The majority of team China’s members sat near the edge of the platform in case Zheng went into a frenzy and damaged them. No one in the team had the ability to take him on in a head to head fight especially when he wielded this upgraded Tiger’s Soul. So they waited in the distance and would yell for a heal as soon as he lost himself.
“It’s taking long this time. He’s still sitting there after three minutes.” WangXia took a look at this watch.
No one else said a word as they stared at Zheng in full concentration. They had been accompanying Zheng through his attempts to tame Tiger’s Soul these two days. The most dangerous time was when he activated Destruction and approached them in under a second. Thanks to YinKong and Heng’s fast reaction to calling for a full heal, team China avoided the possible casualties. Taming Tiger’s Soul proved to be a very dangerous task.
Zheng remained calm for longer than any previous attempts. His eyes had the same redness as he slowly stood up. His body was slightly shaking. YinKong stopped the others as they planned to call for a heal. “It’s fine… He can control the killing intent now.”
Zheng didn’t attack as expected. He took a few deep breaths then stored Tiger’s Soul into the Na Ring. The adverse aura subsided. The rest of the team members looked at each other then ran toward him.
“Sorry to make you worry.” Zheng said with a bitter smile. The hand that wielded Tiger’s Soul was still shaking.
“This upgrade to Tiger’s Soul did not change the material of the sword itself. It used a rune word combination to insert an adverse aura that can affect a person’s consciousness into the sword. See the Oracle Bone Script on the blade? That is the source of the adverse aura. I finally realized Tiger’s Soul isn’t a magical weapon once I attempted to gain control of it through my refined Qi. It’s actually a XiuZhen item, or more accurately, Demon item.” Zheng sat on the sofa and said.
Everyone went with him to his room. The girls went to prepare food and the team members listened to his narration of taming Tiger’s Soul.
“I felt the crafting process of Tiger’s Soul at the time, much similar to when we revive team members. My consciousness connected to another consciousness. A man was refining a mineral with fire. It may sound inconceivable but in the scene, the man used the crafting methods you would read in XianXia novels. He emitted a flame through himself to burn the mineral. However, the mineral suddenly melted and tried to swallow him. A white tiger came out from next to the man and swallowed the liquid.” Zheng waved his hand as he saw the strange expressions from the rest.
“Don’t give me such looks. That is really what I saw in those few minutes. The man became enraged. He ignored the tiger’s pleas then grabbed it near the tail and pulled out its spine. The liquid formed the blade of Tiger’s Soul, which is the semi translucent part. The tiger’s spine became the centre and hilt of the sword. The man then confined the tiger’s hatred and adverse aura into the weapon in order to further increase its power, which formed Tiger’s Soul. The power that he used is the same as my refined Qi. He called it Xiuzhen energy… one of the powers that can safely use Tiger’s Soul.”
A short silence followed then WangXia and Gando cried in a shock. “Xiuzhen? The martial art that leads to ascending to an immortal?” They looked at each other then turned to Zheng.
“Correct. That’s the energy produced from Xiuzhen.” Zheng gave them a bitter smile. “I kind of knew from the feeling that the man crafted this weapon to fight… the Saints who reached the fifth stage. There were many people with the same power as him doing preparations. I don’t know what happened afterward. But Tiger’s Soul became an item you can exchange from God. I think one of the suspicions Luo YingLong mentioned could be the items we can exchange from God.”
Seeing that the others were confused, Zheng continued. “This is merely my conjecture. HongLu, do you get what I am saying?”
HongLu twirled his hair then picked up a cup of red tea on the table. He nodded. “I can guess what you meant. You are referring to the origin of the enhancements and abilities, correct?”
Zheng nodded. “Right. The origin of the enhancements and abilities is the first question I had after I reached the fourth stage. Logically, these enhancements and abilities should come from different people. They will likely create some abilities after reaching the fourth stage. Perhaps they created abilities suitable for other forms of organisms in order to continue their growth, which resulted in werewolves, elves, vampires, and the enhancements from comics. This is possible but there’s a flaw to the specualtion…
“Why would those who reached the fourth stage and higher choose to alter low tier genes? I would never choose the useless low tier genes. My sight will only fall on those that can make me stronger. Though, currently I can only optimize the hibernating genes in my DNA. It takes mid-fourth stage and higher to actually alter them. The questions comes back to why would they bother altering the genes for the weaker organisms or bloodlines? Why would they create the weak abilities? Could it be that they were aware of our existence in the future at the time?”
Zheng breathed out and continued. “So my conjecture is the enhancements and abilities don’t necessarily all came from the Saints. Many of them could be created by the enemies of the Saints. The accumulations over time led to the variety we have now. And Cultivators… might be enemies of the Saints.”
HongLu laughed. “You still haven’t said whether you can use Tiger’s Soul after a whole bunch of words. What about your Xiuzhen energy? Can you keep producing it or control it?”
Zheng nodded. “I can use Tiger’s Soul with a big limitation. That is I need to have Xiuzhen energy. It’s not only a weapon. Regular people without Xiuzhen energy will become enraged from touching it. Good thing is it doesn’t consume energy at a rapid rate. The Xiuzhen energy may look like a little but its very durable. I will have to refine large amounts of energy in order to use it in the movies.”
The team let out a sigh of relief. One, the weapon didn’t become a waste. It would be a pity if Zheng couldn’t use such a powerful weapon. Two, Zheng wouldn’t go into berserk mode again. They were bound to have casualties if he went berserk after he grew in strength.
Zheng laughed then said. “But fortune comes with this unfortunate event. ChengXiao, you still recall the eight flags I got from the Lord of the Rings?”
ChengXiao paused for a moment. “Uh? The eight flags? Yeah, you have them right now.”
Zheng nodded. “I was thinking since my refined Qi is a type of Xiuzhen energy, can I use the Qi to control these flags? You never saw the terrifying power of the flags. I couldn’t resist them at the time and almost died in the battlefield. It was all Zero’s effort that I barely survived. My power will grow ten folds if I can really use the flags. Haha. We aren’t powerless if we were to fight team Devil again.”
Kampa said. "Then hurry and try this Xiuzhen item. I also often read Xianxia novels. Is the power really world breaking as depicted in the novels?”
“Nah, not so powerful. Those are novels. We aren’t in a novel here.” Zheng waved his hand. “I want to give them a try but unfortunately I have spent the Qi I refined over the last three days on controlling Tiger’s Soul. We only have six days left in God’s dimension, which will only get me two times the refined Qi I accumulated before… There isn’t enough time. I have to exchange for days in the movies to accumulate a large quantity of refined Qi. Then… we will not fear the movie worlds anymore!”