Within the Yellow Court, the Golden Core shone brilliantly, brimming with divine light.
But Golden Core was the name of this flawless, spherical pellet, not its color. Every Third Realm cultivator's Golden Core was different. Cheng Xinzhan's was actually blazing white, like the sun at noon in high summer, so white that golden light shone through it.
On closer inspection, faint patterns could also be seen on its surface: a leaping azure tiger and a yellow dragon brandishing its claws.
Yet before Cheng Xinzhan could examine it carefully, the next instant, without warning or sound, as though by the will of heaven in the unseen world, or some unfathomable mighty power, several gray clouds suddenly appeared within the spacious aperture, floating around the Golden Core.
Like dark clouds veiling the sun.
Cheng Xinzhan was not surprised, however. Ever since deciding to form his core, he had consulted numerous ancient texts, and many elders had earnestly instructed him. The instant he saw the dark clouds, he knew these were Golden Core tribulation clouds, indicating when his next Elixir-Washing Tribulation would arrive.
These tribulation clouds appeared motionless now, but they were actually drifting slowly toward the Golden Core. Once they touched it and completely enclosed it, the Tribulation of Lightning would come.
The timing of an Elixir-Washing Tribulation was deeply mysterious. Some intervals lasted two or three hundred years, while others were only ten or twenty. Many factors affected its arrival: the quality of the Golden Core, the methods one cultivated, and even the virtuous deeds and hidden merits accumulated during cultivation, or changes in the celestial phenomena of a region.
An interval between Dan Washings could be neither too long nor too short. Too long, and one might die of old age before living to see it. Too short, and one