The fight above continued for far longer than prior battles. The first took five minutes at most, the second about ten, and the third took around fifteen as Kenshiro's resources were dwindling.

Curious, Tyler turned to the Baron. "Say, Baron. You've gone through your own tribulation, right?"

The man seemed eager to converse with him, as every time he scanned his cultivation, he seemed more and more shocked. Right now, he was basically bubbly with excitement as he answered. "Yes, I did, Senior. Everyone who enters the Sea Formation does."

Tyler nodded. "Right. Are the Avatars always in the same order, or do they change with every cultivator?" Seeing the confusion on the man's face, Tyler added a bit of clarity. "Yes, I am in the Qi Transformation Realm. No, I never actually saw a tribulation, and yes, I can probably kill you all in a wave of my hands."

Looking the man in the eyes, Tyler decided to add a bit of flair and flexed his newly added Lightning Essence circulating in his heart as he stared at the baron, energy flashing around his iris. "Don't worry, I'm mostly harmless. Unless you touch a hair on my people. Those people include the nice little panther coming, so don't be shocked by it when you turn around and suddenly see something you probably can't detect unless staring at it."

The baron turned around and saw the approaching panther, once more clearly shocked by today's developments, before turning back to Tyler. "I understand, Senior. To answer your question, the order is always different, but the system's goals are very clearly defined. The Tribulations are designed to kill you. They are designed to force you to succumb to heaven's will or go beyond it."

"How exactly does the System do this?" Asked Tyler.

"Well, it's a bit complicated, but you already hinted at the core of it. They come in threes. First, your three organs that were tempered with the highest quality energies get tested, so you spend all of your time figuring out how to use True Essence on the easiest possible targets, being highly inefficient. Then comes your two weakest organs after you've exhausted yourself and your strongest internal law." Explained the baron.

Tyler pondered on the matter as the man spoke and interrupted him. "So, if I'm to understand this correctly, it's designed to make you fight with your weakest laws, at your weakest point, against equally powerful enemies throughout the whole ordeal. If you succeed, you'll only be stronger for it. If you fail, well, you had no more reason to exist for the System."

Nodding, Pratt added. "That is correct, Senior."

Tyler saw that Daredevil had told the foxes to stay in his cave. They were, after all, way too weak to endure Kenshiro’s fight energy fluctuations, and their home was pretty safe with the formation surrounding it. Turning his head to the panther who had come next to him and sat down, Tyler added. "Pay close attention, Daredevil. You're also very close to breaking through. Are you confident in beating that fire avatar up there?"

The panther looked up and narrowed its large blue eyes and, after a few seconds, turned to Tyler and nodded.

Curious, Tyler got up from his seating position and adopted a fighting stance. "Show me. Show me that power of yours, little beast! Show me the power you think is enough to destroy this avatar."

***

The little rabbit observed everything from the sides quietly. She saw the named spirit beast, Daredevil, create some distance before everything surrounding it had turned to mist.

She couldn't even tell up from down, left from right. All her senses were completely sealed. Yet, a single voice echoed through the mists from the man she had made a deal with, the Dao Protector of the cultivator who was currently ongoing tribulation.

"Your mists might be able to fool everyone else here, but they are useless against me, little guy. Even your father's couldn't block my senses. And, from my understanding of the avatars above, they will mostly be unaffected as well. They are formed from your own Dao and are linked to you. You won't be able to hide."

Seconds had gone by, and the mists had slowly dispersed. They were now confined around the panther, hiding it from sight. Then, the man spoke again. "Good! Condense the mist, and use it to your own advantage, not just to hide you! Show me that Mist Strike of yours." The human gestured forward with his lone finger.

The rabbit saw two large eyes pierce through the mist as the panther pounced. Daredevil was like a blur as he streaked forward. He moved so fast! Its claws shone the same color as its eyes, swiping towards its benefactor.

From what she could tell, the human extended a single finger forward to deflect the oncoming attack. Everything happened in a flash. It was so fast that even she, a majestic spirit beast in the third stage, felt the hairs on her body stand up. She wasn't confident she could have reacted in time to this attack had it come from within the sense-blocking mists.

The power of the attack itself seemed relatively weak, but the sheer speed alone was worthy of notice. The human seemed to also think so as he spoke up again. "Weak. Your speed is good, but the power is weak, and you couldn't even scratch the skin off those Avatars. Try again. Condense it more. Condense it to the point where it's nearly out of your control. Where it's close to collapsing back into water and air. Find that sweet spot."

The human retook his stance, and his aura flared to incredible heights that caused the air to slightly cool around her. This time, the human's finger shined with a deep orange hue, and now she understood why this human scared her so much. The sheer power contained at his fingertips made her soul tremble.

She observed the panther also focus on his benefactor's finger before it nodded. It was like the human and spirit beast were having two conversations simultaneously. One directed at the audience, one only the two of them could understand.

