278. Faking Out The Heavens

Let’s be logical about this, Hui thought, even as another bolt struck him. If I fake my death and the Heavens fall for it, I might fail my tribulation. Failing one’s tribulation is never good. I’m not the lotus beast; I can’t blithely fail and survive without a single worry. If I play dead, I have to give up all my defenses, too. The lightning will strike me relentlessly, and without defending against it, I’ll have to bear all the damage.

If I play dead, I’m banking on the lightning giving up and growing weaker. If it doesn’t, I’ll have to rely on my ability to soak damage alone, without anything else. I can use the crystal technique even while I’m playing dead, but that’s about it. No activating talismans, nothing.

Hui paused. He looked at his hands. Actually… I’m pretty much doing that right now, aren’t I?

He bit his lip. I’m going to try it! If the tribulation looks like it’s about to fade out entirely, I’ll pop back up. I can’t afford to fail the tribulation entirely, and worse, I don’t want to go through this a second time! Similarly, it’s not as if a single bolt will incapacitate me. After the first bolt, I’ll reevaluate and see if I really can weaken the tribulation by playing dead. But one bolt… one bolt… it won’t kill me! Probably!

Hui grit his teeth. He started to repress his qi, but as the next bolt fell, surged it again. Dammit! I don’t want to die! Argh, but… but if I never try, I’ll never know!

Undecided, he hung there in the air. His hands trembled.

“Ah? Zhi Ahn, are you going to fail?” Lu Lintei asked, sitting up. She stepped forward.

Hui brightned. Is Elder Sister going to help me? Right, I nearly forgot, I’m Zhi Ahn! If she has some divine artifact to get through this, it wouldn’t be strange to loan it to—

“Don’t do that. I don’t want to have to explain why you’re dead. That’s a lot of work, you know,” she replied, frowning slightly.

I don’t know why I ever had faith in her, even for a second! Hui shouted silently. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, then reined in his qi and fell over in the air, plunging toward the Underworldly Tribulation below him. The black and gold lightning struck him in the same moment he completely released his defenses and killed his qi. They struck through his body and landed directly on his dantian.

His dantian shuddered as Heavenly Tribulation lightning hit it, but rather than breaking or cracking, it spun faster. The orb of qi inside it became more perfectly round, more golden in color. Simultaneously, the black lightning struck his soul’s dantian. The dantian of death qi also grew rounder and more utterly black, blessed by the Underworldly Tribulation lightning.

Pain flashed through Hui’s body, but when he didn’t fight back against the tribulation, neither tribulations harmed his body. Though the pain burned fiercely, twice as intense as when he fought back, the damage became nearly nothing.

Hui’s eyes widened. Ah! So the tribulation only harms those who fight against it. No, it makes sense! From the start, the tribulation is a necessary ingredient to take the next step in cultivation. Fighting back against it only prevents its energy from striking your dantian, as it needs to in order for you to take the next step. So if I can completely release your defenses and bear the increased pain, I can perfectly absorb the blessing of the tribulation!

It's like if I stood in a river. Standing there, the river will batter me, and any sticks in it will slam into my body and hurt me. If I instead floated along the river, nothing would strike me, and I’d pass through unharmed!

But… the pain…

Hui grit his teeth. This is nothing! I’ve borne pain a thousand times worse. No one’s breaking my bones, no one’s dislocating my limbs… I’m not being harmed, and no long-term damage will come from this! It’s bursts of short, sharp pain. That’s nothing. I can—I can take it!

In fact, many cultivators realized what Hui did, that simply absorbing the tribulation was the best way to pass through it. However, very few cultivators could fully, perfectly suppress their qi. Aside from Hui, who would practice a useless technique like that, after all? Passively absorbing the tribulation had a side effect in that even the slightest bit of resistance could become deadly. Even if the cultivator only had a single spot of resistance, the entire tribulation would slam into that one spot, burst a hole, then use that hole to carve apart the cultivator’s body, much like high pressure water could easily destroy any surface with a flaw.

Under the extreme agony of the tribulation, who could resist the urge to fight back, if only to lessen the pain? And the second one began to fight back, the second a single spot of resistance appeared, the tribulation singled that point out, and their life ended. Thus, no one successfully trod the path of passively absorbing the tribulation.

Where most cultivators practiced to be perfectly strong with no weaknesses, the technique of passively absorbing the tribulation required one to be perfectly weak with no strengths. Who would intentionally chase such a path?

But Hui had no such resistance! With no one to guide him, he had pursued just that path of pure weakness! After all his years of practice in suppressing his qi, no points of resistance remained. Thus, the tribulation passed through his body and slammed into his dantian, without the chance to dig into any part of his flesh.

Hui’s body trembled in midair, tossed in place, caught between the rising Underworldly Tribulation and falling Heavenly Tribulation. He killed back his qi harder and harder with each moment, working to absorb more and more of the tribulation, to let it pass more perfectly through his body. White and black light flickered out of his eyes as the lightning bolts struck, but he refused to react or fight back. Even the talismans on his body went unused.

Using the minimum of his strength, he turned his eyes to watch Zhubi. Now enlightened, he saw Zhubi using the same technique, though a slight variation. The snake directed the lightning directly into his dantian, where he circulated it, using tribulation lightning itself to form his Gold Core.

Hui watched in awe. Now that’s an incredible technique! Transform the lightning itself, rather than use it to temper one’s own Gold Core… Ah, but my cores are made of life and death qi, and the path I walk involves both. I can’t use the same technique as Zhubi.

In any case, he’s a spirit beast, not a human. Naturally, our paths will diverge at points! Hui nodded internally to himself, still impressed by Zhubi’s technique.

Watching from the side, Lu Lintei frowned slightly. Letting down all his defenses like that… Since when did Martial Brother Zhi Ahn become a masochist?