Shrugging, Zen smiled and said, "How could I kill him? No, the Flying Dragon General killed Randall."
"The Flying Dragon General?!" At the mention of the vice commander from Dragon Fort, there was a
look of awe on Martin's face.
"Now that Randall has been executed, the Flying Dragon General doesn't want the news to spread. Tell
your soldiers," cautioned Zen.
"Yes, of course! You can rest assured that my soldiers won't breathe a single word of what's
happened!" replied Martin guardedly. It was beyond his expectations to think that the Flying Dragon
General would handle this matter himself.
After the Green Haze group and Zen finished hunting blade locusts, they returned to the Dragon Fort.
With the hardships Martin had endured over the past few days behind him, a weight was lifted, leaving
his heart lighter, and he wanted to celebrate, so, he led Zen to a pub for a drink. After a few drinks,
Martin was itching to tell people what he'd been through, and if Zen hadn't reminded Martin not to,
Martin would have blurted something out. By the end of the evening, Martin was drunk.
After boozing it up at the local pub, Zen returned to his room and removed the alcohol from his blood
using purple life energy.
He looked at his harvest of crystal cores and decided it was quite a rich trip.
Along with exceeding the number of blade locusts that he anticipated he could hunt, Zen had also
unexpectedly, harvested a crystal core from a fire scorpion lion. Further, he raised his body's
refinement to that of a spiritual-weapon-like body through the fires from the earth's core.
Sitting on the bed, Zen pulled two short halberds out of his space ring, which he took after slaying the
White and Black Fiends.
The halberds were top-grade mysterious weapons. Although Zen's flying knife had halved one of them,
there shouldn't be any negative impacts, since they would both be melted into iron essence.
Sitting cross-legged on the bed, Zen communicated with the furnace in his mind. After that the black
flame darted out, and snatched the two blades up to melt them into iron essence.
From past experiences, Zen felt confident that he'd receive ten drops of essence in total since one
short halberd should melt down to five drops of iron essence.
Pleasantly surprised, Zen was able to procure fifteen drops of iron essence from the halberds!
Seeing how much the two blades produced only served to confuse Zen about how much iron essence
could be obtained from a mysterious weapon. Only one thing was certain, and that was, the higher the
grade of the mysterious weapon was, the more iron essence would be received.
What Zen didn't know was that the pair of short halberds together was comparable to a fairy weapon. It
was a shame the White and Black Fiends were killed before they attacked with the halberds
simultaneously, or their power would've been shown.
The fifteen drops of iron essence were drawn into Zen's mind by the black fire. A few moments later, he
could see the cyan dragon relief within his mind. There were three dragon scales being lit up, emitting a
turquoise glow.
So far, a total of seven scales were lit up on the cyan dragon sculpture, and Zen's strength was
significantly increased.
Zen realized his weakness was actually in his refining level and not strength!
There was a broad contrast between the lazy noble clan disciples and Zen.
Having a variety of magic pills available to them, the noble disciples were slack in working hard to
improve their refining techniques, which resulted in a considerable gap between their strength and
Zen's. Zen's strength was superior to refiners at the same level, while he was only at the marrow
refining level, which was low.
Nevertheless, Zen couldn't do anything about advancing his refining level faster. There was no
shortcut, only a lifetime of persistent practice.
Zen entered Drizzle Peak a month ago, and it was a fantastic feat that he was able to attain the marrow
refining level in such a short time. While he was gaining experience at the Dragon Fort, Zen felt a lot of
the impurities in his marrow had been removed, and he was closer to the peak of the marrow refining
level.
As there were many superb disciples at the Cloud Sect, the marrow refining level was not remarkable.
After a great deal of thought, Zen decided that after he paid a visit to Hell Mountain to see Yan, he
would find a way to be beaten to create more warm currents so he could refine his body.
If he couldn't find someone willing to do so, he would spend some cubic crystals and hire someone.
That thought stayed on Zen's mind all night.
The next morning, Martin came to see Zen off, along with several soldiers from the Green Haze
platoon.
As an officer in the imperial army, Martin's salary wasn't high, so, he brought some excellent bottles of
wine to give to Zen.
After saying goodbye, Zen boarded the giant flying chariot.
A few hours later, the chariot neared the Cloud Sect.
When the chariot flew by the towering Hell Mountain, Zen felt his heart beating faster.
He'd taken part in the task to hunt blade locusts to collect points, just to become qualified to gain entry
into Hell Mountain.
At the thought of seeing Yan soon, Zen's mood was light.
After the giant chariot slowly landed on Bluesky Parking Ground, Zen and the other disciples of the
Cloud Sect rushed out. Zen strode briskly to Drizzle Peak.
Zen accepted the task from Master Su, so, he felt he should report the results to her.
As he walked, Zen was lost in thought speculating about the blade locust task, and about halfway up
the middle peak where outer disciples met for practices, Zen came across all of the outer disciples with
nervous looks on their faces as they discussed something.
"Sean, Nory, what's going on? Why are all the outer disciples here?" asked Zen curiously.
Seeing Zen, Sean's and Nory's eyes lit up.
"Hey, buddy! You left the peak secretly, disappearing for almost a month. Where were you, messing
around in the Imperial Capital?" questioned Sean while a broad smile spread across his face.
"Zen isn't like that! He must've had urgent business to deal with!" argued Nory, shaking his head and
scowling slightly. What Nory lacked in physical strength, he made up for in perceiving a person's
character.
62fb1bb41dcb31934bd49bda