Chapter 330: The Forming of the Tribulation Gu |
Long Xuan adjusted his attire and finally emerged from the body of the Heaven-Devouring World Toad. As he gazed at the boundless lightning storms overhead, his mood seemed to lighten considerably.
“Did I trigger any phenomena when I created the cultivation technique?” Long Xuan asked the Flame Clone standing nearby.
“Half a year ago, there was one, and just now, another one—two in total,” the Flame Clone replied.
“However, the dark clouds merged with the natural ones in the sky, so no one noticed anything unusual,” the clone added.
Long Xuan nodded, then turned to use the Eye of Heavenly Secret to look toward the area where the Tribulation Gu was being refined.
Seeing that the progress at the refining site had reached nearly 100%, his eyes lit up.
“Is the Tribulation Gu finally about to be completed?”
Overjoyed, Long Xuan hurried over.
Upon arriving at the Five Element Reversal Formation, Long Xuan found that all the spirit insects inside had already been devoured by the Tribulation insect.
As the Tribulation insect was about to transform into the Tribulation Gu, Long Xuan decided to stay and wait patiently.
Three days later, Long Xuan held a purple scorpion in his palm. His eyes sparkled as he gazed at it, but unusually, he refrained from touching it with his hand as if reluctant to disturb it.
Indeed, this purple scorpion was none other than the Great Tribulation Gu.
This scorpion-like form was entirely composed of lightning, with no physical substance. However, don’t be mistaken—the Tribulation Gu itself does not have a fixed form. It is essentially a body of lightning with the ability to transform into any shape it desires.
After devouring a large number of spirit insects, it could now mimic any insect it had consumed. It could transform into a flying serpent or a spider capable of weaving a lightning web. Currently, it simply chose the form of a scorpion.
“Since your body is entirely purple, I’ll name you Little Purple,” Long Xuan said with a smile.
Seeing the Heaven-Devouring World Toad eyeing Little Purple with great eagerness, Long Xuan tossed the Tribulation Gu directly into its mouth.
Little Purple was undoubtedly a treasure defying the heavens. Consuming such a Gu insect would further increase the size and strength of the Heaven-Devouring World Toad.
With the toad’s presence, Long Xuan realized his insect bag had become almost redundant, as all Gu insects could now live comfortably inside the toad’s stomach. The floating island within the toad, filled with chirping birds and fragrant flowers, was far more pleasant than the dark confines of the insect bag.
Nevertheless, to avoid suspicion, Long Xuan decided not to discard the insect bag tied to his waist.
With the Tribulation Gu finally complete, it was time to create a Thunder Tribulation to trigger its first transformation.
Long Xuan couldn’t wait any longer. He retrieved materials for refining a Heaven-Defying Pill from the toad’s stomach and stepped into the Five Element Reversal Formation to begin the refinement process immediately.
He was eager to witness the scene of the Tribulation Gu manipulating the Thunder Tribulation to dominate all enemies.
Since the phenomenon had manifested in the outer space of the world rather than within the Heaven-Devouring World Toad, Long Xuan concluded that the Thunder Tribulation would also appear in the outer world. Thus, he needed to refine the pill outside.
Originally intending to relax after creating his cultivation technique, Long Xuan found himself busy once more.
The Heaven-Defying Pill was a fourth-grade pill. Although Long Xuan was in the Spiritual Sea Stage realm, he needed to collaborate with his five clones to refine such a challenging pill.
Having recently advanced, refining a pill of this caliber was no easy task, leaving Long Xuan feeling slightly nervous.
The materials required for the Heaven-Defying Pill were extraordinarily rare, and he had only managed to collect one set from Di Xin. This meant he had only one chance to succeed.
Failure would force him to use his Repair Gu, but even then, it would take an enormous amount of time to gather the necessary materials again. Such delays were unacceptable, as he had numerous tasks ahead. Each Gu insect under his care needed to be upgraded after his breakthrough.
Long Xuan placed six Demon-Devouring Cauldrons on the ground and used his spiritual sense to enlarge them.
The reason there were six cauldrons was entirely due to the Repair Gu, which had allowed him to replicate five additional cauldrons.
Although the Demon Devouring Cauldron wasn’t a particularly heaven-defying treasure, replicating five of them hadn’t taken much time.
When the six cauldrons reached the desired size, Long Xuan closed his eyes to adjust his state of mind.
Meanwhile, his five clones entered the barrier of the Five-Element Reversal Formation, each seated before a cauldron.
The five clones formed a pentagon with Long Xuan at the center, surrounded by the cauldrons.
After a long while, Long Xuan opened his eyes and softly said, “Begin!”
The clones immediately started moving, each grabbing the required spiritual herbs and placing them into their respective cauldrons.
To maximize the chances of success, Long Xuan had calculated the exact amounts of each herb with unparalleled precision.
