350 Lightning Tribulation

"Look, the clouds above the tribe leader's house," One of the tribesmen pointed at the looming clouds.

"They don't seem like normal clouds," another tribesman raised his brows for a moment and continued, "I remember now, they are tribulation clouds."

"Tribulation clouds? What are they, head?"

Many of the tribesmen looked at him and asked their head of the unit.

"I once read in the history books of our tribe that when anyone reaches the top realm in the five elemental world, they have to cross the lightning sent by those clouds. Those clouds are called lightning clouds where the process is called 'Tribulation'," The head of the small construction unit explained about tribulation to his squad.

The lightning tribulations were different in every world and the power from the lightning differs with each person. The more powerful the individual was, then the stronger the tribulation would be.

"So, someone in our tribe is breaking through to the top realm?" One of the members of that unit excitedly asked his head while looking at the black clouds in the sky.

"Yes," the head nodded his head and looked at the tribe leader's house and continued, "Some time ago, I heard that our tribe leader went into seclusion and since he was the only one closer to reach top realm, then the tribulation might be for him."

While saying that, all the time there were two kinds of expressions on his face.

One was a happy expression because it was a good thing for the tribe and the other one was a worried expression because if the tribulation failed then their tribe leader would die without a doubt.

'Tribe leader is always careful, so he must have a plan to block or evade this tribulation,' However, he hoped for the best in his mind.

Similarly, every other construction unit was discussing about the tribulation clouds and learned from their unit heads.

....

In Ajax's room,

"Phew…..Still, five more refinements to go," Ajax took a long breath and continued to refine the next batch of pills.

From the last 30 or so minutes, Ajax refined around 20 refinements. In which, 15 refinements were successful and only 5 refinements were failed.

The 5 failed refinements were failed at the start and with each successful refinement, he was able to refine the blood cleansing pills without much worry.

And, for the last 5 successful refinements, he didn't fail even once making him excited and wanted to refine more pills.

Also, the most important thing was all the pills from his successful refinements were high-level ones except for a very few pills that were medium level.

'Rumble' 'Rumble'

Just as he was about to remove the essence from the blood cumin and fluxweed, he was disturbed by loud rumbling sounds which made him stop the refinements.

He didn't dare to continue refining the pills as he knew it was impossible to refine them with such a disturbance.

As soon as he came out of his room, he saw the four elders and joined them.

"Hey Ajax," Krico and others looked at Ajax and greeted him before looking back at the tribulation clouds.

"Hello Elders," Ajax greeted them back and observed the clouds above the tribe leader's house.

It didn't take much time for Ajax to know what was happening. He didn't even need to ask anyone about it because he knew about the tribulations.

In Elder Boron's stories, many of the top-level cultivators always went through these tribulations to reach an even higher power. So, without a doubt, he related these clouds to the lightning clouds that were rumbling with thunders and surrounded by the flashes of the lightning.

'But, still, Elder Boron never explained about the cultivation realms while telling those stories,' Ajax shook his head at Elder Boron's secrecy about that information and thought, "I wonder where he is and did he knew about the incident at the Silver Orphanage."

Except for his friends from the Silver Orphanage, Elder Boron was the only member, he thought, as his family member who taught him various things. 

So, he regularly thought about Elder Boron.

'Looks like, Elder Qwerek already started his secluded cultivation. But still, isn't it just too early for the tribulation?' Ajax concluded that Qwerek had started his seclusion; however, what puzzled him the more was it had been just a little more than 30 minutes before he left the meeting hall and according to him, the tribulation clouds appeared very soon.

Generally, tribulation clouds appear only when the cultivator almost enters into the top realm and thinking back to the time taken by the Elder Qwerek, Ajax felt puzzled but he assumed that Qwerek cultivation must be one step into the Demi-King realm.

"Where is the first elder, Cretual?" 

Ajax asked after looking at his surroundings as Cretual was not present with the other elders.

"Huh?" Eica, who was watching the tribulation anxiously as she worried about the tribe leader, looked at Ajax and said, "He has some things to do, so he is not with us."

After giving her reply, she once again resumed her anxiousness.

'Now, he is an acting tribe leader, right? I forgot,' Ajax suddenly remembered Elder Qwerek's words to the first elder and the Hawk captain while leaving the meeting hall and nodded his head.

He also joined the other Elders and continued to watch the tribulations which might strike its lighting bolts any time now.

"Just a little, just a little bit more,"

As they were waiting, inside the tribe leader's house Qwerek gritted his teeth and continued to ram the barrier that was blocking him from entering the Demi-King realm.

However, he didn't struggle for long before that small crack became larger and larger with the continuous ramming.

'Kacha' 'Kacha'

Within a few seconds, the barrier finally broke and the pure lightning elemental essence rushed into the next realm and with that he had officially become the Demi-King realm expert.

'Hahaha'

Qwerek started laughing when he reached the Demi-King realm but suppressed his excitement as he now had a true obstacle and he had to cross it and only then he could enjoy the fruits of his strength.

'Let them come now,' 

Even then he had a small smile on his face as though he had enough confidence in crossing that hurdle and took out a few array plates.

Among them, he took out one that was much bigger than other plates and lightly tapped it.

As soon as he tapped it, a huge barrier covered the entire Lightning Hawk Dragon tribe.

The barrier was majestic as it was constantly moving like waves and filled with a few lightning sparks.

As soon as the barrier was activated another barrier formed underneath it that looked exactly the same as the first barrier.

"Woah"

All the onlooking tribesmen were mesmerized by the barrier's beauty and the lightning sparks it was emitting.

Since they had the affinity with the lightning elements, they were truly attracted by the barrier's beauty.

"They activated the barrier. Looks like it was about to start," Erek clenched his hands as he looked at the double barriers and thought about something in his head.