Due to the suppression of the wild bloodline, Senior Disciple Zhu, despite possessing terrifying physical strength, had a pure mind and was often a bit slow-witted.
Chen Luo's solution to her difficulty in ascending was to continuously increase the spiritual energy within her!
Her slumber was for better digestion of the spiritual energy Chen Luo bestowed upon her, and Chen Luo's method of bestowing spiritual energy was to casually shape vast amounts of it into delicious lollipops.
Thus, for the past seven days, Little Bamboo had spent her time in a sweet cycle of eating and sleeping.
The last spiritual energy lollipop Chen Luo had fed her had finally allowed this Iron-Eating Beast to break through the Immortal-Mortal boundary of the Dao Path Pinnacle!
*Hum!*
A surge of primordial energy flickered in the air, and the young girl Chen Luo held aloft was instantly teleported outside the floating island.
As Little Bamboo departed, the sense of crisis that the cultivators in the vicinity felt vanished.
However, all their gazes were drawn to the young girl in the rain curtain outside the island.
The short-haired girl, clad in a small black and white daoist robe, stood suspended in the air beneath the dazzling, colorful rain.
And directly above her, layers of dark clouds were rapidly gathering!
"Which sect's cultivator is this? Daring to undergo the Ascension Tribulation at the Vast Sea Sect?"
"She's only a child in appearance; has she altered her form with daoist arts, or is she a prodigy from some lineage?"
"Hmph, with our human cultivators undergoing tribulation here, we must be wary of the demon race making underhanded moves!"
"No, why does this girl's aura carry such potent demonic energy?!"
"She has a human form before becoming an ascended great demon! Could she be a hybrid?!"
"Hush! Are you tired of living! Look at where we are!!"
The human cultivators quickly covered the mouths of the abusive ones, but the gazes of the Vast Sea reception disciples nearby still sent a chill down their spines.
Spiritual energy, due to differences in environment, naturally gives rise to various attributes, and different attributes of spiritual energy also produce various differences in usage.
However, it was universally acknowledged that the most precious was pure spiritual energy, uncontaminated and absorbable by any cultivator.
This was also why spirit stones were valuable, and why Chen Luo's so-called Luo Immortal Physique was known as a peerless furnace.
And the so-called demonic energy was a wild aura inevitably contained within the spiritual power refined by demons after absorbing spiritual energy.
This spiritual energy tainted by demons, if concentrated enough, could even cause ordinary humans to develop characteristics corresponding to those demons.
And at this moment, as the young girl erupted with potent demonic energy, the cultivators fell into a brief bewilderment.
It was common knowledge in the cultivation world that demons below the Ascension stage could not transform into humans.
But there was an exception to this common knowledge! That was the offspring born between ascended great demons and humans.
These half-demon, half-human beings were remarkably peculiar in that they were almost always human in form, only occasionally displaying minor demonic features.
Even these innate half-demons could procreate with pure humans without needing to ascend and transform.
However, their offspring would still be half-demons.
This also became a basis for some scholars in the cultivation world believing that humans and demons shared a common origin.
However, unlike the inclusivity of the Vast Sea demons towards half-demons, human cultivators on the mainland generally scornfully referred to such half-demons as hybrids!
But speaking of it casually was one thing, but shouting it out within the Vast Sea Sect was courting death!
The reception disciples, after casting an angry glance at the loose-lipped cultivator, focused their full attention on Senior Disciple Zhu outside the spiritual energy barrier.
Little Bamboo was still in a semi-conscious, sleepy state, and the tribulation clouds in the sky were unexpectedly massive, even reaching seventy percent of the scale of Linglong's tribulation.
"Senior Disciple! Stop sleeping! It's time for your tribulation!!"
"It's over, it's over! Senior Disciple Bamboo is usually muddled, but how can she falter at a time like this!"
"Why panic! It's just an Ascension Tribulation! As long as it doesn't kill her in one strike, she's sure to pass!"
The Dharma Bodies on the high platform looked with peculiar gazes at this interlude outside the spiritual energy barrier.
The spiritual thoughts transmitted by the cultivators below were all observed by them:
"Interesting, these cultivators who ascended by transforming into rainbows call this muddled girl at the Dao Path Pinnacle 'Senior Disciple'?"
"Hmm, judging by the scale of the tribulation clouds, this girl is indeed a prodigy among her peers."
