The Tribulation was a seemingly insurmountable obstacle that stood between him and his ambitions. No matter what escape method he could think of, they all relied on him attaining immortality, and there was no way to do that without first facing the heavenly thunder.

  He couldn't even renounce ascension and be content to escape using runes, as they simply weren't powerful enough, and the dragon power never allowed them to exist long enough to achieve anything significant. Not even using immortal level runes would work, as there was no way to engrave this level of rune without inviting terrifying lightning strikes upon him. It was not that mortals were not allowed to accomplish immortal feats, it was that the Heavens would take this very accomplishment as a sign that one was ready to ascend, and it would send down the deadly tribulation.

  He could think of a few other options to escape this place, but no matter what they were, they all relied on being able to resist the dragon power, which implied reaching the level of immortality, for which he first needed to transcend the tribulation.

  As for buying a solution from the system shop, he had long lost any hope of that ever being a possibility. Since the very beginning, there had been no change to the system, and except when he transferred to a new profession, no new items had ever become available. Not even mahayana level items were unlocked, despite him having clearly achieved that stage of understanding.

  He had racked his brain, trying to find other ways, but he had no luck. It was possible that there was an easy and obvious solution that he was missing, but he had pursued immortality though runes with a one track mind for so long, it was the only thing he could think of.

  Perhaps he was lacking imagination, and there was another way, but he had an intuition that escaping this god-forsaken place might count as an immortal feat in itself, and end up still provoking the tribulation to come down on him.

  No, as far as he could tell, the tribulation was inevitable, and the laws of Heaven demanded he face it before he could fly in the sky.

  The most frustrating thing was that the tribulation was not that big of a deal. While a mortal would have no hope in surviving it, a powerful cultivator would be able to use their powers to resist it easily.

  Avery held back the urge to grind his teeth, whishing for the upteenth time he could cultivate. With his comprehension, qi cultivation would be ridiculously easy. He needed not even buy a cultivation technique, as his understanding on the energies of heaven and earth were more than enough to guide him to immortality.

  If he was in a place with abundant qi, he bet he could become a venerated mahayana monk in less than a decade, at which point ascension would be a breeze.

  The problem was that he was a mortal, and would stay that way. He needed to cultivate to become immortal, but he needed to become immortal to cultivate.

  Despite his best efforts, he made no progress in figuring out a way to avoid the tribulation. However, this did not bring him to despair, as he thought he had found a way to survive it as a mortal.

  As his comprehension improved, he grew more in tune with the mysteries of the world, and with the help of his powers as a seer, he had intently studied the nature of the tribulation.

  He could try to shield himself from it, perhaps laying out enough protection runes they held out long enough to deflect both the dragon power and lightning, but that would not be of any use. He could not avoid the Tribulation, as it was an indispensable ingredient for ascension.

  Contrary to what he used to believe, the tribulation was not some kind of punishment from the Heavens, raining down with the intent to kill. Every ascension was punctuated by a tribulation because they were the very thing that let an individual shed his mortal flesh and be reborn as a child of the sky.

  The lighting was not only destructive, it also contained the mysteries of nirvana. It destroyed the mortal body, leaving behind only the flesh that contained the essence of immortality, but it would then let it reform as the body of an immortal, giving the identity of a child of the sky.

  The only problem was to survive long enough for this rebirth to occur. No healing or protection item he had access to would be enough to resist the tribulation, and even if he reacted quick enough to spam his time warps, they would undo the changes to his body, and it would all be for naught.

  He was not a peak cultivator whose body had been gradually cultivated to near perfection, and only had to burn away a few impurities. He was a pure mortal, and one from another world. From the Tribulation’s perspective, there was not a single cell in his body that fit the sky, and it would not stop until every unsuitable flesh was destroyed. And who knew what would happen if Avery lost his physical form? No matter how powerful or alien his world-like soul was, it still fell under the jurisdiction of the laws of heaven, and without a physical form to anchor it in the world, it would probably be mercilessly dragged to the netherworld.

  The tribulation would do everything it could to turn him to ashes, as it was only after he had completely shed his identity of child of earth that the heavens would accept him, and grant him rebirth. Facing the tribulation head on was a doomed endeavor, as it had infinite time and energy, and using trickery to avoid it would defeat the purpose.

  The only solution he could think of was to abandon his physical body completely, and craft himself a replacement. He could design himself a body that could accept rebirth, a perfect body formed out of perfect runes.

  Runes were both intrinsically linked to Avery's spirit, and existed in the material world. They were uniquely suited to serve as a replacement body, he just needed to give them that identity. Runes were identified by what they were engraved upon. For example, a rune engraved on a sword would become part of the sword, and would strengthen the sword. A rune drawn in the air would affect the world, and a rune inscribed on his body would become part of his body.

   While his mortal body would still be obliterated, the Heavens would approve of a runic body composed of millions of runes that teetered at the very edge of immortality, and would grant it rebirth.