Krssh!

Grey tribulation lightning danced around Long Di’s arms, causing a feeling of dread to well up within the hearts of every conscious person present.

“So I’m going to shock you guys until you get… y’kno, better.”

****

Feng Yu’s face paled in horror, “No!”

“Yes.”

“No!” Jia Yan took a firm stance on this one.

“Yes.”

“No!” Even Shen Ling was against this with every fibre of her being.

“Huh! What happened!?” Lang Tie was jolted awake by the noise.

Long Di looked at him and calmly stated, “Yes.”

Lang Tie was confused by the word, “Yes?”

“NO!” A cacophony of nos bombarded the poor, recently awakened demon into unconsciousness once more.

Long Di’s brow shot up in curiosity, “Did you all just no him to sleep?”

Shen Ling raised her hand, “Uhm?”

“Yes, Shen Ling?”

“Long Di, why do-”

Long Di shook his head, interrupting her question, “Please, call me Brother Long.”

“Oh, okay,” she found nothing wrong with the request and continued. “Brother Long, why-”

“Senior… brother Long,” Long Di added, interrupting her again.

“Senior? But you’re younger than me.” Shen Ling advised, appearing confused by his weird requests.

“Oh, really?” Long Di asked.

Feng Yu nearly blacked out from mental frustration. Did he take them for fools!? “Yes, really! You yourself said that you were eleven years old several times. By that logic, everyone here is older than you!”

“I never said I wasn’t eleven years old, I am simply stating that you guys aren’t older than me.” Long Di calmly stated.

“What!? That doesn’t make any sense! If we are 2-4 years older than you, then we are OLDER than you!” Feng Yu exasperated.

Long Di nodded, seemingly coming to understand where she was coming from until he said, “I don’t seem to share this belief.”

“Y-Your belief!? Your belief isn’t a factor here! Your opinion doesn’t matter in the face of logic!”

“Multiverse theory begs to differ,” he pointed out.

Jia Yan who was by the side grew intrigued once more. “What’s multiverse the-”

“Now, let’s pick up where we left off. Shen Ling, ask your senior-brother that question you had in mind.”

Long Di effortlessly took control of the situation. Jia Yan’s question was tossed to the side. Feng Yu didn’t even say anything more. She was sure that if she tried to engage Long Di in any more verbal bouts, he would drive her insane.

Realising that her senior-sister didn’t have anything more to say, Shen Ling continued her question, “Senior-brother Long, why are you trying to kill us?”

“Kill you?” Long Di cast his gaze on her and remained silent for a while.

It didn’t take long for her to start squirming under his stare. “W-What is it?”

“Nothing,” Long Di said, simply. Long Di was wondering when Shen Ling’s mentality would improve, it seems it would take some time.

“You guys think that I want to kill you by using tribulation lightning energy on your bodies. I can understand your thoughts. After all, in my old world, most people that got shocked by lightning ended up dying almost immediately.”

Shen Ling, Feng Yu and Jia Yan thought Long Di would try cheering them up, but he was making them feel worse. They didn’t even notice when he said his ‘old world,’ since they were wondering where was going with this.

As such, he continued, “Obviously, I can tell that the laws of physics are a joke to you people so, based on my knowledge, lightning energy is nothing but a tonic to you. Something that can temper your bodies, which, as demons, you should be happy for.”

“You can’t think of it so simply,” Feng Yu advised. “I have some knowledge about tribulation lightning, and, while this might not apply to you because of your current achievements, the only ones who are worthy to experience a tribulation of any kind would be an expert at the Cauldron Core Flame Fusion level, also known as a grandmaster.”

“First of all, that only applies when your cultivation level reaches a certain realm. This is the heavens themselves, testing you, to make sure you are worthy of climbing further, hence the term heavenly tribulation.” Long Di said, educating not just her, but everyone here.

“However, whilst this is something that cultivators innately fear, what will happen here is that I will be the one testing you and tempering you, not the emotionless heavens. Under my hand, you will not fail. When it comes to lightning tribulation energy, depending on the intention, you may suffer or benefit. I trust you remember the outcome of my enemies when the intention is to harm. However, when it comes to tempering the body, nothing beats lightning tribulation, and I have that in spades.”

“In addition,” Long Di added. “You’re body cultivators, you won’t lose out that much simply by destroying your cultivation base.”

