Lu Yun really was going a little crazy from his need for more crystals. The bounty on the entirety of House Donglin was quickly draining him of wealth. Although the marketplace in Dao City was lucrative, it belonged to the merchant alliance!

He wasn’t a businessman and needed their help in his various exploits. Naturally, any profits had to be split with the trading guilds, rather than going into his own pockets alone; it was the only way for their collaboration to be sustainable.

At the end of the day, he needed more immortal crystals in order to lure the Ancient Tree of Life to Dusk Province. Now that Mo Yi had acquired the Skyturtle Pearl from the Ling Clan, the only thing he needed to lift the poison curse on Qing Yu was the tree!

The Ancient Tree of Life had taken root in a shard of hell. With the Key of Life in his possession, he could attract the tree by force-starting the key with a great amount of immortal crystals. Therefore, he needed more crystals for both Qing Yu and himself!

At least two hundred and fifty trillion crystals were required to lure the tree to Dusk Province. But in Lu Yun’s eyes, that was far from enough—he needed so much more! That was why he was going so far as to hold an auction during his tribulation, and even selling off his own tribulation essence!

……

“Grrrrawl!” Beastly roars boomed through the sky. The heavenly judgment had concluded, but tribulation clouds yet remained, within which an enormous beast flailed its way to the surface.

Expression dark, Lu Yun stared solemnly at the increasingly visible beast.

“What will it be? A regular kun? Or another divine beast?” The immortals in the area had decided not to intervene.

Lu Yun had essentially given up on establishing a sacred land the moment he put the flower projection on sale. As long as he didn’t establish a sacred land, he posed no threat whatsoever to the other factions in the world of immortals.

“It’s long and thin… seems to be a snake?”

“A scarlet snake!”

Finally, the tribulation beast emerged from the clouds. It was a scarlet snake with twenty-four pairs of wings and a single crimson horn on top of its head. At thirty thousand meters long, it was large for the immortals of the world, but just about average for a tribulation beast.

Back during Zhao Wushuang’s tribulation, the beast she’d encountered had run five hundred thousand meters long and spanned all of the Divine Sea. The tribulation beasts of some other great geniuses were enormous as well, all of them spanning hundreds of thousands meters long.

And yet Lu Yun, the top cultivator and foremost youth sovereign of the world, summoned a tribulation beast that was only thirty thousand meters long? And a simple snake at that?

The snake did look bizarre and was uniquely shaped, but it was still just a snake at the end of the day!

Snakes were the lowliest of monster spirits. The only way to improve their lot in life was to activate what little draconic bloodline they had and transform into monster dragons.

Was Lu Yun’s talent all an illusion? Was he not a genius, but trash relying on gimmicks and tricks? But what had that heavenly judgment been about? Had Lu Yun done something to rouse the ire of the heavens?

How much tribulation essence would a mutated snake yield, anyway? Probably not enough for even the boy himself.

……

However, no one noticed that Silverlight, previously overweeningly confident of her superiority, was now trembling and shaking.

“It can’t be, it can’t be. Why would it appear again, and in that kid’s tribulation? It’s become a tribulation beast too...” Silverlight shifted several steps back, her faint silver eyes filled with fear.

“Carmine Eternal… it’s still alive!” Goldenlight was stunned as well. “Tribulation beasts are all based on creatures that actually exist. They’re projections created by the law of heavenly tribulations...

“If Carmine Eternal has appeared in a tribulation, then its true form must exist under the immortal dao as well!” He tensely turned to Silverlight. “Should we run? If Carmine Eternal comes, it will devour us!”

“Run? Where to?” Silverlight shook her head. “We just have to do what we’ve always done. The world is on the brink of chaos, and there are signs that it may be restored to its past glories before Emperors Fall… However, it remains to be seen which clan will rise to the top this time! We stand a chance of surviving if we stay and fight. If we run, we die!”

……

“Grrrraawl!” Instead of hissing like a snake, Carmine Eternal delivered powerfully booming growls. Its twenty-four pairs of wings flapped at the same time, sending hums ringing through the air. Overwhelming scarlet light flared from its body, filling the sky and obscuring all vision.

“Let me enter the netherworld,” a weak voice of a woman suddenly transmitted from the giant snake to Lu Yun.

Lu Yun started. “You aren’t a tribulation beast, but an actual divine beast!”

“My injuries are too serious,” the woman pleaded. “Please allow me to recover in the netherworld.”

After a pensive pause, Lu Yun opened the Gates of the Abyss with a wave of his hand.

“Thank you.” The giant snake vanished into hell as a flash of scarlet light and fell into deep slumber.

Lu Yun frowned at the scarlet essence it left behind in the air. There was a pleasant fragrance wafting from it, marking it not regular tribulation essence, but something even more sophisticated.

“Eh? Now that’s tribulation essence!” To his surprise, he found a pool of tribulation essence, much like the one Xue Chujiu’s tribulation had yielded, under the crimson liquid. He quickly scooped it up.

Whoosh!

A howl passed through his body as he came in contact with the liquid, lights of six colors flooding out of the top of his head and spreading in all directions.

Six paths of nascent spirits!

As Lu Yun ascended to immortality, his nascent spirits transformed into a phenomenon of ascension and scattered the crimson fog Carmine Eternal had created. Six paths of nascent spirits, six domains of reincarnation!

He was the master of reincarnation between heaven and earth!

When his six paths arose, the Tome of Life and Death shot out to disguise what was taking place. Purple energy erupted in the sky instead, spreading four hundred kilometers across as a phenomenon of ascension!

……

“Look, Lu Yun’s beheaded the mutated snake and ascended to immortality!”

“His phenomenon of ascension… is four hundred kilometers of purple energy? That’s...” Many immortals gaped at being so incredibly underwhelmed. Purple energy from the east was among the top of the phenomenon of ascension, but it didn’t fit Lu Yun at all!

They expected his phenomenon to cover at least the North Sea, or even the entire world of immortals like Zhao Wushuang’s! Four hundred kilometers of purple energy was more than a few pegs under a phenomenon that covered an entire major.

“So despite his reputation, he’s really nothing but a useless weakling...”

“It’s said that Lu Yun was originally unable to cultivate because of his constitution. He only became a cultivator after consuming an Aurum Openia Pill...”