Apotheosis – Ascension to Godhood

Chapter 408: Destroy A Beginner's Confidence

After Zen finished drawing his first meditation divine texture, he did not stop.

The reason why he bought so many materials was to practice his skills of drawing divine textures. The materials were enough for him to make ten divine textures.

Zen did not want to waste these materials so he started to make his next one.

Even a runic expert could not keep making runes without any rest as the strength of his soul was consumed during the process of making runes. When one's soul strength was not enough, one would feel tired and sleepy, and once the exhaustion hit, it would be difficult to concentrate.

Having strong soul strength, Zen now could continuously make eight divine textures. Now he managed to finish the eighth one with great difficulty and before he could start the next divine texture, he felt uncomfortable all of a sudden. His head felt terrible as if it was about to explode. He could not focus his attention anymore. Out of sleepiness, he accidentally stroked a bad stroke with his brush pen, and the drawing wasn't perfectly completed.

One should be careful when he made runes. With one tiny mistake, the whole rune could be ruined.

“This is your first time making runes and you cannot consume too much of your soul strength. It will be a big loss if you use up your soul strength and damage your soul,” the cyan dragon said. At his words, Zen felt a comfortable freshness in his head. Soon he felt much better.

Because the cyan dragon had swallowed the flood dragon spirit and blood, he became more active recently and had more strength to help Zen.

When he heard the dragon's warning, Zen's heart was tightened. He realized that it was really a haste for him to practice drawing the divine texture for such a long time. Nothing could be accomplished on the first try. Zen must stop now before it was too late.

After that, Zen focused on his cultivation. Besides learning the skills of making the divine texture, he also had to face the disciples of the Elite House as usual.

It became almost like a mandatory course for Zen. Every morning, Zen's body was controlled by Morphens. He had to enter the gray building, where he battled against the disciples from the Elite House.

In order to defeat the disciples from the Elite House, Zen had to use every skill he had learned. At first, Zen could handle this by his powerful body and the strength of the dragon scales inside his body. But as the mornings passed, there would be more and more disciples who would challenge Zen, and many would assess him for his weaknesses; they would be better and better at knowing how to defeat him. Zen felt much more pressured. There was an instance where Zen had to use his unique skill of Spiritual Thorn, and even once he had to call out his sword spirit, Lily, to help him fight.

The disciples of the Elite House were also surprised. In their eyes, Zen was so tenacious that it was really a tough thing to defeat him. Each disciple who fought against Zen was stronger than the previous one, but Zen seemed always to have special skills to defeat them.

The last one to fight against Zen that day was at grade six of the Illuminating Soul Realm. Although this disciple was not the strongest of all the disciples of his level, he was strong enough to defeat Zen as there was a very large gap between the level six of the Illuminating Soul Realm and the level five, the level of the precious disciple that Zen defeated. However, this disciple at the sixth level was still defeated by Zen in the end.

After the three fights that day, Zen finished and went away from the building. He wanted to go to the market of the Cloud Hall.

He had spent lots of cubic crystals buying the materials for making the divine textures. Now he wanted to know whether or not the divine textures he made could be sold in the market.

Zen was unsure, and on his way to the market, he was riddled with uncertainty. After all, the meditation divine texture was just his first practice. He planned to go to the shop of the old man from the World Commercial Alliance. Since he had done a great favor to the old man the day before, he figured that the old man wouldn't turn him away even if his divine textures couldn't be sold.

Tia, in the ice palace, felt dissatisfied with Zen. She was looking at Zen through the Picture Slab with her eyebrows knitted in confusion.

“Why does he want to learn the skill of making runes? He doesn't cultivate himself for enough time. Why does he waste his time and energy?” Tia wondered aloud. Tia did not feel content. The reason why she helped Zen was that she had a plan in her head. But Zen's cultivation was too low now and she could not carry her plan out. That was why she asked Zen to play against the disciples from the Elite House. She wanted Zen to improve as much as possible in the shortest possible time.

In her eyes, Zen didn't yet have enough time to cultivate himself. And now that she saw Zen was spending a lot of time and energy on drawing the divine texture, she thought that he was wasting his time.

In Tia's eyes, runes were too profound for Zen to learn in a short time. Many runic experts and magic array masters could only have great achievements after they spent a lot of time and energy learning it. Zen hadn't learned runes before and now he wanted to learn runes. It was impossible for him to succeed in such a short time, and Tia could not wait that long.

Morphens, who was standing near her and heard what she said, laughed. “Lady, it is normal for a youngster to try something new. If he knows how difficult it is to learn runes, he will give it up naturally. Don't worry about it.”

“No,” Tia said, raising her finely plucked eyebrows. “I cannot wait. Zen must enter the Illuminating Soul Realm. I don't think he has time to learn about the skills of making runes. He must stop it now.”

At her words, Morphens looked at her and internally gave a sigh. 'She is actually worried about herself. She has reached the last stage of her cultivation method, the Sutra of Empyrean Goddess. She should concentrate on her own cultivation. Even though Zen has good talents, he is too young.'