This was true. Even though body cultivation came with a lot more pain than normal cultivation, one of the main benefits was the long-lasting effect on the body.

So even if a body cultivator’s cultivation was destroyed, the body itself, though weakened, would still be considerably powerful even though certain techniques would no longer be possible.

“I guess you’re right.” Feng Yu had no choice but to agree with Long Di on this point. “You sure do know a lot about demons despite being a human.”

“I know a lot of things about a lot of things. Now, what say you?” Long Di stared at Feng Yu.

She had to agree if he was going to be able to help them, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“It’ll be fine-ish.”

“If you say s… wait a minute, did you say ‘ish!?’”

“I heard that you guys have a high-rank mortal grade cultivation method. What is it really?” Long Di asked, ignoring Feng Yu’s question.

Mentioning this, everyone looked down in despondence. They really wanted to use better methods to cultivate, but their poverty didn’t allow them to get their hands on any of the high grade cultivation techniques.

“It’s name is the Flame Forge Body Art,” Feng Yu said after a moment of silence.

Long Di nodded, “Not a bad name.”

“It’s only a mortal grade technique. Not enough to reach the apex,” Feng Yu admitted.

“The grade is usually indicative of the speed that the method allows you to cultivate at. Any method can reach the apex, never look down on any of them, it simply depends on if you are willing to put in the work to get there with what you have,” Long Di lectured her.

“Now, let me see this method of yours. Can you please circulate your method so I can see what I’m working with please?”

Per Long Di’s request, Feng Yu began to cultivate her body cultivation technique. She sat cross-legged on the ground and closed her eyes to begin her cultivation.

It didn’t take long before her skin started to glow bright red and one could even feel a faint heat emanating from her body.

Dum!

A single cauldron burst into existence. It was pure white without the slightest blemish. This was a medial grade cauldron.

On the cauldron ranking, the only cauldron it was superior to would be the lowest ranking, basic grade bronze cauldron.

Long Di saw this and was taken aback, ‘Their cultivation, while being really low, is pretty sturdy. The old man must have had some hand in the progression of their training, but the cauldron is too low. Let’s see the nature of the technique itself.’

Thinking up to here, Long Di came behind Feng Yu and placed both hands on her back. He used his spiritual force to take a look inside so he could see the cultivation technique in action.

When Feng Yu felt Long Di’s hands on her back and, even more so, his spiritual force inside her body, her mentality wavered.

“Take your mind out of the gutter and focus.”

This wasn’t her fault entirely. After all, Long Di was a boy and she being female doing something like allowing Long Di to peek at her secrets felt a lot more intimate than she had thought it would.

Shen Ling and Jia Yan were staring at the two in silence. The only noise was the crackling of the fire and Lang Tie’s snoring.

After a while, Long Di removed his hands and Feng Yu withdrew her cauldron.

He entered into a state of silence and seemed to be ruminating about something. Feng Yu didn’t say anything, and just went back to sit beside Shen Ling.

After a moment of silence he finally spoke, “... You’re all cultivating the same thing, right?”

“Yeah,” Feng Yu nodded in agreement.

Hearing this descended into silence once more.

“Do you guys think adding one good thing to an existing good thing makes it better?” He asked once more.

“Huh? Uhm, yeah sure.” Feng Yu answered.

“It sounds logical, I guess,” Jia Yan stated.

“I guess so,” Shen Ling agreed.

Long Di nodded, expecting these answers. “Great, then do you guys like baths?”

“Sure.” This time all three answered at the same time. Just because they were cultivators didn’t mean they didn’t like to bathe.

“Awesome, and how do you feel about… hmmm, I dunno… volcanoes?”

“Volcanoes?”

“Volcanoes,” Long Di confirmed.

“I-I guess they’re… alright?” Mumbling came from the trio as they had no idea why Long Di was asking them these questions and they had no reference to answer them by.

“Good stuff, then it’s decided,” Long Di said in a satisfied tone.

“What do you mean?” Feng Yu asked, feeling another sense of dread overcoming her.

“What do you mean, what do I mean? What else could I possibly suggest by asking you these questions?”

They all shrugged their shoulders to indicate they had no clue, but Long Di’s next words nearly caused them to pass out in shock.

“We’re going to maybe, probably, most certainly take a bath in a volcano after we return tomorrow. Your expressions tell me all I need to know and I am glad we’re seeing eye to eye on this.”