Chapter 175: Second Page of the Codex
Chapter 175: Second Page of the Codex
To stay or to leave was a critical decision!
But in the end, the final choice had to wait until after successfully passing the Heavenly Tribulation.
After leaving Lu Hangzhi with two options, Situ Chuyun shared some related information about the Heavenly Tribulation before pausing the transmission.
The accumulating vortex of dark clouds nearly covered the entire Two Realms Mountain range. The Heavenly Tribulation could strike at any moment.
By this time, Lu Hangzhi was fully prepared.
Some more time passed.
The long-brewing Heavenly Tribulation finally descended!
Without any warning, a golden lightning pillar suddenly fell from the depths of the clouds, swift and unstoppable.
Many were caught off guard.
They only saw a flash of golden light before the lightning struck the golden Spiritual Vortex Storm, which was over three hundred meters in diameter.
Boom!
With the help of the Codex of Time, Lu Hangzhi was the only one present who could track the golden lightning pillar’s path and react in time.
Hundreds of Sword Qi surrounding him surged forward, meeting the lightning pillar.
In an instant,
all the Sword Qi was touched by the lightning.
An astonishing force traveled along the Sword Qi and poured directly into the Spiritual Power Pool.
Bang!
Lu Hangzhi felt a thunderous roar in his mind. His Spiritual Power Pool trembled violently and was actually blasted with a massive depression.
Lu Hangzhi was completely stunned and bewildered:
What was this?
A hole in his head?
Before he could figure out what was happening, more and more lightning pillars rained down furiously. The hundreds of Sword Qi became the best conduits, guiding the lightning directly into the Spiritual Power Pool.
Inside the Spiritual Power Pool, a spectacular scene of countless lightning strikes unfolded!
The barren lands outside the Spiritual Power Pool were furrowed over and over again, one pit after another, densely packed and overlapping, turning into a surface resembling the moon.
Some of the larger craters bordering the Spiritual Power Pool caused the golden spiritual liquid to divert its flow.
Outside the Two Realms Mountain, Situ Chuyun was stunned.
This!
was a bit too exaggerated.
In her past experiences with the Heavenly Tribulation, whether her own or watching others undergo it, she had never seen such a spectacularly dense situation.
Most of the time, the lightning struck one bolt at a time.
There was never a scenario where hundreds of lightning pillars rushed in all at once.
“Could something go wrong?”
Situ Chuyun felt hesitant and worried for the first time.
Even the experienced Situ Chuyun showed concern, let alone the other cultivators at Two Realms Mountain.
Immortal Lord Yuding and the other cultivators watched as the area around Lu Hangzhi, spanning several miles, was engulfed by the power of the Law of Lightning. The scene looked like divine punishment, and they turned pale, holding their breath with deep anxiety.
“Is this the Heavenly Tribulation?”
“It’s too terrifying!”
“I wonder if Hangzhi can withstand it.”
“…There’s nothing we can do to help.”
The Heavenly Tribulation continued.
Lu Hangzhi eventually broke free from his initial shock and slowly regained his calm.
He finally realized:
The Heavenly Tribulation wasn’t helping him cleanse and refine his body at all, but was instead focused wholeheartedly on expanding the Spiritual Power Pool.
In just a short while, the Spiritual Power Pool had expanded by one-third.
As the golden spiritual liquid spread into the bumpy depressions, these barren areas became part of the Spiritual Power Pool.
Lightning pillars continued to furrow the land relentlessly, striking the barren areas around the Spiritual Power Pool from all directions!
As the spiritual liquid kept flowing outward, the golden Spiritual Vortex Storm rushed into his body, constantly replenishing the lowered liquid level.
The Spiritual Power Pool soon grew even more vast and immense!
“What’s going on?”
“There’s no body-cleansing and refining process.”
“And also…”
“The rate and efficiency of the Heavenly Tribulation expanding the Spiritual Power Pool are too strong! It’s only just begun, and the pool has already grown by a third.”
“Or could it be that the two Life Essence infusions from the Codex of Time had already pushed my body to its cleansing and refining limit? So part of the Heavenly Tribulation’s power is now redirected toward expanding the Spiritual Power Pool.”
It was all unclear.
Faced with these strange and unknown developments, Lu Hangzhi could only endure silently and wait to see how things unfolded.
Watching from afar, Situ Chuyun gradually calmed down.
She noticed that Lu Hangzhi’s aura was rising rapidly and steadily—a sign that typically only appeared at the very end, yet it was happening right from the start.
How chaotic!
Could it be…
that this was the unique aspect of how Lower Realm cultivators experienced the Heavenly Tribulation?
Still, it was a good thing overall.
Thinking this, Situ Chuyun settled down.
What she didn’t know was that, while all the cultivators at Two Realms Mountain were focused on Lu Hangzhi’s tribulation crossing, far away in another realm, inside a great hall, a group of people was bustling with activity.
At the head of the hall, a middle-aged cultivator holding a compass was flushed with excitement. Standing before the Ascension Guiding Platform, he kept muttering to himself excitedly:
“Add more! Keep adding more heavenly lightning!!”
“Haha… Excellent! I never expected this young man, at such a tender age, to be so compatible with the Law of Lightning.”
“This is the first time I’ve seen a Lower Realm cultivator, while still in the thirteenth grade of the Mortal Shedding Realm, push their cultivation to the mid-stage of the Life and Death Realm, and even master the Temporal Law.”
“Such talent must be recruited into our corps with full effort!”
“Although our Green Maple Continent doesn’t have the ability to initiate a true Heavenly Tribulation, the pseudo-Heavenly Tribulation array can help him gain more benefits during the tribulation.”
