Chapter 45: Heaven’s Envy
Although Yu Nianzhen’s state of mind was tempered by the ten-storey pagoda, it was impossible not to be afraid.
However, he couldn’t allow himself to be paralysed by fear.
He knew that whatever would come could not be escaped. His only choice was to adjust his condition and wait for the inevitable.
He sat cross-legged, closed his eyes and began to circulate his qi.
After a few moments of meditation, Yu Nianzhen’s state of mind became more relaxed.
He became a little unburdened and prepared to accept the fate looming beyond his vision.
At that moment, a crackling sound was heard.
This crackling was louder than before, and Yu Nianzhen finally recognised it as thunder.
Soon after, a white light penetrated his cave from the sky.
"Lightning?" Yu Nianzhen was surprised.
However, he only had time to recognise it.
Before he could do anything to protect himself, white light filled his vision, and lightning fell on his head. It penetrated through the baihui acupoint and spread to every inch of his body.
As the heir of the Yu family in his previous life, Yu Nianzhen was trained from a very young age.
However, nothing could have prepared him for being struck by lightning.
The lightning burned all his nerves, and excruciating pain filled his body.
He wanted to scream, but his throat was filled with metallic liquid, and no sound would come out.
His eyes rolled, and his head became dizzy causing his body to sway on the spot.
"I can’t faint..."
He gritted his teeth and forced himself to stay awake.
He removed several bottles from his storage bag and immediately swallowed a low-grade rejuvenation pill.
Thankfully, the effect was as previously described.
As soon as he swallowed the pill, a warm feeling spread all over his body, and his internal injuries began to rapidly heal.
However, before his body could fully recover, another crackling noise was heard, and the second white lightning penetrated the cave.
Like the first, the lightning hit his head and entered the baihui acupoint.
However, this lightning was a half a point more powerful than the first.
Although the majority entered his body, the rest covered him and burned away his clothes and skin.
"I can’t faint..."
Yu Nianzhen took two pills from two bottles and swallowed them.
One rejuvenation pill and one blood replenishing pill...
He tried to refine them as soon as possible, but his recovery speed was slower than the fall of the next strike.
Third strike...
Fourth strike...
Fifth strike...
Sixth strike...
After the sixth strike, Yu Nianzhen looked like a blood doll.
His body was covered in burns, and he could no longer maintain his sitting position.
He fell to the ground and listened in despair as the cave echoed with thunder.
.....
Outside the cave, Yang Xu was protecting the law for his disciple.
Although Yang Mountain was protected by a powerful array, he could not rest assured.
He worried that the old bastards in the sect would mess around at an inopportune time and cause his disciple to fail in breaking through.
Because of this, he was sitting cross-legged at the cave’s entrance when he noticed that something strange was going on.
At first, he only felt a slight suffocation in the air.
Soon after, dark clouds began to form, and a frown marred his handsome face.
"Tribulation clouds?" He wondered aloud.
In the Cangxing world, a cultivator would experience a tribulation when breaking through to the origin tempering realm, the core formation realm, and the nascent soul realm.
Yang Xu had never heard of anyone attracting a tribulation when breaking through to the origin forging realm.
"What’s going on?"
He looked at the dark clouds in worry.
Yu Nianzhen had a guardian talisman, his clothes had defensive capabilities, and the cave was protected by a defensive array.
However, these things were useless against a tribulation.
Overcoming a tribulation required special preparations, but Yu Nianzhen hadn’t done any.
Yang Xu clenched his hands and watched as the first lightning fell from the sky.
"White lightning?"
Yang Xu trembled in terror.
There were two types of tribulation lightning. The usual was black lightning.
Although it was severe, seven out of ten cultivators would survive it while breaking through to the core formation realm.
This number would decrease as the realm got higher, but black lightning was relatively tame compared to white lightning.
White lightning was the so-called envy lightning.
This was the kind of lightning that fell on cultivators that were envied by the heavens.
