153 Hell Tribulation, First Wave
BOOM
While they were talking, a bolt of red lightning struck onto Cao Mao's carriage again. The vehicle exploded and burned, but Cao Mao was still sitting cross-legged, meditating in the sea of flame.
Jia Shan took over the explanation, "There are two types of rare cases. One, when someone cultivates an otherworldly technique that doesn't require the Origin Yin Yang Qi of this world, Heaven will reject the existence of the cultivator and barring them from attaining immortalhood. No trial will be given to the outsiders unless they are a native of this world. In the case of the latter, the Will of Heaven will test them with something else. Wei Yuan, you're an oni, so you should have seen a few Demonic Tribulations."
Wei Yuan nodded. Demonic Tribulations always appeared when someone from a demon race tried to reach the 6th-stage. She had seen how her father went through an ordeal.
However, Wei Yuan remembered that the trial was a lot different. No lightning or external anomaly occurred during the tribulation. Instead, Wei Cao's body went through random mutations and transformations for months before everything subsided.
Meanwhile, the yin slaves gulped. They stared at Cao Mao in shock, "W-Will he be alright? I know that Miaomiao practices heretic arts, but no trial should happen before the 5th or 6th stage. What kind of tribulation is this?"
Jia Shan continued, "The last type - when a cultivator sows intolerable negative karma or violates the world's law, the world's law will deploy elemental spirits or a strand of Will to interrupt the breakthrough process as a punishment every time they try to advance a stage. The sinned cultivator will have to fight a life-and-death battle with the Will of Heaven!"
They called this trial – Hell Tribulation.
Unlike normal tribulations, in which cultivators refined their bodies and dantian through the power of heaven after a breakthrough, Hell Tribulation interrupted a breakthrough. The world's law would deploy a strand of Heaven Will with the power 10 times stronger than the tribulation taker to fight in a death duel.
Facing Hell Tribulation, one couldn't simply defend and preserve like the others to survive. After all, the Will of Heaven always continuously attacked until the sinner died. The only way to overcome this tribulation was to defeat the representatives of the world's law.
Most of the time, Hell Tribulations killed the heretic cultivators. However, if the latter were to win the fight, the rewards would be immense.
"T-THEN, WE NEED TO SAVE MIAOMIAO!"
Jiang Lan and Kang Yan were about to jump into the fire and rescue Cao Mao, but Jia elders stopped them.
"Wait."
The yin slaves were confused, "Elders, if Heaven wants to kill Miaomiao, we have to help!"
Everyone turned to Cao Mao once more.
WHOOM
The lightning fire had already been extinguished. Yet, surrounding Cao Mao, vines and roots of mysterious trees emerged from the ground, covering him from the lightning and fire. On top of his skin, tree trunks became his armor suit. Now, Cao Mao looked like a wood golem.
While the baffling event was ongoing, Jia Wenhe clarified everybody.
"Even though Heaven and Earth's power is supreme, it's not omnipotent. Hell Tribulation is similar to the Crimson River water curse – Strong, but not extremely dangerous. There is a limit to what they can do. After all, the world's law is just a restriction and regulation spell, not an invincible god that makes judgment calls based on a whim."
In the night sky, a dark cloud condensed into a wind elemental spirit while the roaring lightning formed a lightning?elemental body. The earth also shook as a golem, an earth elemental spirit, emerged from the ground.
Each of them had the strength of a late 4th-stage cultivator. All of them glared at Cao Mao and the gang.
"Don't move. Stay out of their business if you want your babies to live," Jia Wenhe chased the girls away, so Cao Mao would have a chance against these beings.
Wei Yuan still hesitated, "But senior, they're element spirits. Miaomiao can't…"
"Don't worry. They can only attack a few times since they were born from the world's law to sabotage the breakthrough. I heard that brat can use wood Qi and summon a familiar to fight, so he should be fine."
"…"
Everybody doubted if they should stay away from Cao Mao and watch him getting attacked by three elemental spirits.
.
.
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Meanwhile, Cao Mao couldn't move.
The task of turning two groups of essence water into two puddles was harder than it sounded. Cao Mao had to form a center of gravity, so the essence water wouldn't float around in his dantian space. Furthermore, as he was cultivating both types of energy, Cao Mao needed to create two gravity cores instead of one.
BANG
While Cao Mao was meditating and focusing on his dantian, a burning sensation and electric current ran through his body. He got thunderstruck by a bolt.
The electrical current threatened to fry his brain and his innards at first. But once Cao Mao spent one strand of wooden Qi to create a wooden tail and pluck it to the ground, the electric current passed through his body into the soil. The tail got burned from the inside, though.
As for the burning pain, it was nothing comparing to the Yang Flame, which Cao Mao already had mastered. His resistance against Yang Fire was at 100%, so lightning burn felt a bit more painful than a bee sting. He only needed to be careful that his brain and important organs wouldn't get cooked.
