I’m watching Lucia’s tribulation from far away, but luckily, there’s an artifact that projects the view as if I’m right beside her. The golden pillar that was covering the giant wok’s location seems to be attracting the tribulation lightning, leaving Lucia completely unharmed. I understand lightning’s attracted to tall objects like trees, but I don’t understand why tribulation lightning is behaving the same way. Could the golden pillar be a valuable artifact? No, what am I even thinking? It obviously is an artifact; an ordinary pillar would’ve been destroyed on contact with tribulation lightning. It came from the squirrels’ treasury, and it was covering a tempering formation. There’s probably a connection between the two. If Lucia had used the regular formation to move the golden pillar, perhaps the golden pillar would’ve kept the giant wok completely safe from the tribulation. In fact, it was probably connected to a larger formation that would’ve dispersed the tribulation lightning’s energy safely. As it is now, without any further support, it seems like the pillar is going to break. It withstood quite a few strikes, but its surface is covered in thousands of cracks.

It’s a shame such a powerful artifact will be broken because of improper usage. Well, at least I now know it’s possible to design something that can withstand tribulation lightning. I’ll have to create something similar for when I ascend to immortality. Is Lucia going to make it? Earlier, she was struck by one of the bolts and lost her arm, but it grew back in an instant. I’ve been counting, and thirty-seven lightning bolts have already fallen. The maximum limit is eighty-one, supposedly. Lucia only encountered four lightning bolts for her sky-realm tribulation when the average was one. If the average is nine here, then she should’ve been finished after thirty-six, but clearly, her bad karma increased during the time she was a sky-realm expert. I still wish I got to see what color that crystal would’ve turned.

Oh. The pillar shattered. The only downside to this viewing artifact is that it doesn’t transfer sound. Also, it can only see things in its line of sight. Lucia seems to be panicking now; she’s picking up the fragments of the pillar and storing them in a tub. Many tubs. Oh. She was just hit by lightning. Her arm fell off again. I could probably make an immortal-ranked weapon with that. It’s a shame Lucia won’t let me harvest her limbs even though they can grow back so easily. We could be rich if we sold the weapons made out of them. Most people can’t grow their limbs back without the help of some priceless medicine that costs as much as the weapon I could make out of their limbs, rendering that source of revenue pointless.

“This is the immortal tribulation…?” Jin Mo—and everyone else apparently—was watching Lucia struggle in the distance. In fact, the tribulation clouds have even attracted people not from the Holy Beasts Sect. There’s a few quasi-immortals spectating in the distance. Isn’t now the perfect time to strike…? They’re outside of their sects’ defensive formations. I don’t know when another chance as good as this one will appear.

“Jin Mo, gather everyone. You see those quasi-immortals and sky-realm experts spectating in the distance?”

Jin Mo gave me a strange look. “Yes, Master. I see them.”

“Capture them all.” Where’s Old Bai? Was he still with Lucia? I forgot to take him when I left with Softie; well, it wasn’t like I had a choice since Lucia was the one that transported us aboveground. “I trust you can assign yourselves accordingly?” There’s only a few spectators. Compared to the number of sky-realm experts and quasi-immortals working for me, those people don’t stand a chance especially since the Holy Beasts Sect members have been incorporated into my miniature army. Maybe it’s a full-fledged army at this point?

While they’re busy doing that, I’ll continue to watch Lucia. Oh. There’s a few more arms on the ground by her feet—correction, by her multiple feet on the ground. What’s she doing now? She pulled a house out of her interspacial ring, and she’s throwing the tubs of shattered pillar pieces inside. I think she’s going to dig underneath the house and let the pillar shards absorb the brunt of the blow first. That’s pretty smart. She really did get more intelligent thanks to that Secret Phoenix Rebirth Technique. Wait a second…, she’s not digging underneath the house. She’s picking it up, and … she threw it at the tribulation cloud. That’s not going to work. Right?

The house flew up at an extremely fast speed. It almost escaped from my artifact’s field of view, but I adjusted it accordingly. Too bad I can’t hear any sounds. The house disappeared into the dark clouds, barely disrupting the surface, and that was it. It simply vanished. I don’t know if it was destroyed by the tribulation lightning gathered in the cloud, or if it flew past the clouds and had yet to come down, or if it ascended to the immortals’ plane.

Wait…, what? Sunlight’s breaking through the clouds at the point the house entered. The tribulation seems to be ending? Really? It’s possible to end a tribulation in this manner? No, that can’t be it. It must’ve already been on the verge of ending, and Lucia coincidentally threw the house up there at the moment it concluded; she endured over fifty lightning bolts after all. Hold on. That sunlight is a bit too bright to be sunlight. Behind the clouds, there’s a … gate? I’m pretty sure that’s a gate. It’s supported by the clouds as if they were solid ground. The two doors are wide open, and light is pouring out of it. I guess that’s the entrance to the immortals’ plane? Hmm? One of my sky-realm experts is flying up there. And he was instantly killed by a lightning bolt. Did he really think he could mooch off of Lucia’s achievement like that? Well, what’s Lucia waiting for? The gate’s right above her in the sky. All she has to do is fly through, and she’ll become an immortal.