Apotheosis – Ascension to Godhood

Chapter 455: A Real Puzzle

According to the rules, as explained by the middle-aged warrior, tasks in the first phase created for competitors, were only to guard their small pagodas. However, there was nothing in the rules that said they could not encroach on the territory of their competitors.

So, Zen crossed over to a territory nearby and killed crow zombies there, an act that exasperated the warrior guarding the area.

Angry, this warrior was not an easy man to handle. He wielded his huge saber and chased after Zen.

But Zen refused to be cut down by him! He moved as swift as a fish swimming in the water as he faced danger.

“Let's see how far you can go!” the warrior muttered. He pursued Zen until they reached a large cloud of corpse poison. The furious warrior believed that Zen would suffer a terrible fate the moment he encountered the corpse poison.

But to his utter shock, the bold fighter broke into the toxic fog without hesitation and went through it unharmed, then continued his killing spree of crow zombies.

“What the heck?” the warrior cried out as he witnessed what Zen had done. “Is this guy not afraid of corpse poison?” he said to himself.

Nothing distracted Zen from his goal and he continued killing crow zombies. He paid even less attention to the warrior.

The warrior was at his wit's end. Even if he caught up with Zen, there was still nothing he could do to stop him. As long as the fighter hid within the toxic fog, all he could do was stand by.

Just as he was busy annihilating crow zombies, Zen suddenly sensed another form of danger. He heard twanging sounds and saw three sharp arrows shot across the sky towards him.

He quickly realized these weapons came from the warrior's pagoda!

Adroitly, he dodged the arrows easily.

Fortunately, the competition was only at the fourth attack stage. So, the warriors could only upgrade their pagodas up to three times. Although the arrows shot by bowmen from the pagoda were sharp, they were not a threat to Zen.

The warrior who was annoyed with Zen took a deep breath. 'Forget it! I'd better get on with my business, ' he thought.

The man was resigned to the fact that he couldn't stop Zen from killing the crow zombies. As he pondered this, Zen went on with his killing spree.

Meanwhile, the warrior decided to accept his bad luck of encountering someone as strange as Zen. At the same time, he resolved to start killing as many crow zombies as possible to earn points rather than let Zen kill them all.

It was much faster for two people to kill the crow zombies together. The place was cleansed of the zombies not long after.

As he looked at the crow zombies flying towards the pagoda, Zen smiled at the warrior and said, “Those are for you!”

The words stirred something inside the warrior. He suddenly wanted to cry but could not afford to shed tears! What else could he do besides curse Zen? He only had himself to blame for not being strong enough, or even fast enough. 'This wouldn't have happened if I had killed all the crow zombies before that mongrel invaded my territory.

But wait! How could he have been so fast? What is his cultivation base? The Illuminating Soul Realm? And he is at the third level?' he thought.

As the warrior rubbed his eyes, he wondered if he had misjudged Zen.

'He's only at the third level of Illuminating Soul Realm, yet he's much faster than me. How can that be? And when I chased him unexpectedly just now, I couldn't catch up with him.

My cultivation base is at the Internal Elixir Realm. How could this be?' he thought.

After taking note of Zen's cultivation base, the warrior suddenly felt as if he'd suffered a great blow and lost not only his strength but also his confidence. Fortunately, the bowmen from his pagoda shot the rest of the crow zombies. 𝘳ÁNȱ𐌱ΕŞ

After returning to his territory, Zen checked the points he had accumulated.

Usually, he would earn 10, 000 points for killing his flock of crow zombies. But now, his pagoda said he had 16, 000 points. That meant Zen killed at least sixty percent of the crow zombies of the neighboring territory.

There was no hesitation to put all the points into the pagoda again so that his pagoda started on its fourth upgrade.

The transformation of the pagoda happened when the red light disappeared. The pagoda was now thicker and several feet taller. There were four archers stationed at the top level of the pagoda, with their equipment upgraded. The color of longbows was now emerald, while the arrows glowed a dark green.

The points earned from killing the crow zombies from Zen's territory were sufficient to cover the cost of the fourth upgrade. Now he still had more than 6, 000 points left, acquired from destroying the crow zombies from the neighboring territory. As he pondered about this, Zen's eyes glowed. He thought the strategy was an excellent way to earn points.

Careful planning was necessary for the ten rounds of attacks at the first phase of the magic array test. Each upgrade of the pagoda was to cope with the succeeding attacks from more furious beasts. For example, the first upgrade was to ward off the second wave of beasts, while the second upgrade was intended to fight off the third wave of the beasts. It not only helped warriors fight better, but it also restrained the power of the pagoda to allow the warriors to exert their actual strength.

If Zen gained more points from the territory of other warriors, he could quickly upgrade his pagoda. And if he earned enough points, he could even upgrade his pagoda a fifth time to resist another level of attack.

“I should get as many points as possible from the territory of other warriors,” Zen mumbled.

The sound of a tolling bell from the sky sounded again, indicating the fifth attack had begun.

At the same time, many black stone men appeared all over the grassland. It signaled the attack of the fifth wave of demon beasts in the magic array. The stone men, made of black basalt, were called basaltic men. They were mightier than the black turtles.

“Lily!” Zen summoned his sword spirit.

