Degrade from Nobility to a Humble Slave

Chapter 32 The Initial Exam (Part One)

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.

However, determination sparked in Zen's eyes, and his unconquerable will pushed him to keep moving. At last, Zen stood in front of the cyan dragon and reached out touching a strand of its whiskers.

After a while, a soft sound was emitted from the cyan dragon as the large furnace began to spin slowly. A wisp of black flame separated from the plume of the furnace's calm black fires and drifted out of Zen's mind.

"Yes, I did it!"

Just as Zen believed, the large furnace had a separate consciousness, and Zen could communicate with it.

Although Zen wasn't sure if the consciousness was the furnace or cyan dragon, he successfully communicated with it and received a wisp of the black flame.

In his hotel room, as Zen opened his eyes, the wisp came from the center of his brows and circled him once.

The wisp of black flame didn't appear terrifying or strong, and Zen couldn't feel any heat from it.

But, Zen didn't dare underestimate this wisp of black flame.

After all, a top-grade mysterious weapon like the Hell Fire Sword, merely glowed red when being burnt by the fire of Evil Lan and remained intact. But once exposed to the wisp of black flame, the same Hell Fire Sword was melted into iron essence in the blink of an eye.

Zen realized the power of the black flame was completely beyond his knowledge, and he could not make any presumptions.

It was a shame Zen couldn't wield the black flame like a weapon. He'd be invincible if he used it against enemies.

Soon the black flame found the blood-red sledgehammer that was lying in front of Zen. It sped at the sledgehammer.

The quality of the blood-red sledgehammer was mid-grade, not as valuable as the Hell Fire Sword, but it was evident that the size was bigger than the sword. Zen looked forward to seeing how much iron essence would be refined, and he wondered if it would be enough to light up another scale of the dragon.

Within a split second, the black flame melted the blood-red sledgehammer into a single drop of iron essence.

"One...? Only one? Just a single drop?!"

The mysterious weapon was huge but mid-grade, and it produced only a single drop of iron essence! Zen's mouth fell open as he sat there stunned to the point he even began to stammer.

It seemed unreasonable that he only procured one drop of iron essence from the much more massive blood-red sledgehammer even considering that the quality wasn't as good as the Hell Fire Sword.

After taking a moment to weigh the pros and cons, Zen took the rest of the mysterious weapons out of the space ring — all of which were low to mid-grade levels, deciding to melt them all together.

The wisp of black flame swallowed all the mysterious weapons quickly.

However, 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. Property belongs to Nôvel(D)r/ama.Org.

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?