Chapter 0700: Insanity
Ning Cheng pushed open the golden door and once again saw a vast starry sky outside. However, at the centre of this starry sky, there was a pure white coloured stele, which Ning Cheng’s spiritual consciousness could not penetrate.
Was this still an illusion? Ning Cheng frowned and raised his hand to touch this pure white coloured stele. The stele felt cold and hard. This definitely is not an illusion, what’s going on?
Ning Cheng had just thought of it when everything around him suddenly disappeared.
Still in the Mysterious Yellow Bead? Ning Cheng’s spiritual consciousness immediately swept out and found himself inside the Mysterious Yellow Bead. The tower had disappeared, as did the starry sky around him… No, the starry sky remained; it had become the starry sky of the Mysterious Yellow Bead.
Ning Cheng felt shocked as he looked in all four directions in the Mysterious Yellow Bead, and found that his Mysterious Yellow Bead had changed entirely. Initially, it only contained the auras of origins, but now it gave out an aura similar to that of the starry sky outside. Moreover, his Mysterious Yellow Bead now not only contained the aura and the laws of the starry sky outside, but it also continued to improve upon it. Yes, that’s right, the Mysterious Yellow Bead’s laws continually improved on itself.
Ning Cheng, by this time, had fully sobered up. He recalled the reason he went into secluded cultivation in the Mysterious Yellow Bead. That is, to advance to the full circle of the Heaven Seated Realm, and then to go look for opportunities to break through the Heaven Seated Realm and step into the Life and Death Realm.
Initially, to break through the Heaven Seated Realm and advance to the Life and Death Realm, he would have needed to leave the Mysterious Yellow Bead and then go out to search for the Life and Death Conception Pill, before looking for a suitable opportunity to breakthrough. However, he unintentionally fell into an illusion and entered the 81st floor of a tower. No, this tower also had a golden gate that opened into a starry sky, apart from those 81 floors.
While passing through that tower, he improved his Returning-to-one Dao and gained an even more in-depth understanding of Sunset’s Twilight and the Maximal Flame Spirit Technique. At the same time, he also gained an understanding of a new spirit technique, None-to-depend-on.
Finally, after going through the 81 floors of the tower, he entered a new seemingly vast starry sky. But after touching a pure white stele, everything disappeared without a trace.
However, unknowingly, during all that, his Mysterious Yellow Aura started to change. To be exact, the laws within the Mysterious Yellow Bead began to improve by themselves. The Mysterious Yellow Bead now no longer contained just the aura of the origins he collected. Moreover, the worldly laws inside had even started to evolve on their own. Perhaps one day, his Mysterious Yellow Bead would transform into a real starry sky, just like the world outside.
That definitely was not an illusion. Ning Cheng looked down and saw a pure white stele in his hand. He took in a deep breath and mumbled to himself, “It was not an illusion.”
Although the tower had disappeared, the pure white stele sat over his palm. His spiritual consciousness still could not penetrate into the stele. However, he could feel the vast and boundless starry sky aura coming from it and contained within it, which indicated that this definitely was not an ordinary object. Moreover, he knew that this object didn’t actually belong to the Mysterious Yellow Bead, nor was it his own. This meant that whatever he experienced in that ‘illusion’ was real.
Just when he sobered up from that enlightenment, everything had disappeared again. Maybe one day, when his cultivation reached a sufficient level, he could recreate that initial scene once again. But today, only the stele in his hand and the spirit technique that he comprehended could prove that everything he experienced was real.
Putting away the stele, Ning Cheng found that he had used up almost half of the tens of millions of Permanent Essence Pills. Even the half Starry Sky Essence Qi Vein from Su Clan had also disappeared. Not only that, but even the Starry Sky Essence Qi Vein he had extracted from Interdependence Chamber of Commerce had shrunk to half its original size.
It still requires horrifying amounts of cultivation resources. Ning Cheng thought to himself as he gave out a sigh. Every time he wanted to advance, even for a small improvement, he would have to consume an increasingly terrifying amount of resources.
Fortunately, his cultivation had already reached the peak of full-circle Heaven Seated Realm, and just as he sensed in the tower, he had touched upon the Life and Death Realm.
