Chapter 403: The Divine Texture
If Zen had defeated Warren with some other skill, the disciples wouldn't have been so shocked.
Although Warren was powerful, his competence was only a little higher than Frank's, who had just reached the Illuminating Soul Realm.
Since Zen had defeated Frank, he was likely to win in the battle against Warren as well. However, to everyone's surprise, he beat Warren with his bare fists!
Warren's fist techniques were renowned in Elite House. Anyone who knew of Warren's abilities would drop his jaw in shock at the news of his defeat. Generally, martial arts practitioners preferred to use weapons to enhance their attacking power, and very few liked to fight with their bare hands.
Many cultivators also learned fist fighting techniques to minimize their weaknesses and to supplement their strengths.
However, Warren considered his fists to be his most powerful weapon. He had cultivated to such an extent that he had complete confidence in his fist fighting techniques! Ever since he became popular, his competence was obvious to all. So no one dared to underestimate the power of Warren's fists.
Since Zen was a swordsman, his greatest skill should have been his swordsmanship. No one expected his fists to be so strong and powerful.
That was what confused the disciples.
This was like a proud and competent archer defeating a swordsman with a sword instead of a bow and arrow.
Such a significant difference would be a devastating blow to his opponent's self-confidence. And it seemed as though Zen was quite good at it!
Rocher stood in a corner with his sword resting on his back. He smiled lightly because he knew why the Cloud Hall elites were so shocked. Zen seemed to be versatile and had no apparent weakness. He was particularly outstanding in terms of physical strength, body firmness, and swordsmanship, which he cultivated by following simple principles.
Anyone who had any of these advantages would be able to defeat many powerful martial arts practitioners.
Fred Li raised his brows in surprise.
As one of the most powerful Illuminating Soul Realm cultivators, his thoughts differed from the others. It was normal for Warren to strengthen his body, and improve his strength and fist fighting techniques with life vitality.
However, instead of strengthening his body with life vitality, Zen had only injected his life vitality into his fists. Only a body refiner could do this.
People would refine their bodies before reaching the nature level. After reaching the nature level, the air flow in a cultivator's body would be routed through their navel, so they could begin to practice life vitality related cultivation methods. Compared to body refining, life vitality cultivation was more powerful.
However, that didn't mean it was hard for a cultivator to reach a high cultivation level by refining his body. And, so a small group of people chose body refining. The problem was, compared to demons and ogres who were born strong, people had no advantage after body refining.
What Fred found most puzzling was that he didn't sense the unique, forceful energy of body refiners emitting from Zen. The forceful energy was quite similar to life vitality. However, it couldn't be transformed into specific shapes by meditating. If Zen were a body refiner, it would be impossible for him to have no forceful energy. Without an extremely strong body, Zen wouldn't have been able to defeat Warren.
That was why Fred was astonished.
He had attended the competition today to watch Zen. Fred knew that Zen wouldn't answer his questions, and this was the only way to observe Zen's abilities. For him, Zen was anything but ordinary.
Zen stood in the middle of the hall and stretched. As he looked around at the surrounding disciples, he asked with a slight smile, “Is there anyone else who wants to challenge me?”
After a short moment of silence, a disciple stepped out from the crowd and said, "I will!
I don't believe that you are powerful enough to defeat Warren! I'm sure that Warren wouldn't have lost the battle had he been careful enough!"
“Gary, kill that guy!”
Seeing that the disciples were so eager to fight him, Zen felt a headache coming on. He just wanted to frighten them so that they wouldn't dare to challenge him, and that was why he had used the most powerful blow in the fight with Warren. Unfortunately, it seemed his approach didn't work.
The disciples of Elite House had been chosen from tens of thousands of disciples. This was quite different from how disciples were selected in the Eastern Region. Before coming to Cloud Hall for cultivation, disciples had already proven their abilities. So they were quite proud of themselves and wouldn't accept Zen's criticism easily.
“Young man, you should pick me. I promise I won't break your hands and feet!” Just then, another two sturdy men stepped forward. Their bodies were so huge that they almost blocked Zen's vision.
Both these men had reached the sixth grade of the Illuminating Soul Realm. Zen knew that Tia was forcing him to explore his potential in this way. Zen was smart enough not to select an extremely powerful opponent. With a slight smile, he cast his eyes on a skinny, but energetic young man. This young man was at the fourth grade of the Illuminating Soul Realm too.
“Albert, that guy picked you! Don't let us down!” someone said before giving the young man named Albert a push.
