A Cultivation Tale: The Godly Punisher

Chapter 230: Cultivation breakthrough

Seemingly provoked, earth-shaking booms of thunder rang out from it.

Then all of a sudden, an astonishing amount of blue lightning descended from the sky like a furious stream and impacted Alex who was on the ground.

Bang!!

The earth shook hard as it deeply cratered, while waves of destructive kinetic energies instantly surfaced which then swept out with seeming apocalyptic might.

But the massive, terrifying downpour of devastating, blue-colored lightning didn't stop. Instead it continued to impact Alex in the crater like it was a furious, torrential flood.

Alex whose body had been tempered to some degree, surprisingly withstood the destructive, earth-splitting power of the unceasing, dense lightning flood. However, he still sustained many injuries from the initial terrible collisions of the solid bolts of blue lightning with his body. But they weren't very serious ones. They were only superficial wounds. If the body of a body-cultivation expert whose physical strength matched that of a peak-phase, Earth Adept-stage cultivator was struck by such, his or her body would instantly shatter into pieces or become mists of blood. That was how stiff, strong and tough Alex's bodily flesh and bones had become .

Then being incessantly bombarded by the severe lightning bolts that interminably shot down from the vast, nine-layered cloud in the sky with the intent to destroy Alex's body, Alex who was initially knocked to the ground when the bolts first impacted him, tried to stand back to his feet. And as he did so and suffered the continuous collisions of the bolts with his tempered body, he gnashed his teeth in pain, while also producing a muffled groan at the same time. Then finally standing to face the rapid and unstopping bombardments of the bolts with his body, he made up his mind to temper his flesh using the tribulation lightning.

Why Alex decided to do so was because he could see and feel that his flesh and bones were becoming stronger. Besides, from his personal studies, he knew that this was the kind of thing that body-cultivation experts subjected themselves to, with the intentions to make their bodies stronger and more resilient or resistant to physical damages. But unlike him who was about to use tribulation lightning to do so, to increase his body's imperviousness to a certain level, what body-cultivators used was duraforce energy. The body tempering realm-energy which was also called 'treasure armor-body transformation energy' would continuously shatter and reform their bodies to make it durable to a degree; for as long as they can maintain the cycle of destruction and reformation.

Now standing with his eyes closed, he let the compacted, devastating flood of blue lightning hit him. And understanding that the tribulation thundercloud possessed some level of awareness, he let his voice boom out seemingly towards the sky.

"Hahaha! MORE!!! You good-for-nothing tribulation cloud!"

Then being provoked again, the rate at which the flood of lightning discharged from the vast thundercloud, increased to a terrifying degree.

Once it rate increased to an alarming level, as well it denseness to a shocking degree, the seemingly undulating flood of lightning struck Alex very hard that he, who stood with his legs firmly planted on the floor of the crater like as if he was about to carry the world on his shoulder, was knocked extremely deep into floor of the cratered earth. Besides, the tidal and violent flood of lightning which shot down with a lot of momentum, caused the floor of the crater to shatter apart in a ripple-like pattern, resulting in the deepening of the crater. Also, because of the pulverizing and destructive power possessed by the surging, huge flood of lightning, the deep crater's uneven wall shattered apart, resulting in the expansion or widening of the rectangular-shaped crater by hundreds of feet.

At the moment, hundreds of deep wounds could be seen on the body of Alex who tried to stand back to his feet. However, because of the intensity of the exceedingly furious flood of berserk, rampaging lightning, he couldn't do so. Although he mustered strength, he simply couldn't achieve his objective.

Then allowing the lightning to continually strike him hard where he was, he focused on tempering his body with it.

So as his flesh burned or tore away, new ones appeared, although very slowly as he hadn't taken healing pills. Then the new ones that gradually surfaced were also quickly ripped away by the lightning that continually bombarded Alex's body and ultimately sought for his total destruction.

Therefore, that was how the cycle of destruction and regeneration initiated.

- Twenty five minutes later -

The flood of lightning that struck Alex didn't show any sign of stopping soon, while Alex who had stood back to his feet and had his naked body glow lustrously like it were metal, felt that he had tempered his body enough and that he should absorb the rest so that he could grow his three-colored crystal of tribulation lightning.

