‘Eighth Temper! Ninth Temper!’

Bam! Bam!

****

Fwish!

Because Long Di had Lord Whiskers put in another set of spirit stones to help him complete the Nine Tempers, the fire within the forge was still going strong.

As a result, he was now sitting cross-legged within. He allowed the flames to wash over him while he ran the Foundation Forge Body Tempering Art.

This art could be used without the Breaking Mundane Forging Heaven technique. However, its full efficiency could only be realised through the use of the above-mentioned technique.

With this in mind, passively allowing the flames to wash over him whilst he was driving the Foundation Forge Body Tempering Art was enough to further temper, refine, and improve the purity of his somatic essence.

Long Di was the type of person who not only made sure his foundation was sturdy, but that the quality of his spiritual qi was top-notch as well. Now that he was cultivating somatic essence, it was only natural that he would extend the same level of effort into this as well.

He had both the Breaking Mundane Forging Heaven technique and the Foundation Forge Body Tempering Art to thank for this, and with Long Di having only recently completed the Nine Tempers, this placed another powerful attack in his arsenal as well.

“This forging method is truly profound,” he commented to himself.

Because he completed the first Nine Tempers, the next part of the Breaking Mundane Forging Heaven technique revealed itself to him.

The first Nine Tempers were a set known as First Forging. Following this method, the second part was known as Second Forging and the first level of this set was Ninety-Nine Tempers.

Once the entire set was completed, Long Di would be able to forge his skeleton to the sapphire level.

His consciousness had descended into this body to inspect the changes and benefits his mastery of the Nine Tempers brought him.

‘It just dawned on me that cultivators have the potential to be miracle doctors. I didn’t mention it before, but this is like x-ray on drugs or something…’ these were the thoughts that ran through his head as he consolidated his strength within the forge.

His skeleton had a jade-like lustre to it. There were even jade-coloured runes frequently flashing across them. They were extremely beautiful and one could even see the blood vessels within.

It was like a piece of crystal with lines of ruby lining the insides, which made for a stunning sight. Even Long Di was moved by it.

Plus, the marrow was now visible and Long Di could see as it ran through his bones. It was like an amalgamation of runes made up the very core of his bones.

In addition, he could see the somatic essence that surged within his bones. It was as if his bones were a channel and the somatic essence was the turbulent river.

Though his cultivation of the Foundation Forge Body Tempering Art had reached the jade level already, this was Uncle Tian Lu’s doing and not his.

As a result, even though he could do everything that someone who normally cultivated somatic essence could, there was a bit of disconnection with his handling of it.

However, from the somatic essence rampaging even more furiously through his jade bones, Long Di could feel even more familiarity from it. He could now use it exactly as he wanted.

‘I wonder if that’s the reason why I got injured during my battle with the Nitu Demon and Lord Whiskers in the battles back then?’

During those battles, there were many times when Long Di got injured. However, the injuries that Long Di was specifically referring to were the times he coughed up blood shortly after running both his somatic essence and spiritual qi.

Based on how he felt now, the somatic essence inside him moved perfectly according to his will. With this being the case, that gremlin of an issue should no longer flare up.

Pwhoosh!

The fire finally died down after a while and Long Di stood up. He clenched his fist and nodded with a satisfied look on his face, whatever the hell that looked like.

He exited the forge and could see Lord Whiskers a fair distance from the forge sleeping away.

“Looks like he isn’t interested in messing with tribulation lightning. Can’t blame him…” Long Di said to himself.

He looked all around and realised it was nighttime. He knew that Yaomu Shou and the others were fine. So there shouldn’t be any problem.

“Well, a Shidashi Mao is as good a protector of dharma as anything else. Might as well use this time to further raise my strength.”

Deciding on this, he put away the forge and the hammer, put on a fresh set of robes and sat cross-legged on the ground.

He soon closed his eyes and began driving his cultivation technique.

D-D-Dum…

His cauldrons erupted into existence as they rotated with magnificent pressure abundant.

Krrrsh!

Soon enough, lightning qi began flickering all over his body. In the sky above was a small dark cloud that was summoned courtesy of his cultivation technique.

In the distance, Lord Whiskers slightly opened his eyes amidst the disturbance. After taking in what Long Di was doing for a while, he closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

Long Di knew ‌he could rise through the realms easily thanks to the interference of the Destiny Scale.

Left to its own devices, his cultivation technique would absorb all the lightning-attributed spiritual energy for miles around. Then it would further extract or refine only the tribulation lightning. This was sure to guarantee Long Di’s slow growth despite his cauldrons’ grade.

However, now that the Destiny Scale was the equivalent of a merciless gold digger, the divine aspect was no longer necessary since it was taking this divine element for itself.

This allowed the benefit of Long Di’s black crystalline cauldrons to once more come into play. Furthermore, even though lightning-attributed spiritual energy wasn’t abundant here, the very nature of his cauldrons rendered that disadvantage null.

