Purple Firmament Thunder Tribulation

That night.

Mount Taixuan was ablaze with light.

Qi Ying furiously stoked the Qilin True Fire, his eyes filled with nothing but delight.

Little Purple, Little Blue, and Bright Rabbit kept brushing Li Xuan's secret-recipe sauce onto the massive skewer of meat—long since stripped of its dragon scales, hide, sinews, and bones.

The Primordial Wilderness was vast; just the few-thousand-mile range of Mount Taixuan alone gave Li Xuan access to countless spices.

The aroma spread for eight hundred miles in all directions, drawing countless creatures from within Mount Taixuan's territory to gather around.

But for now, these creatures were mostly ordinary beings, very few of them intelligent.

After all, the intelligent ones had long since fled in fright when Li Xuan underwent his Mystic Immortal tribulation, and upon sensing more abundant spiritual energy elsewhere, they naturally realized that cultivation outside would be far faster than within Mount Taixuan.

So they simply never returned.

Li Xuan paid no mind to this, and Little Blue, Little Purple, and Bright Rabbit cared even less.

"Here, here—make sure to brush on extra sauce. This is where the gamey sinew was; even though we pulled it out, you still need heavy seasoning to cover the taste!"

"And this! This needs a good roast! Qi Ying! Put some muscle into it! This is kidney! Dragon kidney! Roast it well-done, I want to eat it!"

"Hehehe... this is good! Bright Rabbit, eat up—it's good for the complexion."

"...M-Master... can this really be eaten..."

Bright Rabbit stared at the meter-long, slender dragon member, his face flushed crimson...

"This is a real treasure... hahahaha."

Li Xuan's teasing laughter echoed across Mount Taixuan.

As the flesh of a Zenith Heaven Golden Immortal, even in death, it retained some durability.

But dead was dead—meat was meat. Without blood energy, spiritual power, or cultivation to reinforce it, its defense was only slightly better than that of an ordinary Heavenly Immortal.

So under the roasting of Qi Ying, a Golden Immortal himself, using his Qilin True Fire, three hours later, a ten-thousand-zhang secret-recipe whole roasted dragon lay before them.

"Come on, come on! Dig in! Dig in! Haha!"

Li Xuan wasted no time; he tore off a huge chunk of fragrant meat and began devouring it with gusto.

Little Blue, Little Purple, and Bright Rabbit exchanged glances.

Then they cautiously took a piece of meat and stuffed it into their mouths. After chewing a bit, their eyes lit up.

Soon their chewing quickened, and they abandoned all pretense, wolfing it down messily.

Qi Ying, meanwhile, was pale-faced. Having used the Qilin True Fire for three straight hours, he had expended most of his vitality.

But seeing the corpse of his great enemy, the Golden Dragon, right before him, turned into a delicacy, the satisfaction in his heart was beyond words.

Hearing Li Xuan's words, he didn't hesitate—he bit down fiercely with a vengeful savagery, filled with the thrill of retribution!

The four of them ate with unrestrained abandon, caring about nothing else.

After a few bites, Li Xuan smiled and tore off a strip of dragon meat about two hundred zhang long, tossing it down the mountain for the gathered creatures to cheerfully share.

A ten-thousand-zhang dragon, divided among five—well, devoured.

Bright Rabbit, Little Purple, and Little Blue each ate only a few hundred jin before they could stomach no more.

The tidal wave of spiritual energy and nourishing warmth flooding into them forced them to immediately find spots, sit cross-legged, and begin absorbing and cultivating, converting it into their own power.

Qi Ying, true to his pure Qilin bloodline—likely the last true pure-blood Qilin left in the Primordial Wilderness—ate a vengeful two thousand jin before he too could eat no more and found a place to meditate.

As for the rest...

Li Xuan felt that while the spiritual energy entering his body generated some warmth, it was truly meager, so he kept eating...

Of the ten-thousand-zhang roasted dragon skewer, the remaining ninety percent of the meat all went into Li Xuan's stomach.

Only then did he feel true fullness and a smooth sensation of cultivation progress.

He felt he was about to break through!

A breakthrough from Mystic Immortal meant reaching—Golden Immortal!

Closing his eyes slightly, Li Xuan sat upon the Thirty-Six Grade Creation Green Lotus Platform and entered meditation.

Sun rose, moon set.

In the blink of an eye, another thousand years passed.

"Ding."

"Choice to continue cultivating for ten thousand years completed. Reward: Innate Spiritual Treasure—White Jade Ring; one thousand years of cultivation experience scroll."

A sudden prompt sounded in his ear.

And this prompt seemed to be a switch.

That level ten Mystic Immortal realm, which had remained unchanged for over a thousand years, finally loosened and advanced a step further!

Within Li Xuan's body, in the boundless sea of qi, countless laws instantly churned and surged!

At the same time, the sky shook. What had been clear and cloudless for miles turned, in a few breaths, into a canopy of dark clouds wreathed in purple light!

The Golden Immortal Tribulation!

Known to the outside world as the Three-Nine Tribulation!

When a Primordial Being cultivates into a Golden Immortal, they fuse the laws of the primordial world into their body.

Combining soul, essence, and spirit, they condense them into a single Golden Core!

With this Golden Core, a being's communication with the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth, as well as their rate of absorbing spiritual qi, becomes a hundred, a thousand times faster!

This is why, in the eyes of a Golden Immortal, a Mystic Immortal is nothing but an ant.

Because they simply aren't on the same scale.

And now, Li Xuan was about to truly step into the Golden Immortal level!

The Three-Nine Tribulation, with its boundless might, its terrifying pressure directly threw all the beings on Mount Taixuan into panic once more, scattering in all directions without a second thought.

It seemed that this time, many who had gained sentience would not return.

But people have their own aspirations, and so do beings. How could Li Xuan force them?

The laws within his body grew denser, already manifesting physically, each strand like a long dragon twisting and condensing.

At the same time, the Profound Creation Marvelous Art directed this endless web of laws, fully fusing them with Li Xuan's essence and blood, entrusting them to his soul.

Gradually, an extremely bright point of light began to form slowly within his qi sea!

As for the sky above, stretching for tens of thousands of miles and more, covering the entire heavens, the tribulation clouds finally fully condensed!

"In just a few thousand years, we meet again, tribulation clouds. What game do you want to play this time?"

Li Xuan looked up at the sky, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly as he murmured calmly.

Boom! Rumble!!

Thunder roared, shaking the earth itself.

This jolt instantly startled Bright Rabbit, Little Purple, Little Blue, and Qi Ying awake from their deepest meditative cultivation states!

Having eaten so much Golden Dragon meat, plus over a thousand years of cultivation, these four had each grown by several levels. Qi Ying, in particular, was at Golden Immortal level ten, seemingly on the verge of breaking through to Primordial Unity Golden Immortal.

Yet at this moment, not a single one of their faces showed any joy from their skyrocketing cultivation.

They stared at the sky, their eyes filled with terror, their bodies trembling uncontrollably!

What kind of tribulation was this!?

The sky was filled with black clouds, and at the center, a dense purple stretched for a thousand miles!

Qi Ying, coming from a major clan, had never seen such tribulation clouds but had heard of them!

His face pale, his voice trembling, he spoke one word at a time: "Th-this, this is the Purple Sky Thunder Tribulation... this is the Nine-Nine Tribulation... My grandfather crossed this tribulation back then to enter the Quasi-Saint realm..."