925 More Lightnings

Alex stood wide-eyed in the sky as he felt the aura of the Dao he was familiar with in the lightning bolt.

He understood what that very likely meant.

As the lightning crackled again, Alex got ready for the next lightning bolt to come down, and when it did, it was going to have a Dao he learned in it.

'It's going to strike me down for each dao I've learned now, isn't it?' he thought to himself.

When the bolt of lightning struck down, Alex used his Sword Qi to fight again, this time barely destroying the lightning bolt.

This bolt was stronger again, more so than the last one, definitely in the range of what a normal Saint Foundation realm cultivator could put out.

If Alex wanted to continue fighting, he would need to handle the strength of the bolt he would have to use his stronger skills now.

'Dao of Heat Conduction,' Alex thought when he felt it. 'Is it starting with the weaker ones?'

Alex looked back at the sky. If he was correct in his understanding, then there were 4 bolts of lightning coming for him. And each one of them would be stronger than the last one.

Instead of sword Qi, Sword Aura flared this time as sword-shaped Qi started appearing all around Alex as he got ready to attack.

The next bolt of lightning fell from the stormy clouds, and Alex sent him Sword Aura flying into the air.

The sword slash struck the lightning and destroyed it once again.

'Dao of Five Elemental Interactions,' Alex thought when he felt the aura. Now, three more remained.

The next lightning fell soon after, heating up everything in the area.

Fortunately, Alex felt absolutely nothing from the heat as he was nigh-immune to heat by now.

However, the lightning was still dangerous. He struck it as hard as he could with his Sword Aura.

The aura flew into the sky, hitting the lightning bolt in its path, barely blocking it. The bolt tried to push through, but Alex's sword aura persevered. It kept moving on and finally destroyed the lightning bolt that was full of laws from the Dao of Heat.

'2 more,' Alex thought to himself.

He wondered what the next one was going to be. Explosion or Teleportation?

The answer came in a form of a red lightning bolt, full of Fire Qi. The explosive lightning fell from heaven, and Alex realized that Sword Aura alone would not be enough this time around.

And so, on top of Sword Aura, he used the Penta-Sword strike to send his attack flying back at the bolt of lightning.

When they clashed, Alex felt the shockwave from the explosion. The sound that rang from it threatened to deafen even the thunder above it.

The lightning that crackled in the sky seemed dimmer in front of this explosion, and when Alex felt it, he realized that the next one was going to be stronger.

Suddenly, blood oozed out from every pore of his body, slowly covering him all over. Alex felt a bit anemic from so much of his blood being forced out, but he could survive it.

Some of the blood on his armor seeped down into the sword, slowly mixing as his Blood aura mixed together with the Sword Aura and his Metal Qi to become stronger.

At the same time, Alex burned his sword, the flames glowing brightly on it.

Then, when the lightning fell, he sent him flying.

The fire, blood, metal, and sword aura all flew to the sky, hitting the lightning right as it came down.

The attack landed, and Alex immediately realized that he was the weaker of the two.

His Quad-Aura attack was somehow weaker than the bolt of lightning that carried the Teleportation Dao. This was the last strike, but Alex had a problem beating it.

It was just that much stronger.

However, Alex wasn't done yet. He reached his hands into the sky and he used his Intent as well as his authority the best he could.

"Explode!"

The flames that burned in the sky burst into a loud explosion, far stronger than the one that came down with the lightning last time. The massive explosion was so strong that Alex feared he could kill a Saint Core cultivator if he was given the chance for it.

The explosion was obviously stronger than the one that came with the lightning just before, and as a result, Alex was about to defeat his final lightning strike.

However, something happened that he definitely should have expected to happen.

The lightning bolt teleported, appearing right in front of him.

"Shit!" Alex thought. That was the last thing he did before the bolt of lightning struck him directly.

Alex tumbled through the sky, thrown off by the bolt of lightning. He quickly found his balance, but that took some time.

He breathed out a deep sigh of relief when he realized that his blood armor had blocked the damage for him. But he didn't doubt that he would have still been safe given how much his attacks had weakened the lightning.

Alex took a deep breath and looked towards the sky, and suddenly his heart skipped a beat when he realized that the sky hadn't lost its darkness yet.

The storm still lingered and so did the lightning. The lightning coalesced in the sky, preparing to come down again.

"For what?" Alex shouted out, but there was no answer. He didn't know why the next lightning would ever fall. He had no more Dao that he understood at all.

And from what he could tell, this lightning was going to be much stronger.

Alex felt the aura around the lightning as it continued to get bigger and bigger. Soon, he could freely sense it all and realized what the lightning was for.

It was for every single law or mystery that he had gained an insight into, every single Dao that he was close to learning, but hadn't learned yet.

"That's… not possible though! Why would I be struck for something I don't have yet?" Alex complained, but heaven wouldn't listen to him.

The lightning grew stronger and stronger, and Alex used every single skill he could to protect himself.

The Jade Skin technique, the Five Elemental Barrier, and the Blood Armor came out to protect him.

His Sword Aura flared, his Penta-Sword Strike got ready, and the Blood Manipulation skill was used to prepare his next strike.

A fire burned far above him, as he readied the rest of his Dao to fight the next lightning bolt.

He was as ready as he could be at the moment.

Just when he expected the lightning to fall onto him, a single ray of light fell from the sky.

Alex's body moved faster than his mind as he sent his attack flying into the sky. However, all it did was pass through the storm clouds that had started to part to let the sunlight in.

His tribulation clouds were disappearing and with it the lightning that was prepared to fall.

"What?" Alex looked up with surprise. "So it <strong>was</strong> only supposed to fall when I learned the Dao. Dammit! Scared me for nothing."

9 lightning bolts fell in a tribulation no matter what. After that, 1 fell for each of the Dao ones had learned.

Alex didn't know the number, but he knew now.

He survived 15 different lightning strikes, and he was more than happy with it.

Pearl quickly flew through the air as he came towards Alex. He paused a bit when he came close to him, but continued on nonetheless.

He arrived next to him and gave him back his ring. Alex quickly dressed up and sat down to cultivate.

Now that he had broken past his lightning tribulation, there was only one thing left to do.

So, he quickly focused on his cultivation to condense his Qi just that much further and within moments of sitting down, he did it.

The heavens drifted down from above like they always did when someone broke through to the Saint realm or above, which could be easily mistaken for someone learning a Dao.

When they did, Alex felt a rush of power surge within him as all of his Qi condensed into his Dantian, making it certain that without a shadow of a doubt, Alex had broken through to the Saint realm.