Coming out of the Mysterious Yellow Bead, Ning Cheng immediately started arranging a Spiritual Gathering Array over the broken starland. Since he had already touched upon the Life and Death Realm, he now no longer needed the assistance of the Life and Death Conception Pill. He could immediately initiate the Life and Death Tribulation and attack the barrier to the Life and Death Realm.
……
Just when Ning Cheng began the process of breaking through to the Life and Death Realm, he finally gained a profound understanding of how one’s perception of Dao directly affected the barrier to a realm.
In the beginning, when he wanted to break into the Heaven Seated Realm, he had to strike at the barrier multiple times, and only with the additional help from the Celestial River Essence Qi King Pill was he barely able to crack it open.
But at this time, when he struck the barrier to the Life and Death Realm, the barrier felt like paper in general. His celestial essence easily shook the Life and Death Realm’s cultivation barrier. Although it still resulted in a violent shock that shook his meridians and even his Zifu, the blow would have been much more forceful if he had to strike it repeatedly before the enlightenment. Perhaps, he would have already lost his life before hitting the barrier for the second time.
At the same time, just when Ning Cheng made the first strike, raging lightning arcs suddenly started to rain down without any warning.
As those seemingly endless lightning arcs descended, Ning Cheng couldn’t even count the number of lightning arcs in the first wave of the tribulation.
“Boom…. Kacha…..”
It was just the first wave, yet the broken starland under Ning Cheng’s feet started to break apart. Only one piece, around ten miles in diameter, of the original broken star remained under Ning Cheng’s feet. This wave had even destroyed the robes covering Ning Cheng’s body, turning it into ashes.
Not waiting for Ning Cheng to prepare any defensive measures, powerful thunder tribulation arcs started to rain down. These arcs looked like a real thunder waterfall, interspersed with sizable thunder spheres.
“Poof…..” Under that powerful second wave, Ning Cheng shot out an arrow of blood for the first time. At the same time, his bones started to break, inch by inch.
Even if Ning Cheng operated the Mysterious Yellow Formless and the body refining cultivation method to its peak, and was even a body-forging expert with a Celestial River Body, he still could not block this terrifying thunder tribulation.
A shadow of doubt started to rise in his heart. From the time he took ownership of the Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort, he could refine the Thunder Source and even use it for body forging. As such, he had never considered thunder tribulations seriously.
In fact, it also helped him gain confidence in not fearing thunder tribulations. No matter how ‘terrifying’ thunder tribulations might be for others, it would not injure him severely. In fact, thunder tribulations actually helped him advance to the higher level even faster, and improve upon his body forging attainments.
But today, he couldn’t block this thunder tribulation. The first wave of this thunder tribulation had also already severely injured him.
“Boom-Boom-Boom……” Those endless lightning arcs seemed to have heard his thoughts, causing the next wave to grow even more violent.
Ning Cheng struggled to get up; raising his hand, he finally managed to bring out the Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort, which gave him the chance to swallow a few medicinal pills for healing.
Since the time he started forging his body, he did not actively have to rely on using the Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort during a thunder tribulation. But today, he had no choice but to bring it out for protection.
“Kacha… Ka-Ka….”
The next wave of this thunder tribulation contained even more violence. Although Ning Cheng could now condense around half of the Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort, under this thunder waterfall, it still exploded after a short moment of respite. Under the thunder tribulation, the Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort looked like a broken ruin, with more than half of it in shambles. The projection had still not yet managed to reform when the thunder waterfall directly blew it into nothingness.
“Boom-Boom-Boom…..” As the rest of the thunder waterfalls smashed the Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort to nothingness, it once again splashed down onto Ning Cheng.
Ning Cheng’s bones continued to break apart, and his skin once again turned bloody. If not for the fact that Ning Cheng controlled a weapon like the Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort, this wave of thunder tribulation would have smashed him into a meat patty.
But this time, with the help from the Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort, although Ning Cheng’s bones continued to shatter, he managed to preserve his life. Ning Cheng only had one thought right now, and that was to absorb the thunder source contained within this thunder tribulation and use it to repair his muscles and bones and temper his corporeal body.
As the next wave of this thunder tribulation descended, he once again used the Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort to block it for as long as it could and then absorb the thunder source from the aftershock to continue quenching his corporeal body.
