152 Hell Tribulation, Prelude
Traveling with vehicles was convenient. One of the benefits that no one in the modern world appreciated was the opportunity to cultivate during the journey.
On day time, Cao Mao and the yin slaves were in charge of driving the carriages. At night, Jia Shan, Jia Wenhe, Wei Yuan, Ju Chen, and a few yin slaves took over.
When Cao Mao and the yin slaves were inside the carriage, they cultivated normally. Because of Jia Shan and Jia Wenhe's presence, they refrained from having sex.
Even without sex, everyone brought out their refined stones and absorbed the Qi.
But for Cao Mao, he did something drastic. As he had gotten stuck at the last level of Meridian Establishment Realm for many months because of the system's restriction, he was dying for a breakthrough.
After accepting a protagonist hunt quest, the system unlocked the strength cap. Cao Mao could now progress to the Essence Gathering Realm, aka the 4th-stage.
Bone Refining Realm focused on cleaning one's bone marrow, so they could produce Qi naturally. Meridian Establishment Realm forced cultivators to open energy channels, reinforcing blood vessels, and enhancing 12 core meridians, such as hearts, lungs, stomach, intestines, kidneys, and many other organs. Everything was for the foundation of the practitioners.
However, it was not an easy task to break through from here. The gap between the 3rd-stage and 4th-stage was vast. Moreover, the system screwed Cao Mao over again.
Ding
Your breakthroughs and strength advancement from now on will be in manual mode.
The system will no longer control the rampaging Qi and Essence in your dantian space for you. However, the system will continue to provide Qi and Essence via daily generation and dual cultivation.
The system will slowly let you take control of one of your abilities every time you pick a new hunt campaign unless you choose to become a vessel of a Dao God or Your Sponsor.
Do you want to become a vessel of Your Sponsor?
"Fuck no."
Every time that Cao Mao tried to advance to the 4th-stage, the system always prompted him with this reminder. Of course, he refused to become someone's underling and lose his right to become an immortal.
"Give me the guideline. Stop wasting my time."
The Essence Gathering Realm requires you to be conscious of the subspace in your dantian. Gather all Yin and Yang Essence drops into that subspace and solidifies an essence pond to reach the initial stage of Essence Gathering Realm.
Both system dantian and Cao Mao's dantian was the same. For almost a year, he had been relying on the system to manage his energy. Now, he had to take charge of it.
Cao Mao's dantian was created by the system. He took it for granted that the system would store and manage his energy. But once the system forced him to do it himself, he felt like a newly graduated high-schooler, who got chased out from his parent's home to start a life.
Without the system's help, Yin and Yang Essence ran wild. At the moment, Cao Mao had over a million drops of Yang Essence and 50,000 drops of Yin Essence. If he calculated the essence drop volume with the metric system, 20,000 drops would be a liter. Thus, he had 50 liters of Yang Essence water floating in the dantian subspace.
Most importantly, Yin and Yang Essence drops couldn't merge without a catalyst. Once contacted, they might explode, fuse, merge, or repel each other. Now, in the manual mode, collecting and organizing these two essences in a weightless space was a hassle.
After a few days of sorting these essence drops, Cao Mao finally organized the two types of fluid in his dantian space. He had to form two ponds of Yin and Yang Essence next.
Ding
For ordinary cultivators, one liter of essence water is enough to create a small puddle and breakthrough to the initial 4th-stage. However, a dual cultivator like you requires more essence than the others. It is recommended to create a pond of 5,000 liters of essence drops before you decide to ascend to the 4th-stage. Or else, you will be a lot weaker than other cultivators due to your shaky foundation.
"Shaky foundation my ass! You call my current state weak!? Who the fuck are you comparing me with? A protagonist!?"
Cao Mao's face twitched non-stop. During these peaceful 9 months, he spent one-third of his time in his Isolation Training Space practicing alchemy. As for the rest, he dual-cultivated to prepare for this advancement, and he only had 50 liters of essence water. Yet, the system recommended 100 times the amount of what he had.
If you're rushing, advancing half-step to the 4th-stage is recommended. Although you can't display the full potential of what Essence Gathering Realm experts can do, you can gather essence water faster by absorbing energy from refined stones. A dual-cultivation session will yield 10 drops of yang essence instead of 7.
Hearing the good news, Cao Mao sat back and recalculated things.
After all tutorial quests had been completed, he upgraded the ITS to level 5.
--
Isolation Training Space (Lv. 5/10)
Conversion Ratio (Real World Hour/Isolation Space Hour): 1:20
Dual Cultivation Mode
Protagonist Rematch Mode
Upgrade Conditions
100 Liters of Yang Essence.
Comprehend and master at least one element Qi
Next Upgrade
Conversion Ratio (Real World Hour/Isolation Space Hour): 1:50
Realm Expansion (Depending on the mastered element.)