Then, the mists around the panther condensed. From covering all of its body, it barely covered its paws now, and struggle was apparent on its face as Daredevil worked hard to control the energies within.

"Good! Now, attack, and at the last moment before we clash, push in a huge portion of your Qi." The human said, swinging his finger through the air before a wave of sword Qi flew towards the ground, turning pinkish before cleaving the earth for dozens of meters before losing most of its power.

It was incredibly sharp and overwhelmingly potent.

The rabbit understood. The human was actively teaching the spirit beast. It provided some guidance, let it do its thing, and after pointing out the failures, he added more details, refining the panther's technique in real-time.

What followed left her bewildered. Daredevil completely vanished from her senses as it pounced. All the hairs on her body raised instinctively—she sensed danger. It was like observing lightning fall next to you and not hearing thunder.

She forcefully calmed herself the moment she saw the spirit beast reappear. It was so fast it seemed like Daredevil had teleported to the human's side, its claws enshrouded in a mist so dense with Qi it neared the power level of Essence.

The human merely waved his hands and elbows to redirect the attack toward the sword scar he had just left after his demonstration. The grounds shook, and the dissipating mist left everyone's clothes drenched. Everyone except the target of the attack.

She noticed that the human's defensive move almost perfectly mirrored the cultivator in the skies. A gracefully flowing wave had gently moved the slash out of the way.

This time, even if she had been fighting the cub out in the open, she wouldn't have been able to detect it in time to mount a counter-attack and would've been grievously injured.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Good. You were right. You do have enough power to kill Sea Formation beings. Although you'd need to ambush them, you can definitely do it. Well done."

Almost simultaneously, as the human finished speaking, the panther collapsed, exhausted. Far above the skies, the fight had just concluded as a wave of heat forced everyone's recently drenched clothes to dry up rapidly.

"Perfectly timed."

***

From afar, Tyler directly absorbed the quickly fading remnants of Fire Essence right after Kenshiro had been forced back down to the ground.

Running to the man's side, he wasted no time and pulled out four Spirit Crystals straight from his inner world. He didn't have that many left, but spending a few here wouldn't cause him any pain whatsoever. This was his master's son and his teacher's father.

Tossing them to Kenshiro, he said, "Don't worry about efficiency or the cost. Crush one thing and absorb as much as you can. Keep the rest for later. The next Avatar is less than thirty seconds away." Tyler said as he turned around. Kenshiro had used too much energy in this fight and hadn't recovered enough during the first wave's break.

After getting far enough to be confident the Essence unleashed wouldn't injure him, he sat down and beckoned Daredevil closer.

A giant wave of True Essence appeared in the world, causing all the cultivators of the Heaven Heartspear Sect to frown and the little rabbit's eyes to widen. The Baron couldn't contain himself as he spoke directly to him. "Senior, I'm not sure this is a proper use of Spirit Crystals.. the cost alone..."

Tyler cut the man off. "This isn't your concern. If you have a problem with how I spend my money, you're welcome to tell the man's father you let his son fail his tribulation because you were worried about how I, his father's disciple, wasted such a precious resource."

Seeing the man frown questioningly, Tyler simply added. "Hmm. Considering your power and sect mates', this Heaven Heartspear Sect of yours is most likely based in the capital and is amongst the strongest in York. If that is the case, ask your sect master directly who this man's father is. Name is Tanaka. Now, please, I have to focus for a bit, and so does this little guy."

It would seem the man was already aware of the name "Tanaka" as blood visibly drained from his face the second Tyler had mentioned it. Turning his attention to the exhausted panther, he produced a single Silver Condensate and gave it to the cub. "Here, slowly absorb this. Once you're done, I also have a gift for you."

Not even a minute had passed when Tyler felt the skies rip open again, and as expected, the Metal Avatar had appeared. Turning his attention to the rabbit, Tyler said. "Little Rabbit, feel free to absorb the remnants of True Essence over there and be ready to absorb the Essence once Kenshiro is done. Do not intervene in the battle."

The rabbit nodded to him and flew into the skies, tailing Kenshiro. It ignored the True Essence that was slowly dissipating. It was truly an odd sight. A flying rabbit. The spirit beast was tiny and incredibly cute. A smile tugged at Tyler's lips.

Xianxia world was indeed dreamy.

Unwilling to let the True Essence go to waste, Tyler extended his divine sense and forcefully transferred it into his inner world. He swiftly got to work as he retracted his sense from the outside world, trusting the nearby cultivators to behave.

He had discovered during his battle with the Sword Sect, and later confirmed it with the Deathroot, that with enough concentration, he could contain nearly all energies within his inner world, preventing them from spreading to his body, by maintaining them in the air within a kind of divine sense bubble.

