Commonplace

“Do you still remember who that person was?” Lin Xiao hurriedly asked.

Unfortunately, He Yi shook his head.

“I was too young at the time. I only have a vague impression. I was barely three or four years old, so I don’t remember much about what happened back then. It’s just that, for some reason, the moment I saw these patterns of yours, I remembered the ones I saw on the stone wall. The memory is still incredibly vivid.”

Naturally, Lin Xiao had no answer for that either.

“Then can you ask your father?”

He Yi rolled the word “father” around in his mouth, finding it strangely awkward.

He glanced at Lin Xiao.

“I could ask him, but I can’t return right now. That Land of Absolute Spirit isn’t easy to cross.”

What he really wanted to say was: Can you let me go back right now? Aren’t you afraid that I’ll reveal the fact that the Lingxian Sect’s cultivation method doesn’t require spiritual roots?

But he held his tongue.

He knew that he would never do such a thing, so there was no point in saying it and making the others wary of him.

Lin Xiao, however, seemed to understand what he had left unsaid. He said frankly, “I do have a way to get to the cultivation world. But you’ve only just joined the Lingxian Sect, and you haven’t developed much attachment to our sect yet. What if I let you go back and you decide to return to the Talisman Sect? I think this matter may be urgent, but it isn’t so urgent that we have to act immediately. Why don’t we wait until it’s time to prepare for the auction? You can return then and ask your father while you’re at it.”

He Yi clearly shared the same thought. He smiled, nodded, and said nothing more.

Having finished asking what he needed to know, Lin Xiao didn’t disturb He Yi’s cultivation and left Qingyun Peak.

Now that he had found a lead regarding the arrangement of the Ji Stones, he could put the matter aside for the time being.

At present, the most important thing was preparing for the construction of the city.

Just as Lin Xiao was about to head to the Formation Hall, a fierce wind suddenly began howling around him. The spirit plants in the fields were blown until their heads nearly bent to the ground.

The skies churned and changed. Layer upon layer of dark clouds came rushing together, gathering above the Lingxian Sect!

Within the clouds, faint flashes of lightning could be seen, twisting like swimming dragons.

This was clearly the sign of a tribulation lightning storm!

Was someone in their sect about to undergo a tribulation and break through? Why hadn’t he heard anything about it?

Lin Xiao was puzzled. But when he extended his divine sense toward the center of the gathering lightning clouds, he immediately understood.

It was actually on the floating island!

And the person undergoing the tribulation was none other than Sun Yigao, who had been meditating before the Heart-Calming Mirror!

Lin Xiao hurried over. When he arrived, he saw Sun Yigao sitting with his eyes tightly shut, his expression calm and composed. He didn’t seem to be in any danger.

The spiritual energy around him seemed to be drawn into his body, surging in layer after layer and circle after circle. Gradually, that spiritual energy began to show signs of transforming into primordial energy, becoming something between spiritual energy and primordial energy.

Lin Xiao set up a barrier around Sun Yigao to prevent anyone else from accidentally disturbing him.

He looked up at the lightning clouds in the sky, feeling a little worried that Sun Yigao might be blasted into a charred corpse.

“System, Yigao will be all right, won’t he?”

After all, during the past two years, he had occasionally read some cultivation stories in his spare time. He had seen plenty of examples of people being blasted into oblivion by tribulation lightning.

[Warm Reminder: After the system upgrade, the host may copy the Natural Platform’s tribulation-lightning guidance function into the mountain-protecting grand formation, preventing sect disciples from accidentally suffering harm when breaking through.]

It even had a function like that!

“How do I copy it?” Lin Xiao immediately asked.

But before the system could answer, Lin Xiao slapped his forehead and sighed at his own foolishness.

He immediately entered the system and checked. After opening the control panel for the mountain-protecting grand formation, he indeed found a plus sign.

When he tapped the plus sign, a list of functions available for copying appeared. Among them was the Natural Platform’s tribulation-lightning guidance function.

Without the slightest hesitation, Lin Xiao selected the function and pressed confirm.

Only then did he relax, settling down nearby to watch the first member of his sect—other than himself—break through to the Nascent Soul stage.

The astonishing celestial phenomenon attracted the attention of many disciples on Qingyun Peak. It wasn’t only them—even Xiushui Village at the foot of the mountain became lively.

However, the villagers of Xiushui calmly explained the situation to the visitors nearby.

“That’s an immortal on the mountain breaking through and undergoing a tribulation. Don’t make such a fuss.”

There was a reason for their calmness. Over the past few years, they had witnessed several tribulations, both large and small.

After all, several people in the Lingxian Sect had broken through to the Core Formation stage during the past two years.

The tribulation lightning accompanying the Core Formation stage was relatively minor. It was merely more violent than the thunder and lightning of ordinary weather, and nothing more.

Thus, the villagers of Xiushui had long since grown accustomed to it.

Although the villagers did feel that this tribulation seemed much more frightening than the previous ones…

It almost looked as terrifying as the disturbance on the Path of Heart Inquiry the last time the Lingxian Sect recruited disciples.

Because Lin Xiao had emerged from seclusion just as the incident with the Path of Heart Inquiry occurred, many of the onlookers had assumed that the celestial phenomenon at the time had been caused by the disturbance on the path. They had never considered that someone might have been undergoing a tribulation.

After hearing the villagers’ explanation, the visitors from the village calmed down somewhat.

But they couldn’t help looking up at the chains of lightning lurking within the thunderclouds, and their hearts remained filled with dread.

Lightning that thick would kill an ordinary person instantly!

Who would have thought that the immortals on the mountain could withstand such punishment?

No—that wasn’t the point. Who would have thought that becoming an immortal meant getting struck by lightning?

Only at times like this did everyone feel a little grateful to be ordinary mortals. At least they didn’t have to endure being struck by lightning.

Jiang Youfu and the others had also been alarmed and hurried over.

“Brother Xiao, is Yigao about to break through?” Jiang Youfu didn’t even dare to breathe loudly. He sent the question to Lin Xiao via voice transmission.

“That’s right. By the way, Fuzi, was it like this outside when I broke through?” Lin Xiao transmitted his reply as well, his gaze never leaving Sun Yigao.

“It seemed about the same.” Jiang Youfu nodded.

Liu Yunan, standing beside him, looked up at the sky and asked worriedly, “Brother Xiao, will he really be all right when lightning that thick strikes him? He isn’t inside the Natural Platform, after all.”

“It’s fine. I copied the Natural Platform’s tribulation-lightning guidance function into our mountain-protecting grand formation. From now on, everyone who breaks through within the sect won’t be struck as severely by the lightning.” Lin Xiao explained.

Hearing this, the others who had come over finally relaxed and quietly waited nearby for Sun Yigao to complete his breakthrough.

But after looking around, Lin Xiao suddenly realized that someone was missing.

Someone who, under normal circumstances, absolutely could not have missed this scene.

Senior Liao!

As Sun Yigao’s master, Senior Liao was always extremely attentive whenever anything involved Sun Yigao. So why hadn’t he appeared this time—not even as a shadow, or rather, a soul shadow?

Lin Xiao found it strange.

Although Mount Changming was quite some distance away, and the formations there created a degree of interference, they shouldn’t have been enough to keep him from sensing such a tremendous disturbance.

At that moment, the system suddenly spoke:

[If sect member Sun Yigao successfully breaks through to the Nascent Soul stage, then as the sect master, the difference between the host’s cultivation and his will become negligible. Host, have you really not felt any sense of urgency?]