Surprising Tribulation

Fang Xian stood over the man's lifeless body and extended his hand, focusing all his mental energy on his hand. After a few minutes of deep concentration, a bright light covered the man's corpse, slowly moving towards Fang Xian's hand.

After a while of constant focus, Fang Xian finally absorbed the soul into his body and under the aura of the unyielding demon immortal soul, it was instantly refined.

Fang Xian felt himself gain huge amounts of vitality and strength, he was now officially a rank one mortal cultivator!

During the awakening of a soul, one's soul would condense the soul or soul fragment provided into soul qi and use that soul qi to create a vast land inside of one's soul. This was a cultivator's aperture, a soul land.

Based on the amount of soul qi, the size of the soul land would vary. Fang Xian had gained a whole soul's worth of soul qi, his soul land would be one of the biggest mortal soul lands ever recorded.

Fang Xian entered his soul land, sitting down with his legs crossed and his palm facing upwards on the inner side of his knees.

He closed his eyes calmly, waited for a few seconds and then opened them to a paradise-like realm, with many mountains, rivers and plants.

His conscience was inside his soul land.

In front of him was the largest mountain in his soul land, its peak touching the white clouds in the blue sky.

'This size is around five times the size of my rank eight soul land in my first life and is almost eighty times the size of my first rank one soul land!' Fang Xian exclaimed in his mind, staring at the peak of the mountain that was obscured by the numerous white clouds.

As a cultivator's rank increased, the size and prosperity of their soul land also increased. However, nothing good comes without a counteractive force, as a soul land's size and prosperity increased, the resources needed to sustain it also increased. This was one of the main causes of death for cultivators, their soul land dying due to it not being nurtured properly.

'When I reach rank eight, the size of my soul land will be absolutely enormous! This is a great prospect for the future, these conditions can create a high amount of high-quality soul qi and they are the perfect conditions for soul beast refinement. This is a lone cultivator's dream, my second greatest advantage of rebirth, this soul land!' Fang Xian thought excitedly about the vast prospects of his soul land.

Suddenly, the ground underneath him started to rumble. The sky turned a deep shade of black and the clouds dispersed into thin air as if they were never there. Numerous thunderbolts of lightning struck the ground near Fang Xian's feet, causing him to jump back instinctively.

Fang Xian recognised this instantly.

"This is… the beginning of a heavenly tribulation manifestation?" Fang Xian thought aloud. "Impossible! Even heaven doesn't have the authority to give a rank one cultivator a heavenly tribulation manifestation, regardless of if it is me."

While he was thinking aloud, more lightning bolts struck, this time around twenty-seven or eight paces away from Fang Xian. They all struck the same place simultaneously, culminating into a figure.

It was a hooded figure clothed in a long black robe that shrouded its whole body in mystery. It was quite tall and wide, it was a very imposing figure.

Without hesitation, Fang Xian released the aura of the rank six unyielding immortal soul. The figure jumped back in surprise and walked backwards until it was out of the reach of the aura.

The figure stood there for a while, staring at Fang Xian. He then waved his hand, creating around a dozen sharp blades in front of him. These blades were created from the rank eight mortal soul beast, myriad blade projection. Fang Xian primarily used blade path soul beasts in his first life, he knew at least ten percent of all existing blade path soul beasts. In fact, he had even used this specific soul beast on numerous occasions before he became an immortal.

These blades charged towards Fang Xian, unaffected by the aura of the unyielding demon soul.

At this moment, Fang Xian had no countermeasures against the blades, he could only narrowly dodge them repeatedly, using his nine hundred years of experience.

'The cultivation realm of this figure is rank eight,.' Fang Xian concluded. 'If it was any higher, the figure would be able to tread in my soul aura without suffering any physical damage and only suffering a few minor mental injuries. As soon as I released the aura, I saw a few wounds appear on its body, this means the figure is not an immortal. Furthermore, if its cultivation realm was any lower, he wouldn't be able to use a rank eight soul beast like myriad blade projection with such high proficiency, rank seven soul qi would only produce around half of the number of soul blades he produced.'

He was barely a rank one cultivator, even with the unyielding demon immortal soul, how could he compare to a rank eight expert?