Spiritual Cultivation was the process of absorbing spiritual qi in the world into one's body and refining the body using it. In order for a mortal to cultivate they must have a Spiritual Vein. Even cultivators of the martial way required a mortal to have a Spiritual Vein above the shattered grade.
All mortals possessed Spiritual Veins, the difference was simply the number of Spiritual Veins they had.
There were five main types of spiritual vein: Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, Earth. And each vein was further divided into six different grades of quality: shattered, fractured, flawless, perfect, heavenly, and dao.
A shattered Spiritual Vein was useless and the difference between having one and not having one was nil. And those who had pentad Spiritual Veins, having all five elements, were also incapable of cultivating.
Only those with quadruple or less Spiritual Vein were capable of cultivating. But the most supreme Spiritual Vein were single Spiritual Vein, also known as Heavenly Spiritual Veins.
Mutated Spiritual Veins were also included in this category and were far rarer than regular Heavenly Spiritual Veins, like Tianyi's Lightning Spiritual Vein or Mengfei's Yin Spiritual Vein.
But the most supreme Spiritual Vein was the Dao Spiritual Vein.
It is said that the Dao Spiritual Vein had never appeared since the primordial era where divinities roamed freely. It was supreme Spiritual Vein that was shrouded in myth and the only recorded Dao Spiritual Vein was the Dao Chaos Spiritual Vein.
The Dao Chaos Spiritual Vein at first glance resembled a pentad Spiritual Vein but in reality it was a single Spiritual Vein composed of all five elements at once. Not only was the Dao Spiritual Vein supreme, it was said to lead the user to the Grand Dao and immortality was all but guaranteed.
And now although he did not know of it, Tianyi had upgraded his mutated Heavenly Lightning Spiritual Vein into the Dao Tribulation Lightning Spiritual Vein.
But such a heaven defying Spiritual Vein would incur the envy and wrath of the heavens leading to a Heavenly Tribulation.
Tianyi who was attuned to all types of lightning naturally felt the Heavenly Tribulation descending, but he didn't show any panic and instead showed a fearless smile as he looked up.
The tribulation clouds continued to gather and amass power above the palace and the clouds continued to darken until pitch black with frequent flashes of lightning and the crackling of thunder.
Then the Heavenly Tribulation struck as a golden bolt of lightning pierced through the palace ceilings at Tianyi. The reason a Heavenly Tribulation was called a tribulation and not a calamity was because you could run and hide away from calamities but you could never avoid tribulation.
The lightning pierced through all the Nascent Soul level formation of the palace and directly struck Tianyi's body. But Tianyi didn't avoid it as he allowed the bolt of lightning to encase him.
Lightning tribulation may be a great threat to other people but to me who has the mutated Heavenly Tribulation Lightning Spiritual Vein, it is instead a big gift to me!
Tianyi used his previous experience and the toughness of his Bone Refining stage body to defend against the lightning while he absorbed it and converted it into spiritual qi.
Ever since he had returned to the Buzhou Immortal Sect and talked to his mother, his cultivate had stagnated at the early Spiritual Altar Foundation Establishment as he wanted to infused the power of tribulation into his altar and so he tried to discover a way to create tribulation essence.
It was only today that he had gained a sliver of enlightenment on the nature of tribulation essence and the majesty of the Heavenly Dao that allowed him to produce his own tribulation essence.
The second strike of tribulation lightning came down.
And then the third strike.
The fourth strike.
The fifth strike.
The sixth strike.
The seventh strike.
My Spiritual Altar is almost finished forming. I have to thank the Heavenly Tribulation for sending down these bolts to quicken my cultivation. Tianyi was naturally just thinking about this, if he were to really say that out loud who knows whether or not the Heavenly Tribulation will send out a bolt of lightning that he couldn't withstand and directly exterminate him.
The eighth strike.
Tianyi frowned as he took the eighth lightning strike. He could feel that it's power was nearing the limit of the Foundation Establishment realm. Although he could still defend against it and absorb it at the same time, if the next strike would be even stronger Tianyi wasn't confident he would be able to finish the Heavenly Tribulation uninjured.
After he finished dealing with the eighth bolt, Tianyi spread out his arms and formed his hand into claws and moved them in a coiling pattern. The Heavenly Tribulation didn't bring forth the ninth strike immediately after the eighth bolt which made Tianyi even more wary.
Calming his nerves down, Tianyi amassed spiritual qi into both his hands and began building up the power of his attack even more.
It took the time that for a pot of tea to boil before the ninth bolt descended. At the same time that the ninth lightning bolt descended Tianyi struck upwards. Two illusionary coiling dragons rose from his hands as the soar skyward against the descending bolt of the lightning.
The two illusionary dragons clashed against the tribulation lightning and they roared savagely as if they were alive and possessed the natural arrogance of the Dragon Clan but alas they were still illusions in the end and after clashing for a few moments they were destroyed and the bolt of lightning continued its descent.
Tianyi wasn't surprised as his attack was destroyed and instead raised one palm upwards while the other faced downward. His whole body instantly resembled a pillar that supported heaven and earth. An illusionary white pillar created by qi surrounded Tianyi at the center, giving off an aura of agelessness.
The lightning descended and struck Tianyi but he was inside a pillar made of spiritual qi and it protected him against the lightning but very soon the pillar began to have numerous cracks appear on it. Against the overbearing lightning it finally shattered and Tianyi's face began to pale.
But Tianyi wasn't done as he unsheathed his sword and used the Heartless Sword Arts and struck the tip of the thunder. It was all for this moment, he used his two illusionary dragon to slow down the lightning and used the spiritual pillar to temporarily stop the lightning to observe the lightning, finding its weak point for him to strike against.
