Chapter 89: Breaking the Contract and Revitalizing the Cultivation World (89% complete)

"Don't forget our agreement." Su Qinghuan's brow twitched, and she vaguely sensed that something was wrong, an ominous premonition creeping into her heart.

[Little Yao, that's a tenfold lightning tribulation! Lightning tribulations at the Nascent Soul stage aren't easy, and lightning tribulations that violate the contract have even stronger penetrating power. You should think twice!]

996 was extremely anxious. The system, which was used to using data to speak, quickly edited the host's physical attributes into visual data, then made a comparison chart with the power of the lightning tribulation, and inserted it into Su Xiaoyao's sea of ​​consciousness.

Su Xiaoyao thought to herself that she didn't want to either, but... she remained calm and composed, showing no sign of panic.

She slowly raised her arm and waved towards a spot not far away, her tone light and confident:

"Little octopus, come tell everyone, who brought you here?" she said in a cheerful voice, as if teasing a child, with an air of complete confidence.

Upon hearing this, Su Qingqian's pupils dilated sharply, and alarm bells rang in his mind. No wonder Su Xiaoyao was acting out of character and provoking him in various ways.

The little octopus that was called out was taken aback at first, and then looked up blankly, clearly not expecting that it would have a role in such a situation.

It scanned back and forth between Su Xiaoyao and Su Qingzhen, easily locking its gaze on the former.

Despite having been beaten up by Su Xiaoyao before, the thought that the unfathomable pot could recognize her as its master meant that it must be quite powerful. Moreover, she was the only one who was friendly to it. Besides, it had seen along the way that whether it was the one playing with thunder or the rich person, they were all outmatched by her. Even Su Qinghuan himself did not gain any advantage.

The situation is clear, and there's no need to use the secondary brain on the tentacles to make the best choice—of course, it's to cling tightly to the strongest thigh!

Without saying a word, it darted back to Su Xiaoyao's side, grabbed her hem, and solemnly declared, "I was brought by her."

After saying that, she added ingratiatingly, "I only like you, I don't know him."

"Su Xiaoyao!" Su Qinghuan's temples throbbed with veins, his chest heaving violently. "What do you mean? Our missions don't conflict, so why are you making things difficult for me under the pressure of the tribulation lightning? Wouldn't it be better if we just went our separate ways?!"

"I'd like to too," Su Xiaoyao said wistfully, a slight smile playing on her lips. "But who told you our missions don't conflict?"

Su Qinghuan's expression froze, and her mind raced for a moment.

Su Xiaoyao knew the saying that villains die from talking too much, so while he was stunned, she quickly stuffed the magic pill and the little octopus into Guiyi's hands and submitted the mission report at the same time.

Guiyi gladly accepted it and said with a soft laugh, "Congratulations, the mission is successfully completed. The reward will be sent to your account later."

Su Qinghuan was no fool; after a little thought, he understood the situation by combining the attitude of returning to one.

Su Xiaoyao's mission objective has always been demonic energy, and since the little octopus had previously absorbed some of the demonic energy, its body also became part of the mission.

So that's where the trap was waiting for him.

"It feels like you suddenly have a brain that doesn't belong to you." Su Xiaoyao noticed his unpredictable expression, secretly pinched a few talismans to prevent him from getting angry, but still didn't let it go.

"Fine, fine, you're the kind of person who doesn't say what you should say." Su Qinghuan, having figured out the cause and effect, turned ashen-faced, seething with hatred but helpless about the outcome.

"Don't be upset, you didn't come away empty-handed," Su Xiaoyao tried to comfort her.

"For example? An IOU that I couldn't repay even if I sold myself?"

"For example, my precious friendships."

"Pah!"

Su Xiaoyao quickly darted behind Shen Suxi and poked her head out: "You've broken character, 007! How can a cool and handsome guy like you swear?"

Now that things have come to this, there's no point in arguing anymore. Su Qinghuan took a few deep breaths, barely suppressing his anger, and said with a sarcastic laugh, "It seems you're prepared to withstand the tribulation lightning head-on."

Su Xiaoyao smiled calmly and said nonchalantly, "You don't need to worry about that."

However, after Su Qinghuan and her group left in anger, the composure on her face instantly collapsed, and she wailed, "Oh no, oh no! I didn't think things through when I signed the contract, and now I've really dug myself into a hole! Quick, quick, throw me any way you can save your life!"

"Huh? I thought you had a backup plan." Xiao Tingyuan, standing beside him, looked astonished.

Su Xiaoyao shrugged and sighed, "Where would I get such great abilities? If I really had that ability, I would have been bragging about it to the heavens by now, and I could make them fight me to the death for the mission leaderboard."

"That's true, so what do we do now?"

Jiang Yun silently handed over the soul-summoning banner.

Su Xiaoyao glanced at the black mist swirling around the banner and politely asked, "Excuse me, if I go in, will I be able to come out?"

Jiang Yun silently retrieved the summoning banner.

"It's alright. You're already at the Nascent Soul stage. As long as you have a breath left, you can be saved. It's just that reshaping your physical body and rebuilding your foundation is quite troublesome. You might have to repeat a grade for one, two, three, four, five, or six years." Shen Suqi took out all the talismans in her inventory and, without saying a word, stuck them around her body. The talismans gradually piled up into a thick circle around her waist.

Su Xiaoyao obediently spread her arms, then turned and grabbed the soul-summoning banner, muttering to herself, "Let me think about it."

She closed her eyes, sensing the recent slight loosening of her cultivation bottleneck, and suppressed the surging spiritual energy within her body once more. When she didn't deliberately maintain a smile, a sharp glint flashed in her eyes.