Whoosh!

The spiritual energy all around Long Di turned into a tsunamic flood that rushed into his cauldrons!

His cauldrons were like a Blackhole that couldn’t be filled. They drank up the spiritual energy like an overachieving alcoholic.

As the power tunnelled through his body, Long Di drove them according to the will of his cultivation technique.

The Great Path also came into play as the spiritual energy went through a full cycle of refinement. All the main meridians in Long Di’s body were being used to the fullest as he purified the spiritual qi within him.

Once a full cycle was done, he would send the energy to his dantian, where after a full revolution it would then send it to his pseudo-crystalline dantians. We’ll call these crystal dantians for short.

Because there were more dantians in play for him, the refinement was even crazier and Long Di could reach full saturation of his lightning qi’s purity much faster.

This meant that no matter how many more circulations were done, his lightning qi could no longer be further purified. This was not an easy level for any cultivator to reach unless a massive amount of time was taken.

However, one must remember that Long Di’s cauldrons flatulated in the face of common sense. This meant that time was taken completely out of the equation.

When he was sure that they were purified to the utmost, it was then and only then that he sent them towards his third cauldron.

A copious amount of lightning-attributed spiritual qi charged through his cauldron to light the third core.

Long Di went through several battles, and his spiritual realm was high enough to ensure his advancement for some time now.

Shing! Shing!

The glistening core lit on and off several times, indicating that it was soon ready to become a true star core!

Long Di naturally felt this and continued his cultivation patiently. As the endless spiritual energy surged towards his cauldrons for his use, the time for his third-star core to come into being was rapidly approaching.

Hong!

Suddenly, a dense cover of dark grey clouds formed overhead which assimilated Long Di’s small dark cloud!

A terrifying pressure then locked Long Di in place!

‘What is this!?’

He couldn’t move no matter what he tried, and his divine sense was severely restricted as well!

Lord Whiskers finally opened his eyes with a sense of wariness, and after taking in what was happening, a great rage took over.

It looked to the heavens and let out an unwilling roar in retaliation!

“Meow!”

His head swivelled around until he found Long Di. He rushed towards him and found the latter encased in lightning.

However, the pressure all around let Lord Whiskers know that a tribulation was upon the horizon.

‘This stinky human!’

Lord Whiskers cursed Long Di in his mind. After he continuously rejected Long Di and his divine lightning tribulation’s version of a pickup line, the boy decided to carry it out without his consent!

Lord Whiskers felt violated! Where was the trust between man and cat!?

Boom!

Grey lightning flickered through the grey cloud above. When the divine nature of the heavens had its presence felt, Lord Whiskers's long-suppressed killing intent erupted!

Long Di’s eyes finally opened, and he calmly stood up. When he saw the situation all around, that situation being the tribulation clouds, the divine pressure that threatened to crush them, and the furious Shidashi Mao that stood opposite to him, he nodded in understanding and did nothing for a while until he decided to break the silence by saying deadpan, “It wasn’t me.”

Bullshit!

Who would believe him at this point? Not Lord Whiskers, that’s for sure.

“Based on my knowledge, I shouldn’t be facing my first tribulation until I get to at least the Star Creation Stage, and even then I should only be encountering a tribulation once I’m passing through a major realm. I’m just making an advancement through a minor realm.”

After saying this, he looked to Lord Whiskers, and the latter stared back as if he was saying, ‘Don’t you dare.’

“This is all your fault.”

‘I’ll kill you!’ Lord Whiskers was furious. How shameless could this human be!?

He was sleeping peacefully when calamity and pandemonium descended upon him like poverty upon the useless and unlucky.

So what? Did he sleep himself and Long Di to death!?

“If I’m correct in my guess here, this might be the end result of the karma that I got infected with because of you,” explained Long Di.

Hearing this, Lord Whiskers’s eyes opened wide as he remembered that for him to get stronger, a heavenly punishment was a foregone conclusion.

Since that was his fate, this requirement must have been passed on to Long Di somehow.

Karma was a mysterious and ethereal concept, but there was no doubt that it existed. The karma that Long Di incurred by befriending and travelling with a Shidashi Mao, in addition to the destiny he beheld, was so great that it was enough to call down a tribulation during his advancement through a minor realm.

“Fine.”

He resigned himself to this being the norm pretty quickly and, seeing that he was no longer joking around, Lord Whiskers readied himself as well.

Boom!

An explosion went off as a bolt of Heavenly Levyance tribulation streaked through the clouds and came crashing down at Long Di and Lord Whiskers.

Long Di’s brows slightly rose, and he quickly summoned his only usable weapon at the moment, the forging hammer.

Then, to Lord Whisker’s surprise, Long Di jumped, catapulting himself toward his very first tribulation.