He came up with a bold idea to let Lily handle the basaltic men while he went to steal from the other warrior's territory.

On Zen's orders, Lily rushed towards a basaltic man and chopped its head with her thirty-foot long sword.

“Swish! Whack!”

A terrific sword with Lily the sword spirit was a match with astonishing power. There were only a few beasts in the Central Region that could ward off such fierce attack.

The basaltic man was cut in half by Lily. Everyone watched the two halves of its body as it fell to the ground.

There were about two hundred basaltic men in Zen's territory. Although they appeared indestructible, Lily managed to kill them all one at a time. And basaltic men were very slow, even slower than the black turtles.

'Lily should be able to deal with these men. And with the pagoda upgraded four times, she would have a lot of help, ' Zen thought.

Without a second thought, Zen ran towards the adjacent grassland.

Shocked at Zen's unusual move, the middle-aged warrior could not help but cry out, “This guy has already tasted the benefits. And now, he's going to steal from another competitor again!”

Impressed, Michael and Xiao looked at each other and smiled. “He has the confidence to let his sword spirit fight off the basaltic men's attacks, and that's one of his abilities,” Michael noted.

Nodding, Xiao added, “This boy is quite interesting. He's smart as well.”

Sighing deeply, the middle-aged warrior exclaimed, “I'm afraid the warriors that he would steal from don't think so. By doing what he did, he could gain more points at each phase compared to others. So, he is likely to upgrade his pagoda level to eleventh or twelfth after the ten rounds of attacks.”

Not quite familiar with the magic array, Michael had to ask with curiosity, “Level eleven? Level twelve? There are only ten attacks arranged during the first phase. So that means the pagoda can only be upgraded ten times, right?”

In reply, the middle-aged warrior explained, “When deploying the magic array, we considered the higher level of cultivation. Therefore, it is possible to upgrade the pagoda to the highest level, which is twelve. But normally, competitors don't have as many points to upgrade to level eleven or above.”

He wanted to add that the level eleven pagoda was as powerful as a warrior at the late stage of the Internal Elixir Realm, while the power of the level twelve pagoda was equivalent to that of the Virtual Tribulation Realm master.

But before the middle-aged warrior could speak, Xiao interrupted, “Hey, that'll be interesting. I'd like to see this kid make a twelfth-level pagoda. I wonder what the other warriors' expressions would be like if he accomplishes that,” he said. It would probably be fun to witness this.

“It's not much fun,” the middle-aged warrior said with a frown. Coldly, he added, “And it's unfair to other warriors.”

“Nothing is positively fair in this world. It's not that Zen is the only one capable of doing that. Anyone can steal other people's points. But only if they have the ability to do so,” Michael stressed.

And since Michael and Xiao didn't mind cheating, the middle-aged warrior could only turn a blind eye to Zen.

From the Picture Slab, they saw Zen rushing towards the neighboring territory.

It was a coincidence that the warrior of that territory was the white-faced man who had a conflict with Zen earlier in the hall.

Even before Zen came, the warrior with a white face already faced some kind of trouble.

The warrior with a white face was an independent fighter. He was formerly a disciple of a small, little-known second-grade sect in the Central Region. Later, he had a conflict with an elder of that sect and rebelled against them. Since then, members of the second-grade sect wanted to kill him.

When they hunted for him, the white-faced warrior accidentally fell off a cliff. Luckily for the warrior, he ended up in a cave, where he found the legacy of an ancient cultivator who practiced sorcery. He came to rely on this discovery and made rapid progress in his training. It was not long before he entered the Internal Elixir Realm. Once he achieved this, he butchered members of the second-grade sect.

The sorcery he practiced was called the Hatred Evil Attack, which was an effective fighting method against the enemy's soul. But basaltic men were made of stone, so they were immune to this method.

Thus, the warrior with a white face was somehow overwhelmed by this. He realized he could only use the Stele Pusher skill to smash the basaltic men one by one.

Although the Stele Pusher was only a tier 3 cultivation method, since he was in the Internal Elixir Realm anyway, his punch would carry tremendous power. However, power was one thing, and efficiency another, and he was not very efficient. So it would take three to four punches before he could break a basaltic man.

Assessing the situation, he saw the basaltic men moving slowly. That meant he could destroy them before they reached the pagoda.

When he saw a figure appeared in the distant sky and it rushed towards him, a look of surprise was written all over his face. But after he recognized who the visitor was, the surprise changed to a malicious look.

The warrior with a white face was known to be a vengeful person. After all, he had butchered the second-grade sect after he reached the Internal Elixir Realm. During a previous meeting in the hall, Zen had offended him. So it was expected that he would seek revenge.

What the warrior never expected was for Zen to seek him out before he could take the initiative to find the man who previously offended him.

Confused, the warrior thought to himself. 'This is strange. Doesn't he have to fight the basaltic men on his territory? Why is he running around now? He doesn't seem concerned about a possible attack on his pagoda. Should that happen, it could mean elimination!'

The warrior with a white face was even more surprised that after approaching him, instead of fighting with him, Zen began to cut his basaltic men even without looking at him.

'What does he want?' he wondered.

The warrior with a white face couldn't understand what was happening. Zen was indeed a real puzzle for him!