From Cellar to Throne: Zen's Quest for Immortality
Chapter 12 Efforts (Part Two)

What settled some of the Luo children's concerns was the fact that Zen had been a punchbag fortwo years. Considering that he was still alive and well, they assumed he had strong life vitality.Fortunately for Zen, these children were not interested in demystifying how a punchbag couldsurvive under these circumstances. After all, they were required to practice beating people. It wasnot needed for them to study their targets. Even if Zen had special protective skills, they showed nointerest in learning more about these skills.

During this time, Zen's impurities were being washed out more and more. Every time he took abath, the water flowing on the ground was almost as rich as milk.

Soon, Zen's plan showed results. The amount of impurities being removed from Zen's body on adaily basis was equivalent to the ones being removed from others on a monthly basis. This satisfiedZen as it meant that each day's practice had the same effect on him as that of people who practicedfor months. This practice speed seemed like a miracle!

Motivated, Zen exhausted himself. He volunteered to be beaten during the day and spent his nightspracticing. He didn't stop, not even for a few seconds.

The improvement in Zen's body and knowledge of martial arts fed his spirit. Even though he wasbarely sleeping, his eyes were clear and bright as always.

Another reason why he was so full of energy and his spirit was flourishing was the existence of themysterious “Nine dragon furnace’. The refining furnace was purifying his soul. Each time, the painwas the same. Zen felt as though his soul was being crushed a thousand times, and each time, hecollapsed and wished for death.

And yet, when the episode ended and Zen realized that he had survived that kind of pain, his spiritgrew by leaps and bounds. He knew that his soul was also being refined!

Among all the parts of the human body, the soul was the most difficult to purify. Everyone couldexercise their body. Even people who did not practice martial arts could exercise themselves too.Zen was about to tell them to hit harder, but he remained quiet. He observed for some time andrealized that the children were not holding back. They were using all of their strength to hit. Thenwhy was it that he was not feeling their power?

What was worse was that every punch produced much less warmth in his body.

If previous attacks produced a thumb-sized warm current, current attacks only produced warmththe size of the little finger. With less warmth refining his body naturally, Zen became worried that itsefficiency was diminishing.

After returning to the cellar that evening, Zen watched the impurities being washed away. Hissuspicions were confirmed when he saw that the amount of impurities being forced out of his bodyhad reduced by about half.

These changes made Zen anxious. He had no idea what was wrong.

Could it be that his body was becoming harder?

According to the mysterious weapon refining theories, his body strength was now comparable witha low-grade mysterious weapon.

After profound and continual refining, the strength of a mysterious weapon would graduallyincrease. However, if the strength of the weapon had reached a certain extent, the effect of generalrefining would be low.

Most of the students in Martial Arts Hall were at the skin refining level. Even Melvin, whose innerdivine strength was so powerful that he was comparable to someone at the flesh refining level.Now, hundreds of pounds of strength were hitting Zen's body at the Martial Arts Hall. However, thatseemed insufficient as the effect was too little for his body. It looked as though Zen needed to replacemore powerful people to beat him to continue refining his body if he wanted to produce betterresults.

But Zen didn't know how to replace someone who had more strength. It was impossible to ask theelders in the family to refine his body...

Family Practicing Day was only a few days away. On this day, all students would try their best andwork at full strength. The punches that would come his way would certainly be more powerful. Mostimportantly, if he survived the day, he would be able to gain his freedom and leave the Luo family.Since Zen could barely feel any pain from the beatings given by the Luo children, he wasn't worriedabout being hurt on Family Practicing Day.

Zen sat before the dim lamp in his cellar. His bright eyes shone with fortitude in the light as hethought over his plans.

It had been two years since his family was wrongly accused. Zen had remained a docile slave all thistime. However, he had not forgotten the pain and hatred he felt when his father had been killed. Helived with shame before, as he was too weak. Now, Zen was fortunate to have found the magicalrefining theory, which was creating his special constitution. He had to grab thisopportunity!00000000