Fire Monster

Chapter 255 The Initial Three Tribulations
Zhao Guanshan was silent for a long time. He originally had many questions to ask, but at this moment, he only had one question left.

"Senior, is the collapse of the cultivation world related to destiny?"

"I don't know, but my senior brother once made a guess about this. He said that since the human race can have a destiny that is achieved through collective cultivation, other life forms must also have it. The origin of the evil demons may be related to this."

"Of course, my senior brother also said that the destiny formed by collective cultivation can be guided. Just like why mortals think that immortal cultivators are elegant and noble, it is because they are guided by immortals who have achieved success in cultivation. When most people in a society have a great yearning and good impression of immortal cultivators, destiny will also favor them especially..."

"But this kind of guidance needs to be done in moderation, otherwise, it's easy to shoot yourself in the foot."

"But in addition to this, there is another kind of guidance, which is to make enemies. For example, the war between humans and demons, or between humans and evil demons. The destiny cultivated by the group will focus on this aspect. At this time, the cultivators can do their own things in the back, such as cultivation, ascending, and achieving great freedom, etc."

"But no matter how skillfully you guide someone, it's always easy to reveal your true colors. The best way is to not guide them, not to get involved, to keep a low profile, and to lie dormant. When most people around you don't know you exist, then even if Destiny becomes powerful, it will be difficult for them to do anything to you."

"Another method is to accumulate merits. You know, merits are wonderful. It is said that you can use destiny as a shield..."

"In short, if Fellow Daoist Chengfeng still wants to achieve something in the real world, you must start preparing from now on. Otherwise, what you do now may affect you hundreds of years in the future."

Hearing this, Zhao Guanshan couldn't help but ask again, "Senior, under the Heavenly Mandate-Chaos Order, can its power penetrate into the Spirit World?"

"I don't know this, but the Zhenhai Dao Palace can now mass-produce the kind of martial arts mecha that is equivalent to a fifth-level Qi Refiner."

"As for what the future will be like, even my senior brother doesn't know. He said that the collapse of the world of immortal cultivation might just be caused by the collapse of a small link in a dense chain. The power and origin involved might very well be the result of interference from many powerful beings."

"So, don't get hung up on it, don't treat destiny as your enemy. Sometimes, being a national teacher is good."

"If you don't want to be a national teacher, then take your disciples, relatives and descendants, cut a piece of land, build a spirit tower, use the land as a boat, the spirit tower as a mast, and the demon net as a sail, and wander on the vast demon fire. It's no big deal."

"I was not well prepared before. Otherwise, if I had a level 6 spirit-supplying tower in hand, why would I be defeated?"

"Fellow Daoist Chengfeng, these are my sincere words, please consider them for yourself."

"Thank you, senior. Could you tell me more about the inner demon tribulation?" After Zhao Guanshan thanked him, he hurriedly asked again. All this knowledge and information was Cheng Muye's way of repaying a favor, so it would be a waste not to ask.

"Of course you can. The topic I just talked about is actually a bit heavy. In a sense, it can be called worrying about nothing."

"Because, for a Qi Refiner, even when his lifespan is about to end, he may not be affected by the destiny. Generally speaking, one must reach the eighth level of Qi Refiner and go through the initial three tribulations before he can sense the destiny and be affected by it. Otherwise, like Ding Daoren, if you throw him into the Zhenhai Dao Palace, do you think he will be tied up by the angry crowd and thrown into the fire?"

"No, he will only become more prosperous, with flowers and applause all the way, showing off in front of people all the way, beating all kinds of people who refuse to obey, beating all kinds of geniuses, all kinds of beauties throwing themselves at him, heroes from all sides hearing the news, bowing down to him. He will receive countless praises and countless worships in the next few decades or even hundreds of years. He will be crowned as the national teacher, he will have countless wealth and countless reputation, and he will definitely have a good end, dying like an ordinary person on a quiet morning."

"But for immortal cultivators and Qi practitioners, dying quietly like a mortal is what they least want to see, and it is the greatest punishment."

"So, if you, Fellow Daoist Chengfeng, are not sure you can survive the first three tribulations, then forget what I just said. What does destiny have to do with you? It seems that you are practicing for yourself, but in fact, you are practicing for destiny."

At this point, Cheng Muye smiled slightly and deliberately made it sound more interesting.

Then he paused before starting his formal explanation.

"Two thousand years ago, every cultivator had to face three tribulations: heavenly tribulation, earthly tribulation, and human tribulation."

“Those who can go through the three calamities of heaven, earth and man can become the Great Vehicle Golden Immortal, soaring through heaven and earth, with the sun and the moon as their companions, achieving great freedom and enjoying a lifespan of 100,000 years.”

“Those who can survive the earth calamity and the human calamity can become great immortals, soaring through the clouds and rain, being at ease with the heaven and earth, achieving a little freedom, and enjoying a life span of ten thousand years.”

“If one can only endure the human tribulation, one can become a Nascent Soul Ghost Immortal, call the wind and rain, master magic, live freely in the world, and enjoy a lifespan of a thousand years.”

“But now that the world has changed drastically, we Qi cultivators no longer have the opportunity to become immortals, so the three calamities of heaven, earth, and man have evolved into three types: physical calamity, mental calamity, and life calamity.”

"The physical tribulation is a physical tribulation. A breakthrough can be achieved when one cultivates to the fifth level of Qi Refining. It requires perfection of the inner and outer physical bodies, the perfection of the innate pure Yang Qi, the cultivation of a pure Yang body, and the evolution of an innate pure Yang body."