Description
After you've fallen asleep, your consciousness will be sent to System's isolated space for special training sessions that you can design for yourself.
Inside this space, you can choose to spar against illusions of fighters that you had once encountered in the past, rematch against the protagonists you have defeated, spend your time practicing various arts that you haven't mastered, or dual-cultivate with your yin slaves.
The Conversion Ratio is the time in the real world and the time you can spend in space. Currently, 20 hours in the isolation space is one hour in real life. You can upgrade the conversion rate by spending the yang essence.
--
In the past, Cao Mao's ITS got stuck at level 4, so he only had 80 to 100 hours a night to train. Now, he had double the amount, and he unlocked the rematch mode.
For now, Cao Mao put the matters regarding the rematch mode at the back of his head. He wanted to make the best of his time and his available resources.
'Normally, I get about 100 to 140 Yang Essence drops per hour. If I dual-cultivate all night with my ITS level 5, I should get about 16,000 to 22,400 drops per night, assuming I sleep 8 hours a day. That's barely one liter of Yang Essence water. I need 5,000 liters, so that's fucking over 10 years!'
'But taking the half-step route is a no brainer. Instead of getting 100 to 140, I can get roughly 200 drops per hour. That will boost my gain by a double! It's still not fast enough, though.'
Had normal cultivators heard Cao Mao's complaint, they would have been infuriated and died in envy. It normally took several months to absorb 20,000 drops of essence, assuming they were rich in refined stones and they cultivated 24/7. Yet, this villain got it in a day.
Unaware of the local's common sense and standard, Cao Mao got frustrated with his SLOW progress. He gazed at the next upgrade requirement, which would boost the available conversion time from 20 hours to 50 hours.
'I'll do it this way. I'll advance to a half-step 4th-stage first. Then, I'll focus on mastering the wooden Qi. I'll spend day time training wood element while I'll spend the night with the yin slaves. Well, I hope Yuan'er won't be lonely.'
Even though Cao Mao could use wood Qi, he hadn't mastered it by heart yet. Until he could convert a strand of yin or yang Qi into an element Qi, he could not claim that he could truly comprehend the wood element.
After making his decision, Cao Mao chose to accept the system's hint and advance from level 10 of the 3rd-stage to the half-step 4th-stage.
.
Rumble
When someone was breaking through to the 4th stage or higher, auspicious signs usually occurred in the vicinity around the cultivator, depending on their foundation, strength, and bloodline.
Unfortunately, the anomaly around Cao Mao was rather ominous.
Above Cao Mao's carriage, a dark cloud formed. Lightning bolts flashed and struck the ground nearby. A chill wind blew toward the wagon from all directions as if a storm was brewing.
Because of such signs, Jia Shan and Jia Wenhe stopped meditating and got out of their resting wagons. The yin slaves and Wei Yuan also stopped driving and got out of all vehicles with their babies, who cried and wailed because of the commotion.
Everyone was gazing at Cao Mao's carriage.
BANG
A lightning bolt struck the wagon, lighting it on fire.
WHOOM
ROAR
The hard wind expanded the fire and carried debris and sharp objects in the wind. A howl of unknown spirits and random noise echoed in the area.
"What's happening?" The girls got scared since they never encountered anything like it.
Jia Shan and Jia Wenhe's faces were solemn. This ominous sign existed in the holy land, but it was uncommon. None of the elders had ever thought that someone from Aves Continent would have the qualification to experience this trial.
"I never dreamt that I could see this tribulation again. Is your disciple a fate bearer or something, brother Shan?"
"Yup. It's the worst tribulation. But if the brat can get through this ordeal, we might just witness the birth of another monster."
"What's that? Is it the Heaven Tribulation?" Wei Yuan and others were in a panic. They believed that Cao Mao was going through some kind of tribulations.
"No. That's definitely not the Heaven Tribulation. It was milder and gentler. The heaven is always benevolent, but this shit wants him dead."
"???"
The girls were still puzzled.
On the other hand, Ju Chen only gazed at Cao Mao and the storm. Her eyes changed color to black for a moment, but they reverted back a few seconds later. Then, Ju Chen returned to her carriage to cultivate, ignoring the event.
Jia Wenhe sighed and explained the situation, "Standard cultivators gather Heaven and Earth's energy to reach immortalhood. When they reach a certain threshold, they had to go through a heavenly trial, the Heaven Tribulation. It will test if the cultivators are worthy to join the ranks of gods. But there are some rare cases, such as this one."
"Rare cases?"
Jia Shan also gazed at his pupil and sighed. From this point onward, it was up to Cao Mao. No one could interfere in his tribulation. If someone were to interrupt this trial, the law of this world would cripple their cultivation or kill them on the spot.
'Win this fight, disciple! I know that you have your secrets. Use those secrets to overcome this!'
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