~WEENG~

Shirong's body emanated powerful waves of spirit Qi that traveled far and wide. The elders and the audience who had retreaded about ten kilometers away were still able to sense it.

But that was not all, as a different kind of energy was now present along with Shirong's spirit Qi.

~spark~

Streaks of elasticity crackled along Shirong's body as the wind started spinning around it as well. In his Dantian the spirit Qi underwent another change.

Normally a cultivator's Dantian was filled with basic attribute less spirit Qi. If they were practitioners of techniques or Qi skills that used elemental spirit Qi, they had two ways of using it.

They could either convert the attribute less spirit into elemental spirit Qi as they used the technique or store a specific amount of it in this amount beforehand. Both of these methods had their advantages and disadvantages.

But the majority converted as they used their Qi skills and did not store it as not everyone had the talent to do so. Storing elemental spirit Qi was often difficult and if their Dantian was not durable enough, they may end up hurting themselves.

Another thing that played a major role was their compatibility with the element. The ones that had a good compatibility were able to store their elemental spirit Qi without much problem, but the ones that had it lower had problems.

In the case of Shirong, his Dantian was slowly converting the attribute less spirit Qi into two different types of elemental Spirit Qi: Lightning attribute spirit Qi and Wind tribute spirit Qi.

Soon, a pool of lightning attribute spirit Qi was formed under the Nascent Soul. It was in the form of a circle and outside of it, another ring was forming. This ring was the wind attribute spirit Qi.

Then finally the rest of the Dantian was covered with the attribute less spirit Qi. It was a rather strange combination which even Shirong did not know was possible. From what he knew about the Immortal Sky shaker art, the person who practiced it would only convert the spirit Qi during its use.

Storing it was not really necessary as the speed of refinement was fast. Not to mention the space in their Dantian would be taken up, but the elemental spirit Qi. Another problem with elemental spirit Qi was this.

It could not be used for everything and one still needed attribute less spirit Qi. If they had stores of elemental spirit Qi, it would end up reducing the space for normal spirit Qi, which could in turn reduce their overall capabilities.

Shirong would have actually tried to stop this change, but since his body was doing this naturally without any interference, he just decided to watch. He reckoned that this change could have been due to the unknown energy and the tribulation lightning it had consumed.

He didn't know to what extent this change would be affecting him, but he didn't worry much as if he really had a problem, he could just purge all of the stored spirit Qi and just refine more.

Once the process was fully complete though, Shirong felt much more powerful. He clenched his fists and lightning flowed around it.

"The Immortal Sky Shaker art's next stage… I already reached it…" Shirong muttered to himself.

The Immortal Sky Shaker art allowed the user to gain control over two of the heavenly elements; the wind and lightning. In the first stage, one was only able to control the wind attribute spirit Qi as it was relatively easier than lightning to handle.

In the second stage though, one was able to use lightning attribute spirit Qi as well. Usually the control would have been a bit unstable and the user would not have been able to freely control it as Shirong had just done.

'Did the unknown energy's consumption of the tribulation lightning cause this?' Shirong wondered again.

The unknown energy had tainted the rest of his spirit Qi, which had then caused the properties of his spirit Qi to change without him knowing. Only after he had fully broken through to the Nascent Soul realm did he discover this.

It was now that Shirong noticed the fine cracks in the Immortal Crystal Armament as well.

"So you took a brunt of the damage as well…" he muttered.

But then a hint of surprise appeared in his eyes as the cracks were disappearing at a visible rate.

"I'm not going to let you go without noticing my sacrifice… hehehe." Lin Wu chuckled to himself.

In reality, Lin Wu had already healed himself a while ago. He was intentionally showing Shirong cracks which were just created by himself using cellular manipulation in combination with Cellular crystallization.

He knew that if he let Shirong take him for granted, he may end up using him as a shield every time. He wanted to let Shirong know he had certain limits and not to overdraw on himself.

By now, Lin Wu had already grown much stronger than Shirong, but he was now looking at Shirong through a different lens. Before Shirong was a source of spirit Qi and resources for him, but now he was an important pawn that had a powerful background.

Lin Wu wanted to grow in power and for that, he would need an organization behind him, of course. And to run it he would need techniques and such, which he would be sourcing from Shirong's clan. Not to mention that they likely had a ton of information hidden away that Shirong didn't know.

Even if Shirong had access to all the records, it was quite unlikely that he would have read all of them. It was those missing pieces of information that Lin Wu desired and would need so that the system could further upgrade its data banks.

~whoosh~

The wind started blowing in one direction again, and all the dark clouds that were in the sky dissipated. The tribulation was officially over, and Shirong had succeeded.

The people in the distance watched in awe as Shirong floated in the air with the divine armor that glowed with an emerald green light and sparks of thunder.