"Does he have a special physique?" Yang Xu was confused.
He had checked Yu Nianzhen when he first accepted him as a disciple.
At that time, he naturally discovered his disciple’s origin and aptitude. However, he didn’t discover any physique peculiarities.
"Did I miss something?"
"What kind of physique would attract a tribulation while breaking through to the origin forging realm?"
He looked at the cave’s entrance in worry.
The first strike had just fallen, and he could hear nothing from within the cave.
Soon after, the second strike fell, and a strangled sound escaped from the cave.
The sound was like the last struggle of a dying beast, and Yang Xu’s heart beat faster.
This was the disciple he had finally found after many years!
"Will the heavens be so cruel?"
At this moment, he could only watch helplessly as strike after strike hit the cave.
After the ninth strike, the thunder clouds dispersed.
Yang Xu broke the cave’s protection array and rushed into the cave.
However, he stopped after a few steps, and his body shivered in fear.
As someone who had cultivated to the peak of the nascent soul realm and fought against foreign devils, Yang Xu was not easily shaken.
However, it was impossible to stay calm when he saw his disciple’s condition.
"Nianzhen..." Yang Xu called in a small voice and rushed to the boy.
The boy lay in the middle of the cave’s qi gathering array, but he looked nothing like himself.
His body was burned black, and even his head was a mottled mess of flesh.
Although he was still breathing, his breath was so laboured that Yang Xu worried he would stop breathing in the next moment.
Yang Xu forced himself to calm down, and a thousand thoughts crossed his mind.
He removed a porcelain bottle from his storage ring and poured out a small leaf from within.
"It’s lucky that I saved this thing."
He placed the leaf in Yu Nianzhen’s mouth, but the boy was unconscious and couldn’t refine it.
"Why is my disciple such a pain?"
Yang Xu sat cross-legged and placed the boy on his lap.
He then placed his palm on the boy’s back, and a stream of hot qi entered Yu Nianzhen’s body.
The hot qi wrapped around the small leaf, and soon after, the leaf turned into a drop of green liquid.
The liquid mixed with Yu Nianzhen’s origin qi, turning it to a slightly green colour.
Soon after, the qi entered Yu Nianzhen’s first meridian and circulated in a cycle within his nine divine meridians.
Three hours later, all the medicinal properties within the qi were absorbed by Yu Nianzhen’s body, and his origin qi became clear again.
However, one leaf was only enough to drag Yu Nianzhen from the grips of death.
"The leaf’s age is too young; otherwise, the effect wouldn’t be this dismal." Yang Xu sighed.
He looked at his disciple, and a helpless look crossed his face.
They had only been together for a short time, but Yang Xu already loved this disciple.
"I have no other choice..."
He stood up and carried Yu Nianzhen to the South courtyard.
He was just about to enter the courtyard when a figure in a nattier blue robe appeared before him.
"Master Yang..." Jiang Yue called as he looked at the figure in the man’s arms.
His body was trembling badly, and dizziness threatened to overwhelm him.
Yang Xu sighed as he looked at Jiang Yue, "he is fine".
"How could this happen?"
Everyone in the sect had seen the tribulation clouds, and Jiang Yue was no exception.
For some reason, the clouds filled him with trepidation, and before he knew it, he had rushed to Yang Mountain.
Unfortunately, his trepidation was not unfounded.
The dark clouds were directly above Yang Mountain, and several sect elders were already waiting beyond the array.
Luckily, Jiang Yue had an entry token, and he rushed inside while the elders were distracted by the lightning.
"Disciple Jiang, does Nianzhen have a special physique?"
Yang Xu placed Yu Nianzhen on a jade bed and looked at Jiang Yue to see his reaction.
Jiang Yue was taken aback and looked at Yu Nianzhen for another second before he answered, "this disciple doesn’t know but..."
"But?"
Jiang Yue clenched his hands.