CRACKLE
The carriage that Cao Mao was in got caught on fire. The flame surrounded him, but he felt like a warm bath.
'I wonder if I'm close enough to handle fire element Qi. Well, don't sidetrack, brain! Focus!'
BANG
BANG
BANG
As if heaven was angry that Cao Mao ignored the lightning, several thunderbolts landed on him.
Although Cao Mao could negate some of the lightning shock damage, it was getting annoying and frustrating. He hadn't broken through yet, but someone wanted to interrupt his attempt.
In novels, heaven tribulations always happened after important breakthroughs, not pre-breakthrough. Something wasn't right.
Sensing the emergency, Cao Mao summoned Killer Queen, so he could have an assistant to feed him spring water or healing pills.
'Oh, wow. Did you make a vow or something? Look at the sky. The cloud is pissed!'
As soon as Killer Queen was freed, her slapstick joke came out as well. Unfortunately, Cao Mao wasn't in a mood to play along.
"Feed me spring water or healing pills. The lightning?heat is burning me."
'Oh, shit. Now that you mention it, ain't metal object like me susceptible to lightning-BANG-AAAAHHH!'
KQ got hit by another lightning bolt before she finished talking. She plopped to the ground. White smoke emitted from her blade, and a sizzling sound was also audible.
Cao Mao felt bad for her, but he regretted giving her a speck of sympathy a few seconds later.
KQ resurrected herself. She flew to the sky and wiggled her blade against the elemental spirits.
'Ahn! Baby. Motto! Shoot it inside me! Give me your hot energy! Impregnate with your lightning Qi!'
"…"
It sounded like KQ was having sex with the lightning. Cao Mao lost focus for a minute and almost failed the breakthrough.
It worked, though. The annoying thunderbolts stopped landing on him as KQ's antic angered the lightning?spirit. More bolts focused on her instead of landing on him.
Using this opportunity, Cao Mao created several layers of wooden roots to cover himself. He also didn't forget to create a path for electric current to flow into the ground.
The combination of mini-fire resistance and wooden element roots created a fireproof wooden barrier dome. Although Cao Mao could still feel the impact, the damage was neglectable.
As if the Heaven Will realized that lightning attacks wouldn't work, the thunderstorm cloud condensed and created a lightning?spirit and a wind spirit. The ground also shook as an earth golem appeared before Cao Mao.
"White Album, can you use wooden Qi instead of ice or water Qi?"
Sensing the danger, Cao Mao summoned White Album, whom he had upgraded to 30% of the original's strength.
Xu Xiuying's clone appeared. The last battle wounds that flame saber had caused was already healed. Also, she looked a lot stronger than before.
'I can convert 100,000 strands of yin or yang Qi into one strand of ice or water element.'
"I thought you can convert it one to one."
'If you upgrade me to 100%, I can turn any Qi into ice Qi or water Qi. Right now, my memory is a bit jumble. That's the best I can do.'
Similar to Cao Mao's current situation, the system capped the upgrade to 30%. If Cao Mao wanted to increase White Album's strength, he had to advance to the 4th-stage first.
"That's good enough. I have about five or six million strands. Use it as you see fit."
At the moment, Cao Mao's reserved energy was abundant – over 5 million in Qi strands. At first, he saved the Qi, so he could condense them into essence drops later. But now, he chose to spend them in this weird battle against elemental spirits.
'Who should I fight? The earth element golem? It's a bad matchup. My water Qi is at disadvantage. Earth Qi beat water Qi, you know? Even if I use ice Qi, the earth element's natural defense is still troublesome. You know that earth element spirits can self-resurrect, right?'
"I know it's a bad matchup. For now, buy me some time. KQ is already dealing with the wind and lightning?spirit. I can't move right now."
'Welp! No choice, then.'
.
White Album rushed toward the earth elemental spirit. She withdrew a million Qi strands from Cao Mao as fuel to create five drops of ice element and water element Qi equally.
Sensing the killing intent, the earth golem roared and rushed toward White Album. It condensed 100 drops of earth Qi into its fist as it threw a right hook punch at her face.
White Album sneered as she flew backward, dodging the punch and drawing the elemental golem away from her master.
The golem hesitated at first before it turned to Cao Mao.
As soon as it looked away from White Album, she converted a strand of ice element into a giant ice blade and cleaved the golem in half!
The earth golem was splitted into two. However, the cleaved parts mended and healed.
The giant elemental spirit turned around and glared at White Album. It stomped and chased after her in anger.
Once the aggro was on White Album, she flew away from Cao Mao, saving her energy and forcing the angry golem to spend more elemental Qi.
Combats between elemental spirits weren't always about killing each other. Energy management was also a key to achieve victory when both sides could self-heal indefinitely with their elemental Qi. Whoever ran out of power first would be the loser.
For White Album, who had 30% of Xu Xiuying's strength and battle experience, a prolonged fight against a stronger elemental spirit was not a challenge when she had plenty of energy supply from Cao Mao.
'Come here, woof, woof!'
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