However, he couldn't extend this bubble beyond a few hundred meters, preventing him from sealing his acupoints and completely concealing his cultivation. Because yes, this was something he had considered trying and beyond sealing a single acupoint, he couldn't do more. Tyler still had a lot of experimentation to accomplish with his inner world. Even after close to a year, he understood very little of it.

Tyler's soul avatar grabbed the Spirit Crystal he had been slowly using portions of every time he fought a strong enemy and flew into the skies. Currently, there were two bubbles up there.

One with the pure True Essence he had just absorbed, and his current plans were to use his divine powers to re-infuse some of this essence into this crystal. They had to be made somehow, right? Tyler doubted they were simply mined from some type of True Essence vein.

The other bubble, or rather, seal contained an ever-burning flame. The fire was small, but it was there. Kenshiro had absorbed much of the Essence, so he could only grab a tiny portion. There was also the fact that while Wood and Earth Essence seemed to be perfectly content to sit in his experimental garden, the fire wasn't as friendly.

First things first, Tyler entered the True Essence bubble, with his soul avatar remaining completely unaffected. Since he was maintaining two separate seals, Tyler had to manually attempt to manipulate the energies with his soul avatar. He couldn't exert his divine powers when his attention was split on more than two occasions like this. It was already a miracle that his soul avatar could act independently from these two divine sense seals.

Tyler assumed a stance that had become second nature to him: the Thundering Winds and Sword Clouds Method. As he moved, the bubble seal quivered subtly as a vortex of True Essence slowly formed around his Soul Avatar, and almost immediately, he sensed that a portion of the energy was being absorbed into his soul. Tyler's curiosity was piqued, and he cast aside his initial plan to channel this energy into the crystal, opting instead to let this mysterious process unfold naturally.

As time melded into a blur, Tyler witnessed a remarkable transformation within his Soul Avatar. A previously elusive and faint star began to shine with renewed vigor. This star, first perceived during a breakthrough on Sword King Mountain after drinking Master Tanaka's tea, was coming alive, its light a beacon in the celestial landscape of his inner world.

In that moment, Tyler's consciousness expanded beyond the familiar terrain of his inner world. He found himself adrift in the vastness of space. This was a realm he had only encountered when other divine senses grew near, a void where previously there had been nothing but the silence of space.

In the midst of this void, a solitary star, no bigger than a grain of salt, captured his attention. Its faint glow, reminiscent of the final flickers of a dying ember, held a mesmerizing beauty. This star, teetering on the edge of existence, echoed Tyler's journey so far. He couldn't really explain it, but the star felt like an extension of himself.

This sudden connection with the True Essence, his Soul Avatar, and this star revealed a new mystery for Tyler, a puzzle to solve.

Enveloped in the subtle illumination of this distant star, Tyler was contemplating its meaning. But before he could even formulate a hypothesis, the vision was gone. The light faded, and his awareness returned to his inner world's confines.

Tyler was momentarily disoriented, still immersed in the afterglow of the star's presence. It took him a few moments to realize the significant transformation within him. The vortex of True Essence that had surrounded him was gone, wholly absorbed during his brief communion with the star.

Tyler had absorbed everything in what had seemed like mere seconds in his heightened state of awareness. It had been about a quarter of a Spirit Crystal's True Essence. This realization was startling. The energy consumption was massive for a vision lasting a handful of seconds.

Looking at the Spirit Crystal in his hands, Tyler stopped himself from absorbing all of it in the same way. He still wasn't sure why his Soul Avatar had even absorbed the energy to begin with. It's not like he hadn't used it to go through the movements of the cultivation technique every time he fought. The only difference was the complete lack of divine sense while doing so.

Shaking his head, Tyler decided to dive into this later and swiftly undid the bubble seal. When he did so, he felt an urgent tug on his link with Daredevil and hurriedly extended his senses back to the outside world.

What he saw almost broke his mind.

Daredevil, who had been cultivating next to him, was hundreds of meters away. He had blood pouring out of all his orifices. Thunder echoed in Tyler's inner world, ready to go on a rampage at the Heaven Heartspear Sect's cultivators. His eyes snapped open, lightning coursing through them as he circulated his entire cultivation base.

Before he could attack, however, he saw something unexpected that caused him to freeze.

All four cultivators formed a circle around Daredevil, with multiple shattered treasures lying around them.

All of them were also heavily injured.

Tyler also felt a divine sense permeating every part of the forest—one he knew he had no chance to repel. Turning his attention to it, Tyler instantly recognized it.

It was Maximus Freeman.

What seemed like a singular blade of grass spoke to him with a surprised tone. "Oh? You can detect my divine sense now."

"What happened here?" Asked Tyler, physically shaking from seeing the injured cub.

"This? This was your doing. What did you think would happen, diving into your Soul like that in front of mortals?"

Tyler was stunned. Diving into my soul? As he pondered the man’s words, everything that had happened filled his mind.

The Tribulation clouds above were gone, and Kenshiro was nowhere to be seen.