"Azhen has felt a bad omen for the past few months."
Jiang Yue told everything he knew about Yu Nianzhen’s trepidation, but he didn’t mention the black sword.
He trusted master Yang and wanted to tell him about it, but he found that his words turned around whenever he was about to reveal it.
He was confused at first but soon realised that the situation must be somehow related to the black sword’s mystery.
’Does this mean that other people can’t be told?’ Jiang Yue didn’t understand, but he couldn’t dwell on it for the time being.
"A bad omen..." Yang Xu said after a long time.
It wasn’t uncommon for cultivators to experience omens.
However, it was rare for a low-realm cultivator to have an omen.
Yang Xu sighed and looked at Jiang Yue, "does disciple Jiang have any tree of life leaves?"
"There were originally ten leaves. Nianzhen gave me five, kept four and gave one to master Yang."
Jiang Yue pulled down his robe collar, and Yang Xu saw five green leaves imprinted above his heart.
"Nianzhen refined his four, and they should have healed him when he fell into danger."
’Is that how he survived?’ Yang Xu wondered, but he didn’t dwell on it.
Instead, he removed a jade box from his storage ring.
He opened it and revealed something that looked like a blob of water.
"This is..."
"Clear jade fruit."
The fruit was the size of a grape, and Yang Xu placed it in Yu Nianzhen’s mouth.
As before, he placed his palm on the boy’s back and helped him refine the fruit. This took seven days, and when it was done, Yu Nianzhen was much better.
His internal organs were healed, his skin had regrown, and even his hair was once again waist length.
However, he still did not wake up.
"Why is he not waking up?"
Jiang Yue was on edge for many days, and he couldn’t rest assured before Yu Nianzhen woke up.
"His body is fine, and his soul is undamaged. However, the tribulation overtaxed his body, and he should need some time to recover."
"Is that so?"
Jiang Yue ran his fingers through Yu Nianzhen’s hair, and a complicated look flashed in his eyes.
"Master Yang, will this happen every time he breaks through to a higher realm?"
Yang Xu was silent because he didn’t know how to answer.
With Yu Nianzhen’s talent, he would break through to the qi transformation realm before he was twenty.
That was only a few years away, and all the tree of life leaves had been used up.
If Nianzhen underwent another tribulation so soon, it would be difficult to save his life.
In this situation, they only had a few options.
One option was to delay Yu Nianzhen’s cultivation to allow his body to naturally grow stronger or find a way for the tree of life to grow new leaves within a few years.
Another option was to let him refine his body.
If Yu Nianzhen could have some accomplishments in body refinement, he would have an easier time dealing with the next tribulation.
Even if he couldn’t avoid injury at that time, ordinary healing pills would be enough to heal him.
"Don’t worry, we will be better prepared next time."
Yang Xu wanted to say more, but his thought process was interrupted by a buzzing from the mountain protection array.
His consciousness entered the array, and he saw a lot of elders around the mountain.
"This supreme elder will be in closed cultivation for five years." He said arrogantly without waiting for them to speak.
Yu Nianzhen’s tribulation had caused a disturbance, and Yang Xu didn’t want the sect to find out about his disciple.
To make sure that they didn’t, the only thing he could do was close the mountain and figure out a solution within five years.
He sighed and turned to Jiang Yue, "I plan to close the mountain, and Nianzhen won’t leave for five years."
Jiang Yue turned pale, but there was nothing to be done.
Yu Nianzhen was unconscious and in a vulnerable condition. Closing the mountain was the best decision given the circumstances.
Although Jiang Yue wanted to stay, he couldn’t.
Yang Xu was not his master, and staying was disrespectful to elder Chen.
"Five years will pass in the blink of an eye. Take the time to improve your strength." Yang Xu soothed the distressed boy.
"When they ask, tell them that I refined a weapon which attracted tribulation. They shouldn’t give you a hard time since you are only at the origin forging realm."
"This disciple understands."
