Heavenly Tribulation!
In truth, the cultivation world had always spoken of the Three-Nine Heavenly Tribulation.
It was called the Three-Nine Heavenly Tribulation because the heavenly tribulation was divided into three layers and nine stages. A cultivator who could pass the Nine-Layered Heavenly Tribulation could attain the supreme Great Dao and live as long as Heaven and Earth.
Yet for at least several thousand years, no one had heard of any cultivator passing the Nine-Layered Heavenly Tribulation. Even those who had passed the first layer were as rare as phoenix feathers and qilin horns, already known among cultivators as Tribulation Transcending True Immortals.
Even now, with Kunlun at the height of its prosperity, the Ten Golden Immortals of Kunlun spoken of by the world merely surpassed the overwhelming majority of cultivators. None of them had passed even the first layer of heavenly tribulation.
For cultivators of the Inner Alchemy Dao, one had to cultivate beyond perfected Nascent Soul Realm, until the fluctuations of the Nascent Soul's power could take tangible form and radiate Three Flowers, before one could be considered to possess Tribulation Stage cultivation. After Kuang Wuxin refined a Blood Sarira, his current cultivation was merely at the point where his Nascent Soul could leave his body without harm even if he abandoned his fleshly body. He was only at the same perfected Nascent Soul level as Qi Lianliancheng, still some distance from the Tribulation Stage.
Fang Sanping and Han Wuji had surely stalled at the perfected Nascent Soul level as well, unable to advance another inch. Otherwise, they would not have possessed only several centuries of lifespan, with even their Nascent Souls beginning to decay. Yet Nangong Daozang, another ancient monster and the genius who created the Daoist Scripture of True Essence Mysteries, far surpassed Fang Sanping and Han