Pshiinggg!"..." everyone.
"..." thunder tribulation.
"H-hey.. did my eyes played tricks on me?" asked w.a.n.g Guozhi with eyes opened wide and his mouth fell agaped.
"I.. I see the thunder struck down.. and then.. Duan Li seemed to.. seemed to.."
"He sucked in the thunder right..?" continued the princ.i.p.al as Ling Yu was stuttering in between her words to confirm what they were seeing.
The trio nodded together as they realized that what they had seen was all real!
In their imaginations before, when the thunder had struck down, what followed after that should be a scene of Duan Li howling in agonized pain towards the sky!
But, not only were their expectations wrong, it was totally off by a wide error margin!
To think that the heaven"s punishment would be absorbed by him!
The thunder had struck down with an extremely scary momentum onto Duan Li. But just as it had reached one meter above him, something fluctuated like an invisible layer of sphere protecting him!
At the same time, that barrier shredded down those mighty thunders into small spiritual Qi comprising of thunder elements!
One had to know that, against the heaven"s thunder tribulations, any sort of magical artifacts or runic formation could only reduce the damage a tiny-little bit and never so much as to stop it.
But for Duan Li to be able to casually halt the thunder mid-air using some unknown bizarre power around him, and as if that wasn"t enough to humiliate the heavens, it even turned to whack the thunder tribulation down into smaller thunder elements before absorbing them whole!
CRACK!
BZZZTTTT!
Hearing the deafening drizzing sounds up on the sky, to the point of forcing the trio to close their ears with their hands, they were flabbergasted as of this moment.
"L-look! The clouds are even getting denser and the lightning had changed color to red!" pointed out w.a.n.g Guozhi to the sky with bated breaths.
"T-the heavens had finally gone bonkers!" exclaimed Ling Yu with horrified expression.
The sky right now was extremely dark, with flashes of ligtning that no longer seemed white or blue, but instead red in color!
The crimson flashes of lightning overshadowed by the dark clouds made it seem that the world was drowned in an ocean of blood!
Never before had the heavens itself has been humiliated during the course of sending down judgement like now.
Therefore, it could be imagined how the heavens were seething in rage right now as it stepped up the game by introducing new and powerful thunders!
"C-crimson thunder! Isn"t this meant for the golden core people that wanted to ascend to the nascent soul realm?! Why is it here?!" w.a.n.g Guozhi was entirely shocked right now to the point of farting out some putrid gases from his bottom.
As nascent soul realm experts themselves, they were pretty much very familiar with the color of this thunder.
After all, this was the thunder that was giving them the hardest time ever back then!
"D-don"t tell me.. Duan Li is jumping straight to the nascent soul realm?" said Ling Yu while swallowing down her saliva that were threatening to choke her.
"Impossible! That would never be tolerated by the heavens! If that were the case, then I"m sure, even if the heavens had to exhaust its supplies of thunder tribulation to the point where they have to personally rub their feet against the rubber carpet to generate static charges, they would definitely scramble to stop him at all costs!" interjected the princ.i.p.al.
For the first time, even the princ.i.p.al had lost his calm composure as his lips were quivering like mad.
Thankfully, the other two senior teachers beside him were busy looking at the clouds above. Otherwise, they would be able to see his puffer fish mouth which would destroy his grand image.
Ahem!
He quickly recomposed himself as he put on a grim expression.
Unbeknownst to him, there were students who caught sight of his bizarre expression from a far.
...
"Did.. you guys.. record that..?" asked one of them.
"I did.. " replied another.
"This footage is a red tape then.. "
...
CRACK!
The clouds teared up as several hundreds of crimson thunders were floating on the sky, ready to smite Duan Li at a moments notice.
When the trio saw these, their expression turned ugly once more as they panicked.
"The heavens intended to eradicate him all at once!" shouted the princ.i.p.al.
"I.. I need to help him!" exclaimed Ling Yu as she tried to flew over to Duan Li before she was stopped by both w.a.n.g Guozhi and the princ.i.p.al.