Under such a violent thunder tribulation where he could fall at any time, Ning Cheng forgot that he still hadn’t breached the cultivation barrier to the Life and Death Realm. Instead, he focussed all his energies into tempering his corporeal body. From a different perspective, even if Ning Cheng wanted to break down the cultivation barrier to the Life and Death Realm completely, he could only protect himself right now and had no spare power to breach the barrier to the Life and Death Realm.
This thunder tribulation felt as if it would go on endlessly. However, as it continued, although Ning Cheng’s cultivation didn’t improve, his corporeal body kept growing stronger and stronger, and his Celestial River Body gradually reached the full circle.
This was probably the longest time Ning Cheng had taken to surmount a tribulation. He could not remember the number of days he defended against it, he even forgot about the first wave of this thunder tribulation. He only remembered that he had to re-materialise the projection of the Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort continually to block the descending thunder tribulation temporarily and then use the aftermath to strengthen his corporeal body using his body forging cultivation method.
“Boom……” Another wave of thunder waterfall descended, Ning Cheng’s celestial essence finally couldn’t keep up, and his Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort’s projections started to grow weaker. Eventually, it once again turned into a shadow that directly blew apart under this wave of thunder waterfall, causing almost all of lightning and thunder contained in it to strike Ning Cheng’s body at full force.
“Kaka. Puff….”
At this moment, Ning Cheng’s skin looked hideous. Almost all of his bones had broken. Even with strong resilience and willpower, his body’s healing capabilities couldn’t keep up.
However, just when those raging lightning arcs and thunder waterfall struck Ning Cheng and shattered every bone in his body, Ning Cheng’s body forging finally paid off and his body broke through the shackles of the Celestial River Body.
Ning Cheng’s broken bones almost immediately started to recombine the moment his corporeal body evolved into a Starry Sky Body. It felt like a spring breeze blowing over a burnt field, allowing fresh grass to emerge from the soil.
“Kaka……” Once again, Ning Cheng’s body resonated with sounds; however, this time, it was no longer the sound of breaking bones. It was the sound of his skeleton reorganising and restructuring.
In just a few breaths, the bones in Ning Cheng’s body finished restructuring. At the same time, his flesh and skin also started to recover rapidly.
“Boom-Boom-Boom…..” Another wave of thunder waterfalls descended, the lightning arcs and the thunder waterfall merged, creating interspersed yet massive thunder spheres.
Ning Cheng suddenly roared. The broken piece of starland under his feet crumbled instantly as he shot up into the sky. This thunder tribulation had almost killed him this time. Although the pressure from this powerful thunder tribulation had allowed his forged body to evolve into a Starry Sky Body, the advancement could not eliminate the inner suffocation and grievances he had to suffer because of it.
Only by rushing up to strike down the source of this thunder tribulation and fighting back hard could he feel some comfort and happiness. He didn’t even bother about stepping into the Life and Death Realm. He just wanted to pay back the suffering he had gone through under this thunder tribulation.
You hit me, bullied me, pushed me down; I will hit back, bully you, and even fight back. Don’t expect me to show kindness for evil; don’t expect me to put up with it.
One punch, two punches…
Ning Cheng didn’t know how many punches he fired. It wasn’t any spirit technique, nor did he use any weapons. Just two fists of flesh and blood. He wanted to use his flesh and blood fists to pulverise the thunder tribulation that wanted to erase him out of existence. As each punch shot out, each one struck back at a lightning arc.
“KaKaKaKaKa….”
“Bang-Bang-Bang-Bang….”
As the fists and the lightning arcs clashed, it only produced a dull sound, no flesh and blood went flying; rather, there was only a slight trace of blood over his fists. After Ning Cheng’s body evolved into a Starry Sky Body, this thunder tribulation could no longer crush him like before.
“Boom-Boom-Boom…..” This thunder tribulation seemed to have grown enraged by the arrogance shown by Ning Cheng and immediately gave out even more violent rumbles to produce stronger lightning arcs to strike back at Ning Cheng.
Ning Cheng’s eyes narrowed. He could clearly feel the laws in this thunder tribulation turning clear in his mind. This was his first time sensing the laws of heaven and earth from the thunder tribulation.
In the distance, a flying weapon stopped its advance a few thousand miles away due to the horrifying thunder tribulation in front of it. As its controller stared at Ning Cheng rushing into the thunder tribulation arcs and sensing the change in the rumbling of thunder tribulation, he couldn’t help but mutter to himself, “Insanity, all insanity….”