At the center of the Broken Primordial World existed a unique space. It exhibited the nature of a black hole of absorbing and attracting everything, yet it was completely empty. Or at least, it used to be empty.
At the center, crushed by pressure, was a humanoid in a fetal position.
Tianyi had never been in such a sorry state in his entire life. His robe-shaped immortal rank artifact was in tatters and was now worthless. The spatial pouch, broken, and everything he had collected was gone. Even the divine artifact, the Kunlun Mirror, had numerous fractures on its face and lost much of its radiance.
Still, worse of all was that all the progress he made in the Singularity Realm had vanished, and he returned to step one. He couldn't even call for help because the explosion destroyed the ink jade pendant.
The only good news was that Dandan survived. As a pill qilin nurtured by his true qi of primordial chaos, Dandan had an immense resistance to it, but that did not mean he had not been affected by the concussive force. He now lay silent on Tianyi's back, recuperating from his injuries.
And to add insult to injury, not that Tianyi hadn't recovered, Tianyi found that he couldn't move a single muscle. There wasn't anything material chaining him, but the sheer pressure made his greatest advantage, his pure bodily strength, useless.
He couldn't even move his eyelids!
It had already been a week since he had been stuck in the space. The only thing he could do was cultivate and slowly regain his former progress. Still, the gravity had a unique effect of speeding up the compression speed of his inner cosmos. At this rate, he could cultivate back to before that bastard pierced him with the Immortal Slaying Sword in less than two years.
The problem was that Tianyi didn't know if reaching the peak of the Singularity Realm would allow him to escape the pressure or not. Since the Broken Primordial World has been, well, broken, heavenly tribulation no longer occurred, which meant that he couldn't advance to the next realm.
Although, he also didn't know whether he needed to undergo a heavenly tribulation to become an immortal. The Singularity Realm's unique nature meant that he didn't have to undergo a Singularity or Unity Heavenly Tribulation to advance, but its concept was related to the Big Bang. Once he reached the peak, he would explode the primordial egg, so his presence would no longer be concealed. Hence, incurring the Immortal Ascension Tribulation.
Tribulation lightning no longer scared Tianyi, but what he feared the most was the Inner Devil Tribulation that occurred at every Immortal Ascension Heavenly Tribulation. Cultivators with far stronger hearts had failed. Tianyi didn't believe his willpower could supersede them, but he didn't have much of a choice. If he couldn't gain the strength to break out of the gravity, then he would be stuck here forever.
Tianyi's eyes lost focus as he began to immerse himself into cultivation. It wasn't like he could do much else. It was a lonely time. There was no one to talk to, and he didn't even have the luxury of using spiritual sense to communicate with Dandan either.
Unlike when Mengfei locked him up in the secluded space, Tianyi knew no one was coming to save him. There was no safety net, and he could likely spend the rest of his life in the core of the Broken Primordial World.
This thought directly sent Tianyi into a panic. His willpower fluctuated, and he almost exploded again from the loss of control of his body. It took him even longer to calm himself. 'Once I get out, I'll eat all the good food possible, regardless of the cost. And I'll get a girlfriend! I already died a virgin once, and I don't want to die a virgin twice!'
Having set the goals for what he would do once he returned, Tianyi calmed down his erratic heart and resumed cultivating. He didn't know how long time had passed. It could have been precisely two years, perhaps longer or even shorter, but he recovered his former cultivation, the mid Singularity Realm.
Each time he advanced, the progress slowed down, and the difficulty increased. Sometimes, Tianyi felt like he couldn't compress it anymore, but he had to. There was no other choice.
During his time, Tianyi mastered the Concept of Attraction. No, not how to make your look prettier, but the physical force of a pull, and started comprehending the Law of Mass.
Half the Law of Spacetime, the Law of Space, was intricately tied to the Law of Mass. The Law of Mass was a weaker worldly law in comparison, but that was only after the universe had been birthed. What was mass the best at?
Size!
