When morning came, Zen got out of bed and bathed.
Though he had a really strong body, he still took a lot of blows from Jesse's persistent attacks.
But, to say that he had to worry about the inflicted wounds was an overstatement—they really weren't that deep.
Moreover, Zen gained more than he had lost from the fight he had with Jesse. He had learned how to defend himself from his opponent and he had gone over the strategies he could harness the next time another opponent chose to battle him.
In addition, Zen's body absorbed the strong forces within the Destruction Hoop which further refined his marrow in the grand scheme of things.
In the process, the fight had taken away almost every impurity that resided in Zen's marrow; he kept this up and soon he would be reaching the peak of the marrow refining level.
Zen wasn't particularly celebrating anything just yet, as he was not impressed with whatever milestone he had taken.
If he were in a backwoods county, he would have stirred something else entirely with the abilities he currently honed.
But things were different in the Cloud Sect; it was normal for people to peak at their marrow refining level. Besides, there were so many disciples from noble clans rivaling you all the time.
Zen thought all of these things while preparing and could not help but get a little worried, but this did not stop him from leaving the confines of his own room to go for the ridge.
As he walked out of the door, there was an extensive amount of outer disciples that greeted Zen very warmly along the way.
They knew Zen not as the new disciple that he used to be. They had already been certain that this man was going to make a huge reputation for himself after he defeated Leo who was ranked thirtieth among all the outer disciples of Drizzle Peak.
What they had not anticipated was the immediate rise of Zen and no one had foreseen that it would happen in this way.
After everything, Zen did not get into the charts; nothing proved his worth on paper, but everyone had it plastered in their minds that the man Zen should have ranked first in the outer disciples of Drizzle Peak.
This was what he impressed in people. Zen left their presence to find Aura, who was waiting for him.
Zen returned from the south unscathed; Aura was sure that he must have been loaded up with trophies of his trip.
She had seen Zen's fight with Jesse only to realize that she had been underestimating the man.
Zen had been so persistent to go to the south. Because of this, Aura had thought Zen was being impatient—if he went to hunt blade locusts, it would be a risk.
Now that she thought about this, she assumed that Zen had been confident in himself.
She remained perplexed as to why Zen was so anxious to earn points.
She thought, how many points could one gather just from one trip to the south?
How many locust blades he could kill? One thousand? Or maybe two thousand blade locusts?
Zen could probably get one, if not two, hundred points just from doing this, but what good would he gain from doing that?
At Zen's state, she thought, did a number of points like that really matter?
It was in this moment that Zen arrived, knocking on the door. "Master Su, I am here to report to you," said Zen who then entered the room.
When Aura saw him, she was only kind enough to give him a cold nod with her grim expression on her face.
Just because Zen made it out alive, did not mean she had already forgiven him for his carelessness. She knew better than to just forgive such a reckless decision.
"Look who we have here," Aura would boldly say. "An outer disciple of Drizzle Peak has joined the blade locusts hunt, but how many of these beasts can he actually kill? Did this man take a hundred? Maybe two hundred?" She said all of these things in such a sarcastic tone, clearly mocking the man she had no mercy for.
Zen knew that Aura had no tolerance for what he had done and simply let out a sigh to express his frustration. She was still angry after all. On top of that, it was never as if Aura had a great hold of her temper in the first place.
All the helpless man could do was silently take the crystal cores out of his space ring; these crystal cores were from ordinary blade locusts.
One, two, three…
A small mountain of crystal cores were piled on the ground.
"I counted them again yesterday just to be sure. All in all, I've gathered 4, 626 common crystal cores." Zen said wearing a smile, knowing that the amount he presented would move Aura.
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: Degrade from Nobility to a Humble Slave