7 First Heavenly Tribulation!
Fierce Tiger Tribe, the Tribal Chief Hall
"WHAAAT!"
A large, muscular and overbearing figure shouted from a large seat upon a dais in the hall. This figure was the Tribal Chief of Fierce Tiger Tribe.
He was unfathomable in his true power, his overbearing attitude giving the impression of an unmatched tyrant.
In the Fierce Tiger Tribe, the Tribal Chief was generally the strongest person within the tribe. If someone thought they were stronger than the Tribal Chief, then they challenged him to the death. Usually, the challenger would spare the life of the Tribal Chief if they won, as a sign of respect.
The Tribal Chiefs, however, had no such desires to spare a future threat to their position.
The current Tribal Chief has been in his position for over a decade and killed almost two dozen challengers.
Not a single challenger has been spared if they had challenged this Tribal Chief. He is simply known as Chief.
Chief stood up from his seat and glared intently at the man who just reported the shocking news. The man was shaking at his knees and his robes became damp with various fluids within seconds of facing Chief's pressure.
Stuttering in fear, the man manages to barely repeat what he said.
"T-The newly nurtured genius of the Fan Clan, Fan Zhi, is a tri-attributed cultivator of metal, thunder and air. That's all I know. His parents are both dual-attributed cultivators of thunder with metal and air as their second attribute."
Chief calms himself down slightly, the initial surprise wearing off quite quickly.
Looking at the other four men on his left and right, Chief signals them to give him their opinion.
"Hmm, a tri-attribute cultivator of thunder-metal-air… Those three attributes all work well together, especially since the Fan Clan can emit their qi externally unlike us. That may be a danger, we should closely monitor this new genius and assassinate him if possible."
"I agree, but I think we should just go for an all-out assassination attempt during the tournament in a few months. The Fan Clan can't annihilate our tribe without suffering too many losses to survive; taking into account that Gale Hawk Village will choose to attack them because they will be weakened severely after such a war."
"Hey messenger, what are the names of the genius' parents?"
The third man asks the messenger, who was silently observing the group of five waiting for a command.
"They are… Fan Heng and Fan Hui I think…"
The man falls silent for a moment in thought.
"Yes, they are the ones. If my memory serves me right, then the genius is the son of the weak-bodied couple of the Fan Clan. So he should be the exact same, physically weaker than even an average cultivator of the same level. That is just in regards to physical strength and endurance, however, so he is almost certainly a speed-focused cultivator. Air is a strong mobility focused attribute with a good speed and metal is balanced; that should be the case I believe."
"Yes, that is true. Luckily we have a genius of our clan as well. What attributes does your son use Chief?"
The fourth man asks Chief.
"Hmm, my son? He is an Earth, Metal and Fire tri-attributed cultivator. So if he can get a hit on their genius, then that genius will die. He has no physical defensive attributes to prevent attacks from injuring him."
Chief replies, pleased with the outcome of the discussion.
The group of five continued to fine-tune their plans to extinguish a genius, deciding to contact the Gale Hawk Village for some verbal support during the tournament in case they need it to discourage the Fan Clan from attempting to annihilate them after their actions.
As this was happening, the messenger was secretly smirking to himself while he recorded the contents of the group's plans in his mind.
* * * * *
During the various preparations of the three powers, Fan Zhi remained blissfully ignorant.
His grandfather had notified him of a recruitment tournament for the major power above the Fan Clan and their neighbours when he first revealed his ability to cultivate.
He had since been training so he had the ability to impress the representatives of that power in the tournament with his combat power.
He trusted his grandfather to make sure he would be safe on the side of intrigue; all he needed to worry about was his personal strength being high enough to impress people and being able to survive the other competitors of the tournament if they used underhanded methods to attempt to kill him.
His grandfather had given him a large amount of intelligence on the strongest genius' of the other two powers and their attributes so that Fan Zhi was not left in the dark.
Furthermore, apparently, the major power in charge of the three powers was sending a higher levelled representative to spectate the tournament than usual.
They did a recruitment drive every year, but this year would have a high-elder observing the competition.
Fan Zhi knew that if he joined the major power, then he would be able to improve even faster using their resources.
Therefore, to be recruited by that major power, Fan Zhi would need to show an impressive performance in the tournament.
Due to the intelligence he received, Fan Zhi realised that there was an unnatural number of outstanding genius' present in this generation that were around his age in the other two local powers.
The Fierce Tiger Tribe and Gale Hawk Village each had a few incredible geniuses that were participating in the recruitment tournament.
Therefore, Fan Zhi trained like a madman.
He was cultivating from scratch, after all, he was almost two realms behind in cultivation that he needed to catch up on.
Despite the apparent ability for cultivators of the [Elemental Divinity Scripture] to be able to surpass their Realm in power, especially at the lower Realms; Fan Zhi didn't want to be too reliant on the words of the Scripture's creator.
It was also a fact that Fan Zhi would try to improve as best he can no matter what, so his training intensity would have not differed even if there was no need to participate in the tournament.
Fan Zhi spent around 8 hours a day training in alternation between physique cultivation and qi cultivation when physically tired.
Another 6 hours of his day went into quiet reading and cultivation of his soul; the remaining 10 hours being taken up by 8 hours sleep and the rest was reserved for things like dinner and conversation with various members of his family.
Like this, 2 months soon passed.
* * * * *
"haaaaah… huuuuuh"
Fan Zhi was slowly inhaling and exhaling on his bed.
