Heavenly laws had always been just. While regular people might live through their lives and never learn of their existence, they were punishing those who went against the Heaven’s will by trying to achieve immortality, also known as cultivators.
Somewhere in the middle of the ocean, south of the Black cliff archipelago one such person was currently sitting in a cave room covered in runes several yards below the water surface with a slight smile on his face. Omar was undergoing his first real tribulation, but judging from how it started he was certain it would be a success and it was only a matter of time for him to go through the next one – when he transcended the limits of a mortal man and became a true immortal.
Of course, for now it was too early to think about it and he was concentrating on guiding the currents of tribulation lightning through his body while nurturing and tempering the Qi core which after the current event would transform into a nascent soul.
He felt how angry Heavens were from the continuous lightning charges, but he had prepared well and the runic formations both in the cave room and those carved on the cliff walls outside were nicely controlling the intensity of lightning that flowed into his body.
Going in this tribulation Omar knew his earth element affinity was his weakness, but he was about to turn it into his strength. He knew the tribulation was going to be much harder compared to the other cultivators, thus he intended to use it to his advantage, temper himself and become as strong as possible for the early Nascent stage and, who knows, maybe even step into mid Nascent soul stage in one go.
Yes, Heaven were raging, but thanks to the runic formations the old Ming Wui shared with him, Omar could easily hold out for at least three hundred breaths – it was the double duration tribulations normally lasted.
The tribulation was already ongoing for a period of over fifty breaths, when Omar noticed something was out of norm. Of course, he had never had a tribulation before since only the cultivators stepping into the Nascent soul stage were considered as lawbreakers by Heavens, but the ever changing intensity of the lightning current began to worry him.
Ming Wui assured him that the runic formations would control the streams of lightning and keep the intensity even and regular throughout the process of the tribulation, even though the lightning strikes tend to become increasingly stronger at the end. But for some reason the power of lightning was becoming weaker and weaker!
Any regular cultivator would’ve cheered at such news since the weaker the tribulation, the easier it was to overcome. But because of the method and technique Omar chose according to Ming Wui’s advice, he had to have a difficult tribulation in order to succeed!
At first he thought it was only an illusion because of him ‘transcending the limits of a man’ and becoming stronger, but then he realized he lacked the necessary Qi that he was supposed to absorb during the tribulation in order to form the nascent soul.
“Arghhh!!!” Omar roared to the ceiling and concentrated on revolving his Qi core that because of his earth affinity shone within the consciousness in a beautiful golden color.
If Heavens were going against him, he would just achieve success by putting in more hard work! Indeed, this tribulation would be just like his whole life. Even though he was very talented, Omar had to work incredibly hard in order to come this far and he didn’t intend to give up.
Yes, a person could attempt to form a nascent soul even if they failed before – it was completely different from becoming an immortal when the cultivator could die in process, but Omar was set on becoming a Nascent soul stage cultivator today!
He had no clue that not very far away a ship kept going round and round the small rock in the middle of the ocean due to the vortex created by the tribulation. Aboard this ship an unconscious boy hung entangled in rigging and Heaven were doing their best to avoid the innocent child while killing the heretic hidden in the rock under water.
The furious Heavens were sending down the tribulation lightning in order to destroy the rock and the cultivator, while trying to avoid the child, but the laws of nature were still a part of the Heavenly laws and lighting still had to strike the highest point that from time to time turned out to be the main mast of the ship. As the result the lightning was sometimes weaker, sometimes stronger and sometimes it didn’t strike for several breaths of time, but then hit the rock violently multiple times in succession.
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Unfortunately all three – the boy, the cultivator and Heavens seemed to be on the loosing side today. If Lyam was here, he would’ve laughed at the divination of the ‘auspicious night of the full moon’ while Leo would nod at his father’s competence. Sadly the latter was currently barely alive.
As an earth element cultivator, Omar was strong and tenacious, but even he had his limits. He already lost the track of time how long he was battling the tribulation, but at this point he already guessed Ming Wui had cheated him and the formation he provided was meant to kill, not to form a nascent soul. All this time Omar thought he was the clever one, but it turned out Ming Wui had long planned to kill him and in a such vicious manner at that. Truth to be said, Omar did feel cheated, but sadly he could only blame himself for trusting an old fox.
