Long Di’s physique seemed to be absorbing the tribulation lightning. Right now, the inside of his body seemed to be a world fraught with tribulation lightning among a sea of stars.

“I’m thinking I’m really starting to love this physique of mine.”

****

“Profound Myriad Heavenseize Physique… no wonder it gave it that name,” Long Di mumbled to himself as he observed the changes in his body.

‘Looks like the Destiny Scale was able to see farther than me at that time. So based on what I can see, this physique is basically acting as its own world. I can use it to store a buttload of tribulation lightning to use whenever I want. Not only that, if it really is a ‘heaven’ of its own, then I can put a bunch of other power sources in there that I can draw on. I’ll effectively have a world’s worth of… no, a heaven’s worth of energy at my disposal. Holy cow, this thing is broken as hell… and I love it. Then let’s get to work!’

Even Long Di grew excited at the prospect of having such a broken as hell physique at his disposal. The only thing to do was to make it worth it and to do that, he had to make it a world worth living in.

Krrsssh!

The physique was like a bottomless pit as it kept on absorbing more and more Heavenly Levyance tribulation lightning.

Long Di’s body gave off a picture of a storm that raged without end. There were no clouds here, only lightning wracked the world with reckless abandon.

Countless explosions lit up a strange sky as lightning bolts collided into each other without end!

Long Di’s body was the embodiment of the apocalypse and it was both awe-inspiring and terrifying.

A full two days passed, Long Di even had to move several times as his cultivation technique sucked dry the spiritual energy in the nearby surroundings. He could certainly wait for it to replenish, but moving was a bit faster, and he didn’t want to waste any time in getting this done.

‘I need to get more energy sources in here because, as of now, this isn’t a world worth living in. This is a world of death, and it’s the spasmodic kind too… Hm?’

Long Di realised that even though the Profound Myriad Heavenseize Physique could accommodate more tribulation lightning. There was a feeling of him getting full.

‘This must be a limitation caused by my current realm. I need to get stronger so that I can have a surplus of tribulation lightning to empower my attacks. Though I do have a LOT of it right now. As of now, I should be good.’

Long Di let out a turbid breath of air after an intensive session of cultivation. He realised during this time that there was no way to increase the healing of his missing earth esse. Luckily, however, his Profound Myriad Heavenseize Physique seemed to be absorbing some obscure energy of the world that he couldn’t grasp no matter how much he tried and that played a part in fully healing him.

“That must have been the earth esse I was missing. If only I could absorb it at will, though it seems that keeping my physique activated is the only way for me to continuously absorb it. I’ll do just that whenever I’m cultivating, cuz lord knows that me walking around with a body of lightning will give it away that something ain’t so right with me.”

Long Di released his physique, and his appearance went back to its former state.

“Hmm, I haven’t gotten started on cultivating the Bone Chapter yet,” Long Di realised that he hadn’t yet tried cultivating the Bone Chapter of the Foundation Forge Body Tempering Art.

“I’m sure they won’t mind waiting for a little longer. Then let’s see what I can expect.”

Deciding to make this a full-fledged cultivation session, Long Di read through the details of the art that Uncle Tian Lu left for him.

After a moment, he said nothing for a while before he looked off into the distance with a profound look on his blank face.

“That old man did give me an art loved by sadomasochists everywhere,” he said after a while.

“Oh well. Beggars can’t be choosers, might as well give it a shot.”

Going over what he received, Long Di realised that the Foundation Forge Body Tempering Art had a few stages and substages for each.

As of now, he was still cultivating the Bone Chapter. The Bone Chapter had four stages to it, which were the Jade level, Sapphire Level, Ruby Level and Diamond Level.

“So that’s what the hammer and the old rusty forge was for.”

Long Di realised at one point when he was cycling through his storage rings that there was a forging hammer and an old broken-down portable forge in there. He remembered that at one point when Uncle Tian Lu had his storage rings; he had placed something or some things in one of them but said nothing further on the subject.

