Zen remained still in the void, his hundred-meter golden body floating like a silent mountain.
He had completed the first purification.
His blood was clear.
Pure.
Yet no matter how much he focused, no further change came.
No growth.
No increase in strength.
Zen did not panic.
He observed.
"If blood could be purified… why does nothing happen now?"
He turned his awareness inward once more.
Not to the blood this time—
But to where the blood flowed.
His veins.
At first, they felt ordinary.
But the longer he observed, the more wrong that thought became.
They were not ordinary at all.
They were vast.
Thicker than rivers.
Longer than valleys.
Twisting through his body in complex, ancient patterns that did not resemble the anatomy of any creature he had ever known.
Some paths were wide and open.
Others were narrow.
Twisted.
Blocked.
Dark.
Zen's eyes slowly widened.
"…The blood is pure."
"But the pathways it travels through… are not."
An ancient understanding surfaced from deep within him.
Dragons do not only refine their blood.
They refine the rivers that carry it.
Zen curled into himself once more.
This time, he did not focus on heat.
He focused on flow.
He guided the golden blood through the darkest, narrowest pathways inside him.
The moment it entered—
Pain exploded.
Far worse than before.
It felt as if those passages had never been used.
As if they had been sealed since the moment he was born.
The golden blood forced its way through like a flood breaking through ancient dams.
Cracks formed inside his body.
Not physical cracks—
But blockages shattering.
Zen's body trembled violently in the void.
Yet he did not move.
He endured.
The golden blood surged again and again through those hidden pathways, widening them, cleansing them, forcing them open.
Dark residues seeped out from beneath his scales like mist.
Time passed.
Long.
When Zen finally opened his eyes again, something was different.
He could feel it without looking.
His entire body felt… connected.
Before, his strength existed in parts.
Now, it flowed as one.
He looked down at himself.
Faint golden lines glowed beneath his scales.
Like rivers of light running throughout his entire body.
His veins were no longer dull passages.
They shone like molten gold.
Zen slowly moved.
The void around him distorted slightly.
Not from size.
But from presence.
He had not grown yet.
But he had become stronger in a way he could not measure.
"…So this is the Golden Vein."
Zen murmured calmly.
And as if responding to that realization—
His body began to grow once more.