This Young Master is not Cannon Fodder

“Huh? Don’t you need to prepare? It seems a bit hasty to me,” Tianyi said after processing what Daoyi said. “Besides, shouldn’t you wait for Mother to supervise your Heavenly Tribulation in case an accident happens?”

“I didn’t plan to either, but after seeing your clone advance, I feel as if my current state is the best to advance,” Daoyi said. Also, I feel that my prestige is on the line if I let a clone catch up to me.

Tianyi considered it for a moment. Aside from ample preparations, the next most crucial aspect in undergoing heavenly tribulations was the state of mind. He knew that Daoyi had already made ample preparation so she could advance at any time, just that her announcement was too sudden. Since she was confident, Tianyi nodded his head.

Daoyi gave a smile that was as beautiful as a blooming flower. “I also believe that you can disperse the heavenly tribulation if I was under any danger.”

Tianyi blinked before smiling in satisfaction. Although Tianyi technically got stronger after entering the Singularity Realm, the number of things he could accomplish dramatically decreased, making him feel useless. Daoyi’s sentence made him feel more confident again.

The group moved to another spot on Jade Peak that Daoyi had long prepared for her Nascent Soul Heavenly Tribulation. Tianyi was especially interested since this would be his first time witnessing a soul cultivator’s Nascent Soul Heavenly Tribulation.

In the distance, Tianyi watched as black clouds began to gather above Daoyi’s head, high in the sky. As if in response, he saw eight pillars rise from the ground and form a formation in the shape of a protective dome.

The first bolt of tribulation lightning descended and struck the dome, but it only scattered around the dome and entered the ground. Within the dome, Daoyi was sitting in a lotus position with her eyes closed as if she was unaware of such matters, even as the lightning continued to strike her defensive formation.

Not long after, the final bolt of the first set of nine tribulation lightning struck the dome. Under this lightning strike, the dome shuddered, but aside from that, the formation was not harmed in the slightest bit. Then the first bolt of the second set of lightning strikes began, and as the time it took for the lightning to descend increased, so did the power and color.

From afar, Tianyi could tell that Daoyi’s formation could still handle the lightning from the third set, but he wasn’t confident in it withstanding the power of a bolt from the fourth set of tribulation lightning. Still, Daoyi’s formation surprised Tianyi. He had never realized that Daoyi was so proficient in formations, but thinking about it, Tianyi realized that it was only natural. His mother, Xi Mengfei, was a master in formations, so it wasn’t weird that her disciple would be skilled in formations even if she didn’t have much talent in it.

Time slowly passed, and the third set of tribulation lightning began. Now, the formation-produced dome was shuddering with every bolt of lightning. Sometimes there would even be cracks in it, but it would soon heal. Under Tianyi’s keen eyes, he could tell that the formation was still going strong, puzzling him.

Soon, Tianyi discovered the reason. The formation was actually converting a portion of the tribulation lightning into energy for the formation! With this feature, the heavenly tribulation would have to either unleash consecutive strikes to prevent the formation from draining the tribulation lightning and repairing itself, or the heavenly tribulation would have to unleash a single bolt to destroy the formation instantly.

Tianyi’s eyes flashed with light and recalled a miscellaneous piece of memory. It was over ten years ago, his mother had summoned him and asked a strange question. The question was naturally how to convert tribulation lightning into energy.

Experts could convert lightning to energy and qi, but it was another story for tribulation lightning that carried tribulation essence. If Tianyi claimed to be number two in absorbing tribulation lightning, then no one would dare to claim number one. At least among the mortal cultivators.

As the third set of tribulation lightning ended, the fourth set began not long after. At this time, Daoyi opened her mouth, and a spiritual core, the color of milky silver, came out of her mouth. It was as if moonlight had condensed into a marble, ethereal and distant.

The moment Daoyi’s spiritual core left her body, Tianyi could see that her body became dull and lost all signs of vitality despite being alive. Her soul isn’t in her body anymore.