*

After receiving the tribulation-crossing spiritual artifact crowdfunded by the entire artifact repair class, Su Xiaoyao sat down with her hands in her pockets, while 996 was still sighing in her mind.

"The 742nd time, honey, maybe you should stop sighing, my head is about to burst." She consulted with 996.

The little ball of light was furious, wishing it could conjure a hand and knock her on the head:

[It's just a top-tier mission, it's just about class honor, how could you risk your life like that!]

Su Xiaoyao touched her forehead as if she had something to say: "I am the class monitor. My classmates all firmly believe that I can lead the equipment repair class to win first place. How can I let them down? Besides, you should be happy that I rolled up my sleeve."

But I don't want you to roll up like that... I want you to put your own safety first!

Stop sighing and complaining about 996.

[We can't just sit here and wait to die. I'll search for past cases of people successfully overcoming tribulations by violating contracts; maybe that can provide some reference.]

"Go ahead, go ahead." Su Xiaoyao was quite calm. She wasn't the type to sit idly by and wait for death, but she also knew that there was no time to rush things.

"What do you mean? Do you have any solutions?" Shen Suqi was still making talismans, and with each talisman she made, she casually stuck it to her bulging waist.

Su Xiaoyao propped her head up: "Helian Yi gave me a secret manual, saying it was a secret technique that his family didn't pass on to outsiders, which could help those below the Mahayana stage to deceive the lightning tribulation and pass through it safely."

"What a wonderful thing! But I've never heard of the Helian family having such a treasure before. There must be something lacking in it." Shen Suqi quickly realized after her initial surprise.

Sure enough, Su Xiaoyao continued, "It can guarantee safety, but correspondingly, you can't get any benefits from the tribulation. Even if you enter the Nascent Soul stage, your foundation will be far inferior to that of other cultivators who advance through the tribulation. You know, there are no shortcuts in cultivation. One wrong step and your foundation will be destroyed. I am someone who is about to ascend."

"That won't work."

After researching a lot of information, the 996 worker returned dejected.

There have indeed been cases of people successfully withstanding ten times the normal lightning strike.

Su Xiaoyao felt a glimmer of hope.

That person survived smoothly thanks to the protection of the Heavenly Dao Ancestor, but did not receive the full benefits of the advancement.

Su Xiaoyao continued to lie flat.

"No, the stronger the protector, the stronger the lightning tribulation. Where am I supposed to find a protector strong enough to ignore the lightning tribulation?"

She sighed, "Alas, in the past, I would just sit cross-legged, concentrate my energy, and easily break through when I advanced. I originally thought I was the darling of the heavens, but it turns out that the heavens had accumulated all the tribulations until the Nascent Soul stage. All the gifts of fate had already been secretly marked with a price. The classics are truly not deceiving me."

As an unconventional defensive cultivator, she had previously advanced very smoothly, but unfortunately, she couldn't escape this time. The lightning tribulation after violating the contract was already stronger than the ordinary advancement lightning tribulation, not to mention it was ten times stronger.

Shen Suqi felt a sour taste in her mouth. She reached out and stuck a newly completed talisman on her forehead, saying with disdain, "Your words are really asking for trouble. How are those of us who get turned to charcoal by lightning every time we undergo a tribulation supposed to feel?"

She had witnessed Su Xiaoyao's advancement. Compared to the thunder and lightning that struck others, Su Xiaoyao's advancement was so easy that it was almost like going through the motions. Yet, the spiritual energy she received after the ordeal was no less than that of those cultivators who had narrowly escaped death.

"Waaaaah, Qiqi, love me one more time." Su Xiaoyao pretended to cover her face and wipe away tears, leaning against her.

Suddenly, she paused, sat up straight, and summoned the potion pot.

"What's wrong?" Shen Suqi asked curiously.

"Brother Guo seems to have something to say."

Along with the potion pot, the rare and precious herbs she had treasured in her space also appeared.

The pot of medicine trembled slightly, actively collecting all the rare ingredients into it.

Su Xiaoyao raised an eyebrow: "You mean you want to ride my lightning tribulation?" She carefully sensed the divine sense of the potion pot, trying to understand its intention.

The medicine pot is shaken to indicate this.

During its battle with the little octopus, it withstood a fatal blow, causing cracks to appear on its body. As a mature and ambitious pot, it selected rare and precious materials, intending to undergo a tribulation of lightning to repair and break through on its own.

It indicates that there are seven heavenly lightning strikes for the Nascent Soul to advance to the Divine Transformation stage. It can be tempered at the edge, and after the tempering is completed, the spiritual energy can be fed back to Su Xiaoyao on the other end of the contract, which is a win-win situation.

A strange idea gradually took shape, and Su Xiaoyao's eyes brightened: "As we all know, although the tribulation of lightning is dangerous, passing it can temper the body and lead to nirvana, greatly increasing one's strength. If someone forcibly intervenes in cause and effect, then the stronger the protector, the stronger the power of the tribulation of lightning will be."

“That’s right.” Shen Suqi was still confused, not understanding the meaning of her obvious statement.

“Correspondingly, the protectors are weak and can actually be ignored.” Su Xiaoyao’s eyes shone.

She slowly smiled, turned around, grabbed Shen Suqi's hands and held them in front of her, her eyes full of affection: "Darling, to thank you for your kindness to me, you can bask in my tribulation for free this time."

"ah?"

Su logged onto the intranet and opened up her business secrets.

[Lightning Tribulation Slots for Rent, limited to cultivators below the Nascent Soul stage. Suitable for weapon forging, body tempering, talisman drawing, alchemy, and advancement. No limit on the number of people; first come, first served.]