In order for a mortal to cultivate, they must have a Spiritual Vein. Even cultivators of the martial way required a mortal to have a Spiritual Vein above the shattered grade. This was due to the need to sense the spiritual qi of heaven and earth. Without being able to sense spiritual qi, mortals would not be able to absorb them.

  All mortals possessed Spiritual Veins. The difference was simply the type and quality of Spiritual Veins a mortal had. There were five primary types of Spiritual Veins: fire, water, wood, metal, and earth. And each vein was further divided into five different grades of quality: shattered, fractured, fwless, perfect, and heavenly.

  A shattered Spiritual Vein was useless, and the difference between having one and not having one was almost indiscernible. And those who had pentad Spiritual Veins, having all five elements, were also incapable of cultivating. Only those with quadruple or less Spiritual Vein were capable of cultivating.

  But the most supreme Spiritual Veins were single Spiritual Veins, also known as Heavenly Spiritual Veins. Mutated Spiritual Veins were also included in this category and were far rarer than regur Heavenly Spiritual Veins, like Tianyi’s Lightning Spiritual Vein or Mengfei’s Yin Spiritual Vein.

  However, Tianyi's Heavenly Lightning Spiritual Vein was undergoing even further mutation, surpassing the limits of a Heavenly Spiritual Vein. His grasp of lightning attuned spiritual qi became even greater, and there was a faint sense of domination as if he was the ruler of lightning. As if in response to this heaven-defying power, the heavens began to rage, and tribution clouds began to form above Tianyi's location. Despite not advancing to the next realm, Tianyi was going to undergo a Heavenly Tribution!

  Tianyi, who was attuned to all types of lightning, naturally felt the Heavenly Tribution forming, but he didn’t show any panic and instead showed a fearless smile as he looked up. It was as if the tribution lightning in the clouds was an open book for him to read.

  The tribution clouds continued to gather and amass power above the pace, and the clouds continued to darken until pitch bck with frequent fshes of lightning and the crackling of thunder. Suddenly, the Heavenly Tribution struck as a golden bolt of lightning pierced through the pace ceilings towards Tianyi. The reason a Heavenly Tribution was called a tribution and not a camity was because you could run and hide away from camities, but you could never avoid tribution.

  The lightning pierced through all the Nascent Soul level formation of the pace and directly struck Tianyi’s body. But Tianyi didn’t avoid it as he allowed the bolt of lightning to encase him.

  Tribution lightning may be a great threat to other people, but to me, who has the mutated Heavenly Lightning Spiritual Vein, it is instead a big gift to me! Or should it be Tribution Lighting Spiritual Vein? Whatever the name, tribution lightning is a pretty excellent source of energy for me now.

  Tianyi used his previous experience and the toughness of his Bone Refining stage body to defend against the lightning while he absorbed it and converted it into spiritual qi.

  Ever since he had returned to the Buzhou Immortal Sect and talked to his mother, his cultivate had stagnated at the early Spiritual Altar Foundation Establishment. He wanted to infuse the power of tribution essence into his Spiritual Altar and Pilrs before he entered the Spiritual Crucible stage. But he didn't want to keep relying on external sources for tribution essence, so he waited until he could produce tribution essence him.

  It was only today that he had gained a sliver of enlightenment on the nature of tribution essence and the majesty of the Heavenly Dao that allowed him to produce his own tribution essence.

  The second strike of tribution lightning came down.

  And then the third strike.

  The fourth strike.

  The fifth strike.

  The sixth strike.

  The seventh strike.

  My Spiritual Altar is almost finished forming. I have to thank the Heavenly Tribution for sending down these bolts to quicken my cultivation. Tianyi was naturally just thinking about this. If he were to really say that out loud, who knows whether or not the Heavenly Tribution will send out a bolt of lightning that he couldn’t withstand and directly exterminate him for his impudence. Not to mention the reactions of other cultivators who treated Heavenly Tribution with veneration.

  The eighth strike.

