The Tribulation Surrogate Pill refinement was a success!

Thanks to the Sal Tree of Life and Death, Lu Yun had first simulated all of the medicinal properties required by the pill, then practiced inside hell for a full decade. After returning to the real world, a mere eleven days had been enough to successfully craft the pills on his first try.

Wreathed in a mysterious aura, the three golden pills came to a quiet stop in the sky. Ray upon golden ray blazed from them and rushed toward the horizon. Soon after, thick tribulation clouds swiftly clustered around them, racing in from every direction.

Rumble...

The princes, Qing Han, Diexi, and the small fox were idling their time away by fishing out the giant creatures in the sea, when...

“What’s that?” House Lin’s third young master, Lin Yan, peered up at the sky in bafflement. Dense, heavy tribulation clouds had appeared over the fair, clean-cut young man, stretching as far as the eye could see.

Divine Glory continued gliding above the ocean, crossing thousands of kilometers in a split second while tribulation clouds continuously collected over it and gave mad chase.

“Milord has successfully refined the pills!” Su Xiaoxiao’s eyes sparkled. Naturally aware of Lu Yun’s undertaking, she’d immediately realized he’d succeeded when the tribulation clouds appeared.

“I hear that senior brother Lu once refined a Heaven Descent Pill in Nephrite Major’s capital and summoned a lightning tribulation that involved four hundred eighty million lightning strikes…” Jing Dichen murmured, observing the tribulation clouds. “I wonder if he can refine the ‘Soul Restoring Pill’ as well.”

The Soul Restoring Pill was another immortal pill inherited from the ancients. It could bring the dead back to life, or so the legends went, if a strand of the deceased’s soul had been preserved before their death.

“He can,” Su Xiaoxiao assured with great confidence. “With the young master’s current level of expertise, the Soul Restoring Pill won’t be an issue.”

For someone who’d refined pills like the Heaven Descent Pill and Tribulation Surrogate Pill that’d resulted in cataclysmic lightning tribulations, a simple Soul Returning Pill would be child’s play. Not to mention, Su Xiaoxiao remembered the pill’s recipe.

But she herself wasn’t a pill master in the truest sense of the word. Though she could refine a few pills here and there, it wasn’t her domain of expertise. Her speciality lay in prescribing a variety of spirit herbs and immortal medicines to treat diseases, or kill with poison. In this world, medicine and pill dao were two different fields of study.

“Really?” Jing Dichen’s eyes lit up and her cheeks flushed in excitement. Likewise, the other profligates were also visibly thrilled. Clearly, her younger sister wasn’t entirely dead yet. A strand of her soul had been preserved, allowing for her revival with a Soul Restoring Pill.

“As long as you can gather the necessary ingredients, milord can immediately refine it for you.” Su Xiaoxiao thought it over for a moment. “In fact… we might not even need milord to do so himself. There’s another formidable pill master in Dusk Province who can do the task.”

Yuying!

When it came to pills, she was Lu Yun’s equal. Any pill her master could refine, she could as well. Their talents were equal in this area, her only disadvantage being that she couldn’t use the Sal Tree of Life and Death to simulate medicinal energy and practice in hell.

The six princes’ eyes shone like twelve small lanterns. Each of them were backed by formidable factions, so gathering the ingredients was as easy as requesting a cup of tea.

“I’ll make the arrangements immediately and have someone deliver the ingredients to Dusk Province!” the Deaf Prince preempted Jing Dichen, taking out a communication talisman as he spoke. The profligate alliance had long gotten into the habit of transmitting their voices to the Deaf Prince at the same time as they chatted amongst themselves.

Su Xiaoxiao nodded gently before apprising Yuying of the matter, using the connection between the Envoys of Samsara. It was but a small matter in her eyes, so she’d simply made the decision herself.

Moreover, the group’s goal was the skydragon tomb in the North Sea. Even if Lu Yun were to refine a Soul Returning Pill right this minute, he wouldn’t be able to immediately deliver it to the Unsullied Sea. Therefore, she might as well trouble Yuying instead.

“Heavens, this Lu Yun is insane, and his followers are also crazy. Refining the Soul Restoring Pill…” the small fox groaned weakly.

Qing Han stuck out her tongue as a sudden thought came to her unbidden. If I die one day… will I also be able to revive thanks to this pill, as long as a strand of my soul survives?

Boom!

A bolt of silver lightning smote from the sky, lashing ruthlessly at the three golden pills, and was immediately followed by a surge of giant waves in the surroundings. The surface of the entire sea was astir beneath the sublime power of the heavens.

“What’s going on here?!” On a small, emerald islet a few thousand kilometers away, a man’s eyes snapped open. Confusion flashed through a face with silver eyebrows as a trail of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth.

“A heavenly tribulation! Which bastard is it?! How dare they summon a tribulation within the jurisdiction of my Whale Island! Servants!!” Named Xue Daozi, this man was the overlord of this region, and his cultivation was at peak aether dao immortal realm.

When the Dao Flower had blossomed three months ago, he’d witnessed a hint of the grand dao’s cadence. In that flash of inspiration, he gained a vague conceptualization of the next realm—the arcane dao realm—and thereby entered a meditative state.

But now, the tribulation had startled him out of his meditation and destroyed this rare opportunity. His seclusion had been an entirely impromptu affair, so he hadn’t laid down any protective measures beforehand. As a result, the tribulation had easily shaken him out of the profound, mysterious state he’d found himself in.

How could he not be livid with rage?!

“Ruin my enlightenment, will you!? I will not suffer living under the same sky with whoever did this! Men! Find out who’s undergoing a tribulation in my territory!” he roared, beside himself with anger. Even so, he didn’t lose his clarity of mind, making sure to swallow a pill to cure the injuries caused by the shock.

“Your Grace, it’s too fast, I can’t tell!” Soon enough, a pageboy came in running, his face full of confusion.

“Say that again?” Xue Daozi blinked.

“It’s too fast, I can’t tell,” the boy mumbled.

“Your Grace, a great patch of tribulation clouds just skimmed past over the surface of the sea. It seemed to be chasing something, but whatever it is, it’s too fast for this humble one to discern.”

Xue Daozi stared into space, then narrowed his eyes. Can it be the old monster on Tigershark Island? Maybe he noticed my epiphany and interrupted me on purpose?

A series of emotions flashed across his face before his figure shifted and vanished in a blur.

……

Lu Yun slowly rose into the air. He lifted his head and gazed calmly upon the bolts of tribulation crashing down on the water’s surface. There were a full four hundred eighty million bolts of lightning in the cloud, and their momentum was at least twice as powerful as the tribulation that’d been brought by the Heaven Descent Pill.

Even so, he didn’t try to absorb the lightning with the Thunder Palmstrike.

The Tribulation Surrogate Pill’s function was to endure tribulations. Hence, such a pill needed to overcome a tribulation itself as well. If this calamity wasn’t neutralized, it would be passed onto whoever ingested it.

By then, even if one survived their tribulation thanks to the pill, they’d be met with a second death tribulation forty-nine days later. Therefore, after coming into existence, Tribulation Surrogate Pills had to be baptized by a lightning tribulation.