Albert Yue was a little surprised that Zen picked him because he had only planned to watch the competitions. He hadn't intended to challenge anybody. Furthermore, he was still in shock after Zen's victory over Warren. As he had no confidence, Albert waved his hands and asked, “Can you pick anybody else? I'm here not for the competition. I'm just here for fun!”
Zen nodded. Since the young man didn't want to fight him, Zen wouldn't force him.
However, the other disciples of Elite House didn't agree. They shouted, “Albert, you have reached the highest level of Wind Swordsmanship, haven't you? Then why are you so scared? If you beat that guy, I'll give you five high-class life vitality crystals.”
“Albert, if you don't accept the challenge, I'll break your legs!”
“Albert, he is just a nature creature. Why are you so scared? Your family will be ashamed of you! If you don't fight him, I will tell your dad!”
Under pressure from the other disciples, Albert seemed to have no choice. He was born in a second-grade clan, which was as powerful as Cloud Sect. So it would be embarrassing for his clan if Albert dared not fight with a nature creature.
Albert frowned as he looked at Zen. Then he shrugged in defeat as he had no choice. Finally, he unsheathed his sword and walked toward Zen.
Since Albert had just learned successful sword intent, he was no match for Zen. Besides, as he was reluctant to fight, Albert kept on defending instead of attacking during the battle. And so, after twenty moves, Zen defeated Albert.
Zen's victory set off an uproar in the building. More than ten Elite House disciples stepped forward to challenge Zen. Those who considered them unsuitable to face Zen, cowered in corners as they were afraid Zen would select them next.
Finally, Zen pointed at another disciple who seemed to be trembling in the corner. As before, Zen trounced his new opponent. Then he said with a smile, “Let's call it a day! Return early tomorrow morning, and we'll continue with the challenges!”
With that, Zen turned and prepared to leave. However, these disciples wouldn't let go of him.
“You want to leave? Dream on! I won't let you go unless you fight me!”
“Stop him! This guy has been playing tricks all along. He only battled with disciples whose competence was lower than his? How could we let go of him?”
“Zen, you have to confront me before leaving!”
These disciples rushed toward Zen and were about to fight. Like a stoke of wind, Zen floated through the gap between the crowd, and then he flew higher and escaped the grey building.
Fred was shocked when he saw Zen floating away at an incredible speed. Although he had reached the pinnacle of the Illuminating Soul Realm, he had no confidence to catch Zen.
“This guy...” Fred smiled bitterly and shook his head. He thought Zen had performed well as he dared to challenge the disciples of the Elite House and showed great competence in the competitions. However, when he saw Zen flying at shocking speed, Fred knew that he had underestimated him.
However, Fred didn't know that Zen was under the control of Saint Morphens, like a puppet.
Saint Morphens was so powerful that a cultivator at Internal Elixir Realm was no match for the puppets he controlled. Since Fred was only at the Illuminating Soul Realm, of course, he couldn't defeat these puppets either.
“Dang it! I didn't expect him to fly! What the heck!”
“I have never seen a nature creature fly before, and in such a way and at such speed!”
“it doesn't matter as he will come again. Let's discuss how to deal with him!”
Zen was going to challenge all the disciples of Elite House. He had been following the practice of selecting three opponents each time. If he picked the relatively weaker disciples each time, the disciples could take no action.
After Zen had left, someone proposed a solution. If the weaker disciples didn't show up the next time, then Zen would have to choose more powerful disciples to fight.
These disciples racked their brains as they tried to figure out how best to teach Zen a good lesson so that he wouldn't be so arrogant.
Zen knew that he had offended the Elite House disciples. However, since that was what Tia wanted, he had no other choice.
Every martial arts cultivator knew that they had to improve through battles. Many of them were often killed by their opponents. However, Zen could challenge anyone he wanted and leave the battle ring at a critical moment. Not everybody was as lucky as Zen.
In the evening, after cultivating for a while, Zen opened the red and blue treasure boxes, one by one. The soul essence in the red treasure chests could strengthen Zen's soul, and the blood vigor in the blue treasure chest could benefit his energy and blood.
Both the soul essence and the blood vigor were precious to cultivators. Zen knew that the Elite House disciples would find a way to deal with him and suppress his arrogance. He intended to improve as quickly as possible.
After devouring all soul essences in the red treasure boxes, Zen felt that his soul strength had increased by thirty percent. When he closed his eyes, Zen could feel a constant sense of comfort coming from his soul. After a while, he opened his eyes and said to the cyan dragon, “You promised to teach me how to make the rune. Do you think my soul is strong enough to learn it?”
After a short moment, the cyan dragon's lazy voice could be heard from the depth of Zen's mind. “First, I must correct you. Although they sound like the same thing, we are not talking about making runes. We call it divine texture.”