Then focusing on his body again, he willed it to absorb every energy in his vicinity.

As soon as he gave the command, a powerful absorbing force bursted out from his body, then it acted on the flood of lightning that had Alex at it center.

In the next instant, the essences that made up each lightning bolt were pulled in like a stream into his body. And rapidly flowing along his energy meridians to his energyhouse, they infused into the hand-sized crystal of lightning that had formed in his special energyhouse. Then very quickly, it size began to increase.

Unlike the rest of his energies which existed in the liquid form in his energyhouse and would require that Alex first stepped into the core formation stage before they can gain a crystalline or solid form, the lightniforce energy that was now speedily growing in his energyhouse already existed in the solid form. It had taken a definite shape as it had turned into a solid, cubic crystal. But this was due to condensing arcs of lightning into a crystal as mentioned in the cultivation method of the 'Great Empyrean Seven-Hue Lightning Methodology'. Then as the essences of the lightning bolts continually entered into his body and flowed down his energy meridians to his energyhouse where they now infused into the three-colored lightning crystal, it growth shot up. Therefore, from the initial-phase entry stage that it was, it rushed to the peak-phase entry stage. Then it climbed up again to the initial-phase condensation stage where it rushed to the late-phase, condensation stage. Then eventually to the peak-phase condensation stage and stopped there.

At this point in time, the discharge rate, intensity and strength of the flood of blue lightning had reduced, since the flood was slowly thinning in size, while the nine-layered cloud in the sky was gradually fading away as the cloud form it had taken was degrading and was slowly dispersing away. However, after a long time, the flood ceased as the tribulation thundercloud vanished.

Alex had actually survived his Beyonder-type tribulations into the earth adept stage, and even came out with great benefits from it.

But usually, tribulations of any type shouldn't occur when one was just breaking through into the earth stage stage (which was also the core formation stage), and should only appear when one was breaking through into the Heaven Adept stage. But anyways, it did for Alex, which was to show how special he was. So, when he gets to the peak-phase, Sky Lord stage, he might experience another more totally lethal and destructive tribulation before he could enter the Heaven Adept stage.

As soon as the tribulation cloud disappeared, with his lightniforce energy crystal now matching the others in quality (density) and quantity (amount), Alex was then ushered into the core formation stage. And what was the core formation stage? It was the stage where his entire cultivated energies would turn from their seemingly liquid form into a solid form.

Now looking impressively within himself, he saw how the pools of his numerous energies transform into huge, rectangular-shaped, crystalline pillars of energy that stood upright. And in this solid, crystal-like form, they had qualitatively transformed. Then with the divineforce energy in them which was a god-level energy and always made them to leap in density, their quality could now exactly match that of one in the Sky Lord stage, whilst being in the earth adept stage. Just like how when he was in the initial phase entry stage and his battle power could match that of initial-phase condensation expert, making them only his true opponents. Same went for this too. Now that he was in the initial-phase, Earth Adept stage, his true opponents should be in the initial phase, Sky Lord stage. And coupled with the tribulation energies that had fused with some of his energies and far augmented their damaging capacities, it was left to Alex to find how high his battle power was.

With a wide smile in his face, he clenched his fist, then a powerful boom rang out.

Hahaha!

He grinned delightedly.

He knew now that he possessed a shocking level of power, and was left to him to discover how strong he was.

Then with a wave of his hand, an outfit appeared from his dad's spatial necklace and covered his nakedness.

Now looking up from the sixty-feet deep crater that he was in, he leaped very high towards a wall of the crater without using his strengthforce energy to permeate his muscles. And surprisingly, using only his powerful leg muscles, he got to a height of forty-feet. Then when he got to that astonishing height from a single leap, his fists and feet effortlessly pierced into the crater's wall at that level. Then exhaling as he readied himself, he powerfully shot himself upwards using his hands, and his legs to push his body high into the air so that he could leave the hole that he was in.

Then when he landed to the earth surface, he flitted back to the village.