Apotheosis

In the ancient refining theory book that Zen had read earlier, there was no record of the furnace's usage. There had been only a few magical words which meant Zen had to explore how to use it himself.

As he cleared his mind in meditation, Zen focused, and eventually, his soul stopped in front of the large furnace. Among the nine dragon engravings, only the cyan dragon was awakened. Now the majestic dragon stared down at Zen.

On thinking of how his soul was once nearly shattered under the gaze of the cyan dragon, Zen was dismayed.

Since Zen's soul was trained in the considerable furnace, the power of his soul had been significantly improved.

Under the cyan dragon's gaze, Zen felt overwhelming pressure, like he was being crushed under a mountain, and was short of breath, all from the power of the dragon staring down at him in his mind.

Zen's soul was strong enough to resist being overwhelmed by the cyan dragon's gaze, but he needed to find a way to communicate with it.

In the face of the raw energy from the fearsome cyan dragon, Zen felt like a mere speck of dust. Zen moved to get closer to the cyan dragon relief, but the closer he got, the more pressure he felt. He struggled to resist the impulse to run away.

'Don't stop! Keep going!' Zen urged himself inwardly to rush forward. The pressure increased with each step, slowing Zen as he neared the cyan dragon until his movements were labored like he were trudging through thick mud.

The cyan dragon exuded such extreme pressure, and Zen's teeth trembled. The force was so great that Zen had a difficult time resisting the impulse to flee.

Howev

ever, the results weren't what Zen expected. A mid-grade mysterious weapon could be melted into a drop of iron essence, but the size of iron essence that was melted from a low-grade mysterious weapon was a tiny bit bigger than a speck of dust and Zen had to squint to see it.

After smelting all the mysterious weapons that were in the space ring, Zen had five drops of iron essence.

Finally, the wisp of black flame rolled the five drops of iron essence up and jumped back into Zen's mind.

Zen looked into his mind at the situation. When the black flame placed the five drops of iron essence into the cyan dragon's mouth, it trembled for a while, and then a second scale on the dragon began to shimmer a green light, seeming to light up.

'It succeeded?' A smile lit up Zen's face as he thought. He knew his strength would be magnified by the power of another activated dragon scale.

However, the green scale twinkled for a few seconds and then faded slowly.

Watching the scene, Zen's face darkened. Did he need six drops of iron essence to activate a dragon scale?