Chapter 360: The Thundercloud Tree, Refining the Golden Body

The Hundred Challenges of the earth quadrant had basically become an exercise in carrying out Jiang Chen’s official duties. He won one or two matches a day and he never sought to carry on.

Even so, no one had been able to defeat him up until now. No one had even come close.

They all had to admit that, in the end, this secular genius belonged to the sky quadrant, and not the earth quadrant.

Jiang Chen didn’t waste the three months time that he had as he trained diligently every day. His goal was to use this time well and sprint forward, making it into the fifth level spirit realm as early as possible.

Although there were fifth level spirit realm candidates in the earth quadrant, there weren’t that many.

But when he moved onto the sky quadrant, the lowest ranked amongst them would be at the fifth level spirit realm. There would be plenty of sixth level spirit realm as well.

It was even rumored that there would be geniuses of the sky spirit realm in the sky quadrant as well.

Jiang Chen felt that although he had many trump cards, he didn’t have the slightest confidence in facing a genius in the sky spirit realm.

Because of this, he pushed himself even harder. He knew that when he arrived at the sky quadrant, he would no longer have such a clear advantage as he’d had in the earth and mystic quadrants.

The sky quadrant was filled with the elites painstakingly selected by the sects.

“It looks like I need to work harder to win out over all the younger generation of the sects.” Jiang Chen simulated things carefully and he felt that in order to conquer the sky quadrant, his current level of cultivation was truly insufficient.

He was training the ‘Nine Transformations of Demons and Gods’ to the second level. As time went on, Jiang Chen used the power of metal essence to refine his flesh and blood every day.

He suddenly remembered something one day.

“Ah right, how could I have forgotten the Thundercloud Tree?” Jiang Chen suddenly remembered the Thundercloud Tree and Thundercloud Cicada on the ninth level of the magnetic golden mountain.

Setting aside the Thundercloud Cicada for now, there were many wondrous effects from the Thundercloud Tree. One of them was to refine the golden body!

Jiang Chen had gained so much during the first selection that he’d forgotten about the Thundercloud Tree.

He slapped his thigh and sighed, “I’m wasting a heavenly treasure here by ignoring the Thundercloud Tree! If I were to refine the Tree, I’d be able to use my own body and use it to refine an invincible body. Add to that the effects from the Nine Transformation of Demons and Gods — that’ll be double insurance for my success then!”

Jiang Chen felt boundless inspiration at that moment.

He acted upon his thoughts and he sent a beam of consciousness to communicate with the Thundercloud Cicada. He knew that if it didn’t agree to this, he wouldn’t be able to obtain part of the tree.

The tree resided on the ninth floor of the magnetic golden mountain, and although he’d conquered the mountain now, it was a bit unrealistic to summon the entire mountain with his current level of cultivation.

Besides, if he were to do so here, it would also be an astounding event.

Therefore, he had to obtain the cicada’s consent in order to barely summon one ten-thousandth of the mountain’s original form.

It was almost impossible for him to summon the entire mountain before he reached the origin realm.

But he could summon a mere fraction of the mountain so that the courtyard could comfortably hold its shape.

Of course, the prelude to that was that the Thundercloud Cicada had to be willing to help.

“Human big brother, you’re the master of the magnetic golden mountain now and I’m the one who told you about this. Not only do you not thank me, you want me to give you the Thundercloud Tree as well!” The cicada sounded a bit aggrieved after it heard Jiang Chen’s request.

Jiang Chen smiled with a thick face, “I don’t want much, just a small section. It absolutely won’t affect your space of survival on the tree.”

“Really just a small section? Then, human big brother, can you promise that you won’t want any in the future?”

“Well... the Thundercloud Tree grows fast as well. When it grows into a towering tree in the future or even a forest of Thundercloud Trees, it’ll be impossible for me to not want any during that time then.”

The cicada cocked its head to the side and thought for a moment. “Ten years, I’ll give it to you this once, but you can’t ask for more during the next ten years.”

Ten years wasn’t a long time to a cultivator.

“Alright, ten years it is. But, you can’t be too miserly, I need to be able to use it after all! I say, little cicada, you know that I have a lot of enemies right now and I need the tree to strengthen myself. If my strength can’t keep up and I’m destroyed by someone else, then they might take the magnetic golden mountain away. You’ll become someone else’s possession at that time. Surely, you know that humans are quite greedy. Your bloodline is so superior, someone’s definitely going to swallow you for your bloodline. Do you believe me?”

The cicada began to tremble in its fright as it said nervously, “Human big brother, you won’t devour me for my bloodlines, will you?”

Jiang Chen grinned, “I promise not to hurt you.”

The cicada grew depressed. “That means you still might ask for a lot of things from me.”

Jiang Chen didn’t deny it. The bloodline of a Thundercloud Cicada were very noble. If he refined it and obtained its heritage, then he’d be able to train an art that faked death, the ‘Cicada’s Disappearance’.

This art was absolutely worth half a life to a cultivator.

“Little cicada, I won’t lie to you. I would dearly like to master your heritage — the Cicada’s Disappearance. However, I won’t harm your body, but I might come to borrow some of your bloodline in the future.”