Taking out the hammer, he nearly lost hold of it.

“Sweet corn on a cob,” the veins on his hands bulged as he held it.

It was an unremarkable tool. Like something made to collect dust in a worn-down workshop. The metal it was made from couldn’t be made out, but it was carved with numerous runes that appeared similar to the armaments that Uncle Tian Lu gave him before. The most striking characteristic about it, however, was that the small hammer was heavy as hell!

“Wait, so if the hammer is this heavy, then how heavy is the forge exactly?” he asked himself.

To avoid any issues, he decided to take it out slowly and with great care…

Boom!

“Oh for Pete’s sake.”

A loud rumble that nearly caused him to lose balance shook the surroundings!

When everything finally calmed down. He steadied himself and took a good look at the forge.

Even though it was many times smaller than the one that Uncle Tian Lu was using, it was still a monster of a forge.

It stood at about 10 ft tall, so about 2 Long Di’s standing shoulder to shoulder and some change. Or, to be more exact, it was 2 Long Di’s (post isekai) and 1 Pebbles the Wondercat (pre-isekai).

It was also as wide as 3 Long Di’s, so it was a sizeable thing. It was covered with rust, like it hadn’t seen any use for a while. As far as shape went, it was cuboid, and there were dragon heads at the corners at the top.

It had all the normal parts of a forge, such as an anvil, a fan and so on, like a conventional forge. However, there was a large door at the side.

Opening it up, there was a large space and not much of anything else.

“Crap, I’ll need to stay in this thing while I’m cultivating the technique, don’t I?”

When he stepped back outside, there were some grooves that suspiciously looked like what you should put spirit stones in.

He put one inside just to test it, and the forge roared to life!

It was like a subdued dragon compared to the one that Uncle Tian Lu was using, but its violent flames were unrelenting and caused a feeling of palpitation to rise in Long Di’s chest.

“Great, so this thing sucks spirit stones… figures. Well, apparently I need to heat my body using this, which should increase the efficiency of me cultivating the technique.”

Long Di thought about the fundamentals and movements of the art that Uncle Tian Lu passed down to him.

After making sure he had it down, he took off his clothes and placed them in his storage ring.

He then placed them outside the forge. He was alone out in the wilderness, so there was nothing to worry about.

After placing a few more spirit stones in the other grooves (not all of them), he then stepped inside the forge and allowed the scorching heat to wash over him.

Fwoosh!

The flames licked his skin, but he was already circulating the Foundation Forge Body Tempering Art, so this was just what it needed.

“Guess. If my understanding of the method was right, then all I need to do is this…”

Long Di gripped the hammer, and in a bizarre arc, swung it towards his eye!

“Cra-”

Pow!

A few seconds later, Long Di was rubbing his eye where a purple mark could be seen.

“That. Did Not. Go. As Intended.” His confusion was justified, as when he started the swing, it was supposed to hit his chest whilst he circulated the Foundation Forge Body Tempering Art.

However, somehow, the hammer ended up hitting his eye instead. Worst of all, it looked like that was what he intended from the beginning.

Let’s give it another shot, then. We’ll take it slow and then speed it up little by little.”

Deciding his path, he drove the somatic essence in his body as he carefully manoeuvred the hammer in the path dictated in the Breaking Mundane Forging Heaven Method as the flames washed over him.

Shu. Shu. Shu.

The hammer tore through the air as Long Di swung the hammer. The swing patterns were unusual, and Long Di could see that there were slight deviations that took place if he didn’t watch his motions carefully.

‘This isn’t gonna be simple,’ he thought to himself.

However, he took his time and slowly sped up the movements. It was still a bit rigid, but passable to a certain extent.

If Uncle Tian Lu saw this, he would call Long Di a monster for the umpteenth time as he cracked his head to figure out how his brain worked.

Long Di’s current progress rivalled someone who was practising the Breaking Mundane Forging Heaven method for months non-stop.

