Apotheosis

"Zen was foolish to accept Leo's challenge! If I were him, I wouldn't have accepted Leo's challenge, and I would've kept quiet!"

"Well, he's probably arrogant enough to think he's invincible. You know he just ranked first place in the entrance exam and became an outer disciple. People like him usually end up paying with their blood!"

"That's not what I heard. I heard Zen deliberately approached Leo and challenged him. What a hostile man!"

The fight was the newest and hottest gossip that spread like wildfire through the Drizzle Peak! Zen and Leo were going to fight each other!

Sitting on his bed, Zen, indifferent to the gossip, was meditating to continue practicing the Spiritual Thorn.

His engagement with Leo was days away. Since he accepted the challenge, Zen knew that if he backed out, he would be labeled a coward.

'If I can master the skill of turning my soul into a thorn, according to the Spiritual Thorn, I will have a better chance of prevailing in the battle ring, ' determined Zen silently.

'Turning a soul into a thorn... ' he murmured to himself.

'So then how do I turn my soul into a sharp thorn?'

The soul was a formless disembodiment of a person's perception of himself.

Therefore, people usually unknowingly recreated their soul as their physical form during meditation.

So, Zen's soul appeared as Zen looked in reality.

In this way, unless Zen forgot himself, his soul would remain as he was, and couldn't change into something else, not even a thorn.

'Only through fully forgetting myself will my soul be transformed into another form, ' he reasoned inwardly.

As he reasoned the puzzle out in his mind, the startling thought slammed into him.

f thought, a sharp, translucent-gray thorn thrust out from the middle of his browline.

Finally! He did it!

He was successful in transforming his soul into a thorn. Because the sharp translucent thorn was manifested by Zen's soul, it was invisible to all but Zen. Therefore, there was no way for others to guard against it absolutely.

For a short time, Zen practiced the Spiritual Thorn moves. The range of his attack using the thorn was only about three feet, which fell short of what he'd read, 'People within three thousand feet are unable to defend themselves against it, ' in the refinement method. Zen had crossed a bridge of sorts by attaining the state of forgetting himself, and now his way would be much easier.

Zen couldn't help smiling proudly. The match coming up in three days had been concerning him, but now he was looking forward to it.

The next three days flew by.

At Drizzle Peak, competing in the battle ring was always a significant affair.

The audience was able to watch the actual battle along with the energy that was seldom experienced during ordinary refinement practices in the ring.