Chapter 2441: Reason and logic be damned!

A normal Major tribulation to the Celestial Immortal realm followed the same pattern as the one for the Heaven Immortal realm. There was the Lightning tribulation, the Fire tribulation and the Spirit.

Over the years, many researchers theorized that this form of tribulations was actually incomplete based on a simple trend. Generally speaking, as the cultivation levels rose higher, the corresponding difficulty and complexity of anything related to them also rose.

This was a simple law of nature.

For example, mining simple moral gold was pretty easy, but once certain types of golds corresponded to the value of certain Immortal realms, harvesting and purifying them became much harder. Harvesting a simple piece of cabbage was pretty simple, but picking up a Celestial Flight Cabbage was not just a matter of reaching down and picking up.

This trend could also be seen in the tribulation for the Heaven Immortal realm, which had one more trial compared to the one for Earth Immortal realm, specifically the Spirit tribulation.

The fact, then, that the Celestial Immortal tribulation added no new levels, and instead made preexisting tribulations harder seemed somewhat incomplete. They argued that there should be one more level to the Major tribulation, and that being tougher was not enough.

Of course, the foundation of the whole argument was that the universe was still not in a mature state, and that there was room for evolution or growth in the operations of the universe’s systems. There was no actual evidence that the tribulation should have another level.

Yet as Lex’s body rose into the sky, heading towards the clouds, Eclipse suspected that she was witnessing for the first time what would now be the final stage or step of the Major tribulations leading to the Celestial level.

She was not too concerned about Lex’s condition, though. She had a deep enough understanding of the functions of the universe that she could guess what was about to happen, and did not even need to rely on her abilities.

Lex’s body rose directly through the clouds and was brought to the edge of a small, circular pool of some unknown liquid. Around the edge of the pool was a natural formation, absorbing the energy of the tribulation and turning it into the liquid itself. The interesting thing was that the formation was atypical, in the sense that it was not made based on the environment or items or some specific arrangement, but that it was made entirely from some unknown language that had never before appeared in the universe.

Eclipse was not only certain that this language was entirely brand new, but she was also certain that this type of formation had never appeared before in the universe. The number of changes appearing in the universe was slowly and steadily rising.

Lex’s body hovered over the pool, his abysmal condition reflected perfectly in the still surface of the liquid. For a moment, nothing else happened. Then, without any semblance of ceremony or even an ounce of gentleness, he was dropped into the pool.

The stillness of the liquid was shattered, giving way to a great tumult. The dirt and char covering Lex’s bones came floating to the top of the liquid before being eviscerated, while great amounts of the liquid flooded into what was left of his body, nourishing him, strengthening him, ushering him into a new realm.

Eclipse felt a great temptation to grab a sample of the liquid, but since she had not interfered with Lex’s tribulation to help him, she would not interfere with it now to sate her own curiosity either. It was only fair. Since he earned this reward on his own, he should also enjoy it on his own as well.

"Sometimes I think my heart is just too soft," Eclipse said with a sigh, attracting an odd gaze from Nulli, Harriot, and anyone else who heard. She had been called many things, Primordial Queen, Harbinger of Pain, Unstoppable Calamity, Living Calamity and several other versions of calamities, but never had she been called soft hearted. At least, not in their memories.

They did not interrupt her musings, and instead continued to watch Lex. This was something new for them too, and unlike Eclipse, the only way they could figure out what was happening was by watching.

"Is that... liquid lightning?" Nulli asked with a frown, feeling confused. How could lightning nourish and heal Lex, as it was clearly doing.

"In some cultures and myths, lightning is considered the source of all life," Eclipse explained while she watched. "Of course, myths don’t alter reality - instead they are often a reflection of what already exists. Lightning has a very extreme nature, yes, but it has traces of Life laws in them as well, originating from the yang nature of it.

"But that’s not what’s happening here, because what Lex is submerged in isn’t liquid lightning. This is a smaller version of the Tribulation Pool - the source of all realm associated tribulations, found within the Arch-Heaven. The lightning, fire and spirit tribulations are all formed from this liquid in this pool, and this is also the reason why cultivators grow and are nourished after facing tribulations.

"The very reason that Dao tribulations are considered death tribulations instead of nourishing ones is because they are not sourced nor associated with this pool. The fact that Lex is being directly baptized in this pool means that... actually, I can’t say for certain what it means yet. I doubt things are as simple as him just being rewarded. Let’s keep watching and see what happens. I don’t want to make a wrong guess and accidentally influence nature’s design."

The others just nodded and continued to watch.

The liquid in the pool began to decrease at a noticeable rate as it was absorbed into Lex’s body, allowing it to slowly regain its shape.

Still, it was nearly thirty hours before Lex’s eyes opened, and he gasped for breath. The moment he woke up, Lex was not flooded with relief at surviving, or surprised by his surroundings.

Nay, Lex was filled with extreme fury and indignation. The target of his extreme emotions? It was neither Daekol, nor was it the tribulation that nearly killed him.

"Damn birds! I’ll turn you into fried chicken if I ever get my hands on you!" Lex cursed at no one in particular, and focused on the entire phoenix race. In all his years as a cultivator, Lex had faced many hardships, tribulations and difficulties, but never had he been scammed to this extent!

In all fairness, there was a perfectly logical reason for why the ability hadn’t triggered, but Lex no longer cared. Logic and reason be damned, it was now his life’s mission to reveal to the universe the scam that was Rebirth by Fire, and the phoenixes as a whole!