I pulled the many pills I had in my possession and the herbs from the man in purple. My goal was to make a few more poison pills that will allow me to break past the limitation stopping me at the Nascent Soul and breach through to the Soul Formation Stage.
The resource part is easy, the problem is the Soul formation Stage itself.
It's not something that you become just because you have a sufficient Qi to break past the Nascent Soul, it's something completely different than that.
The stages of cultivation below the ascendant stage have a massive divider, and that is the Nascent Soul.
Anything below it is considered a cultivator that had just begun his journey, cultivating his body mind, and soul.
But once you hit the Soul Formation stage, a cultivator starts the journey to becoming an Immortal. Their understanding of the world takes a drastic change and they become more attuned to the world around them.
They also gain a new source of power, Soul Energy.
A cultivator would usually die if killed while at the Nascent Soul Stage.
However, it's a different story once the cultivator hits the Soul Formation stage. One becomes able to displace their own soul, so even if their whole body is eradicated, on the chance that their soul manages to escape, they can possess a new body, takeover, and recreate themselves anew.
The cost of allocating one's soul into a new body isn't easy, at least it would cost several cultivation stages, not to mention one needs to get a good compatible body to be able to harmonize with it, and be able to inhabit it.
Otherwise, many powerful cultivators, before their deaths could easily incarnate into another body.
Another thing, the possession isn't simple, there will always be rejection, and a lot of struggles over the body, making the person who is possessing a body suffer and easy to discover.
However, it is still better than death, so many cultivators would rather be able to get a chance at survival than die outright.
Another great aspect of the Soul Formation level is the Divine Sense upgrade.
My divine sense is already incredibly huge for my cultivation level, for some reason or another, but once I'll hit the Soul Formation Stage it should be even bigger, not to mention I'll be able to add 'Pressure' to my Divine Sense.
The same way that Brother Zhang Tian had done when in the celestial realm. He passively used his own divine sense and it flew all over the world flooding it with an unbearable pressure that felt as if thousand tons of weight were pressing on my body. And that wasn't even an offensive Divine Pressure. Some Divine Senses could outright crush a person to death. Or dismay an entire army.
But to do so, one must cultivate the soul. Mine is thankfully sturdy and looking pretty powerful after having a feast of souls in the Ghostly Swamps area.
So, I should be more than capable of tackling the hurdle up next.
I went to the furnace area and began by making a shitload of pills, poison pills, and some Soul Invigorating pills.
Quality didn't matter, as I started pumping out as many of them as I could, I needed poison in loads and in mass.
It took me several days before I finally had a satisfying number of Pills that I could use for my breakthrough.
With that done, I began by preparing several talismans and treasures to fight back against the Heavenly Tribulation.
The last tribulation I faced was so close to destroying me, I'm not going to take any more chances this time.
I prepared a few Lightening Repelling Rods. And several talismans that can offset lightning damage, and then more defensive treasures to use.
Once I felt that my preparations were enough, I left the Lord of Lord's pagoda. I needed to prepare the area of the Heavenly Tribulation first before I start my breakthrough.
Wu Di and Xiao Lang's own tribulation had passed without issues as I realized their presence in Lucid Springs once I left the pagoda.
So, I chose a random mountain peak that didn't seem to have any population around it, I made sure to scan it several times lest I hurt someone accidentally.
Finding the mountain top empty of all human life forms made it easier to take on the Heavenly Tribulation. So, I went to the peak and began preparing for my Tribulation.
I began by placing the Lightning Repelling Rods on the ground around me, then added several talismans to the formation. Additionally, I added a few more treasures that will act as dampeners in case of lightning from the heavenly tribulation manages to pass through the inscriptions and the rods.
Finally, I brought X out, and armed him up to the teeth with weapons, and brought the Hoverboard next to me.
X would be useless against the lightning itself, but from what happened the last time, and those soldiers that appeared from the Gates of Heaven, I'm better off prepared than sorry.
Once I was satisfied with everything readied up, I sat down cross-legged and began eating.
I had a holding bag full of pills, and I was planning on consuming the pills forcefully breakthrough.
Usually, for any cultivator consuming this many pills will cause their cultivation to destabilize and shake from the Qi inside the pills, not to mention the unholy amount of impurities their bodies will gather.
For me, however, the more the better.
And I started chugging in pills by handfuls, crunching them, and swallowing the contents.
Poison changed to Poison Qi and began permeating through my body, then moved rapidly through my meridians and into my Dantian where my sea of consciousness began churning.
The world inside my sea of consciousness was greedily sucking in the Qi, and then it began funneling it towards the Nascent Soul sitting on the throne of the massive sea fortress I created.
The Nascent Soul within my sea of consciousness began absorbing the Qi greedily, asking for more and more as it spun it around itself.
I could already feel like I was a balloon being inflated, but I needed far more Qi than what I'm currently supplying the Nascent Soul.
So, I did what not any normal person should do, and kept shoving more pills down my throat. Feeling full was the least of my worries as I had to shove in more and more pills force-feeding myself poison to the point I was about to throw up but still swallowed back everything.
The Qi in my body began hitting the barrier of breaking through, and I felt it in my Nascent Soul as it began shuddering and finally opened its eyes.
The skin on the Nascent Soul began shaking and cracking, creating small Serpentinian scales that appeared and disappeared immediately afterward.
It was going through a transformation, it was trying to absorb the draconic traits of the souls I consumed.
If this transformation is successful, I'll have officially stepped into the Soul Formation stage.
However, something didn't feel right and I was feeling as if all the Qi I was harnessing was seeping out instead of accumulating and shooting me forward to the next cultivation stage.
I was going to fail…