Apotheosis

After making his decision, Zen ordered the Giants to put away the soul crystal.

A considerable part of the soul crystal collected was distributed to the disciples on the first floor of the Land of Sword Grief. Even Cleon, who ranked first, received some. Almost all the disciples on the first floor retreated to Stage Fourteen.

But Zen himself had also reserved a considerable amount of soul crystal, which he intended to give to Yan, Dorothy, Elvinia, and the Nine Li people.

Once the soul crystal was removed, the Giants positioned a stack of Body-strengthening Jades. Simultaneously, Zen retreated from the Other Shore before reentering with his physical body.

Many Body-strengthening Jades were crushed one after another, each one absorbed and refined by Zen.

Now, Zen's body drew strength from several aspects. First, the strength of his body itself was incomparable to any other's even before he reached the Chaotic Source Realm.

Second, he had the Chaotic Source Spirits.

Through the Truth of Godly Way produced by his weapon body, Zen's Chaotic Source Spirits had grown leaps and bounds ahead. Now that Zen had almost reached the later stage of the Chaotic Source Realm, the limit his physical body could bear was even greater.

Third, after absorbing more blood of the Chaos Ancient God, his body structure had changed—the sclerites could greatly strengthen his body in a special kind of way.

Lastly, he had the Shade Stone liquid. It was a pity that the stone was so rare—he had already asked the Ear Mouse race to help him find some. So long as they found any sort of treasure made of the Shade Stone, they could buy it for him at any price. Such a method of strengthening body was also rather unique.

Apart from the Chaotic Source Spirits, Zen seemed to use rather unique strengthening techniques.

It was the most common way to strengthen his body with the Body-strengthening Jades. But right now, only Zen and Elvinia could use such a method.

After absorbing a few Body-strengthening Jades, Zen picked up another one and asked, "The soul's limit is the ultimate level of the Indigo Soul, so does that mean that the body has a limit as well?"

After a moment of silence, No. 9527 burst into laughter. "It's a physical body—of course there's a limit."

In ancient times, the Wild Gods had absorbed the Body-strengthening Jades to

over to her father to offer him comfort.

"We've refined all the Body-strengthening Jades in Stage Fourteen. If we want to collect more, we'll have to ascend to higher stages," Zen said with a smile.

"So we're leaving this stage?" Elvinia's eyes flashed with excitement.

It was unrealistic to stay in Stage Fourteen, after all. She had long hoped to move on to higher stages alongside Zen.

"There are two more things to see to before we leave," Zen said.

The Dark Nether Bugs seemed to be strongly attractive to the purified beings. With that, Zen concluded that devouring the Dark Nether Bugs was a way to enhance the purified beings' abilities.

So during this time, he had ordered the Guide Weasel race to enter the Dark Region and communicate with the one-eyed monsters, in the hopes of capturing more Dark Nether Bugs.

Devouring the bloody, fleshy Dark Nether Bugs with some grace wasn't much of a problem—the attraction force of the Dark Nether Bugs came from their blood essence. Elvinia could absorb it after separating it from the bug body.

Aside from the Dark Nether Bugs, he wanted to get his hands on another Other Shore Token.

Zen's Strength God Totem was an Other Shore Token of strengthening type from Stage Thirteen, containing 1, 200 divine megatons of force only. It wasn't weak by any means in Stage Thirteen, but it couldn't meet his requirements now that he was in Stage Fourteen. Besides, the Civilization Artifact in Zen's body could provide much Other Shore Power. So, he had to replace the Strength God Totem if he got the chance.