Lex blew out a deep breath as he stopped cultivating, before finally opening his eyes. The way his instincts had guided him towards cultivating Profane and Divine energy together, and the way he had been targeted by some unknown entity, Lex almost felt like he was about to unlock some hidden, deeply concealed power.

That would be too convenient, right? Like, wasn't this a power anyone could cultivate at any time?

The answer was no, this was not convenient. Without Lex's cultivation technique to help him make the impossible possible, no one could cultivate both Divine energy and Profane energy. Also, he did end up unlocking a new power - or at least a fragment of it.

He felt it... it was something else entirely, something very unfamiliar. It was a new kind of energy, but Lex could not get enough of an impression of it to understand what it truly was.

If someone else was in Lex's shoes, they might hesitate. Lex already had too much on his plate. Soul, Spiritual and Body cultivation wasn't enough, he was also cultivating his aura, his tenet, some Paladdin powers he didn't understand, an affinity for time that he hadn't tested out yet and many other things. Was it really wise to get involved in yet another new technique or energy?

The answer, at least for Lex, was yes. He was immortal anyway, and had the rest of eternity. No matter how many things he picked up, he would have the time to study and work on them sooner or later, so why did it matter?

Of course, his situation at that moment didn't allow him to focus too far on the future. For his immediate future, unlocking even a fraction of that new power which he didn't yet understand had directly elevated Lex's energy control. If he could continue his progress at this rate, passing this tribulation wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately, the Defiler core was almost out of energy after a single cultivation session. It wasn't that the core was lacking in energy. The issue was in the fact that the energy reserves of an ordinary Heaven Immortal, or in this case a Heaven Defiler, were smaller than Lex's energy reserves when he was an Earth Immortal. Now that he was a Heaven Immortal, how could they satisfy him?

Lex shrugged and looked up at the sky.

"Come," he said, inviting Heaven to send the next attack. He couldn't be bothered to wait another 11 minutes before the break between attacks was over. As if complying to Lex's request, the clouds rumbled, and the cosmic dust took a new form.

A blade... no, a knife. A butter knife formed, pointing its edge towards Lex threatening.

"Even if you are Heaven, even if you are the Universe, don't get too cocky," Lex said, pulling out his sword.

The fact that he was willing to chat once more... was a clear indication of the level of confidence he had gained from the small gain absorbing the Defiler core gave him. He didn't even bother entering any of his forms, let alone the Jorlam form.

When the butter knife made from cosmic dust fell, Lex clashed with it directly, using the clash to train his sword intent.

Compared to previous clashes, which had taken hours or at the very least many minutes, this clash against the tribulation ended quickly. It didn't even last a single minute.

A gleam flashed through Lex's eyes as he realized that he would now need to start collecting Defiler cores. This power, whatever name it bore, exceeded all of Lex's expectations.

Then came the nurturing Primordial energy. Lex once again sat down crosslegged, ready to absorb the energy and adapt to it. The process was painful, excruciatingly slow, and wasn't even providing as much immediate return as the cultivating with the Defiler core, yet Lex had no doubt that longterm, it would be worth it.

Then, once that was done, Lex resumed cultivating with the Defiler core until the entire core was exhausted of energy, crumbling into dust.

Meanwhile, Lex focused on the change brought about by such a short cultivation session. He felt like he had unlocked about 1% of whatever power was supposed to be unlocked, but Lex's strength had grown. Or, to be more specific, his handling of energy had improved drastically.

All energy based attacks he could launch now had an improvement in strength by over a dozen times. It was so easy that even Lex felt like he was cheating. Then again, it only felt so easy because he was technically doing something that should have been impossible.

"What is going on? It was supposed to get harder to cultivate at higher levels, not easier. Do I have some kind of misunderstanding about power levels? Have all the immortals I've been hanging out with actually been weakling all along?" Lex looked left and right, almost as if he expected someone to hop out and answer his question, but there was no one.

He took a deep breath, suppressing his random thoughts. For now, it was still his own cultivation that was the most important.

It was unfortunate that he hadn't gotten his hands on any blood from Vinei yet, or he would have tried absorbing that. But since Phoenix blood was out of the question, and he had already made full use of his access to dragon blood, it was time for him to focus on Jorlam blood.

In truth, Lex had avoided it in the Earth Immortal realm because he had been told it would affect his psyche too much since the blood was too strong for him and its influence too great. Now, though, there was no point in holding

anything back.

In fact, if he had the time, Lex would have even tried cooking Jorlam heart. Unfortunately, even the flames from a star weren't hot enough to cook that, so Lex had no means to actually make it happen.

With the tribulation waiting above, he began to fuse with Jorlam blood. After that, he'd have to get really crazy.