  Tianyi frowned as he took the eighth lightning strike. He could feel that its power was nearing the limit of the Foundation Establishment Realm. Although he could still defend against it and absorb it at the same time, if the next strike would be even stronger, Tianyi wasn’t confident he would be able to finish the Heavenly Tribution uninjured.

  After he finished dealing with the eighth bolt, Tianyi spread out his arms, formed his hand into cws, and moved them in a coiling pattern. The Heavenly Tribution didn’t bring forth the ninth strike immediately after the eighth bolt, which made Tianyi even warier. Calming his nerves down, Tianyi amassed spiritual qi into both his hands and began building up the power of his attack even more.

  After the time for a kettle of water to boil passed, the ninth lightning bolt finally descended. At the same time that the ninth lightning bolt descended, Tianyi struck upwards. Two illusionary coiling dragons rose from his hands and soared skyward against the descending bolt of the lightning. The two illusionary dragons cshed against the tribution lightning, and they roared savagely as if they were alive and possessed the natural arrogance of the Dragon Cn. As, the two dragons were still illusions in the end, and after cshing for a few moments, they were destroyed, and the bolt of lightning continued its descent.

  Tianyi didn't panic as his attack was destroyed. The lightning bolt showed the power of the Core Formation Realm, while his attack was only at the peak of the Foundation Establishment Realm. Raising one palm upwards while the other faced downward, Tianyi's body resembled a pilr that supported heaven and earth. An illusionary white pilr created by qi appeared with Tianyi at its center and gave off an aura of agelessness as if it was an eternal pilr that would never be destroyed.

  The lightning continued its descent and struck Tianyi. But he was inside the pilr made of spiritual qi, and it protected him against the lightning. However, the pilr began to have numerous cracks appear on it. Against the overbearing might of the tribution lightning, it finally shattered, and Tianyi’s face began to pale.

  But Tianyi wasn’t done as he unsheathed his sword and used the Heartless Sword Art and struck the tip of the descending lightning. It was all for this moment. He used his two illusionary dragons to slow down the lightning and used the spiritual pilr to temporarily stop the lightning to observe the lightning, finding its weak point for him to strike against. And now that his sword tip struck the tip of the descending lightning, it fractured into a thousand different bolts that spread out like an umbrel.

  The tribution lightning wasn’t so easily defeated as the bolts then curved back to attack Tianyi from all sides. But for Tianyi, as long as the attack wasn’t gathered at one point, he wasn't afraid. Using a portion of his attention, Tianyi deflected and deyed half of the bolts while dealing with the other half. And after dealing with half, he dealt with the rest.

  By the time Tianyi was done, his face was deathly pale as he vomited a mouthful of blood. Your mother! That attack was at least at the mid Core Formation Realm! Tianyi cursed as he quickly swallowed a recovery pill and felt his damaged meridians and internal organs heal. His skin, muscles, tendons, and bones had been strengthened, so they coped with the excess energy better than his internal organs.

  “Damn, thankfully, that was the st one. Otherwise, my internal injuries would have taken me months to heal.” Tianyi said. “Absorbing tribution lightning is good and all, but I’m still a Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator. Absorbing the power of a Core Formation Realm attack would just make me explode! My intuition is telling me that the Heavenly Tribution will appear more frequently in the future and not just when I ascend realms.”

  On the one hand, it was the Heavenly Dao giving free energy to speed up Tianyi's cultivation. On the other hand, there was a real risk of death and exploding from absorbing too much.

  “Only when one reaches Immortality would the Heavenly Tribution stop, ascending into Immortality means severing one’s connection to the mortal world. Don’t tell me I have to become an Immortal for the Heavenly Tribution to stop?”

  Although Tianyi’s words were full of helplessness, his eyes had a hint of excitement. Why? It was because the protagonists in all the stories were often too heaven-defying and suppressed by the heavens and the world, yet they would overcome all those obstacles. This pressure made Tianyi feel that he was a little like the protagonist of a cultivation novel.

  The Xi Emperor wrung his hand in worry as he watched the Heavenly Tribution descend. “Younger Sister, Nephew Tianyi is still at the early stage of the Spiritual Altar Foundation Establishment. Why would Heavenly Tribution appear?”

