The tribulation is called down when someone completes the requirements. The requirements are a certain level in cultivation and a certain level in the understanding of the dao of choosing.

The dao a person has chosen in his first tribulation is the most important. You can have as many daos as you want at whatever level, but if your first dao is left weak, the tribulation will not be called down or will kill the cultivator if called forcibly.

A cultivator has a small amount of control on when s/he wants the tribulation to come. The more you wait after the first indication that you are ready, the more difficult would the tribulation become.

That is why Lye didn't wait for long and scheduled his to come in five days.

Those days, he spent accumulating as much conducting materials as he could and making faraday cages out of them.

The rest of the time he had spent observing any other tribulations and scouting a low-lying area that could help him out.

In his scouting, he came to know that the terrain outside of the city was indeed rather varied. He found both huge mountains and deep valleys that weren't side by side. (i.e. The valley isn't the gap between 2 mountains but is a valley in itself.)

In his observations of other people (just 1, tribulations aren't a staple commodity here, or anywhere as far as he knows), Lye found out that the lightning strikes were just like any other normal strike but more targeted. It was a something about qi he found out that was interesting.

For his test, he had put some metallic things around the person. The first strike showed high amounts of deviation (in comparison to the ones after it) from its path. But every succeeding strike had less deviation. He also noticed that the cultivator’s body was accumulating qi on him as the tribulation went on.

Lye's hypothesis was that qi is a potential changing 'something'. He didn't have much of an idea on whether it was some energy, some partcle or something else entirely. It can change the potential of a system and make it reach a state of higher energy more efficiently. This can explain many of the phenomenons that he had noticed.

Then his next hypothesis was that more qi is accumulated if the path is more obstructive. This can explain the higher difficulty of tribulations that rich cultivators face. They have a lot of artifacts that block the path so more qi is accumulated that calls down stronger lightning.

His next one was that the qi accumulation takes place only based on the obstruction faced by the previous strike. He had found this out by throwing some insulating things around the person in between two strikes. The power increase in the first one was normal but the second one was a lot stronger than before. And after taking the insulators away, the power hadn't reduced and still increased at the previous speed.

After the tribulation was completed, the cultivator had chased after Lye with clear killing intent. After all, if it wasn’t for his experiments, the difficulty wouldn’t have suddenly increased and he would have passed it with only slight injuries instead of the mortal danger he had just come out of. Lye, being the civilised’ man he was, readily apologised and compensated the man with some artifacts and money that he had.

Anyways, if these hypotheses were true, they could help him out a lot. Unfortunately, he didn't have any free time for more experiments. This was the last day.

Time to Tribulation 22 hours, 40 minutes, 30 seconds...

In the Kunla Hills, Lye was standing in one of deeper valleys. He was standing with his eyes closed and chin raised, with a broadsword in his hands, tip on the ground. The weather was gloomy, with storm clouds covering the sky. He looked just like a hero about to go on a crusade against the demon king. Only if his attire suited the situation…

He was wearing a black skin tight suit of very electrically resistant rubber which was then covered with both thick chain-mail and plate-mail artelite armor. Then his 'sword' was actually a thick chunk of artelite too. Artelite is an alloy of silver, copper, gold and some more materials that Lye made. It is highly conductive (electrical and thermal), has a high melting point (~25000 kelvin) and is very less reactive. The reason why he had rested the sword on ground in that pose was because it was way too heavy to hold up and that pose was the best one he could make in the situation.

After that, the next layer of preparations were 3 faraday cages made of artelite. There were also 4 thick, metallic pillars around him that shot into the sky for almost 10 metres. Then all of them, the 3 cages, the 4 pillars and his armor, were embedded in the earth upto a depth of 1 metre. The location was also specially prepared. Metallic ore had been buried in a circle around him at a radius of almost 5 metres.

All of this was so that the lightning would come down early. It wasn’t that Lye was suicidal, even though that’s what everyone thought when he explained his actions. Providing an easier path for the lightning to travel through would make it strike at less voltage, which would make it easier for him to handle, more so when a large part would travel through the pillars, cages and armor.