"No! You musn"t make it any worser than this!" they adviced her.
Right after they said their piece each, the crimson thunders jolted as they rained down from the heavens!
This phenomena was akin to like the ends of the world!
The symphony of destruction!
Not even the corpse of Duan Li later on would be spared!
BOOM!
pshingg!
BOOM!
Pshingg!
BOOM!
Pshingg!
..
..
After a while..
BOOM!
Pshingg!
BOOM!
Pshingg!
Pssss..~
The thunder that rained down grew weaker and feeble.
"..." everyone.
With the repeated strokes of thunder striking at him, they had a.s.sumed that whatever barrier that was protecting Duan Li at that moment would surely break apart, unable to withstand the countless batterings from the heavens.
Yet right now, it was instead the clouds that began to dissipate as the berserk energy from the sky were drained of power to exhaustion.
It had tried its best to pummel Duan Li, but no matter what it tried to do, it just couldn"t penetrate through that d.a.m.ned barrier!
d.a.m.n it! G.o.d d.a.m.n it!
What a beast!
"The tribulations.. is finally over.. haa.." exclaimed the trio in relief.
For a moment or so, they even seemed to hear the heavens wailing and crying in frustration!
"That had to be the most powerful tribulations that I have ever encountered! Even ours back then paled in comparison.." said w.a.n.g Guozhi as he shook his head with dejected expression, feeling somewhat defeated.
"Well, let"s see how much success Duan Li had made first.. "
The princ.i.p.al and the rest then waited patiently for the dust that was kicked up by the raging heavens before to settle down.
...
Before long, they could finally see a silhoutte sitting on the ground cross-legged. From the looks of it, it seemed that he didn"t even have a single scratch or damage to him.
Duan Li"s expression was calm, even smiling happily at that while still closing his eyes as if he was located in the center of a paradise right now.
Smiling? Smile your head!
Don"t you know how worried we are?!
For a moment, we even thought that you would inevitably become a black-charred corpse..
But here you are smiling as if looking down at the heavens in disdain!
Hais..
We felt pity for the heavens instead.. its dignity got smeared because of you..
Kacha!
Kacha!
Kacha!
Sounds of Duan Li breaking through a few bottlenecks could be heard.
"He is even breaking through a few bottlenecks right now while he was at it as well it seemed.. " said the princ.i.p.al as he shook his head helplessly.
How much heaven-defying could a man be before being satisfied?
Hais..
Slowly, Duan Li"s aura reached its peak as it was gradually being reined back down inside Duan Li"s body, a sign of stability after an advancement.
The swaying gra.s.ses and leaves stopped as well as the weather turned blue once more, as if the previous bizarre phenomena never happened.
Duan Li opened his eyes as it gleamed with a powerful vigor.
"Success!" he said as he clenched his right hand into a fist in excitement.
Checking on himself, Duan Li was quite satisfied as he nodded.
He had advanced all the way to the level 9 of the late stage in the Qi Condensation realm!
Even the princ.i.p.al along with w.a.n.g Guozhi and Ling Yu were surprised by this.
Never before had a person advanced immediately from nothing straight to the level 9 of the Qi condensation realm!
He was quite troubled when it took him awhile to enter the first level, but after he did, everything became smooth sailing!
Now this is what you could call domineering!
The trio approached Duan Li whom was still sitting cross-legged at the ground.
"Duan Li, are you okay?" asked the princ.i.p.al while the other two showed worried expression.
"I"m fine! I was actually quite surprised that there were no mishaps at all! To think that I could level up all the way to level 9 immediately after stepping into the Qi condensation realm, the heavens sure are kind for allowing this to happen!" answered Duan Li as he looked to the sky in reverence.
His heart was filled with deep respect towards the heavens!
Pu!
The trio choked onto themselves as they nearly spat out blood and farting putrid gases when they heard this.
Brother, the heavens was trying to smite you back then into non-existence!
And here you are saying such things..
