Pathway

Chapter 47: Heavenly Tribulations [1]

The flowing sanctum was the official residential area of the sect. The flowing sanctum was divided into three parts. The first set of the flowing sanctum was the artificial range of hillocks for the disciples and sect stewards. The second range was a set of hills for the masters, assistants and savants. The third one was a group of mountains for the grand elder, the grand patriarch and the ancestral hegemon. These ranges were separated by large valleys.

The hillocks for the disciples contained a personal cultivation chambers for solitary seclusion without any form of disturbance. At the back of the hillocks were the acres of land for the disciples to farm and rear animals.

He sat cross-legged inside his cultivation chamber. The hillock had two small chambers. The first one was the small storage chamber and the second one was the smaller cultivation and sleeping chamber.

Farming! He would have his own farm to plant crops and rear animals in a new world.

Anyways, his ancestral family line was that of peasant farmers and he was born a peasant farmer. He would readily adjust to the new way of life at the sect.

Still, it felt really strange and weirdly funny.

He had entered this world by chance when senior Hypatios had sent him off, mistakenly? But two days later, he was having a small hill with a cultivation chamber and farm to himself in the space of two days.

Really strange.

Two days from his current time, he would have to go back to his home world because of his lectures that would happen in the Last-Sword sect. As a beginner, he only had the two houses' lectures twice a week. The lecture time would increase as he advanced in learning.

For the time being, he wouldn't worry about that. He had to decide the place for his tribulations which would come if he tried to absorb spiritual energy.

He decided to undergo his tribulations there and then. It would be better in this world than his home world. The elders and acolytes would know he had advanced the moment they saw him in his home world anyway.

He stood up, leaving the cultivation chamber, he exited to the outside where he used the Swift Spine technique to reach the cleared bamboo area. While there, he sat cross-legged, took out the Red Beryl Spirit fruit and took a bite.

They said it was a foundation establishment fruit, one of a kind. On this planet, it was all about fruits and plants. From the primordial times before the cultivators started concocting pills, natural existences in fruits, plants and trees were the sources of spiritual and medicinal vital forces.

The sensation of the Red Beryl fruit in his mouth was amazing. He looked at it the rest of the fruit and shook his head. How could a child like himself measured the extent of the wonder of the universe? He finished eating the rest of the fruit, closed his eyes and started circulating the energy of the fruit. He moved the energy from his dantian through his meridians and back to his dantian.

Within few minutes, the effect kicked in. His dantian started to absorb the spiritual energy in the fruit in waves, the massive giant liquid orb started to shrink in size due to its condensation. All these were happening in his dantian, but his mind was on a different issue.

He was thinking about the aftermath of the heavenly tribulations.

When the heavenly tribulations struck a cultivator with the corresponding numbers of lightning, the lightning wouldn't strike the body but the soul of the cultivator. The soul of the cultivator that wanted to achieve immortality since it was the soul that achieved immortality not the body.

Right from the Zhuji stage, the soul of a cultivator would be out of the limbo and into the dantian forming a orb of light. By the time the soul of the cultivator reached immortal ascension, it would have formed a true immortal nascent existence according to the nature of its cultivation, a soul that could manifest outside the body. The nascent soul was the true power of a cultivator, the body was just a living shell.

Ju Feng's mother, Zhang Xiu Ying, had a nascent soul of herself in white feather armour and flaming wings. That was the true existence of his mother. Her true immortal self. When she would reach godhood, her soul would be able to live on its own outside the body. As long as the soul was alive outside the body, the body would continue to live and function perfectly. This was a way the gods and celestials protected their true souls. They would be using their bodies in everyday activities but keeping their true soul secured in a safe place. Although, the body was not as powerful as the true soul in a long shot, most preferred it that way.

The body could never live without the soul but the soul could live without the body. An immortal only needed to nurture a new body for the existing soul, though it was difficult and time consuming.

That was the reason why the tribulations would attack the soul instead of the body of the cultivator.

During heavenly tribulations, if a cultivator was at the Zhuji, the lightning would strike the orb in the dantian. If the cultivator was at the Jindan stage, the lightning would strike the core in the dantian. For a nascent soul, it would strike the formed soul avatar in the dantian.

When a cultivator advanced to the Zhuji stage to become a premier but later failed the tribulations that came with the stage, the orb of light in the dantian which was the combination of the soul with the Chi energy, would start to dissipate. The cultivator would become a loose cultivator with a lifespan of ten million years before shaking hands with death followed by reincarnation. The same thing with the remaining four stages that attracted tribulations.

But immediately after the completion of a heavenly tribulations, a nimbus will descend on the cultivator marking the full advancement onto the stage. This nimbus is the indication of a cultivator true advancement to the next stage. His powers with his aura would manifest fully as a premier cultivator, that was the thing with tribulations. Without undergoing the tribulations, without receiving the nimbus, a cultivator would never truly advance to the next stage. The cultivator could only see glimpses of the next stage powers if he didn't experience both the tribulations and the nimbus.