THE MARTIAL KING - Season 7 Episode 21

But Fernandez didn’t expect that Zen could ever behave that way. He was surprised to hear that Zen, a new member of the Elite House, just sent out a challenge to everyone in the hall. What an ambitious warrior! It was all too soon.

Driven by curiosity, Fernandez decided to go to see the scene himself. He was an elder, and it was not appropriate for him to make an appearance in the grey building. Eager to see what was happening, he made himself invisible.

As soon as Zen reached the grey building, Fernandez uttered a surprising sound. With his level, he was able to notice the glimmers of light that surrounded Zen. “What happened? Zen is being manipulated!”

Fernandez was confused. His eyebrows moved closer together.

Just like using a thread to control a puppet, the puppet master was able to deprive anyone of the control of their own bodies. The most famous puppet master of them all in the Cloud Hall was saint Morphens. Aged as Fernandez was, he was a highly esteemed elder, a wise man indeed. Fernandez soon pieced every clue together, solving the mystery of how Zen could act so differently. And he just figured out what might be the case.

“I got it,” Fernandez exclaimed. Fernandez had known Zen for so long and he knew Zen would never act like that. Even if Zen had every right to boast about his strength and skills, he would not still do it. Fernandez believed that Zen knew better. He wouldn’t be so bored to do such a stupid thing.

If it was not Zen’s doing, then the commotion must have had something to do with the leader of Cloud Hall.

Fernandez was able to see through the facade. He knew what was behind all this. The disciples of the Elite House had no clue that it was a trick. They were really infuriated by Zen’s arrogant manner these two days. Warriors in the hall looked like they were about to burn a witch. Their hands were clenched, jaws set, and knuckles popped. They were all ready to give Zen the lesson he would remember for the rest of his life. They were ready to beat him up into a pulp!

The fight commenced. Punches were thrown. One, two, three punches were dodged by Zen. Fists were flying across the hall. But to everyone’s dismay, Zen had defeated three Elite House disciples. All three were at the fifth grade of Illuminating Soul Realm. Zen did not know what to make of the situation. He fled and left the angry disciples behind.
Zen still chose the weak opponents. He knew what he was capable of and thought that it would have been a huge mistake to choose disciples at the seventh or eighth grade of the Illuminating Soul Realm. After all, he was allowed to choose his opponents since the Elite House disciples had no other way to deal with him.

After competing in the fight, Zen was tired, his muscles ached, his body weakened. But this did not stop him. He was focused on the mastery of the divine texture. He rushed to the market of Cloud Hall, limping a bit. He could not believe himself that the exhaustion brought by the fight made him almost forget about the materials he must get for the cyan dragon.

As a community, the disciples of the Cloud Hall created a market that provided convenience for the disciples. They traded, sold, and bought from the stores. The biggest business alliance in the Central Region, the World Commercial Alliance, also had a store in the market.

The market was at the edge of the Cloud Hall. Walking towards the end of the street, Zen saw the vast sea of clouds, They were a live reminder of what beauty was. It was so unreal, he could not see the ground because he was literally tens of thousands of feet high in the air!

The smell of forged metal filled the air. Books written by masters lay on the ground. The noise of traders bargaining, the hustle and bustle of the busy market street flooded the atmosphere. Zen flipped through the stalls as if they were book pages in search for the store which could give him the materials he needed.
He came across this store. He looked for a signage, but he found none. He looked up, down, sideways, nothing could determine which store he was in. He walked a little bit to the left and he saw this big board, with something written on it. But the text was so small that all he made out of it was that they were small characters carved in ancient calligraphy.

He squinted his eyes to see what they read–World Commercial Alliance.

The World Commercial Alliance was not foreign to the disciples at all. It was well known in their area. In fact, the organization had a strong background. Rumors circled in that although the World Commercial Alliance didn’t belong to any sect, when it came to the strength and influence, it was even more powerful than the Cloud Hall. It was almost a fifth grade organization. Not too much of an intimidation to the customers, but also not the weakest. The World Commercial Alliance played a neutral ground–it never got involved in any sect fight, never got too political.

Zen walked into the store, his eyes wandered and saw all kinds of materials showcased on the shelf.

Zen’s eyes widened as there were a wide variety of strange materials. He saw something like Stapelia Variegata Linn, Wood Thunderlight Stone, and even a block of rotten cloud basswood that lasted for over thirty thousand years. The rare, the strange, the beautiful, this store had it all.

The mastery of runes required a deep learning and understanding. It was a heavy and important topic to learn because the art of runes contained and covered everything. Thanks to the studies of the ancient men from tens of thousands of years ago, warriors could harness the potential that the runes gave them. They created the technique through hard study and experiment and refined it along the way. And it became what it was today–a powerful and magic martial arts technique.

In the store, an old man was sitting behind the counter. The man lowered his head, with a round glass in his hand.

Looking intently on the material on his other hand, he seemed to be examining the small and closely-written characters on a jade pendant. The jade was very special, perhaps because it was, after all, a rare and ancient jade. The characters on it were very strange, an unknown language to Zen.

“Boss!” Zen called out after he entered the store.

The old man was startled as he had been too focused on the thing he was doing. He raised his head and saw Zen. When he found that the customer was only a nature creature, he seemed confused.

The people who came to this market were mostly at the level of Illuminating Soul Realm or above. As he knew it was rare for a nature creature to enter the Cloud Hall. Even if anyone in the Cloudy City wanted to go to the market, they at least should have the ability to fly up here. But only Illuminating Soul Realm cultivators were able to do that.

“What’s up?” The old man asked in an angry tone. It was irritating to be disturbed, and worse, Zen was only a nature creature, and that didn’t deserve any respect.

“I want to buy some materials, and a paintbrush to draw the runes,” Zen said while looking around, avoiding the old man’s eyes.

“Materials and paintbrush? You want to make runes? You?” The old man asked, let out a little laugh, a glint of mockery in his eyes.