The only thing was that Long Di was unable to have the hammer land on himself as he intended. It only landed in his eye or missed his body entirely.

“Come on.”

He struggled to have the hammer land on his body. Whenever he drove the somatic essence to force a shift in the trajectory even a little.

Bam!

It would land on his eye and whenever he went with the motions, it would land his body robbing him of the tempering he needed.

Shu…

The flames in the forge died as the spirit stones in the grooves turned to dust and disintegrated.

He saw that he was going to need to practise for a while before and decided against continuing.

“I’ll continue this later.”

“Alright, time to get back. I hope that everyone doesn’t get too mad at having to wait for so long.”

He collected his storage rings, put on his clothes and collected the forge before heading off in the direction of the carriage.

It wasn’t too long before he arrived. Upon looking inside, however, he could only spot Shen Ling and Xiannu Liang there.

However, seeing was relative here as he couldn’t really see Shen Ling. Instead, the only thing he could see was a mist or cloud of darkness in the carriage's corner. But past events led him to know that this was Shen Ling, no doubt cultivating the Abyss Scripture.

However, there was no one else around, it seemed. This puzzled him a bit, but before he could ask anything, Xiannu Liang started.

“The others got bored waiting for you and took off ahead of us to hunt some magical beasts. I didn’t want to leave and senior sister Shen Ling wanted to cultivate while waiting on you, so here we are,” Xiannu Liang explained.

“Senior sister?” Long Di’s brow rose.

“What?” Xiannu Liang got defensive almost immediately.

“Nothing, it seems that you two got really close,” he pointed out.

Xiannu Liang snorted at his comment, “Well, she’s not like some insufferable person!”

“Why are you talking in the third person?” Long Di asked.

Puzzled, Xiannu Liang said, “I’m not talking in the third per-”

“Give it a minute,” interrupted Long Di.

After a minute or so of silence, Xiannu Liang’s snow-white cheeks reddened with humiliation. This little ogre embarrassed her again!

Then, to add insult to injury, it took her a healthy minute to figure out the insult!

“You’re stupid!” She shot back.

“Ooh, scathing. Would you like more time to say something clever?” he asked.

“You’re… a… big… stupid head!” she finally said after nothing else came to mind.

“Basic words for a basic person. You’re just breaking new ground here, aren’t you?” Long Di countered.

“Guh!”

Having no retort, she pounced on Long Di and started raining down punches on him. If she didn’t vent her fury, she felt like she might explode! The punches weren’t too serious and were solely for her venting.

Previously, she wouldn’t dare do something like this to Long Di. After all, he was the one who was to bring her back home, and she was fearful that he would go back on his promise to help her if she annoyed him.

However, she found out that despite his… quirky tendencies; he was a good-ish person and didn’t seem like he was the type to abandon any of his friends or break a promise.

“Senior brother Long Di, stop bullying junior sister Xiannu Liang,” Shen Ling’s melodic voice rang out as the darkness that enveloped her dispelled.

“Shen Ling, which part of this looks like I’m bullying her?” Long Di asked as another punch landed in his eye.

“Senior sister Shen Ling, Long Di’s bullying me!” Xiannu Liang cried out as she draped the collar of Long Di’s robe and fed his face as many punches as her little fist could manage.

“I know that junior sister Xiannu Liang is only like this because she lost against you in a verbal bout,” she said with a smile.

“Senior sister Shen Ling truly understands me!” After giving Long Di another punch in the face, she jumped to Shen Ling’s side and gave her a hug.

She didn’t seem to mind the earlier accusation of Shen Ling being an Abyss Ghost. Either that, or she didn’t share the universal hatred that such a revelation normally brings.

“Well, since you’re finished with your cultivation, let’s go look for the others,” Long Di advised.

“En!” Shen Ling agreed.

“Okay, so am I going to drive the carriage?” he asked as he headed to the front of the carriage.

Both Shen Ling’s and Xiannu Liang’s eyes widened in fear as they both shouted, “No!”