And now that his sword tip struck the tip of the descending lightning it fractured into a thousand different bolts that spread out like an umbrella. But the heavenly lightning wasn't so easily defeated as the bolts then curved back to attack Tianyi from all sides.
But for Tianyi as long as the attack wasn't gathered at one point, it would be fine. Using a portion of his attention Tianyi deflected and delayed half of the bolts while he dealt with the other half. And after dealing with half he dealt with the rest.
By the time Tianyi was done, his face was deathly pale as he vomited a mouthful of blood. Your mother! That attack was at least at the mid Core Formation level! Tianyi cursed as he quickly swallowed a recovery pill and felt his meridians and damaged internal organs heal. His skin, muscles, tendons, and bones had been strengthened so they were much better than his internal organs.
"Damn, thankfully that was the last one. Otherwise my internal injuries would have taken me months to heal." Tianyi said. "Absorbing tribulation lightning is good and all, but I'm still a Foundation Establishment realm cultivator, absorbing the power of a Core Formation realm attack would just make me explode! My intuition is telling me that the Heavenly Tribulation will appear more frequently in the future and not just when I ascend realms."
On one hand it was the Heavenly Dao giving free energy to speed up Tianyi's cultivation, on the other hand there was a real risk of death and exploding from absorbing too much.
"Only when one reaches immortality would the Heavenly Tribulation stop, ascending into Immortality means severing one's connection to the world. Don't tell me I have to become an immortal for the Heavenly Tribulation to stop?"
Although Tianyi's words were full of helplessness, his eyes had a hint of excitement. Why? It was because the protagonist in all the stories were often too heaven defying and suppressed by the heavens and the world, yet they would overcome all those obstacles.
This pressure made Tianyi feel that he was a little like the protagonist of a cultivation novel.
The Xi Emperor wringed his hand in worry as he watched the Heavenly Tribulation descend. "Younger sister, nephew Tianyi is still at the early stage of the Spiritual Altar Foundation Establishment why would Heavenly Tribulation appear?"
Xi Mengfei who was next to the Xi Emperor had an expressionless face as she watched the heavenly tribulation and her eyes pierced through all obstacles watching Tianyi. She already had a guess, but the matter was a big matter with the fewer people knowing the better. "Yi'er is a genius among genius. The scriptures he cultivates in is heaven defying, it is no surprise that Heavenly Tribulation would come."
The Xi Emperor furrowed his brows. Although the sentence seemed reasonable, there was still something missing. Forget it, he thought, perhaps he was simply a frog in a well not knowing how wide heaven and earth was.
The biggest worry would be Xi Tianyi dying by Heavenly Tribulation causing a grudge to form in his younger sister's heart. It must be known that the greatest reason that the Xi Empire was able to become a cultivation empire was because of his sister, Xi Mengfei. Should he lose her support, who knows how many of the surrounding powers would want to bite a chunk of the Great Xi Dynasty.
Although he had stopped expanding and was consolidating power step by step in order to produce more cultivators for the Great Xi Empire, this was not something that could be done in a few years. Even after nine hundred years it was still not enough. Their power was already weaker than the amount of land and resources they should be able to protect, it was only thanks to his relationship with his sister that he was able to keep war from erupting.
The Xi Dynasty would even occasionally send gifts to the surrounding powers to maintain friendly relationships.
"Your majesty this"
The Xi Emperor sent a glance at his empress and his children that had come because of the sudden arrival of the Heavenly Tribulation
'Everything is under control, return to your dwellings.'
The Xi Emperor ordered using his spiritual sense to the people who had come to see what was happening as well as a few head eunuchs managing the affairs of the imperial palace.
Just like that Xi Mengfei and the Xi Emperor watched as bolts of lightning descended one by one from the black clouds.
The Xi Emperor glanced at his younger sister. Although she may not know and not many would be able to discern, but he had known this younger sister of his since she was young and some habits were hard to change.
When Xi Mengfei became nervous or full of worry, her face would be expressionless and her body would seize up like having been frozen by a block of ice. From this the Xi Emperor could tell that his younger sister wasn't as confident as she portrayed herself as.
When the black clouds dispersed, the Xi Emperor revealed a smile of relief as he looked at Xi Mengfei.
"Emperor-brother, Yi'er has passed his Heavenly Tribulation let us return and discuss the matter once more."
The Xi Emperor nodded as the two of them returned to his study room. It was only the two of them, not even his personal eunuch was there, much less the officials.
"The girl Yi'er was staring at, who is she?" Mengfei asked.
The Xi Emperor thought a bit and recalled how Tianyi was staring out with an unfocused gaze. "The area, nephew was looking at should be the seats of the Jiang family."
"As for the girl. Minister Jiang has three daughters. The eldest daughter, Jiang Qingwa, she's one of the rising cultivators of the Xi Dynasty." The Xi Emperor looked at his younger sister and seeing her shake her head, he continued.
"His second daughter is Jiang Chunye, said to be an idiot but about a month ago she suddenly showed great talent in martial arts and knowing many skills, changing her reputation. Much more she was able to cross stages and defeat her sister during the banquet." The Xi Emperor saw Mengfei tilt her head the slightest bit and knew that she couldn't recall Jiang Chunye. Perhaps she wasn't even paying attention during the whole banquet.
The Xi Emperor held in his sigh, the hope of someone catching her eye and being accepted as a disciple was crushed. "The third and youngest daughter of Minister Jiang. Speaking of which her name is quite a coincidence. Jiang Daoyi, the Yi character is the same as nephew Tianyi's. There has not been much information about her and she rarely goes out, like an invisible person. She does not seem to have cultivated at all in her life."
Xi Mengfei's eyes flashed. "That should be the girl, bring her to me."