The cicada sighed softly. “Alright, compared to other humans, big brother is a good man already. When my bloodline slowly evolve to perfection, I’ll consider lending you a drop of blood then. Don’t look down on a single drop of blood from me, that would be enough for you to obtain my heritage and memories.”

Jiang Chen was overjoyed, “Let’s not talk about the future yet, I’ll await your Thundercloud Tree.”

The bloodline of the cicada was still a far off matter for him. What he needed now was the Thundercloud Tree.

The cicada quickly returned with a chunk of wood as long as Jiang Chen’s arm. He was quite satisfied and he smiled, “Little cicada, I thought you’d be miserly and just give me the amount as big as a fist. I hadn’t thought that you’d be so generous.”

“You’d start scheming if I wasn’t generous.” The cicada pouted. “Human big brother, don’t contact me if there’s nothing else. It’s very tiring to communicate like this through the mountain.”

The Thundercloud Cicada flapped its wings after saying this and vanished.

Jiang Chen made several hand seals and the magnetic golden mountain slowly dissolved into formless golden light, slowly shrinking and finally vanishing into Jiang Chen’s palm without a trace.

He was like a fish in water after receiving this piece of the tree.

He sat down to collect his thoughts and he immediately began cultivating. It wouldn’t be that easy to refine this piece of Thundercloud Tree.

It wasn’t a simple matter of assimilating the wood into his flesh and blood. Rather, it had to be melded into every bit of his flesh and blood.

Flesh and blood, tendons, meridians, spirit ocean...

There were many uses for this wood. Apart from helping him refine an invincible body, it could also call down thunder to refine a body of thunder, enabling the cultivator to master all sorts of thunder related arts.

In addition, the wood could also defend against a hundred poisons. One could say that it was impervious to the invasion of all poisons.

“If I refined this wood, I likely wouldn’t have unwittingly fallen victim to that trap last time. The Thundercloud Tree actively filters out some poisons.”

Jiang Chen still felt that he reacted too slowly.

If he’d thought of refining this wood earlier, then that matter wouldn’t have happened either.

Refining the Thundercloud Tree wasn’t something that would be achieved overnight. This was because the wood itself was quite hard and it had to be crushed into a powder first before it could be refined.

With the density of the wood, turning it into powder wasn’t something that could be accomplished overnight either.

This was the matter that Jiang Chen focused on over the next three days after completing his challenges.

He finally completed the task after five days, but the process of refining and absorbing the powder would take at least ten days.

Half a month passed like this.

As he felt all parts of his body slowly absorb the essence of the tree, he had a particular feeling of accomplishment.

“The Thundercloud Tree is a treasure alright. No effort needs to be extended in order to absorb regular spirit medicines, but it’s such an arduous task to absorb the essence of this tree. It’s a good thing that perseverance is rewarded. Now that I’ve absorbed the tree’s essence, I’ll have more confidence in refining the golden body of demons and gods.”

Jiang Chen was also quite excited.

As he sensed the changes in his body that were brought about by the Thundercloud Tree, he too felt quite a sense of accomplishment.

The memories of his past life had still brought him many benefits.

Looking at the changes to his body and the trump cards he now held, how many sect disciples could also boast of the same, much less the secular cultivators?

If it hadn’t been for the memories of his past life, most of these would’ve been destined to have no relationship with Jiang Chen.

He wouldn’t have an understanding of the ancient beast language without the memories of his previous life, and he wouldn’t have been able to tame the Goldbiter Rat King. He would’ve naturally missed out on the Bewitching Lotus of Fire and Ice.

He also wouldn’t have recognized the Thundercloud Tree without the memories and he naturally wouldn’t have obtained it.

He likewise wouldn’t have been able to answer the Lord of Golden Seal, and he would’ve been pounded to death on the tenth level, to say nothing of refining the magnetic golden mountain instead.

Without the Lotus, he surely would’ve fallen into the disaster that was the Fire Ravens setting fire to a hundred li. He never would’ve obtained the cores and bodily treasures of the Fire Raven tribe and Redscaled Firelizard.

At the heart of it all, none of that could’ve been accomplished by an ordinary cultivator. The memories of his past life were what all of it was based on.

As time went on, the days passed one by one. His body also became stronger after absorbing the Thundercloud Tree.

When the end of the three months were nigh, he’d also just about thoroughly completed refining his flesh and blood at the second level of the ‘Nine Transformations of Demons and Gods’.

In this regard, his golden body of demons and gods had reached a small milestone.

The critical thing was that after absorbing the Thundercloud Tree, his physical body had gained an additional layer of defense, and he’d had an additional layer of protection when coming face to face with thunder attribute geniuses in the future.

Jiang Chen moved closer and closer to the sky quadrant as time passed.

He couldn’t wait to take his measure of the so-called premier geniuses in the sky quadrant.

At the end of the three months, he’d become the champion of the earth quadrant with a flawless record with no doubts at all.

.......

A young girl with a cool bearing received a message glyph, somewhere in the sky quadrant. She read it briefly as her brows lifted slightly, revealing a trace of stern intent. “Jiang Chen? Secular genius? Coming to the sky quadrant? What gives that dumb animal the right to make it all the way to the sky quadrant?”

This girl was the genius subjected to the most attention amongst the younger generation in the Purple Sun Sect — Long Juxue!