"The heart calamity is the heart demon calamity. People are born smart, know everything, are good at learning, accumulate experience, and inherit. From the perspective of cultivation, it is truly a gift from heaven. But because of this, every practitioner will have a demonic thought that obscures the self. This demonic thought cannot pass the magic heart detection and cannot be dispelled with the help of external forces. It accompanies the mind and grows with experience, and then unconsciously affects the practitioner's personality, style of behavior, etc."

"Others cannot help, and one cannot detect it until the mental calamity accumulates to a certain level and suddenly explodes."

"In fact, mortals also have mental tribulations, but most mortals are called awakening. Before and after the awakening, they are almost like two different people."

"But ordinary people are weak, so this evil thought will not have much impact on their lives."

"Only the mental tribulations of practitioners are difficult."

"Because there is no opportunity, and there are no signs, you don't even know what this evil thought is like, and there is no way to prevent it."

"I think Fellow Daoist Chengfeng must be deeply touched by this!"

Zhao Guanshan nodded. It was indeed true. It came suddenly without any warning.

But at this time he asked again: "Since the inner demon calamity can affect the personality of an individual, will it have an impact on the destiny cultivated by the group?" "No! Fellow Daoist Chengfeng, you have the wrong concept."

"If the group's cultivation destiny is macroscopic, then this inner demon tribulation is microscopic. The individual microscopic cannot affect the macroscopic, but the macroscopic can definitely affect the individual microscopic."

"Just like the five immortals in Zhenhai Dao Palace, they were influenced by destiny."

"Let's talk about what is a fate."

"Life Tribulation is the most difficult of the three initial tribulations to overcome. It is the most mysterious. I can only say that it is truly a line between life and death. If you overcome it, everything will be fine. If you cannot overcome it, your life span will end. It is very complicated."

"But I cannot reveal the details, because I have never gone through the tribulation, and I have never even considered it. If I dare to go through the tribulation, I will surely die under the intervention of fate."

"And the best time to survive the tribulation is between the eighth and ninth level of Qi Refiner."

“Fellow Daoist Chengfeng, you must master this. If you really have the opportunity to transcend your life calamity in the future, remember, you must do it before your destiny in the Linjiang Prefecture Dao Palace has matured. Otherwise, you can take a boat out to sea and go to the Fuyun Dao Palace or the Cangwu Dao Palace. These two places will never allow your destiny to grow.”

"As for what will happen after the first three disasters, I have no idea."

"Fellow Daoist Chengfeng, please take care of yourself!"

After saying this, Cheng Muye nodded and left.

From then on, he no longer owed Zhao Guanshan any favor.

Zhao Guanshan continued to sit cross-legged in the same place. He benefited a lot from the long talk with Cheng Muye.

After thinking for a long time, he chose to log off at a building ruin in the Skull Mountain and return to his statue space.

But as soon as he returned, Zhao Guanshan noticed something was wrong, because at this moment, the statues of him, Liu Yuwei and Xiao Chengyun had some cracks and looked like they were about to collapse.

"Oh no! What happened?"

Zhao Guanshan did not dare to return to the real world immediately, but tried to use the statue's vision. As a result, the next second, his eyes went dark, as if he was being attacked countless times and his body was about to be turned into dust.

By the time he finally struggled out, his vitality was already seriously damaged, and his spirit body was severely damaged. It was only because of the mysterious scales at the center of his eyebrows that continuously relieved and supplied him with spiritual strength that his spirit body survived. Otherwise, he did not die in the spirit world, but died in his own statue space. That would have been too ironic.

"Wait, Linjiang Prefecture Taoist Palace is destroying the statue of Lihuo Immortal? This version is evolving too fast."

Zhao Guanshan slumped on the ground. He wanted to return to reality, but he couldn't even go back to his own imaginary world.

Although the statue of the Lihuo Immortal is not the true image of the female immortal, it acts like a beacon, supporting and communicating the real and spiritual worlds, while also maintaining his statue space and visualizing the world.

Now that the statue has been destroyed, his cheats are like being cut off from their source.

For a moment, Zhao Guanshan was helpless. He could only watch helplessly as the cracks on the statues of the three of them in the statue space grew bigger and bigger, and became more and more numerous, ready to shatter at any time.

Only at this moment did he finally realize how terrible the microclimate of destiny was, and how great the impact and restraint it had on the immortal cultivator-Qi-refiner system was. Even if it was not deliberately targeted, it was deadly enough.

"I can't just sit there and wait for death. I have to save myself."

Zhao Guanshan climbed up with difficulty. He tried to sprinkle a handful of ashes on his statue. It actually worked and was able to repair the cracks on the statue. However, he did not have much ashes in his hand at the moment. Compared with the cracks that kept appearing on the statue, it was simply a drop in the bucket.

Gritting his teeth, he took out the purple fire dagger and placed it on his statue. It was indeed effective, because it was as if there was an invisible destructive force that was blocked by the purple fire dagger.

In the blink of an eye, the layers of spiritual ash that strengthened the Purple Fire Dagger were rapidly consumed.

From the original enhancement +10, it dropped all the way to enhancement +7, which made Zhao Guanshan feel extremely painful.

But there was no way, he had to keep the statue.

Fortunately, his statue is dominant. As long as his statue does not collapse, the statues of Xiao Chengyun and Liu Yuwei will no longer collapse.

So at this moment, the Purple Fire Dagger finally stabilized the situation after paying such a huge price.

In other words, the consequences of the Linjiang Prefecture Taoist Palace destroying the statue of the Lihuo Immortal also spread to this point.

While Zhao Guanshan felt a little lucky, he also became increasingly aware of the seriousness of the situation.

Since the conservatives stepped down and the radicals took over, the formation of a climate of destiny has become irreversible.

He had to hurry up and prepare for his retreat.

(End of this chapter)