The trio held their chest together, afraid that they wouldn"t be able to take any more domineering acts from Duan Li.
The princ.i.p.al coughed a few times before talking once more to calm down.
"This.. this matter is entirely quite mysterious to us.. won"t you tell us how you managed to achieve levelling up straight to level 9?" asked the princ.i.p.al as he clutched his chest, trying to calm himself down.
"En..!" Duan Li nodded.
"At first when I gathered the spiritual Qi from the surrounding to form the first pool in my dantian of the lower region below the navel, I noticed that it was too little.. Furthermore, the circular motion to complete one cycle around my body was too slow, which was around one breath to complete it.." he said with a frown and a contemplative look.
"Therefore, I decided to try and form another pool in my second dantian between the heart and my solar plexus! To my surprise, It then shortens the time to complete one cycle by a third!" continued Duan Li as he cupped his chin.
You formed the second pool in your second dantian you said?
You "just" decided to TRY?
Pu!
He is insane!!
In fact, everyone in the academy knew that there are three dantians in the human body. But people could only cultivate using a single dantian that is below the navel!
It is not to say that no one has ever tried to use their other dantians to cultivate before, there WERE a few actually.
Just that they have all died prematurely!
Once they had finished storing spiritual Qi into these other dantians, their Qi flow inside the body will turn in reverse haphazardly causing instant death!
Due to this, it has been dictated inside the book "The Three Dantians" that one should only cultivate the lower region dantian and not the other two.
Therefore, how did he do it?
Perhaps, this was why the heavens were enraged?
Because he was practically defying common sense itself!
"Y-you.. did your Qi not flow in reverse because of that?" asked the princ.i.p.al with stupefied expression.
"Ohh..? Now that princ.i.p.al has reminded me, it did try to reverse my Qi flow!" answered Duan Li with a nod.
"T-then.. how did you.. solve it?" the trio asked in unison with their fist clenched tight in antic.i.p.ation and their breaths hastened.
If they could also know the secret to cultivate their other dantian, their battle prowess would increase by who knows how much!
"Emm.. its not that big of a deal.. I just opened a few acupoints and redirected it to another place a few rounds until it rejoined the main meridians to flow naturally again!" replied Duan Li as he explained further what acupoints he opened and closes.
When the trio heard his answer, at first they were gleaming with excitement. But as Duan Li carried on, their expression slowly turned bleak before becoming helpless..
After all, what Duan Li just mentioned to them was impossible to practice!
When he listed out the total acupoints to be controlled, by opening and closing simultaneously was about 400 in total, they knew that Duan Li is someone not human.
Even horrifying to them, was how Duan Li could mention a few of those pathways that seemed unfamiliar even to them as a nascent soul realm experts!
Just how deep is his understanding of the human body?
Or was it because of the insights from his future self?
While the trio was in a daze, Duan Li continued to speak.
"And then, I just remembered that we humans had another dantian located somewhere inside the head. Thus, I drove some of the spiritual Qi in circles around my brain until I could locate it."
"When I finally found on what seems to be the right place, I made another pool inside it and redirects the Qi flow again until it reached the main meridians to flow naturally once more."
"Hence, right now I could complete three full cycles of spiritual Qi inside my body in a single breath!"
"After that, although it took me longer than I expected, I just continued to form a total of nine pools in each dantian to reach the ninth level of the Qi condensation realm!"
"To be honest, I was about to form the final pool to reach the pinnacle when thankfully, I remembered that I needed to enter the eternal maze later on!"
Duan Li exhaled in relief as he wiped the sweats off his forehead.
He thought that, for a moment, he almost fell into a blunder and accidentally reach the pinnacle stage.
It would be a disaster for him if he challenge the eternal maze at the pinnacle stage!
Fiuuhh!
After he finished explaining, he finally looked at the trio before he jumped up in a fright immediately.
He had found out that their faces had grown pale as a sheet of paper and their eyes unfocused like their last lifeforce was being sucked dry!
"..."
The trio howled out in indignance within their soul..
...