Before the Nascent Soul Realm, it was nigh impossible for a cultivator to bring their soul out of their body, but it seems that that wasn’t the case for soul cultivators. Although it shouldn’t be as powerful as a nascent soul, it seemed that soul cultivators at the Core Formation Realm could escape by abandoning their bodies.

Not that it would be common. Only the most talented cultivators would be able to claim to be soul cultivators at the Core Formation Realm. The corner of Tianyi’s lips curled upward in pride, but soon, it flipped upside down as worry filled Tianyi.

The reason was that the eighth bolt of the fourth set of tribulation lightning had directly destroyed the formation protecting Daoyi. A spiritual core was a cultivator’s greatest weakness. If the core shattered, then it would be near impossible for a cultivator to rise again like Daoyi’s mother.

Furthermore, Tianyi knew that Daoyi’s soul had attached itself to her spiritual core, making it even weaker to the tribulation of lightning. Normal lightning had a heavy yang attribute and was the weakness of souls, which were of the yin attribute. Not to mention tribulation lightning possessed more extraordinary powers of annihilation than regular lightning.

Tianyi’s worries were unnecessary as a sliver of silver was released from the spiritual core and blocked the tribulation lightning. The sliver of silver was actually one of the many ghosts that Daoyi had enslaved and kept in her spiritual core.

In her spiritual core, the presence of the ghosts increased Daoyi’s cultivation speed, but if she wanted to form her nascent soul, the presence of the foreign souls was a detriment and would pollute her nascent soul. So Daoyi was making use of them one final time.

As more time passed, Tianyi’s brows scrunched again in worry. Generally, the act of destroying a soul, even indirectly and a ghost’s soul, would incur karmic sin. However, his worries were needless. When Daoyi was capturing or refining ghosts, the ghosts had heavy karmic sin. Forget incurring karmic sin, Daoyi was actually gaining karmic merit with each soul destroyed. But because Tianyi could not sense karmic merit or sin, he couldn’t help but worry even more.

As more and more souls were used to block the tribulation lightning, Tianyi noticed that the color of Daoyi’s spiritual core was changing with each released soul. The milky murkiness was slowly receding into an argent color, giving the spiritual core an august feel to it.

Tianyi continued to watch as Daoyi continued her tribulation. As the ninth set of tribulation lightning began, Tianyi was both happy and worried. Happy that Daoyi incurred nine-nine sets of tribulation lightning, as that meant Daoyi’s chances of immortality were higher after passing but worried because it also meant Daoyi was in greater danger.

As Daoyi’s spiritual core was getting purer, a saintly halo appeared around it. Simultaneously, Tianyi could see the vague outline of a closed-eye Daoyi appearing, with the spiritual core in Daoyi’s dantian. This was Daoyi’s nascent soul forming.

Daoyi’s nascent soul was a copy of her physical self, only formed from a blue-ish white light and clad in a silver aura. Even her hair was white, giving her a distant and holy aura. Her nascent soul was tiny, barely a tenth of her body, but it exuded a horrifying aura that made Tianyi wary. This aura wasn’t the result of her strength but suppression of the soul.

“Oh no!” Tianyi exclaimed as he saw that Daoyi’s spiritual core was devoid of all milky murkiness as the final and eight-first bolt of lightning struck. Although Tianyi’s expression was bad and his hands had balled into a fist, ready to intercept at any time, he still didn’t take action as he did not sense any panic from Daoyi’s nascent soul.

Reality proved that Tianyi was worried for nothing as Daoyi’s nascent soul opened her eyes and raised both hands towards the sky with a roar. The roar was rather high-pitched and cute coming from the miniature Daoyi. At least that’s what Tianyi felt, but not so much for Ba Shifang and Su Bojing. Both of them held their ears in pain as they felt their souls shake under the delicate roar.

