Chapter 129: The First Tribulation

Suddenly, Ruan Xing felt empty beneath her feet, as if she were suspended ten thousand feet in the air; her body swayed with the wind like a kite without a string, falling downward.

Before her eyes was a gray expanse of mist, thick in some places and thin in others, resembling clouds on an overcast day.

Ruan Xing was startled, hurriedly flicking her Sword beneath her feet and forming a seal with one hand, preparing to control the Sword to prevent her continued descent.

However, the Flying Sword did not respond to her control, instead falling straight down, and the Spiritual Power throughout her own body felt as if it were wearing an insulating layer on the surface of her skin, not a single thread of Spiritual Power able to permeate out.

Cursing inwardly, she wanted to open her Storage Bag to see if there was anything useful, but to her despair, the Storage Bag would not open either.

Fortunately, this was only a Simulation.

Sighing, Ruan Xing steadied her mindset and spread out her Divine Sense, wanting to take a closer look at where exactly that key had transported her.

Fortunately, although the air here isolated Spiritual Power, her Divine Sense could still be used.

This must be a Land of Forbidden Spirit.

She had seen information of uncertain veracity in some miscellaneous books about legends of the Cultivation world, stating that there existed some extremely bizarre places in this world where there were no living beings, no Spirit Qi, and everything here would be rapidly corroded by time.

No wonder Guangyou Xianjun said not to come unless one reached the Transformation Stage.

After the Nascent Soul Stage, one can reshape the physical body, greatly enhancing its strength to be comparable to a high-grade defensive Dharma Artifact; after the Transformation Stage, one can cultivate the Divine Soul, so even if one cannot use Spiritual Power, the power of the Divine Soul within the Soul Sea can still protect oneself.

She roughly estimated that at her current falling speed, the place she was in was likely ten or twenty thousand meters high, but she did not know if this was somewhere in the Xianyuan Continent or if she had passed through a space-time rift to another dimension; after all, she was only at Foundation Establishment Perfection and could not sense whether there was the aura of a space-time rift on the key or the Light Gate.

It was a pity that with her current physical strength, falling to the ground would absolutely turn her into a puddle, with no possibility of survival.

In a short span of time, ten thousand thoughts flashed through Ruan Xing's mind, her eyes wide open, not wanting to miss any information; a few seconds later, a ruin full of ashes appeared before her eyes, and then her body smashed into the fine dust like a water droplet, shattering into pieces.

Simulation ended.

Ruan Xing thought with some headache that it seemed this inheritance was not something she could covet; waiting until she reached the Transformation Stage to receive this inheritance was too far off in the future, not worth it.

She had better focus on the present and break through to the Golden Core as soon as possible.

Without wasting time, Ruan Xing continued to start the Simulation.

This time, after killing Qintai Mo and returning to the Qintai Family to see her grandmother, Ruan Xing did not bring up the request to look at the key, but instead changed it to having Qintai He guard the array for her Tribulation.

Qintai He had always been kept in the dark and did not know about Qinghong Zhenjun's precautions against Ruan Xing; although he found it strange that Ruan Xing could obtain a Golden Core Stage technique not long after entering the sect, Ruan Xing had helped him after all, and guarding the array for her was not a very difficult request, so he naturally nodded in agreement. Ruan Xing also had her own considerations for choosing to break through to the Golden Core at the Qintai Family; before entering Xizhou, Qinghong Zhenjun was highly likely to have been secretly watching them, so she dared not make any other moves along the way.

But after entering Xizhou, especially upon arriving at the Qintai Family, there were several people in the Nascent Soul Stage and Transformation Stage within the Qintai Family, and for Qinghong Zhenjun to rashly project his Divine Sense into someone else's home would be equivalent to a provocative act, so she believed it was safe to break through at the Qintai Family.