The Law of Mass was exactly what the current Tianyi needed the most. He could feel the shackles on the Singularity Realm loosen ever so slightly. Using the Concept of Attraction and his current understanding of the Law of Space, Tianyi began to make rapid progress in the Law of Mass. At the same time, his Law of Spacetime also progressed, minute as it was.
Back in the Buzhou Immortal Sect, Ba Shifang instructed Ming Xingyun on her cultivation. Currently, Ming Xingyun was in the garden, using a rag to clean the dirty stones.
"Master Ba, how much longer do I have to wipe this rock?" Ming Xingyun asked.
"You are still far from ready, young grasshopper," Ba Shifang said. It had taken him quite a while, but he finally changed how Ming Xingyun addressed him, making him rather pleased.
"Are you sure this is training? You aren't trying to get me to do your chores, are you? I'm going to tell Master when he gets back that you are being lazy!"
"No, no," Ba Shifang wagged his finger. "This is to build your foundation. Just practicing martial arts isn't enough. You have to incorporate everything you learn into everyday life. Chores just so happened to be the easiest since you move around so much."
Ming Xingyun frowned, her furrowed expression contrasting greatly on her young face. She felt that something was off but couldn't pinpoint it. Since everything she heard seemed to make sense, she continued to wipe the stone, despite her unwillingness. Wiping stones had been far from the worse thing she'd been forced to do.
Behind him, Su Bojing resisted the urge to sigh. He glanced at the sun and whispered to Ba Shifang. "Young Master Ba, it's time."
Ba Shifang glanced at Su Bojing and nodded. Afterward, Su Bojing excused himself. This had become a regular occurrence now.
After surviving a near-death experience, Su Bojing doubled his efforts to cultivate. To compensate Su Bojing, Tianyi had bestowed numerous materials such as pills and other resources, including the chance to cultivate on his Jade Lotus Clear Pond as long as Daoyi wasn't using it. Although the Jade Lotus Clear Pond was no longer useful to Tianyi, it didn't mean that it was useless for others.
Su Bojing sat on the lotus throne and instantly felt the dense spiritual qi flowing into his body without even needing to consciously absorb it. Like most Buzhou Immortal Sect disciples, he cultivated the Five Element Method. To be precise, he practiced the Earth Book.
Still, he only condensed a gold rank Five Element Earth Core in the Core Formation Realm and a four-colored Nascent Soul. Among the inner disciples, he had only been average, and his greatest hope was to become a transcending mortality or earth immortal elder. He thought he could piggyback off Tianyi's fame and influence, but he never expected to be injured because of him.
Was there resentment?
Of course, there was. He lost an arm, and the hope of recovery was slim. But who could he blame? He was the one who consciously decided to follow Tianyi, and he had gained many benefits. Honestly, if he left Tianyi now, he would lose more than he gained.
Tianyi wouldn't likely deal with him. He might feel annoyed, but he wouldn't stoop so low as to deal with Su Bojing. Of that, he was sure, but Su Bojing was afraid of the rumors. Even if he voluntarily left, there would be rumors of Tianyi purposely abandoning him.
Su Bojing couldn't be sure if he would be targeted by Tianyi because of the rumors. And he would lose access to even more resources, decreasing his chance of recovery.
Recovering his arm was difficult but not impossible, but for Tianyi to pay the price to heal him, he would need to show his worth. When he had first become Tianyi's follower, he was a whole realm higher, but now Tianyi vastly outstripped his power. Not that he thought he could defeat Tianyi when he was still in the Core Formation Realm.
But at the very least, he couldn't become weaker than Ba Shifang, right?
Su Bojing closed his eyes and earnestly began to cultivate.
Unknown to Su Bojing, after Ba Shifang dismissed Ming Xingyun and Yayun, he arrived at the location where he underwent the Core Formation Heavenly Tribulation.
