Cave Refuge

Sensing this situation, Dong Tianyu didn't try to dodge, instead, he used a technique to summon a Spirit Power barrier, wanting to take the brunt of the lightning attack to gauge the strength of the strikes.

As Dong Tianyu continuously poured his Spirit Power into the Spirit Power Shield, the thickness of the shield also kept increasing.

Although when the lightning struck the Spirit Power Shield, it still hadn't reached its strongest defensive stage, a half-foot-thick Spirit Power Shield cracked under several successive lightning strikes.

Even though Dong Tianyu was able to quickly repair these cracks by continuously infusing them with Spirit Power, the appearance of these fissures undoubtedly indicated that the Spirit Power Shield struggled to withstand the relentless assault of the lightning.

After ascertaining the intensity of the lightning attacks, Dong Tianyu still didn't think of leaving to take cover. When the lightning in the clouds struck at his location again, Dong Tianyu casually threw out an iron rod.

He wanted to see if the concept of the lightning rod would still work at this time.

With the appearance of the iron rod, the lightning originally aimed at Dong Tianyu's position was instead attracted to the rod he threw, instantly changing its target and streaking towards the area where the rod was falling.

Even though the iron rod fell quickly, it simply couldn't outpace the lightning in the sky. In the blink of an eye, the lightning attracted by the iron rod struck it directly.

As the iron rod was directly hit by lightning, its body seemed to be refined by fierce flames and hammered by an iron hammer, with impurities being continuously purged. Finally, the iron rod, which was as thick as an arm after the lightning tempering, was reduced to the thickness of a chopstick.

Seeing this situation, the idea of Heavenly Thunder Tempering flashed through Dong Tianyu's mind.

Heavenly Thunder Tempering was originally a method of Body Tempering that practitioners would attempt only when their Body Cultivation Level had reached a certain height.

Unlike other cultivators, Body Cultivation was said not to consider the talent of the cultivator but simply required great perseverance.

After all, the Body Cultivation method was extremely brutal at first, necessitating endurance against the beating of various wooden rods and sticks, followed by progression to iron rods, and then hammering with a variety of different weapons.

After the body could fully withstand the attacks of ordinary weapons, the practitioner had to use various harsh methods to temper the body, such as extreme cold and heat, along with many other strange ways of tempering.

And the ultimate method of tempering the body in Body Cultivation was using Heavenly Thunder, and everything from different thunders to tribulations that a cultivator had to overcome to ascend to immortality, in the eyes of some mad practitioners, was just a means of Body Tempering.

It was precisely because of this nearly mad method of Body Tempering that it inspired Forging Masters, letting them know that besides using fierce flames and cold quenching for purification, they could also harness Heavenly Thunder to refine materials.

However, compared to using readily available fierce flames and cold quenching, hoping to use Heavenly Thunder to purify raw materials required the right conditions involving timing, location, and people.

Just when the majority thought that this way of tempering materials was merely a conceptual impossibility, someone brought up Thunderstruck Wood.

Once Thunderstruck Wood proved that it was possible to temper forging materials with Heavenly Thunder, some Forging Masters began to experiment with various methods, and hence different ways of attracting lightning were developed.

Had it not been for the sudden attack from the lightning that Dong Tianyu experienced and the epiphany regarding the working principle of the Lightning Rod, he would not have continued to ponder the idea of utilizing Heavenly Thunder to refine materials.

Once this idea surfaced in Dong Tianyu's mind, now facing the attack of the Heavenly Thunder, his first reaction was not to evade, but to reach into his Storage Space, pull out an iron rod, and directly toss it into the vicinity of the lightning.

With each bolt of lightning, Dong Tianyu kept stashing the iron rods, refined by heavenly thunder, into his cave.

Dong Tianyu had planned to temper a few hundred more iron rods before stopping. After all, the celestial lightning's refining would strip away much of the impurities from the rods. Initially the thickness of an arm, they would end up only as thick as chopsticks after the heavenly thunder treatment.

For Dong Tianyu, ordinary iron rods sufficed in most scenarios; he didn't need such high-end materials, so there was no need to refine all the iron rods in his storage space.

Yet before Dong Tianyu could accumulate enough thunder-tempered iron rods, the lightning that had been relentlessly striking from the clouds suddenly just shuttled back and forth within them, no longer proactively targeting the area Dong Tianyu was in.

When Dong Tianyu noticed that the iron rod he threw out was not attacked by lightning, he looked up at the clouds ahead with a puzzled gaze.

The thunder that had been shuttling through the clouds started to converge and, as more and more gathered at one point, it began to emit a blinding light.

However, as time passed, the light - initially too intense to look at directly - gradually dimmed. Although still bright, it was now bearable to the eyes.

When the orb of light emerged from the clouds blocking Dong Tianyu's view, he was surprised to find that the thing which had glowed within the clouds resembled him.

Not only did its stature and build closely mirror Dong Tianyu's, but it had also replicated the flying sword he stood on.

Although the replicated appearance was somewhat challenging to look at directly, at least the overall shape and contour were remarkably similar.

Perhaps due to its body being entirely composed of lightning, even with human-like features, the constant radiance it emitted and the lack of distinct facial features made it clear at first glance that this was not human.

When Dong Tianyu tried scanning it with his Divine Sense, he was surprised to find his sense could easily penetrate the being's body for a detailed investigation.

Yet, after scanning it three times with Divine Sense, Dong Tianyu's expression showed incredible surprise.

Originally, since it had taken human form, Dong Tianyu thought it had undergone some anomaly - perhaps developing an Elemental Core like those found in the elemental creatures of novels or possibly a special item that absorbed and gathered lightning, resulting in the peculiar sight before him.

Regardless, there had to be a special catalyst for the lightning to coalesce and evolve into the humanoid creature before him.

Dong Tianyu used his Divine Sense to scan it, hoping to identify and confirm this catalyst.

Unfortunately, after three thorough searches, he found no anomalies within the creature. The being Dong Tianyu perceived as a fully formed elemental entity appeared in his Divine Sense as a pure mass of thunder.

To put it simply, in the view of Divine Sense, the thunder before him was like pure water entered into an ice maker - its transformation into different ice shapes depended entirely on the mold.

However, the creation from the mold should have been an immovable decoration. Yet the thunder with human form that emerged from the clouds could move freely, despite some stiffness in its joints.

It was precisely because Dong Tianyu had witnessed this that he didn't believe the creature's form was fixed by a mold.

Even though he didn't know why it had left the clouds to appear before him, Dong Tianyu remained highly vigilant, closely watching the being, ready to respond to any of its actions at a moment's notice.