Tribulation

The tribulation had begun. Lightning flashed towards Miko, with such great speed and power, impossible for a simple, normal human being to dodge. However, by cultivating her sense, such as sight, hearing smell, and her reaction speed. Due to her experience, she had already developed a strong intuition, an important sixth sense all cultivators have. Just before the bolt of lightning hit her, she hopped backwards, which left a burnt mark on the ground where she previously was.

The sky cackled, as if it was only just the begining. Then, a space in the sky split open, revealing a bright orb that slowly decended to the bottom of the hill. Instinctively, Miko knew what to do. Without hesitation, she ran down the hill, dodging lightning bolts that targetted her every now and then. The forest was dense and filled with vegetation, making this a difficult task.

Miko dodged to the left, ducking under a branch to avoid being hit. She felt a thunder bolt approaching, and tried dodging to the right. Unfortunately, she was obstructed by a tree root on the forest floor. It was covered by several layers of leaves, and in the middle of the night with little moonlight, it was hard to even see it. Miko felt her toes lodge firmly into the root, before she leaned forward and landed on her knees. All of this happened in a split second. The thunder crackled once more, as if to mock her, before sending another wave of lightning towards her. Miko glanced up just in time to see the lightning flashing towards her. In one swift motion, Miko used all her strength to pull her foot out, uprooting that root in the process, and hurled herself forward. This caused the lightning to miss her vital magic core just by an inch, and hit her waist instead.

"Ahhh!" Miko screamed out in pain. It was excruciating, being fried by lightning. It left a dark scar on her waist, with black smoke sizzling out from it. However, this small setback musn't unfaze her. Compared to what she experienced in her other tribulations, this injury was far less severe. Picking herself up, Miko continued to head to the bottom of the hill. By the time she covered half the distance, her muscles were starting to ache, and her heavy panting was covered by the thunder. As she got closer to the bottom, she could feel the intensity of the tribulation increasing. Lightning was now hurdling towards her at a much quicker speed, and were more accurate than before. This left several marks on her shoulders and back. But despite the pain and agony she felt, there was no turning back now. She had to go through with it, or die.

Miko gritted her teeth, withstanding the burns on her body. There was a cut on her face, and several scrapes and bruises on her knees and arms from the falling and dodging on the uneven terrain. Still, she continued on, with Takei and her friends as her only motivation to get through with the tribulation. "They are still awaiting your return," she thought. Just like that, Miko continued on, using trees as leverage to hope off to gain momentum, while dodging the increasing intensity of the lightning bolts. This time, they were much stronger, able to leave third degree burns on her body. Their area of effect was also bigger with up to two meter radius, making them more difficult to dodge.

"It shouldnt be this hard for a first stage tribulation!" Miko thought as she tried to focus. Occasionally, she would be hit by stray bolts or narrowly dodge the bigger ones. She groaned in pain when she was hit by the bigger ones, where it it narrowly missed her. Just like that it went on this way throughout her descend. However, Miko was quickly losing stamina. Running down the hill, even with the help of gravity, took alot of energy as she was hit by lightining bolts and had to continuously dodge them. Often, she crashed into obstacles such as trees and branches. However, she pushed on, and eventually saw the orb glimmering in the distance. Gathering whatever prowess she had left, she flung a wisp of her power at it. She had not yet condensed a stable magic core to perform good magic techniques to do anything useful here, so she was hoping that the wisp would be enough to end this torture for her.

As the wisp was flying towards the orb, a bolt of lightning struck it down. Miko clicked her tongue in irritation, as she dodged an incoming lightning bolt by skillfully maneuvering her body to the left. She conjured up another wisp and flung it to the orb, only for it to get struck down again. She flung wisps of her innate magic at it, each time at different angles, hoping one of them would hit. Unfortunately, they were countered each time by a bolt of lightning hurling from the heavens. It soon became obvious to her that she had to touch the orb with her bare hands to end this trial. But how? The orb was heavily guarded with a strong energy force that hurled lightning at whatever approached it, whether it was matter or not. But wasn't this part of the trial? It would have been impossible for an average spirit or cultivator to get past it, but it was specifically tailored to cater to each individual. Apparently, it was not impossible for Miko.

Miko racked her brains, a difficult task to do while dodging life threatening thunder bolts. She had also used up almost all her magic trying to touch the orb indirectly. It was impossible, until an idea clicked in her head.

Testing a theory, Miko picked up a few tree branches from the ground while dodging the lightning bolts. She hurled two of the branches at the orb, but only one got struck down immediately. The other one only got struck after a second. With this, a plan fomulated in Miko's head. To confirm it, she threw another three branches at the glowing orb in quick succession. Just like the previous time, the lightning struck down the closest branch before targeting the rest of the branches in order from the closest distance between them and the orb. She had found the pattern. She swung the last branch in her hands at the orb, before shortly jumping after it.

Time seemed to pass in slow motion. Just like she predicted, thunder bolts targeted the branch first. Unfortunately, she had positioned her hand right on top of the branch, which caused it to hit her hand first. Miko let out a blood curdling scream, as the top layer of skin burnt away into ashes as it came into contact with the lightning. The remaining flesh was scarred black as sparks and smoke were emitted from her hand. But at least, the tips of her fingers were enough to touch the orb, before the second wave of lightning could strike her body, burning her to a crisp.

The lightning stopped, as the glowing orb ascended back into the sky, closing the tear in space as the ominous dark clouds dispersed and scattered from the skies, revealing the pale white moon above. The effects of the tribulation could not be seen, except for a few scarred tree branches and the burns on Miko herself. Pale, white wisps gathered towards Miko. This time, the energies did not appear threatening at all. They felt calm and soothing. Miko panted heavily, her body on the verge of collapse. She could not hold her own body weight anymore, before turning back into a full fox and succumbing to her fatigue. However, she tried to remain conscious and absorb the white wisps. This would help her condense a core, hence the name qi condensation. This was something each cultivator had to do. Without the help of the white wisps given as a reward for passing the tribulation, it would be near impossible for them to formulate a core on their own, leading for them to be stuck at such a low bottle neck for the rest of their lives.

Miko forced herself upright, absorbing the wisps to help stabalise her weak magic core that was condensed with weak energy from her ears, nose, eyes, lungs and heart. This would also condense it into a physical ball of energy, which could store her magic, so she could cast stronger spells with more magic infused. Miko groaned in pain at the formation, but she could not get distracted. A single mistep could cause her life or cultivation. However, the pain was excruciating. It felt like a new organ being formed while you are conscious, current organs making way for the physical core, nerves and blood vessels detaching and reattatching... However, all this pain was a good thing. It was a sign she was getting stronger. Strong enough to protect Takei, and her family...