He had also arranged for some audience. There were 2 people who had come. One was a beautiful woman, while the other was a young man who was just a few years older than Lye. The woman was obviously Riya while the young man was Truen, son of the grand elder of the branch. They had actually come to help him in emergencies, like if someone attacked him or if it gets too dangerous.

By the way, there are 5 leader-figures in the clan, the branch head, the grand elder, the finance elder, the military elder and the allocation elder. The branch head and grand elder have the most influence in the whole branch while the other 3 elders have total control over their own departments with minute amounts of influence over other matters. The military elder deals with all the martial related events, the finance elder has control over the finances while the allocation elder decides if someone should go to the military elder to get punished or the finance elder to get rewarded.

Enough side thoughts, now was the time that the lightning was going to strike him. The clouds had already aggregated over him. Lye could feel qi accumulating over him, qi that he couldn't control,, qi that wasn't his. It was just a few moments more before the potential difference would become enough to split apart the air molecules and strike him.

ROAR!!!!!

The lightning struck. The first bolt was usually a small one. And this one wasn't any different. His preparations worked like a charm and more than 95% of the current went into earth through pathways other than his body. The 5% that did go through him was easily routed to earth along his body’s bioelectric field. After shaking off the remaining charges on him, Lye used his qi to quickly take out the heat from all his metal equipment.

Metals become less conducting at higher temperatures, so even though rapid heating and cooling could compromise with structural integrity, it was imperative to cool it down quickly. For that, he used his qi to simply reduce the thermal potential energy of the surroundings and then let simple thermodynamics do its thing.

While he was doing that, his audience were shocked. Even though the first bolt was usually very weak, this one was beyond what tribulation lightning should be. It had, at most, half the strength of what usual cultivators face. Now both of them were actually thinking if what Lye was talking about, 'dealing with the lightning before it got stronger' was actually true.

ROAR!!!!

The next one came. It was much stronger than the previous one. This one was also similarly warded off.

ROAR!!!! ROAR!!!! ROAR!!!! ROAR!!!! ROAR!!!!

Just like that, seven strikes were done, now was the eighth one. All his pillars, cages and armour were cooled down. The remaining charges on him were grounded. His mind was steeled for the next strike. And… it didn't come.

No, it would be wrong to say that it didn't come. It would be more apt to say that it was still charging. Just the static in the air was giving him goosebumps now.

'What is happening? All of my calculations were right till now. It should have struck a few moments ago already. Why is it still charging?’

He got his answer from the audience he had arranged.

“Lye! Brace yourself! The eighth and ninth strikes will come together. It will last for much longer and will be way more stronger than your previous strikes. Be careful!”

Truen screamed to him from where he was standing. Even though he couldn't move his head due to the armor, he could certainly recognise the worry in his tone and imagine the look both of them must have right now. Truthfully, both of them really wanted to help him, but doing so would only increase the difficulty he would face later.

“Got it! Thanks for the in-” Lye was screaming back but was suddenly cut short as the lightning finally came.

The bolt was much more bigger and powerful than the previous ones he faced.

Five seconds in, all his equipment began melting at a rapid pace, and more of the lightning came towards him. But the clouds were gathering more charge and the power hadn't decreased one bit.

10 seconds in, he had reached his limit.

All the time, his mind was working on finding some way.

15 seconds in, his rubber suit and skin began melting and mixing. His surface nerves were already roasted, and his brain was barely conscious.

'I need a to create an easier path for the lightning to go. Path… pat… pa… pi… pizza… What the hell!?

Path… pa… pla… plasma… Yes! Plasma!’

17 seconds in, he got the answer he was looking was. He immediately used all his qi, save for the bare minimum required for survival, and used all of it to tear apart the the gas molecules around him, strip them of their electrons, make plasma and save himself.

20 seconds in, he was done. And… it worked. More than 99% of the lightning went through the path he just created.

He was saved!

With relief flooding his brain, he couldn't bother to stay awake and watch the result any more. He had trust in his plot armour.

And with that, he fainted.