North of Mingdu, two hundred li away, on a barren mountain—several figures stood quietly.
Gu Yuena, Di Tian, Bi Ji, and Xiong Jun.
All of them had their eyes fixed on Yunze, their gazes following his every movement.
"Miss… do you know what the young master is doing?" Di Tian couldn't help but ask.
Gu Yuena showed a thoughtful expression, but sounded uncertain:"He should be drawing some kind of formation."
On the ground, Yunze was carving with his fingers. Soul power condensed on his fingertips, and every line he drew shimmered faintly with energy.
After drawing several strokes, he would insert a conical piece of metal into the ground, then take that point as a base to continue drawing, before planting another metal cone.
Again and again, he repeated this process. Each time the lines differed slightly, yet together they began weaving into a complex pattern.
The effort drained soul power rapidly. Yunze had already sat cross-legged to restore himself four times. He had been working since morning, and by afternoon the formation still wasn't complete.
Watching the intricate lines gradually take shape, Gu Yuena's head grew dizzy. She quickly averted her gaze, eyes wide with shock.
Not just her—even Di Tian, Bi Ji, and Xiong Jun, whose cultivation was far higher, felt a wave of vertigo if they stared too long.
The lines were too strange. As soon as one tried to trace them in their mind, drowsiness set in, followed by a stabbing headache.
"The formation is almost complete. Don't look at it anymore. If you can't comprehend its mysteries, you'll faint outright," Yunze's calm voice reminded them.
Startled, they all hastily looked away, not daring to study the lines further. Their hearts trembled.
To think—mere patterns drawn on the ground could make them nearly collapse from dizziness. Unbelievable.
With a clap of his hands, Yunze stepped back.
A circular array—woven from dozens of curves and more than ten metal cones—was complete.
He walked into the center, pulled out the middle cone, and instantly the glowing lines dimmed, as though the flames within had lost their source of fuel.
"You can look at it now," Yunze said. "Just be careful not to step on the lines."
The others glanced down. Sure enough, the dizziness was gone. Their amazement only deepened.
"Yunze, what formation is this?" Gu Yuena asked curiously as she stepped closer.
"It's just a simple Lightning-Controlling Array. You'll see its use soon enough." Yunze smiled faintly.
"Lightning-Controlling?"
Not just Gu Yuena—even Di Tian and the others were puzzled. Their expressions held a hint of fear.
They all had an instinctive dread of lightning—especially that of heavenly tribulations, having been scorched by it before.
"You'll understand once the pill is finished." Yunze didn't elaborate. He produced a pill furnace and began preparing.
Heating the furnace, he added a portion of herbs once it reached the right temperature, closed the lid, and continued refining. Twenty minutes later, he added more herbs.
Whenever Yunze's soul power ran dry, Di Tian stepped in, channeling his own soul power into Yunze's body to sustain the flames.
The Hundred-Year Life-Extending Pill was far more difficult to refine than the Transformation Pill, but in Yunze's eyes it posed no real challenge.
The only difference was that it consumed more time and energy. The success rate, however, remained absolute—one hundred percent.
His soul power cycled endlessly—exhausted, replenished, exhausted again. Four days passed without pause.
During that time, Yunze not only refined but also instructed Bi Ji in pillcraft.
He was calm and meticulous. She, however, was flustered. Several times, an explosion nearly occurred, if not for Yunze's timely reminders.
Still, under his guidance, Bi Ji succeeded on her very first attempt.
It wasn't that her talent was extraordinary—it was simply that Yunze's teaching was so precise, almost hand-over-hand, that failure was impossible.
After several tries, Bi Ji gradually grew steadier. Though still inexperienced, she had at least grasped the basics of alchemy.
On the fourth night, around eight o'clock, a deafening thunderclap split the heavens.
The sudden roar made Gu Yuena, Di Tian, and the others startle. They could feel the oppressive will pressing down from the firmament.
The sky had changed. Stars vanished, replaced by countless threads of lightning. The air grew heavy, suffocating. Danger loomed.
"How can there be a heavenly tribulation?!" Di Tian cried out. He knew this aura all too well—he had endured it many times.
Bi Ji and Xiong Jun also turned pale, trembling with shock and confusion. Why would a tribulation suddenly appear here?
"This tribulation feels weaker… not even as strong as when I faced my hundred-thousand-year tribulation," Bi Ji murmured, almost relieved.
Di Tian and Xiong Jun sensed the same, and both exhaled slightly in relief.
Gu Yuena, however, remained the calmest. Her eyes drifted to the strange formation on the ground, and Yunze's earlier words resurfaced in her mind—Lightning-Controlling.
"Could it be… he foresaw the tribulation's arrival?" she whispered to herself.
Her voice was soft, but Di Tian, Bi Ji, and Xiong Jun all heard it. Their gazes snapped toward Yunze, who still sat cross-legged in the center.
"Don't tell me… this tribulation was summoned by the young master?" Bi Ji ventured boldly.
The others didn't dismiss it. They too felt it was possible.
Yunze remained unmoved by the thunder. His focus never wavered.
He continued refining pills. The flames he had been channeling with both hands, he now controlled with only one.
With his other hand, he picked up the cone he had removed earlier, pressed it back into the ground, and formed a hand seal.
The formation stirred.
Lines lit up with flickering fire, one after another, until within seconds the entire array blazed alive. The Lightning-Controlling Array was fully activated.
Boom!
The formation released a surge of suction.
Heaven and earth's soul power rushed inward, gathering at impossible speed.
Within the span of heartbeats, the surrounding soul power condensed to terrifying density. Gas liquefied, forming a semi-spherical barrier around the array.
Viscous liquid energy flowed across its surface, swirling into countless tiny vortices.
Gu Yuena, Di Tian, Bi Ji, and Xiong Jun were stunned. Was this the true might of the array?
Unperturbed, Yunze calmly took out piece after piece of forged spiritual metal from his storage ring.
Shoulders, legs, waist, chest, back—fifteen in total. Each piece different in size and shape, yet all the same fiery red, flames dancing across their surfaces.
The moment they appeared, the temperature around them soared. The ground scorched black, and the air above warped from the heat.
"Di Tian," Yunze said evenly, "use your soul power to lift these metals and place them separately inside the barrier."
(End of Chapter)