"Listening to them, perhaps we can glimpse the origin of these nearly thousand rainbow transformations from this girl's tribulation! Let's see what it means to be sure to pass if not killed in one strike!"
The tribulation clouds paid no heed to the thoughts within the spiritual energy barrier, following the laws of heaven and earth, and condensed the Ascension Tribulation unique to Little Bamboo for the cultivator about to undergo it!
"Roar!" A vast beastly roar echoed from the dark clouds in the sky!
A ferocious bear formed of lightning descended from the heavens, about to tear apart the tiny girl!
The stinging sensation of danger jolted Little Bamboo awake by a third. Gazing at the ferocious bear descending from the sky, she tried her best to open her eyes, but sleepiness constantly emanated from within her:
"Haaah... No... I have to undergo tribulation... tribulation... zzzzz"
Under the stunned gazes of the cultivators, the young girl about to undergo tribulation actually fell asleep!
The speed of her falling asleep made the cultivators blush with shame.
But the monster formed by the lightning tribulation cared not!
*Boom!!!*
Under the gaze of some cultivators who could not bear to watch, the ferocious bear formed by the lightning tribulation embraced the young girl.
The explosive sound of thunder illuminated the heavens and earth!
"A joke! As expected, a hybrid... half-demon! Falling asleep during tribulation!"
"I feel something is wrong. Could this girl's great tribulation also have the ability to induce sleep?"
"Hmph, dead is dead, who cares about her. However, this beast-shaped tribulation is a first for me."
Just as the cultivators were making various evaluations about the passing of a life, the lightning dissipated, and a small figure still floated in mid-air.
Little Bamboo's face bore a few scorch marks from the lightning strikes, but these marks healed rapidly beneath the colorful rain.
Her small black and white daoist robe, crafted by unknown hands, possessed no spiritual energy fluctuations yet remained completely unharmed under the great tribulation.
And most outrageously, the little girl seemed to be sleeping even more soundly!
Next, to the stunned gazes of the cultivators, increasingly ferocious beast-shaped lightning bolts descended from the sky.
They attacked or exploded, but no matter what damage they caused, the young girl would recover rapidly and even sleep soundly enough to blow snot bubbles!
It seemed the tribulation clouds felt stifled, and for a time, countless bolts of lightning struck consecutively, with myriad beasts galloping across the sky, their terrifying power even causing the spiritual energy barrier of the floating island to subtly crack.
Finally, as the power of the lightning reached its peak, the young girl's sweet dream was finally broken!
Her tightly closed eyes slowly opened, no longer holding innocent purity, but a pair of extremely savage, bestial vertical pupils!
"ROAR!!!!"
Under the terrifying roar, the tribulation clouds dissipated,
And the girl's figure quietly retreated. In the heavens and earth, only a black and white Iron-Eating Beast, one hundred zhang tall, let out its roar towards the tribulation clouds!
The transcendence after ascension was completely absent in the giant Iron-Eating Beast before them. Instead, a wild bestiality that made the rainbow-transforming cultivators feel instinctive fear was constantly spreading.
After roaring through the tribulation clouds, the golden-yellow bestial vertical pupils looked towards the cultivators within the distant barrier.
An impulse originating from instinct made the Iron-Eating Beast want to break through the eggshell before it and devour all the weaklings within!
The Dharma Bodies looked with grim expressions at the ferocious monster outside the barrier:
"Wild Beast!! The legendary Wild Beast that devours the heavens and slays the earth!!!"
"Damn it, this existence from ancient texts has appeared before us?!"
"Heh, fellow Daoists, this is rather our good fortune. Compared to the legendary Wild Beast, the one before us is merely a newly awakened cub!"
"Elder Li is correct. Everyone, do not panic. Follow me, and let us extinguish this Wild Beast in its cradle!"
Powerful energy fluctuations continuously circulated around the Dharma Bodies.
For a time, the encroaching wild aura from afar was suppressed.
Just as the intense battle between the Dharma Bodies and the Wild Beast was about to commence,
On the nine-tiered high platform, a young man clad in snow-white robes appeared at some unknown time.
He gently took the True Dragon Purple Gold Seal from Long Ji's hand.
His clear voice resonated clearly within the tense battlefield:
"Disciple, stop making trouble and come back."