Her cultivation had long reached the point where she could break through, but she had been suppressing it because she could not undergo the Tribulation in the Central Province. Seeing Qintai He nod in agreement, she immediately found an open area and set up two Array Disks obtained from Xie Huai to prevent anyone from wandering in; it was just that she had no usable Dharma Artifacts—the Ten Thousand Soul Banner was a High-grade Magical Tool, but the thousands of fierce ghosts contained within it were Yin in nature and feared lightning tribulations the most, so it could not be used.

And the mid-grade Dharma Sword and mid-grade Sword Tassel were not defensive Dharma Artifacts and could not handle the Tribulation well, but she had succeeded in the Simulation, so there should be no problem this time.

Qintai He, however, noticed this problem and asked, "Have you not prepared Dharma robes or defensive Dharma Artifacts?"

"Um..." Ruan Xing said embarrassedly, "I didn't have time to prepare."

The main thing was that there was no time; she hadn't thought she would find an opportunity to leave the Xuanbing Sect so quickly, and after starting the Simulation, Qintai He had to rush to Nanzhou the next day. They had to hurry to Xizhou without a moment of delay, so Ruan Xing had no chance to prepare any Dharma Artifacts or Dharma robes for herself along the way.

The dark Tribulation clouds in the sky had already begun to gather gradually, heavy and oppressive as if weighing on one's heart. Qintai He frowned with a cold face, "You and I saw the terror of the Tribulation clouds with our own eyes yesterday, yet you still take it so lightly. Do you want to follow in Senior Sister Meng's footsteps?"

Thinking of Senior Sister Meng lying on the ground, on the verge of death like a piece of charcoal, Qintai He felt a stifling discomfort in his heart. He took a Dharma robe and a bronze mirror from his own storage ring and threw them to Ruan Xing, "Use mine first."

Qintai He never felt any difficulty when undergoing his own Tribulation; he had many Dharma Artifacts, and if one was destroyed, he would just take another. Moreover, the one guarding the array for him was his Master, so he felt very secure from beginning to end; even if he failed, his Master would never let him die.

"Then thank you, Shixiong." Ruan Xing did not decline the offer, took the items, and after studying them slightly, put on the Dharma robe. Qintai He's robe was extremely loose on her, but its defensive efficacy was not discounted. Although it somewhat affected her movement, she was defending against the Tribulation Lightning in place and didn't need to move, so it didn't count as much of an impact.

The bronze mirror was a palm-sized heart-protecting mirror, also a mid-grade defensive Dharma Artifact, which could be used temporarily after Ruan Xing simply refined it.

The dark clouds connected into one piece, the darkness growing thicker and thicker, with the sounds of thunder and lightning echoing incessantly within, seemingly baring its fangs and brandishing its claws at Ruan Xing on the ground to demonstrate its might.

Ruan Xing was fearless, sitting cross-legged on the spot, preparing to welcome the first threshold of her entry into the Golden Core.

Soon, the first bolt of Tribulation Lightning fell. Ruan Xing had the heart-protecting mirror and Dharma robe on her body, and with the Array Disk protecting her, she directly embedded the hilt of her Flying Sword into the ground to use as a lightning rod.

Perhaps because the material used to cast the Sword was not pure ore, or perhaps because the lightning of the Cultivation Tribulation did not follow science, the effect of the lightning rod was minimal, guiding away less than one-tenth, while the rest accurately struck Ruan Xing's body.

She channeled all her Spiritual Power to prop up a protective barrier on the Dharma robe, persisting for four or five seconds before the barrier shattered lightly like glass. The intense force pushed her back, making her head buzz for an instant, with the lingering echoes of the boom still ringing in her ears.

During the halftime break, Ruan Xing checked the items on her body. She wasn't significantly injured, but her limbs and spine still felt a tingling numbness from the electric shock. The Dharma robe and heart-protecting mirror, however, both had slight damage, and it was estimated that there would be large-scale damage after the Tribulation ended.

Thinking about it, Qintai He probably wouldn't want second-hand Dharma Artifacts that needed repair; he was even willing to share resources with her up to the Nascent Soul Stage, so she probably wouldn't need to return them.

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