen with a mischievous smile. “Thanks, Zen! Man, what you said really had some effect!”
Zen looked at him straight with an inquisitive shine in his eyes and asked, “Did you just break through?”
Rocher nodded in acknowledgement and chuckled, “I had a vague idea that I was going to break through on the Cloud Road, but what I didn't expect was that I didn't get into the Illuminating Soul Realm until now.”
There was a great barrier between the nature level and the Illuminating Soul Realm. Rocher had been in the consummation of nature level long enough, and in terms of talent, he might not be as outstanding as Zen, but he was not inferior to any of the other elite disciples in Cloud Hall. Thus, as his power had accumulated to a certain degree, he naturally made a breakthrough.
“By the way, Zen, have you acquired the method of distilling Devil Phantom's essence?” Rocher eagerly inquired.
Zen and Rocher both gained a ton of Devil Phantom's essence along the Death Road. According to Tia, the said essence couldn't directly be used, since it was highly poisonous in its original state. Zen, though not afraid of any poison, wouldn't rush to consume it. It would be pointless to do so.
Considering that the Devil Phantom's essence had soul strengthening properties, Zen asked, “Do you really need it now?”
Rocher nodded, smiled bitterly and continued, “Cultivating the Heavenly Sword requires a really strong soul. I can hardly keep it up without a tough soul.”
To take advantage of the heavenly momentum, the practitioner must be able to withstand the powerful momentum of both heaven and earth in the first place, and then diverted the heavenly momentum towards his opponent through the sword. How could a practitioner deal a strong blow if he himself couldn't handle the momentum?
Rocher's soul wasn't weak before, and it was at least strong enough to bear the sword, but after he stepped into the Illuminating Soul Realm, his soul couldn't handle the heavenly momentum anymore. This could all be attributed to the fact that now he was able to draw more of the vitality between heaven and earth and take advantage of even more heavenly momentum, but this also meant he needed to take on even more momentum within his soul.
The accident was caused by Rocher's failure to control the gathered vitality, causing it to implode and detonate, blowing up the entire practice room where he was cultivating.
Zen flashed Rocher a faint smile and said, “I'll help you ask about extracting method for the Dark Devil Phantom's essence, but I have something for you in the meantime. You can use this first.” With that said, Zen tapped onto his space ring and promptly took out a red treasure chest.
Rocher's face lit up like a Christmas tree when he heard that Zen would inquire about the purification process. Since Zen had narrowly escaped from the flood dragon's jaws, Rocher also realized that the mysterious disciple from the Cloud Hall also survived. Zen didn't tell him who the disciple was, and Rocher dared not ask.
He was about to thank Zen when he saw a delicate red treasure chest appear on the palm of Zen's hand. “What is it?” he asked, his eyes full of curiosity.
“Go on, open it! Then you'll know,” Zen chuckled, deliberately maintaining the suspense.
With gusto, Rocher opened the chest. The very next second, some kind of black matter shot towards the middle of his eyebrows.
Like Zen's first time, Rocher reflexively tried to dodge, but failed spectacularly, so the black soul essence stuck to him.
Feeling no ill intent from the black matter, Rocher closed his eyes and accepted the nourishment for his soul. It felt incredibly comfortable as if his soul was being caressed by a pair of soft invisible hands. To his amazement, his soul grew stronger at an alarming rate!
When Rocher opened his eyes again, his eyes could see so clearly. “It's.. Oh my goodness.. Zen, it's some kind of soul enhancer!” Rocher exclaimed with an excited look.
Zen had a huge grin on his face as he nodded and said nothing.
Zen's sudden display of generosity embarrassed Rocher. Rocher, who was badly in need of soul strengthening, and was a proud man by nature, was at a loss for words when he found himself owing Zen big time.
“It's just one of the treasure chests that I found on the Cloud Road. That is the soul essence that was extracted from the Devil Phantom's essence...” Zen tried to ease Rocher's discomfort. “Don't look at me like that. It's not that valuable,” Zen emphasized while looking at Rocher with amusement on his face.
Zen still had several red treasure chests just like this one, and he had not used them yet. So, giving Rocher one of these chests wasn't that much of a loss.
But Rocher thought differently. Having accepted the chest, he took this as a big favor to him. In fact, the elite disciples of Cloud Hall who watched them thought the same. Their faces were various looks of admiration. Zen had just become the richest man in their hearts. They all wanted to come over and form friendships with Zen...
The elite disciples in the room all came from good families. As members of the Central Region, the worst of their families was at grade two, whose power was comparable to Cloud Sect. However, they were all reluctant to give away treasures like soul essence.
“Well, we're from the same sect, so forget about it,” Zen gently muttered.
Right then and there, he heard a soft, sweet voice. “Hey! You've been at the Cloud Hall for several days, but you haven't even contacted me!” whined the voice. “It was because of me that you got a purple Cloud Hall Token, and you haven't even showed me a shred of gratitude! How insufferable you are!”
Tia had given Zen a message token, so they could communicate without even a message rune. Zen, however, was taken aback when Tia's voice suddenly spoke in his ear.
Zen should have thanked Tia, not only because of the purple Cloud Hall Token, but because he hadn't encountered any difficulties yet since he came to the Cloud Hall. He could practice to his heart's content thanks to her!
Zen had a really hard time when he first entered the Cloud Sect. Now the treatment he received in the Cloud Hall was drastically different from then, and most of the people here showed him respect.
“Now tell me why I should show you my gratitude? I haven't forgotten that I should have a half share of the Heavenly Fruit Tree. Besides, there are a lot of things that actually belong to me, but I haven't received them yet. So who should I really be thanking?” Zen passed on his words via the message token using a small amount of his life vitality.
“You call yourself a man? How can you be so evil? Besides, your present realm is just too low, and it's certainly not the right time for you to devour the Heavenly Fruit. Just keep trying to improve your strength, but.. It's too boring cultivating in the practice room, so I'll give you a great present, hee hee...” Tia laughed.
Hearing Tia's laughter, Zen found her voice so horrifying that it almost turned his blood to ice. He had a terrible feeling about what was coming next.