The lightning that was about to land on Daoyi’s nascent soul seemed to have struck an invisible barrier and was blocked, but it didn’t immediately disperse and continued hammering at the invisible wall, trying to fry Daoyi’s nascent soul. After a tense few moments, the tribulation lightning used up its remaining power and disappeared. Although Daoyi’s nascent soul had dimmed a bit, but that was nothing worth mentioning in comparison to being struck. With the failure of the final lightning strike, the tribulation cloud thundered one final time before dispersing.

Since Daoyi finished her Nascent Soul Heavenly Tribulation, the final and last step to complete her nascent soul could begin. However, Daoyi’s method was different from the regular method. The regular method was to absorb the five elemental essences with the body to nourish the nascent soul as Tianyi had, but Daoyi was directly absorbing the five elemental essences with her nascent soul.

Along with the five elemental essences, Tianyi could discern that Daoyi was absorbing a sixth essence. Yin essence?

The end result was that Daoyi’s nascent soul had fifty percent yin essence and the remaining five elemental essences comprising about ten percent each, forming a peculiar balance. With the essence absorption finished, Daoyi’s nascent soul and spiritual core returned to her body, and a rosy blush appeared on her pale cheeks.

Daoyi didn’t move and still sat in a lotus position. She had just entered the Nascent Soul Realm, so she had to consolidate her cultivation. Normally, she would have done it at Jade Peak Palace, but inspiration struck her, so she wanted to grasp onto it and not let it escape. Plus, with Tianyi present and being on Jade Peak, she was confident in her safety.

A week passed like this.

During the week, a storm had passed, resulting in Tianyi getting soaked due to not being prepared. If he could still use his qi, he could easily form a barrier, but now he couldn’t. Even Daoyi could easily erect a barrier while still cultivating. Tianyi looked at the sky and sighed. “You only know to appreciate what you have after you lost it.”

Tianyi pretended not to hear his clone’s snicker as Su Bojing formed a barrier against the rain around Tianyi while apologizing for not being prepared enough. This only made Tianyi feel worse.

While Tianyi was waiting, his mind began to wander towards Daoyi’s nascent soul. He had only heard of one-colored to five-colored nascent souls but never a six-colored nascent soul. Hmm, maybe I should devise a soul cultivation method using seven colors for all the elements and yin yang. It feels interesting. I wonder how a six or seven-colored nascent soul compares to a five-colored nascent soul.

After thinking a while, Tianyi gave up. Compared to spiritual and martial cultivation, his mastery of the soul was lacking. In addition, he needed to focus on his own cultivation and didn’t want to split his attention.

Finally, Daoyi was done consolidating her cultivation, and she opened her eyes. “Thank you, Tianyi.”

Tianyi blinked and looked at Daoyi. Although he knew that Daoyi was beautiful, he suddenly felt that Daoyi was extra beautiful right now. It wasn’t a glaring beauty but subdued like the moon, making him want to keep looking.

Hm? Is it just me, or is Daoyi taller? Tianyi glanced at Daoyi’s boot to see her platform-style shoes. Tianyi was really pleased that he was half a head taller than Daoyi with her shoes, but now, it seemed he couldn’t lower his guard. It has to be my imagination. Yep, has to be. Better advance to the Immortal Realm as soon as possible, just in case.

“You’re welcome.” Then Tianyi asked a question he had been wondering ever since Daoyi’s heavenly tribulation. “How did your soul manage to block the tribulation lightning?”

“It’s nothing much. I’ve had a lot of practice.” Daoyi said as she gave a meaningful smile at Tianyi.

Tianyi shrugged without much understanding, and the four of them returned to Jade Peak. Halfway, Tianyi blinked and glared at Daoyi. “Hey!”

Daoyi covered her mouth with her sleeve and giggled at Tianyi, making him even angrier.

After a while, the quartet reached Jade Peak Palace, and Tianyi looked at Daoyi. “I forgot to say this earlier, but congratulations on ascending the Nascent Soul Realm, Grandmaster Jiang.”

“Actually, I have a daoist title now, so it’s not Grandmaster Jiang.”