Breaking through the houtian 12th extreme

After a few minutes of laughing like maniacs and scaring every living being across a mile radius, they both stop.

'hmphhhhh'

Kael's takes a deep breath, "let's hurry and breakthrough the 12th layer, how's your progress in the true heart sutra? I'm almost about to enter 'initial Mastery.'

"I am not far from it either, aiyaahh… opening all those meridians was painful, not to mention, grandpa used his own Qi to enlarge them even more, which only added to the pain, thanks to that though we have faster circulation and greater capacity for qi, which by extension makes us stronger than our peers who have also broken through the 11th forbidden layer prior and opened all 720 meridians, I look forward to seeing how much stronger we will be after going through the houtian tribulation."

"Yea, helping us enlarge our meridians seemed to have been hard on old man Dai, he puts a lot of effort into making us stronger, we mustn't disappoint him" Kael'n says.

A look of determination slowly appears in the faces of the young boys. Despite their cheekiness, they work much harder than kids their ages to become stronger. Although Old Dai has not given any reason for his severity, they often see him contemplate the past with painful expressions of regret.

"The Free immortal sect is accepting in a week, lets hurry up and break through before then" says Kael'n. 

That said, the teenagers sit cross legged and go into meditation, circulating their Qi through hundreds of meridians. By opening more meridians, one opens more pathways, through which the revolving Qi traverse, over time the martial artist with more pathways gains greater acceleration and accumulation, resulting in greater power.

Qi might depends on many things, namely, qi trait, Qi accumulation and Qi acceleration. One gains greater increase in qi power through qi trait, such as elemental inclination or a trait tilting towards damage induing such as sharpness, vibration or Qi overlap, often used by sound arts.

There's also Qi quality, however that increases ones foundation and directly increases cultivation speed To gain greater qi quality, however, you need a stronger cultivation technique.

The True heart scripture that Kael'n and Rai cultivate is an unknown level cultivation technique found by old Dai in an ancient Buddhist temple, it champions calmness and serenity, giving one absolute Qi control, making it much easier to reach the Extreme Layers of the houtian foundation realm, unreachable to most beginning martial artist.

Upon reaching initial mastery, one forms his 'true heart' in the dantian space. It is said that the true heart takes the form that is most close to the martial artist's will, it can be a shadow, a weapon, a spirit beast, a tool or even a plant.

Falling into deep concentration, the two boys circulate their Qi, rushing towards the 12th Extreme Layer.

Suddenly, the surrounding energy of heaven and earth quickly starts gathering towards the duo.

The sky, still bright and clear, quickly darkens as an array thunderous clouds begin to gather above the heavens, as if announcing the appearance of doomsday, loud explosions of thunder reverberate from the sky to the land, shaking the back mountain.

Weirdly enough, no one seems to notice the commotion, not even in the nearby free immortal sect. If one were to carefully look at the edge of the massive structure of the mountain, one would notice a thin layer of qi of mysterious purple color. No matter how tumultuous the sky became, it couldn't seem to go past this thin layer of qi shield.

As the commotion reached its breaking point, snake like blue lightning strands began to fall towards the duo sitting cross legged, shaking their contenance.

Bids of sweat began falling down their cheeks, their eyes still tightly closed. In order to successfully past the tribulation, they must use the tribulation qi gathered inside the lightning to further refine and enlarge their meridians, turning them into innate true meridians, making them even more sturdy and large, allowing for greater explosive strength.

As if enraged by it's failure to break the duo, the tribulation cloud begins to send many lightning bolts at once, quickly forming two balls of thunder with Kaeln and Rai inside, blasting their bodies thoroughly, forging them in the process.

Gritting their teeth to the point of leaking blood, they remain composed, and maintained their cultivation.

..

Higher up at the peak of the back mountain, old Dai is watching everything unfold. An appreciative smile on his face.

"You have much to accomplish, this is the first step towards becoming the powerhouses you're both destined and required to become in order to fulfill your parents' wishes. "He calmy mumbles,

With a flick of his finger, a purple ray of lightning shoots out to the sky and quickly expands, adding another layer to the qi barrier surrounding the entire mountain.

The now strengthened barrier takes a deeper purple glow, covering the sky above the mountain with a light amethyst glow, matched with the tribulation clouds, it forms an auspicious looking scene.

….

A few hours later, the clouds gradually started to disperse. Kaeln opens his eyes first, thus ending his cultivation session. His body still surrounded by dozens of lightning snakes, he lets out a shout, and with an explosion of qi, decimates the remaining bolts.

Rai's situation, however, seems different, a much larger number of blue lightning snakes are gathered around him gnawing at his body, in addition a much smaller amount of gold and purple lightning snakes surround him, their attitude docile in comparison, each time a blue lightning snake would bite towards Rai, the purple and gold snakes would swallow it clean, fighting each other for a piece of the pie. 

Seeing this scene, Kael exclaims in surprise, although the purple and gold lightning were protecting Rai, if the tribulation thunder snakes were to all rush into him, he would be seriously injured, but before Rai could do anything, Old Dai appears quietly besides him.

"Don't worry kiddo, his life is not in danger. sigh. I didn't think his mystic lightning bloodline would awaken this early, even his father, who was much better than me awoke it at the xiantian reconstruction stage, it must be because of his innate divine might"