Apotheosis

What settled some of the Luo children's concerns was the fact that Zen had been a punchbag for two years. Considering that he was still alive and well, they assumed he had strong life vitality. Fortunately for Zen, these children were not interested in demystifying how a punchbag could survive under these circumstances. After all, they were required to practice beating people. It was not needed for them to study their targets. Even if Zen had special protective skills, they showed no interest in learning more about these skills.

During this time, Zen's impurities were being washed out more and more. Every time he took a bath, the water flowing on the ground was almost as rich as milk.

Soon, Zen's plan showed results. The amount of impurities being removed from Zen's body on a daily basis was equivalent to the ones being removed from others on a monthly basis. This satisfied Zen as it meant that each day's practice had the same effect on him as that of people who practiced for months. This practice speed seemed like a miracle!

Motivated, Zen exhausted himself. He volunteered to be beaten during the day and spent his nights practicing. He didn't stop, not even for a few seconds.

The improvement in Zen's body and knowledge of martial arts fed his spirit. Even though he was barely sleeping, his eyes were clear and bright as always.

Another reason why he was so full of energy and his spirit was flourishing was the existence of the mysterious 'Nine dragon furnace'. The refining furnace was purifying his soul. Each time, the pain was the same. Zen felt as though his soul was being crushed a thousand times, and each time, he collapsed and wished for death.

And yet, when the episode ended and Zen realized that he had survived that kind of pain, his spirit grew by leaps and bounds. He knew that his soul was also being refined!

Among all the parts of the human body, the soul was the most difficult to purify. Everyone could exercise their body. Even people who did not practice martial arts could exercise themselves too.

The soul, however, was hidden in a secret place. It was invisible and untouchable. As said in Buddhism, the soul was an illusory shore, which was difficult for the average person to reach.

Allegedly, Cloud Sect had higher-level methods and theories that could affect people's souls. Amongst these were the soul refining books.

These mysterious realms, Zen could not reach, and he did not want to think about it. Instead, Zen focused on refining his body every day.

Time passed quickly. It had been twenty days since he beat Grey and Darren.

"Boom!"

Another punch thrown by Zen hit the thick stone wall.

Zen was dumbstruck! He had only used seventy percent of his strength in this punch. However, his power was so extreme that the cellar wall cracked. Zen knew that if he were to use all his strength, the wall would collapse.

While worrisome, this thought made Zen smile. It had been almost a month since he started practicing and he had improved significantly!

When he began, Zen had just entered the bone refining level. With just a short amount of practice time, he felt as though he had reached the peak of bone refining level. The cleansing his bones had undergone showed in the results of his punches. The strength of his punches was almost up to a thousand pounds. A thousand pounds! That was the weight of an ancient tripod.

For warriors, the strength of a tripod was a watershed moment. Only after reaching the strength of a tripod could a person be said to have officially become a warrior.

And Zen had achieved all this in less

than a month. Such development and quick improvement had never been witnessed in the Luo Clan. Even if a person searched the entire empire, it would be difficult to find another person as skilled as Zen.

After all, refining the body by way of removing impurities from the body through perseverance, meant decades of practice as the body only released a pitiful amount of impurities a day.

However, to refine the body by being beaten every day was a thousand times faster ...

Today, when Zen went to the Martial Arts Hall, he noticed something had changed.

Although the children were reluctant to use him as a punchbag, after Zen insisted, they did throw him a volley of punches. Zen felt no pain. It was almost as though the power of these children had diminished.

Zen was about to tell them to hit harder, but he remained quiet. He observed for some time and realized that the children were not holding back. They were using all of their strength to hit. Then why was it that he was not feeling their power?

What was worse was that every punch produced much less warmth in his body.

If previous attacks produced a thumb-sized warm current, current attacks only produced warmth the size of the little finger. With less warmth refining his body naturally, Zen became worried that its efficiency was diminishing.

After returning to the cellar that evening, Zen watched the impurities being washed away. His suspicions were confirmed when he saw that the amount of impurities being forced out of his body had reduced by about half.

These changes made Zen anxious. He had no idea what was wrong.

Could it be that his body was becoming harder?

According to the mysterious weapon refining theories, his body strength was now comparable with a low-grade mysterious weapon.

After profound and continual refining, the strength of a mysterious weapon would gradually increase. However, if the strength of the weapon had reached a certain extent, the effect of general refining would be low.

Most of the students in Martial Arts Hall were at the skin refining level. Even Melvin, whose inner divine strength was so powerful that he was comparable to someone at the flesh refining level.

Now, hundreds of pounds of strength were hitting Zen's body at the Martial Arts Hall. However, that seemed insufficient as the effect was too little for his body. It looked as though Zen needed to find more powerful people to beat him to continue refining his body if he wanted to produce better results.

But Zen didn't know how to find someone who had more strength. It was impossible to ask the elders in the family to refine his body...

Family Practicing Day was only a few days away. On this day, all students would try their best and work at full strength. The punches that would come his way would certainly be more powerful. Most importantly, if he survived the day, he would be able to gain his freedom and leave the Luo family.

Since Zen could barely feel any pain from the beatings given by the Luo children, he wasn't worried about being hurt on Family Practicing Day.

Zen sat before the dim lamp in his cellar. His bright eyes shone with fortitude in the light as he thought over his plans.

It had been two years since his family was wrongly accused. Zen had remained a docile slave all this time. However, he had not forgotten the pain and hatred he felt when his father had been killed. He lived with shame before, as he was too weak. Now, Zen was fortunate to have found the magical refining theory, which was creating his special constitution. He had to grab this opportunity!