  Xi Mengfei, who was next to the Xi Emperor, had an expressionless face as she watched the Heavenly Tribution and her eyes pierced through all obstacles watching Tianyi. She already had a guess, but the matter was a big matter, with the fewer people knowing, the better. “Yi’er is a genius among genius. The scripture he cultivates in is heaven-defying. It is no surprise that Heavenly Tribution would come.”

  The Xi Emperor furrowed his brows. Although the sentence seemed reasonable, there was still something missing. Forget it, he thought. Perhaps he was simply a frog in a well, not knowing how wide heaven and earth were.

  The biggest worry would be Xi Tianyi dying to the Heavenly Tribution, causing a grudge to form in his younger sister’s heart. It must be known that the most significant reason that the Xi Dynasty was able to become a cultivation empire was because of his sister, Xi Mengfei. Should he lose her support, who knows how many of the surrounding powers would want to bite a chunk of the Xi Dynasty?

  Although he had stopped expanding and was consolidating power step by step in order to produce more cultivators for the Xi Dynasty, this was not something that could be done in a few years. Even after nine hundred years, it was still not enough. Their power was already weaker than the amount of nd and resources they should be able to protect. It was only thanks to his retionship with his sister that he was able to keep war from erupting.

  The Xi Dynasty would even occasionally send gifts to the surrounding powers to maintain friendly retionships.

  “Your majesty… this…”

  The Xi Emperor sent a gnce at his empress and his children that had come because of the sudden arrival of the Heavenly Tribution.

  "Everything is under control. Return to your dwellings."

  The Xi Emperor ordered using his spiritual sense to the people who had come to see what was happening as well as a few head eunuchs managing the affairs of the imperial pace. After that, Xi Mengfei and the Xi Emperor watched as bolts of lightning descended one by one from the bck clouds.

  The Xi Emperor gnced at his younger sister. Although she may not know, and not many would be able to discern it. For him, who had known this younger sister since she was young, some habits were hard to change. When Xi Mengfei became nervous or full of worry, her face would be even more expressionless, and her body would seize up like having been frozen in a block of ice. From this, the Xi Emperor could tell that his younger sister wasn’t as confident as she portrayed herself as.

  When the bck clouds dispersed, the Xi Emperor revealed a smile of relief as he looked at Xi Mengfei.

  “Emperor-Brother, Yi’er has passed his Heavenly Tribution. Let us return and discuss the matter once more.”

  The Xi Emperor nodded as the two of them returned to his study room. It was only the two of them. Not even his personal eunuch was there, much less the officials.

  “The girl Yi’er was staring at, who is she?” Mengfei asked.

  The Xi Emperor thought a bit and recalled how Tianyi was staring at a particur spot in the banquet hall with an unfocused gaze. “The area Nephew was looking at should be the seats of the Jiang family.”

  “As for the girl. Minister Jiang has three daughters. The eldest daughter, Jiang Qingwa, she’s one of the rising geniuses of the Xi Dynasty.” The Xi Emperor looked at his younger sister, and seeing her shake her head, he continued.

  “His second daughter is Jiang Chunye, said to be an idiot but about a month ago she suddenly showed great talent in martial arts and knowing many skills, changing her reputation. Much more, she was able to cross stages and defeat her sister during the banquet.” The Xi Emperor saw Mengfei tilt her head the slightest bit and knew that she couldn’t recall Jiang Chunye. Perhaps she wasn’t even paying attention during the whole banquet.

  The Xi Emperor held in his sigh. The hope of someone catching her eye and being accepted as a disciple was crushed. “The third and youngest daughter of Minister Jiang. Speaking of which, her name is quite a coincidence. Jiang Daoyi, the Yi character is the same as Nephew Tianyi’s. There has not been much information about her, and she rarely goes out, like an invisible person. She does not seem to have cultivated at all in her life.”

  Xi Mengfei’s dark eyes fshed for a brief moment. “That should be the girl. Bring her to me.”