“This lad’s body has been tempered to its limit, his Spiritual Power Pool has reached mid Life and Death Realm scale, and with the tribulation’s enhancement and our assistance, he can break through to the late stage of the Life and Death Realm, or even reach Great Accomplishment in Life and Death Realm without any problem!”
“Once he masters both the Law of Lightning and the Temporal Law, charging into the Creation Realm will be just around the corner. I will have secured a true prodigy for the corps, and my contribution will be considerable! Hahaha…”
Most importantly, he would also earn the favor and gratitude of such a prodigy.
Why not do it?
“Continue!”
“Palace Chief, the grand formation has been fully activated.”
“So quickly?”
The Palace Chief flew to the formation with a compass in hand and saw that all the Supreme Grade Spirit Stones had turned to dust, and the formation had gradually stopped rotating.
“That kid actually absorbed all the power of the entire formation this fast?”
“It was originally enough for several people to undergo Tribulation Crossing.”
The middle-aged cultivator felt a pang of heartache.
He looked down at the Lower Realm.
Sure enough, he saw that the heavenly tribulation lightning was not as dense as before. Amid the booming thunder, it was faintly visible that the first stage of the heavenly lightning was gradually fading.
“How much has his power improved?”
The Palace Chief asked.
Someone nearby replied:
“I’m not sure, I can’t see through that kid’s cultivation level.”
“Useless, and you still dare call yourself half-step into the Creation Realm,” the Palace Chief scoffed with disdain.
“…”
“Forget it!”
“After absorbing the entire formation’s lightning power, comprehending and mastering the Law of Lightning shouldn’t be a problem. Everyone, get into position and prepare to activate the Ascension Platform, open the passage between the two realms, and guide this youngster into the Green Maple Continent!”
“Yes!”
A group of people acknowledged the order.
The cultivator previously referred to as half-step into the Creation Realm hesitated slightly upon hearing this, as if wanting to say something, but then showed a confused expression.
Just now, it seemed like he meant to remind everyone about something…
What was it?
…
Time in the Green Maple Continent flows at one-tenth the rate of the Barbarian Continent.
In the time it took them to speak, hundreds or even thousands of heavenly lightning strikes had already crashed down here!
Lu Hangzhi frowned deeply, continuously pouring Spirit Honey into his mouth, and with the help of Spiritual Insects, he worked hard to replenish the newly expanded surface of his Spiritual Power Pool.
The deficit was huge!
In less than ten minutes, the Spiritual Power Pool had been blasted by the frenzied heavenly lightning, creating two additional pools the size of the original one. As Magic Power poured in, his Divine Sense smoothly expanded to cover an area of over twenty miles.
Fortunately, he had already deployed and accumulated a golden Spiritual Vortex Storm with a diameter of more than three hundred meters…
However,
to refill these two additional Spiritual Power Pools, the Spiritual Vortex shrank by more than half in an instant.
But in exchange, his cultivation rapidly climbed and stabilized.
“With my current cultivation level, directly summoning the sixth Sword Formation shouldn’t be a problem.”
“I can also materialize spiritual objects using Sword Qi now.”
“…”
“If I were to self-destruct the second layer of The Path to Divinity now, my cultivation would probably directly advance to the Great Accomplishment in Life and Death Realm, or even the Great Consummation of Life and Death Realm, just one step away from the Creation Realm.”
Lu Hangzhi felt a surge of temptation.
But he quickly suppressed this crazy thought.
The second layer of The Path to Divinity greatly reduced the Magic Power consumption of spellcasting. Self-destructing The Path to Divinity didn’t seem worthwhile no matter how he looked at it.
Besides,
with the complementary effects of Breath Concealment Art and The Path to Divinity, his external cultivation level always remained below the Mystic Light of Life and Death, so continuing to keep a low profile seemed like a good idea too.
Why flaunt his strength?
And…
most importantly,
during the tribulation crossing, as his cultivation improved, the Canon of Time automatically turned to the second page, and two Art Techniques directly imprinted into his mind, allowing him to comprehend them successfully.
After studying and mastering them, Lu Hangzhi revealed ecstatic joy.
One of these techniques was actually…
Time Retrospection!
By consuming Magic Power, he could forcibly retroact the temporal imprints in the nearby space, allowing him to observe events that had occurred in a specific area at will—the duration of the retrospection was proportional to the Magic Power consumed.
An incredibly powerful ability!
Although it wasn’t an offensive technique, this ability could be considered heaven-defying.
The second technique was Temporal Imprint.
Using the power of the Temporal Law, he could temporarily refine a unique Temporal Imprint of his own; this imprint could be activated at any time.
Upon activation, his body would return to the time and space when the imprint was refined, and the Temporal Imprint would explode, affecting the flow of time within his Divine Sense Range, slowing it down for one second.
Time Retrospection was very simple to cast…
He just needed to mobilize the Temporal Law to flip through time.
However, as time went on, the consumption increased massively, growing exponentially.
As for Temporal Imprint, it was undoubtedly a powerful life-saving technique.
Refining a Temporal Imprint of himself in a safe environment was like saving a checkpoint in a game before a level, with the only difference being that it couldn’t override events that had already happened; it simply extracted him from danger and returned him to the place where the Temporal Imprint was refined.
However, this technique must never be known by enemies…
Otherwise,
if they arranged an ambush in advance at the location where he refined the Temporal Law, it would be like walking right into a trap.
More importantly,
Lu Hangzhi suddenly thought of his current situation…
If he refined a Temporal Imprint in the Barbarian Continent and activated it after going to the Green Maple Continent, would he directly gain the ability to cross realms?
Or would he be crushed by the planar forces between the interfaces?
Lu Hangzhi couldn’t help but let his thoughts run wild.