Once he sat down, he pulled out four crystalline shards. They were the shattered demonic cores of demons with the bloodline of the Azure Dragon, Vermillion Bird, White Tiger, and Black Tortoise. Compared to a dragon pearl, these four shards were practically nothing. Not that he hadn't paid a price to exchange for them. Luckily, his main body quite literally brought back a mountain of corpses from the Demon Slaying Expedition.
Ba Shifang placed all the sharps on his palm. They exuded a dense aura of wood, fire, metal, and water. After preparing himself, Ba Shifang swallowed the shards. Once they entered his throat, they dissolved and turned into the purest elemental essence.
The metal essence divided into two and entered the Trigram Sky and Trigram Lake Cores, the fire essence entered the Trigram Fire Core, the wood essence split into two and entered the Trigram Wind and Trigram Thunder Cores, and the water essence entered the Trigram Water Core. Lastly, the Trigram Mountain and Trigram Land Cores began to exude an earthly aura by themselves.
With all Eight Symbol Cores ready, Ba Shifang initiated the Nascent Soul Heavenly Tribulation.
Unlike Tianyi's Nascent Soul Heavenly Tribulation, Ba Shifang's heavenly tribulation already emitted a pressure far greater than an ordinary Nascent Soul Heavenly Tribulation.
Ba Shifang successfully passed the heavenly tribulation. It wasn't anything too difficult since his combat prowess had already reached the mid Nascent Soul Realm, but this was only the beginning.
Inside Ba Shifang's dantian, bits of lights and pieces emerged from his eight cores and formed a four-petaled lotus of green, red, white, and black. Under Ba Shifang's deliberate control, the four petals split into four pieces and started to form four adolescent Ba Shifangs.
The Nascent Soul Heavenly Tribulation, which seemed to have started to recede, increased in power. It thundered as if anger at being tricked. Ba Shifang stared at the heavenly tribulation with caution. He wasn't like Tianyi, who possessed a stupidly powerful body and immense reservoir of qi. At most, he only had around ten times the amount of a top core formation disciple, and neither could he generate the same amount.
From the Trigram Thunder and Trigram Wind Cores, a blue serpentine figure emerged, the East Azure Nascent Soul. From the Trigram Fire Core, a red avian figure appeared, the South Vermillion Nascent Soul. From the Trigram Sky and Teigram Lake Cores, a white beastly figure emerged, the West White Nascent Soul, and from the Trigram Water Core, a black two-headed turtle merged, the North Sable Nascent Soul.
The four nascent souls shifted until they were outside the eight cores, each facing the direction of their namesake. Then, the earthly aura from the Trigram Mountain and Trigram Land Cores permeated the rest of the Eight Symbol Cores.
During this process, the heavenly tribulation had sent down numerous lightning bolts. Ba Shifang had been struggling under the ever-increasing powerful strikes, but after his four nascent souls formed, his strength dramatically increased to the peak of the Nascent Soul Realm.
Inside his dantian, an illusionary realm with continents and oceans formed, divided into eight territories. But it was lacking in qi, and Ba Shifang could feel this illusionary realm desperately absorbing his body's qi.
If he didn't take action, the illusionary realm would suck him to death before the heavenly tribulation ever could. Ba Shifang took out numerous pills such as the True Qi Recovery Pill, Essence Expansion Pill, Immortal Qi Replenishment Pill, and many more to recuperate his qi.
Finally, after the illusionary realm finished expanding, Ba Shifang could sigh in relief. It was an accident he hadn't expected. Should anyone attempt to cultivate the sixth grade: Eight Symbolic Core, Four Cardinal Cores, then they would have died to it should they be lacking in pills.
Tianyi had been lucky he entered the Nascent Soul Realm before the Soul Nourishing Realm. Otherwise, he might have wasted enough pills that a true immortal would cry.
Although he overcame one danger, the heavenly tribulation hadn't ended yet. Ba Shifang stared at the heavenly tribulation with confidence.
A month later, after he stabilized his cultivation base and prepped Ming Xingyun for his absence, Ba Shifang left to test out the capabilities of his new cultivation and carry out sect missions.