Chapter 31 – Heavenly Thunder? No, this is the nourishment for cultivation
[The moment your spirit-infused punch made contact with the opponent, something unexpected happened.]
[You saw the opponent instantly turn into a mist of blood, leaving no corpse behind.]
[You stared at your own hands, momentarily stunned.]
[It was then you realized that, without you even noticing, you were no longer the weakling you once were.]
[Now, not all Immortal Slaves could render you powerless.]
[After a brief moment of shock, you noticed that although the shadowy figure had turned into a mist of blood, his storage ring had fallen to the ground.]
[You quickly went over and picked up the storage ring.]
[You didn't rush to check its contents but chose to leave the area immediately.]
[You were worried there might be other Immortal Slaves around. Although you had killed one, you were still aware of your own limitations.]
[You didn't think you could defeat all Immortal Slaves just because of this.]
[After all, in many previous simulations, the Immortal Slaves you encountered could fly through the air, clearly the experts among them.]
[This time, you had only encountered a small fry.]
[Half a month passed in the blink of an eye, and you arrived at a small border town called Youyue, where you settled down.]
[It was only then that you opened the storage ring you had obtained from the shadowy Immortal Slave.]
[Upon opening it, you found numerous items, mostly pills, and over five thousand spirit stones.]
[You decided to use the spirit stones directly for cultivation, but you didn't recognize the pills and didn't dare to take them recklessly.]
[You didn't pay much attention to this; after all, it was unexpected wealth. If you could use it, great; if not, so be it.]
[In the days that followed, you resumed refining your Golden Core.]
[With the buff from the spirit stones, you could clearly feel a significant increase in the efficiency of your refining.]
[A year passed in the blink of an eye, and you ran out of spirit stones again, but the quality of your Golden Core did not improve.]
[By the fiftieth year, your Golden Core was still only at the eighth grade.]
[In fact, due to the acceleration from those thousands of spirit stones, a faint line had appeared on your Golden Core three years ago.]
[But no matter how hard you tried to refine it, it seemed unable to fully form, as if you had reached some kind of bottleneck.]
[You looked at the half-fist-sized Golden Core within you, feeling that it didn't seem too small to continue refining.]
[Could it be that you needed other talents? Was your spiritual root talent insufficient?]
[After thinking for a long time, you concluded that this might indeed be the reason.]
[You thought that if anyone could reach the tenth grade Golden Core just by having a large enough Qi Sea, then the wealthy and powerful families would all have tenth grade Golden Cores.]
[You could enhance the size of your Qi Sea with the Demonic Dragon Egg, so the disciples of those great sects and families could surely find similar items to enhance themselves.]
[Thinking of this, you were almost certain that you had reached the bottleneck of your own talent.]
[But you didn't rush to break through to the Core Formation stage.]
[No matter what, as someone with a simulator, you felt uncomfortable not striving to be the strongest.]
[You didn't believe that a mere bottleneck could stop you. If one year wasn't enough, then ten years; if ten years wasn't enough, then a hundred years.]
[You decided to confront your Golden Core head-on, refusing to stop until you reached the tenth grade!]
[On a certain day in the fifty-second year, while you were refining your Golden Core, you suddenly felt a sense of foreboding.]
[You frowned slightly, looking around in confusion, but found nothing amiss.]
[Just as you thought you were being paranoid, a bolt of lightning suddenly struck from the sky, hitting you directly.]
[However, besides your Immortal Dao cultivation, you also had the ninth level of Condensing Core Realm in Martial Dao cultivation, and your physical body was quite strong. The lightning only severely injured you, not killing you outright.]
[Just as you thought the lightning was a coincidence, you saw more lightning gathering in the sky, heading straight for you.]
[With a loud "boom," you were struck by lightning again.]
[This bolt was clearly more powerful than the previous one, leaving you covered in blood and on the brink of death.]
[But it wasn't over; the lightning in the sky continued to gather, seemingly intent on killing you.]
[At this moment, you suddenly remembered Bai Ruoxue mentioning the Heavenly Punishment Thunder. She had said that every few decades, this sealed Southern Region would experience lightning strikes to kill local cultivators.]
[You looked into the distance and saw that, indeed, besides your location, there were many places far away where lightning was also striking.]
[You knew you had no power to resist this Heavenly Thunder.]
[You looked up at the sky and suddenly remembered the Extreme Body Tempering Method mentioned in the unnamed technique.]
[You thought to yourself, this must be the ultimate test, right?]
[Instead of retreating, you advanced towards the incoming lightning, laughing loudly, "Let this Heavenly Thunder come even fiercer!"]
[With a "boom," the lightning exploded, and your body was covered in electric light, with no intact flesh left.]
[But that wasn't the end; a large amount of purple-blue electric arcs had already entered your Qi Sea, trying to destroy your Golden Core.]
[Cracking sounds continuously came from your Golden Core.]
[However, your Golden Core, which you had been refining for so long, was quite sturdy and held on for the time being.]
[But before you could adjust, more lightning struck from the sky, one bolt after another.]
[Gradually, you lost all sensation in your body.]
[At this point, besides your body, your Qi Sea was also filled with lightning.]
[Your Golden Core was riddled with holes, on the verge of collapse.]
[Your breath grew weaker and weaker, and you were on the brink of death.]
[With another "boom," a bolt of lightning struck, and you felt it might be the last one you could withstand.]
[At that moment, you felt primordial energy surging from your blood and flesh, as if it were angry and roaring.]
[In an instant, all the primordial energy in your body went berserk, turning from pale cyan to crimson, starting to repair your body.]
[Congratulations, your Martial Dao cultivation has broken through to the Qi Motion Realm.]
[At this moment, you looked at the lightning still coming from the sky and laughed; you had achieved Extreme Body Tempering.]
[Heavenly Thunder? Nonsense, it was just nourishment for your cultivation.]
[Due to your breakthrough in Martial Dao, your physical strength increased significantly, allowing you to withstand two more bolts of lightning.]
[But your Golden Core in the Qi Sea could no longer hold on.]
[With a few more electric arcs, your Golden Core in the Qi Sea shattered completely.]
[What you didn't know was that before your Golden Core shattered, nine lines were clearly visible on it.]
[One of the lines even had purple-blue electric arcs flashing on it.]
[Two minutes later, you couldn't hold on any longer.]
[You died at the age of 72.]
[Extreme One-for-One (Talent) triggered.]
[At the moment of your death, in the Immortal Realm above the Nine Heavens, an Immortal Lord assigned to control the lightning array suddenly choked and died from a burst of immortal energy.]
[This simulation has ended.]