Having brought scales from his previous life into this world, Long Xuan could measure the herbs to the gram. Each herb added to the cauldrons was neither a gram too much nor too little.
After throwing approximately ten thousand rare fourth-grade spiritual herbs into six Demon Devouring Cauldrons, six ice-blue flames rose beneath them.
The Divine Ice Flame emanated an icy chill, yet it heated the cauldrons.
As the temperature inside the Demon Devouring Cauldrons reached a certain level, the various clones sprang into action, beginning to refine the spiritual herbs within their respective alchemical furnaces.
After mastering the Heavenly Demon Soul-Splitting Divine Art, each clone could split its soul, with each soul fragment controlling only a few spiritual herbs, greatly enhancing the efficiency of refining. Unlike other alchemists, who laboriously added herbs one by one into their furnaces, this method saved both time and effort.
When Long Xuan refined pills, regardless of how many ingredients a recipe required, he simply dumped them all into the furnace at once. His approach was straightforward and brutal, making his alchemy speed incredibly fast.
If other alchemists saw him working like this, they would likely be dumbfounded.
Once the clones finished refining the herbs in their respective furnaces, they used their soul power to lift the lids and controlled the extracted essence of the herbs to fly out.
The essences from the five Devouring Demon Cauldrons flew together and landed precisely in the central furnace controlled by Long Xuan.
The five clones quickly stood up and gathered around the main furnace. Using their powerful soul power, they manipulated the herb essences inside for the final fusion and pill condensation.
Although Long Xuan's method greatly improved pill-refining efficiency, the sheer volume of herbs—ten thousand—made the process lengthy. Even with the help of five clones and countless soul fragments, the process took an entire day.
During this time, Long Xuan neither ate nor drank, fully focused on merging the herbs within the cauldron.
By the second evening, the herb essences in the Devouring Demon Cauldrons finally fused and began to solidify into pills.
At this point, three seven-colored pills had formed within the cauldron, floating at its center and radiating brilliant multicolored light.
Even though Long Xuan could not see the pills with his eyes, he could sense their intense brilliance through his soul power.
A faint smile crept across his lips.
However, at that very moment, a deafening sound erupted from the sky, freezing his smile. He hurriedly looked upward.
The sky was now filled with dense, menacing clouds that had appeared at some unknown point.
These clouds were unlike ordinary ones; thunder rumbled within, and lightning serpents danced across their surface. The lightning, strikingly red, enveloped the clouds in an aura of destruction.
These clouds were unmistakably Tribulation Clouds, utterly consuming the original clouds over Thunder Swamp.
Ordinary clouds stood no chance against Tribulation Swamp. In mere moments, the original dense clouds that had blocked the sunlight were devoured completely.
With the original clouds gone, sunlight finally pierced through, revealing a blood-red sky, as though even the sun had turned crimson.
The outside world resembled an apocalyptic scene, as if a catastrophic disaster was imminent.
The entire sky was brewing a dreadful power that seemed ready to descend at any moment.
Seeing this terrifying sight, Long Xuan's face turned pale.
At this critical moment, the three Heaven-defying Pills inside the furnace were not yet fully formed—how could he abandon them now?
It became clear to him that the Heavenly Tribulation didn't wait for the pills to be complete; it arrived as they neared perfection.
The purpose of the Heavenly Tribulation was to obliterate Heaven-defying creations. The Heavenly Dao did not permit such things to exist.
Most Heaven-defying pills were destroyed by Tribulation before their completion. Only by withstanding the Tribulation could one achieve success.
In other words, the Heavenly Tribulation was unavoidable unless he gave up on the Heaven-defying Pills entirely.
For him, this meant enduring the thunderbolts while remaining immobile.
"Dammit! This is a death sentence!"
Panicking, Long Xuan quickly pulled out the Heaven-Devouring World Toad from his insect bag and retrieved a Tribulation Gu from its mouth.
"You must protect me! My life depends on you now—don't you dare let me down!"
Long Xuan was extremely anxious. This was no ordinary lightning—it was 'Life-Destroying Thunder', ranked tenth on the Thunder Tribulation List.
Life-Destroying Thunder was capable of killing a Gu King with ease. How could someone like him, a mere Spiritual Sea-stage Gu cultivator, possibly survive it?
Thirty-six bolts of Life-Destroying Thunder would descend. Surviving even one would reduce him to ash, and not even the Water Bear Gu could save him.
Although the Tribulation Gu was said to devour lightning and had exceptional resistance to it, it was far too weak in its current state, not having undergone any transformations. It was merely a mortal Gu comparable to a Spirit Gathering-stage Gu cultivator.
Long Xuan had no confidence that it could withstand a lightning strike capable of killing a Gu King.
He resolved that if the Tribulation Gu showed signs of faltering, he would abandon both the Heaven-defying Pills and the Tribulation Gu to flee.
Better to live and fight another day than perish here for nothing.