Second half of the training
As Zeal's body became exhausted and there was nowhere he could run to, Zeal saw himself facing death again. At this moment, his mind remembered what transpired in the Ashura forest. So he was a lightning user. So that's how he survived. At this moment, his hands exuded lightning flashes. However, Zeal wasn't the one controlling it; the lightning did. It was as if it had a mind of its own. And more like protecting himself—or maybe protecting its vessel. Anyway, it happened without Zeal's control. At this moment, many additional sutras unlocked themselves. They were lightning sutra, lightning moon sutra. However, all these sutras were in the compilation of the nine-heaven divine sutra. As Zeal progressed, he encountered the privilege needed to unlock these cultivations method. However, the most overwhelming of all these stuff was that Zeal could cultivate this technique passively. Before now, he was so weak that he didn't understand it. In fact, that Divine sutra had always been with him, but he couldn't see it nor use it.
At the eighth hour, Zeal had already met an impasse: the needle fired at him from the entire circumference of the black ball. In the present, Zeal's hands materialized with lightning, and his body became silvery-white like the moon. Seeing the eruption of needles, Zeal tucked his feet on the ground and leaped with flashes of lightning. He was as fast as sound—totally incomparable. In a moment, Zeal appeared above the open square, still within the black orb. And with the flashes of lightning, Zeal began to evade the needles with speed. The arrows he couldn't escape slammed on his silvery-white moon body. It was as if the shooting spikes struck some iron. In fact, even Zeal's hair and head turned silvery-white—they appeared like a molded sculpture.
"I love this improvement. But my body feels like breaking. It seems I can't handle this form for a long time." Zeal muttered to himself; he constantly thought about what to do. At this moment, he understood that his body was breaking apart; there appeared a lot of data processing in his body. And in fact, his body was as fragile as a paper—he couldn't handle them all. At this moment, his silvery-white body began to fade out. However, it was already the eleventh and half hour. Zeal only had thirty minutes for him to exhaust the first half of the trial. Still, his body had begun to show signs of breaking down—his entire body covered in blood. Blood slowly dripped from Zeal's fingernail; he felt exhausted and sleepy. Still, Zeal struggled with a few black needles passing through his body. The pins pierced and punctured through his body, creating small-sized holes. Although Zeal succeeded in only defending his fragile internal organ, it would be terrible if he was to break down too early. It wasn't even the second half of the trial. So he would die. After Zeal finished the first half duration, he fell from the mid-air. Of course, the needles weren't there anymore.
After an hour, Zeal woke up with a painful grunt. He sat on the bare floor with his legs crossed; his hand gestured various hand signs weakly. At this moment, a heavenly aura irrigated Zeal's tired body. He began to feel life in his bone, and his wound began to heal. At the same time, sparks of lightning flashed in his energy vessels and veins. After three hours of cultivation, Zeal had just enough fuel for the second half of the contest.
At this moment, the death whistle echoed, but Zeal couldn't care less about the ghost blowing the whistle; if he didn't work hard, this place might bury him here today. That tyrant of a master would not raise any finger to save him. Zeal was aggrieved with the way things were turning out.
Zeal stood and conjured a white lightning sword. The sword was condensed solely from lightning. However, that technique seemed to empty Zeal because Zeal's expression blanched after creating it. In fact, Zeal had a lot of aurae, but Sou Long had locked them. He didn't intend for Zeal to use these elements now. According to him, they may disrupt his plan. But Zeal didn't know that the Old Man had locked his energy vessels and vein. After all, it took Sou Long only a wave of his hands to cause it. But even though Zeal had materialized the heavenly lightning sword, it didn't mean that things would be easy. Things change, but Zeal had no idea whether the level of difficulty increased because of his use of the lightning sword or not. But he wondered: 'if using lightning didn't increase the difficulty. That means Sou Long had set this part in stone. However, with this difficulty level, doesn't he want me to sleep forever below the ground?' Zeal gritted his teeth in anger.
This time, the noise of drum beating disrupted Zeal's coordination; there was still the sound of clanking metals; there were also swift horizontal movements of large logs. Zeal blanched in fear. He wanted to disappear from the trial ground, but it was impossible.
"You damn Old Man, do you feel fulfilled tormenting a child?" Zeal shouted hysterically; he vomited blood due to the inconsiderate use of his throat power. "Damn it; no one deserves to kill me!" Zeal wept in determination; he must endure. If he couldn't survive—he was sure his mother would follow him too soon. Her husband had died, and if her only son perishes, she wouldn't care about staying a second in the land of the living.
However, the unconcern Sou Long drank his steaming tea peacefully. He couldn't care less about Zeal. The brat had to learn crucial life lessons, he thought with a mirth smile.
(Inside the black orb), Karl Zeal had not wasted his time because his entire body turned silvery-white—sparking with white lightning. Additionally, he held a sparking white lightning sword in his hand.
"I have to survive," Zeal snorted angrily! "that Old thing wants to get rid of me; I would disappoint him! No one is qualified to kill me." Zeal gave his glorious speech.
The black orb had blessed the whole place with noise enough to destroy the three unique bones in the ears. However, Zeal concentrated his Soul-eyes and ears; he made them work together. The red, black, and golden eyes in the collections of Soul-eyes glistened sharply—the heavens filled them with power. At this moment, a part of the eyes connected like interstellar light and beamed sharply. They attached themselves to the function of the ears. The noise stopped, and it appeared like Zeal was in the middle of the world; it was like he was facing the same trial; there was no distraction—it was serene. Zeal couldn't afford to waste time, every technique he implored was costly, and his lack of training and aura limited them. He had to endure this barrage. Soul-eyes were a combination of heavenly eyes. So at this moment, another kind of vision activated itself. It was a 360-degree vision. Now he could see every thing within the range of his capacity.
"Coming!" the barrage surged. Rain of shooting black needles attacked Zeal; the tree swung in a fast motion, trying to break Zeal beyond repair. His Soul-eyes slowed down the movement for him. Of course, even though he could see the trend, it depended on whether his body could react as fast.
'Do you want to avoid heaven's punishment? Can you stand at the top where even heaven won't have the choice but to give you your deserved privilege to do what you wanted?' A sudden question imprinted itself in Zeal's mind. It was as if something else was reminding Zeal of something. In fact, that thing was angry at Zeal's excessive weakness. Zeal and the thing snorted at the same time.
'Even if I fight the heavens, how long would I fight till I get my respect? How long would fight till I'm exhausted?' Zeal questioned angrily. But no one responded to him.
In a second, the attacks came. Zeal cut the shooting needles with the lightning sword and used lightning slithery shadow movement. Also, Zeal's body evaded the large troublesome wood. He rotated mid-air and maneuvered swiftly, avoiding the spikes that came from behind. Zeal's flexibility was superb and incomparable. His speed was natural lightning speed (1x lightning speed). As the black needles and spiky log struck, they could only strike Zeal's mirage and shadow—Zeal was too fast for it. Soul-eyes could see and magnify all movement. Zeal could clearly see the pattern of the attacks and the tricky involving those attacks.