But Morphens dared not speak out his thoughts. Everyone knew that Tia, the head of the Cloud Hall, was a person of strong mind and strong character. She did not change her mind easily.

When Tia had finished talking, she fired a message rune. “Felix, please come here to my place.”

'Felix?' Morphens did not understand. He looked at Tia, a puzzled expression on his face. “Miss, what do you want Felix to do? You will not ask Felix to teach Zen the skills of making runes, will you?”

Felix Zong was the best runic expert of the Cloud Hall. The protection array Tia obtained from the Cloud Road was given to him and Felix had been studying it since. How powerful and profound the protection array of a sixth grade sect was! So Felix was very busy now. It would cost countless resources to set up the protection array. However, once they thought about how powerful it was, they also felt excited. If they could build up that protection array, the defense of the Cloud Hall was surely strong enough to bear any hits from all sects in the Central Region.

Because of this, it was worth setting up a protection array even though it would be costly.

That was why Felix shut himself in his room and had not gone anywhere else. He kept himself busy with studying the protection array, wanting to set it up as soon as possible.

He was in his room, pouring over his studies of the protection array when Tia called. In a moment, he flew to the ice palace as quickly as a beam of light. He bowed to Tia. “Miss, what can I do for you?”

Tia nodded her head and asked, “Felix, how's your progress with the protection array I gave you?”

“Miss, I am estimating what materials the protection array needs. I will give a list of all the materials needed later. But it will take some time to finish,” Felix replied.

“Okay. I need you to do another thing today,” Tia said.

Morphens looked at Tia curiously. 'Is it true that she will ask Felix to teach Zen the skills of making runes?' he wondered. Then he heard Tia's words. “There is a young disciple who doesn't know how difficult it is to make runes and he wants to learn that skill. I'm asking you to give him a blow. It will be best if you can destroy his confidence in learning the skills of making runes and make him give up.”

Morphens nearly collapsed to his knees. He could not believe what he was hearing. The head of the Cloud Hall asked Felix to come over just for this? Tia was fussing over such a minor matter.

'Okay. She is the head of the Cloud Hall. All of us should follow her instructions, ' Morphens thought, feeling helpless to do anything.

Contrary to how Morphens felt about Tia's request, Felix seemed interested. “Miss, could I ask who this young disciple is? What star runes can he make?”

“You probably have heard about him. His name is Zen Luo. As for the star of his works, I think he just started to learn the skill,” Tia said with her lips pursed.

Felix laughed and said, “I know him. He is that guy who claimed to challenge all of the disciples of the Elite House! I see. I promise you that I can destroy his confidence in learning the skills of drawing runes. He will give it up and never touch them again!”

“Good. Now he is on the way to the market. You can go now,” Tia said, nodding at him in dismissal. Tia believed Felix's skills of making runes without a doubt, or she would not give the protection array to him.

After bidding farewell to Tia, Felix flew out of the ice palace and directly to the market. He was considering how he could go about finishing the work the head of the Cloud Hall had asked him to do. Having such a high level accomplishment of making runes, he thought it to be a piece of cake to destroy the confidence of a beginner. He was sure that he could even cause Zen never to think about runes ever again.

Soon, he arrived at the market; right at that moment, he spotted Zen, who entered the shop of the World Commercial Alliance.

'The fourth grade of the nature level. It must be Zen, ' Felix told himself, seeing Zen up ahead. There were few nature creatures in the Elite House and Zen was the only one that was at the fourth grade. Felix went into that shop without any hesitation.

The old man of the shop of the World Commercial Alliance was holding a brush pen and writing down the sentences from an ancient jade. He had memorized the words of the ancient divine race that Zen had translated for him, and now he was trying to write them in the vernacular.

Seeing Zen come in, the old man was surprised, but he didn't ask why Zen had come yet again. Instead, he bowed his head in greeting. “Mr. Luo! Nice to see you! What can I do for you today? Do you still want to buy some materials here?”

'If Zen really wants to learn the skills of making runes, the materials he bought yesterday should be enough for him to use for a long time, ' the old man thought to himself.

Before Zen could respond, there was a voice from outside. “Lasseter, long time no see. How are you these days?”

So the old man was named Lasseter Shang. He always stayed in the shop in the Cloud Hall and Felix was the most famous runic expert who always came to his shop to buy something. Felix and Lasseter were on very familiar terms with each other.

Hearing the voice, the old man recognized it as Felix's voice. A smile appeared on his face. Actually Lasseter was not always bad-tempered or he could not be the steward of the World Commercial Alliance. Customers like Felix were always welcomed in Lasseter's shop.

“My business is just so-so. Please come here more frequently. We are all counting on you,” Lasseter replied with a smile, gesturing to his men to fetch Felix some tea.

As he entered the shop, Felix looked over at Zen. He smiled. “And who is this young man, may I ask?”

“He's a disciple of your Elite House. He just started to practice the skills of making runes. Oh, by the way, that reminds me...” Lasseter turned back to Zen and said kindly, “This is the best runic expert in the Cloud Hall. Zen, If you really want to learn the skill of making runes, it is a good idea to ask for his advice.”