Seated in a position best suited for meditation, Fan Zhi was absorbing ambient qi of the attributes suited to his cultivation art as he slowly cultivated his qi and soul.
His physique reached the peak of Marrow Cleansing, the 1st stage of the Base Realm a few days earlier and Fan Zhi was unable to advance to Bone Tempering without undergoing a Heavenly Tribulation.
Following the advice of the [Elemental Divinity Scripture], Fan Zhi was now bringing his qi and soul cultivation up to the same state to force all three Heavenly Tribulations to fuse together.
This would make advancing stages exponentially harder, but also be the only way to truly reach the limit of his current stage of cultivation in all aspects; if Fan Zhi's interpretation of the [Elemental Divinity Scripture]'s contents were correct.
The three Heavenly Tribulations, upon encountering each other all attempting to test the same person, would all merge together and become far stronger; targeting all three aspects of the cultivator at once.
All in all, this would make each aspect receive a harder tribulation, making the [Elemental Devouring Art] have more energy to devour.
Fan Zhi had been training for two months since he regained his ability to cultivate.
His physique cultivation progressed the fastest, the improvement of the physique was usually dependent on the purity of ambient qi absorbed and the intensity of training to determine the speed of cultivation.
Due to the incredible purity of the [Elemental Divinity Scripture] and maniacal training regime; Fan Zhi's physique improved at a heaven-defying rate, even faster than some genius' at the peak of the world who had the help of their clan's experts to send purer qi into their bodies.
The [Elemental Divinity Scripture] focused on purity and density in regards to its cultivator's qi which was why the time taken to hit the absolute peak of Marrow Cleansing took a meagre 2 months.
After all, there was a limit to what hard work could do when it comes to determining the speed a cultivator can cultivate.
*Thrum* *Thrum*
Fan Zhi felt his body start to vibrate almost imperceptibly.
The sign of reaching the absolute limit in the Earth Preparation Realm of qi cultivation.
Mere moments afterwards, Fan Zhi felt his soul follow the same pattern to indicate its reaching of the absolute limit of the Embryonic Strengthening Realm of soul cultivation.
Feeling excitement and apprehension, Fan Zhi starts up the [Perpetual Elementalist Art] alongside the [Elemental Ascension Art] and [Elemental Awakening Art] to trigger all three Heavenly Tribulations at the same time.
Diving his senses into his body, Fan Zhi can see a mystical energy within his physical body and two clumps of intangible energy in specific areas of his body.
All three clumps of energy have a celestial aura.
'So this is a Heavenly Tribulation' Fan Zhi thought while readying himself to suffer pain and circulate the [Elemental Devouring Art] when he needs to.
The Heavenly Tribulations' auras spread out, searching for the presence of other tribulations. Upon detecting each other, the three clumps of energy race towards the centre of Fan Zhi's body, fusing and creating a larger and even denser clump of energy than Fan Zhi thought.
Heart palpitating in uncontrollable fear, Fan Zhi realises that he gravely underestimated the power that the merging of Heavenly Tribulations would produce.
Little did he know, even the creator of the technique's inheritor had only fused the tribulations after reaching the Generation Domain, the Domain after the Foundation Domain.
Thus, for the first time in history, a cultivator of the legendary [Elemental Divinity Scripture] attempted to cultivate it in its strongest state; fusing the three tribulations of physique, qi and soul even for the first stage of cultivation.
Fan Zhi, not knowing the background and cultivation history of the [Elemental Divinity Scripture], was preparing himself to face something that was his near-certain doom.
Waiting patiently, yet fearfully, Fan Zhi meditates in an attempt to calm his mind.
Even if he was about to face his doom, Fan Zhi knew that the Heavens always gave a way to survive in their tribulations; no Heavenly Tribulation, even if fused, would make the cultivator have a certain death.
Running all the information he has available to him, Fan Zhi attempted to find some way to reduce the strength of the fused Heavenly Tribulation; knowing its current power was far too strong to survive, even if it would split into three strands.
As the tribulation was splitting to begin its trial, Fan Zhi desperately operated the [Elemental Devouring Technique] before the tribulation began in a dire attempt to save his life.
*BOOM*
Fan Zhi felt an indescribable pain within his head, nearly blacking out from the feedback of using the [Elemental Devouring Tehcnique] too soon.
The [Elemental Devouring Technique] was designed to freeze a tribulation before every attack and siphon as much energy as the cultivator could withstand; this was only meant to be done after the first attack due to the Heavenly Will that watched over the Heavenly Tribulation until the first attack struck the cultivator.
This meant that the [Elemental Devouring Technique] could only siphon around half of the energy of a tribulation if the cultivator could use it to the peak of what the creator intended for it to be used.
Fan Zhi however, used it before the tribulation even begun; forcing him to resist the powerful Heavenly Will that protected the tribulation.
Resisting the pain the assault of the Heavenly Will was causing with all he had, Fan Zhi continued to operate the [Elemental Devouring Art] so he could absorb the energy of the fused Heavenly Tribulation.
As he was resisting the feedback, Fan Zhi noticed that the tribulation had frozen, as if it was in stasis. Realizing what this could mean, Fan Zhi grit his teeth even harder while accelerating his circulation of the [Elemental Devouring Art].
The tribulation slowly shrunk in Fan Zhi's internal view, eventually disappearing after what seemed like hours to him.
As the tribulation disappeared, Fan Zhi's vision turned to black.