Be as it may, no matter what Omar thought or whom he blamed, there was no stopping now. While because of the weak and irregular drawn out tribulation he at the current point had no chance of forming a nascent soul, at least not this time, he still had to continue to resist the lightning that continued to strike. He had long emptied his Qi reserves and barely kept his golden core from degrading, but there was no way to take a break and recover during a tribulation.
In the end Heavens won, albeit not thoroughly. When the tribulation finally stopped and the dark, purple clouds dispersed, the full moon was high up in the sky indicating half of the night had passed by. The cultivator in the cave room was still breathing, albeit barely.
Half a month later, when the ship from the Soul Crest sect arrived to pick him up, instead of a fellow Nascent soul stage expert, Ming Wui found a cripple that even a stray dog could kill. It might’ve been considered a fortunate result that by the end of the tribulation from the Qi deviation the formerly mighty and ambitious Omar had lost last bits of sanity and didn’t comprehend anything happening around him, and Ming Wui in respect for his former successor took a pity and sent him back in the cycle of reincarnation. Of course, Omar mumbling curses towards his mentor also might have played a role in making that decision.
The boy lying in the wet heap of cordage on the completely tattered, mastless ship was not in much better condition. His body continued to periodically spasm as if the lightning hadn’t stopped striking, but since he was not a cultivator, he had no risks of Qi deprivation and fortunately all the damage he suffered was purely physical and mostly superficial. He was covered in a thick layer of dried black substance and if not for the few signs of life one could take him for a round, black corpse.
Leo woke up only several days after Omar’s tribulation, every spot of his his body terribly aching. Although he didn’t notice it himself, his body was charred all over as if covered with a thin layer of coal.
Upon opening eyes, before the pain registered in his brain, Leo’s first thought was ‘finally this nightmare is over’, but then an involuntary scream came out. He had never been in so much pain in his life. He could not remain lying down nor could he stand up, to not speak about the impossible feat of crawling out the heap of ropes he was entangled in. He did try to free himself, but any tiniest movement made him cry out in pain.
At some point Leo even thought he was ready to die, although didn’t know what that meant, but judging from what the grownups used to say, it would release him from suffering. In the end, after half a day of struggle fueled by terrible thirst he got out and finally could witness the ugly state ‘Auguste’ was reduced to.
All three masts were broken, the deck was covered in a mix of seaweed and rigging, and, truth to be said, it was a wonder the ship was still afloat. Throwing a glance over board, to his great horror Leo noticed that the sea level was only a couple of yards below the main deck, but when after a dozen breaths he realized the ship was not sinking any deeper, he calmed down a little.
Calming down surfaced the previous problem – while just taking a step or lifting a hand caused pain, what Leo currently suffered more from was thirst. He didn’t know for how long he was unconscious, but it didn’t matter. All he wanted was to drink, a lot.
After some struggle to open the door leading to the galley, Leo entered the only place that during the trip was bringing him a real joy, but all he found was a complete mess.
On the tenth or eleventh day of voyage when the fresh water reserves were coming to an end, Lyam ordered the captain to gather rainwater so that Leo didn’t have to drink the diluted alcohol like the rest of the crew. Unfortunately now Leo found his ‘good water barrel’ broken and had to look for the ‘Firewater’ the crew used to drink.
When Leo first heard this term, he thought that everyone but him were taking some kind of cultivation supplements in order to boost their fire element affinity. Of course, his father assured it was not the case, but seeing how satisfied and happy the sailors were after drinking it Leo always itched to try it out. He also knew that it was too early for him to start to seriously cultivate, but since his father shared with him the ‘secret’ Focusing technique and he tried to practice it once already, he could be considered a cultivator, right? And it meant that as the Renaud family heir his obligation was to wield fire just like his father did.
With this excuse in mind Leo proceeded to the storage. Sadly it was much harder to get inside and as it turned out it was because the room was filled with knee deep sea water. Grimacing in pain caused by the salty water getting on his bruises, Leo found some tools and tried to open one of the barrels that had to contain the ‘Firewater’ sailors usually drank. Unfortunately because of his carelessness Leo broke its side and most of the content flowed out.
The next attempt went better, if one ignored the fact that he broke a couple of fingernails that added more suffering to the pain he already had. After getting the top of the barrel off and shoving the foam away, Leo began to greedily drink the liquid inside. It was slightly sweet and bitter at the same time, and maybe a bit spicy, but he didn’t care – the main thing was that it was not salty.
Leo drank and drank, then burped and drank again. When he finally had his full, he staggered back into the galley, tripped and passed out in a pile of garbage.