Shi Xuan's first reaction was to take out a Nascent Soul Pill and give it to Lu Shenzhi. The Nascent Soul Pill can greatly increase the success rate of forming a Nascent Soul. In the process of forming a Nascent Soul, whether it is a tribulation or a heart-questioning, the Nascent Soul Pill can play a significant role.

After watching Lu Shenzhi swallow the Nascent Soul Pill, Shi Xuan returned his storage ring to him, which contained many defensive magical artifacts and recovery pills.

At the same time, Shi Xuan said to Lin Daozi, "Master, please excuse us for now."

"Okay..." Lin Daozi hurriedly rushed out and stopped only after leaving the area behind the mountain.

He was a cultivator in the Void Refinement stage. If he stayed by Lu Shenzhi's side, the heavenly lightning might mistake Lu Shenzhi for a Void Refinement stage cultivator and unleash an even more powerful tribulation, which would be disastrous.

The tribulation had not yet begun; instead, a vortex formed around Lu Shenzhi, and the surrounding spiritual energy began to rush wildly towards him.

Shi Xuan wasn't too anxious. She took out several bottles of pills, some defensive magic items, and talismans from Yin Shuang and handed them to Lu Shenzhi to ensure everything was foolproof.

After finishing these tasks, she began setting up a defensive array around Lu Shenzhi. She was constantly moving, yet somehow she appeared to handle everything with remarkable order and efficiency.

Watching his junior sister's busy figure, Lu Shenzhi joked, "This is really bad. We're owing more and more spirit stones. I was thinking that these things in my storage ring would help out, but it seems that not only did they not help, we've actually incurred even more debt."

Shi Xuan was busy setting up the formation and didn't even look at him. Without raising his head, he replied, "Why don't you take a look at all these spirit stone fragments scattered on the ground?"

Lu Shenzhi had not gotten out of bed since waking up, nor had he paid attention to his surroundings. Now, after Shi Xuan reminded him, he finally released his divine sense to cover the room.

Upon closer inspection, he was horrified. Around his ice bed, behind him, and in all the open spaces of the room, the spirit stones that had been drained of their spiritual power looked grayish-white and were scattered all over the ground.

Lu Shenzhi's eyes widened, and he was instantly speechless.

Just when you think things are already bad enough, something even worse is waiting for you. This perfectly describes Lu Shenzhi's current situation.

He never imagined that his debts would keep piling up, whether he knew it or not, whether he was conscious or not, he was constantly adding bricks to his mountain of debts!

Now, the heavenly lightning of the Nascent Soul stage is about to arrive, and his mountain of debts will inevitably rise even higher!

For only a moment, Lu Shenzhi quickly regained his focus and began to concentrate on the internal circulation of spiritual energy.

I've only been awake for less than fifteen minutes! It doesn't even give me time to adjust. The way of Heaven is really good at pushing people to be diligent!

Lu Shenzhi had not cultivated for a long time, but he was already very familiar with the way spiritual energy circulated, as if it were engraved in his bones and blood, and it was a completely natural reaction.

In the blink of an eye, his spiritual energy had already circulated through his meridians.

It had been so long since I had such abundant spiritual energy filling my meridians, that my entire meridians felt swollen and painful.

After completing one cycle, Lu Shenzhi continued with the next cycle, trying his best to recover as much as possible before the heavenly lightning struck.

By the time he completed the eighth cycle, Shi Xuan's defensive formation was also complete.

She stood up, clapped her hands, and said, "Senior Brother, look at all these spirit stones on the ground, aren't they delightful?"

Following her words, Lu Shenzhi looked over and saw that each node of his entire defensive formation was inlaid with a top-grade spirit stone.

Lu Shenzhi's pupils contracted slightly. A top-grade spirit stone! One top-grade spirit stone could be exchanged for a thousand high-grade spirit stones, and almost no one would do that.

Look at all those top-grade spirit stones he has on the ground...

Lu Shenzhi was stunned.

So what if he's in debt? In this life, who hasn't been strapped for cash? Who hasn't been in debt? Who hasn't worked to pay it off? So what if he owes spirit stones? How much did he owe again? It's probably too many to count. If he really can't count them, then he shouldn't count them!

After preparing everything he could, Shi Xuan sat down next to him and organized his own pills.

Lu Shenzhi looked at Shi Xuan and knew that she had a method to cultivate through lightning tribulations, so he did not remind her to stay away.

Now that he is in a weak position, it is the best thing for him that Xuan sometimes helps him out and relieves a lot of pressure.

Although he owed his junior sister an endless amount of spirit stones, Lu Shenzhi also knew that his greatest opportunity in this life was precisely because of this junior sister.

When he was trapped in a dark and sunless place, it was his junior sister's spirit pet that led him into her dream, giving him the opportunity to communicate with the outside world; it was his junior sister who found the Soul-Nourishing Wood and took him out, allowing him to travel throughout the cultivation world for a year instead of struggling here; it was his junior sister who helped him find the Soul-Gathering Stones piece by piece and refined a top-grade Soul-Returning Pill for him, reviving him; now that he has just awakened and is about to undergo the Nascent Soul Tribulation, his junior sister has come to help share the burden. If it weren't for his junior sister, he would probably still be wandering alone in the darkness without seeing a glimmer of hope.

Thinking about it this way, the few spirit stones I owe my junior sister are really not much.

Although he felt grateful to his junior sister, the two were used to bickering and teasing each other, so Lu Shenzhi couldn't bring himself to say anything sentimental. He could only say in a rough voice, "If the lightning tribulation is too intense later, there's no need to force yourself. Safety is the most important thing."

"Oh," Shi Xuan agreed verbally, but rolled her eyes at him. Was he supposed to just tough it out and let him bear it alone? He'd be killed in two strikes; saving him would have been pointless. He was determined to withstand half of the tribulation himself.

"Senior Brother, you still have the energy to think about these trivial matters. You might as well think about how many spirit stones you will owe me after this."

Lu Shenzhi...

The junior sister knew how to ruin the atmosphere; the strong sense of gratitude that had just arisen was now replaced by silence.

"Anyway, your own safety comes first." After saying that, Lu Shenzhi ignored Shi Xuan, lest he be driven crazy by her later.

But he knew that his junior sister's ability to withstand tribulation lightning was limited; otherwise, she wouldn't have only been struck every few strikes during their master's tribulation, and even then, it would have taken her a long time to process each strike. He hoped that his own Nascent Soul stage tribulation lightning would be lighter and not too severe.

Lin Daozi was already far away on the outskirts of the back mountain. Looking towards the back mountain, he saw that the tribulation clouds had gradually formed, a dark and oppressive mass covering the area and turning it grayish-black.

Heavenly lightning gathered within the tribulation clouds, its flickering light appearing and disappearing intermittently.

Then, just as the tribulation clouds finally reached their peak, a bolt of lightning as thick as an arm struck down, landing directly where they had just been standing.

Lin Daozi vaguely saw that the bolt of lightning split into two branches just before it struck. He immediately thought of the lightning's behavior when Shi Xuan entered the range of his tribulation during his own Void Refinement Tribulation.