The Tower of Tribulations was tens of meters in height, and every floor was roughly the height of a dozen meters.
When entering the first floor, there was a veined pattern that emerged on the floor, walls, and ceiling. At the same time of the emergence of the pattern, at the center of the first floor, a glowing demonic beast appeared out of nowhere.
This Tower of Tribulations was actually a formation tower.
On the inside were countless of formation patterns. These formation patterns could absorb the energy of the heaven and earth, helping it sustain the formations' power.
The demonic beast made of energy; which was generated by the power of the formation, started rushing at Li Fuchen. From the speed of it, it wasn't any inferior to a class 1 demonic beast.
Pfff!
With his sword drawn, Li Fuchen turned to dodge the demonic beast's attack, then thrusted the sword into the beast's neck.
"Mm? He cleared the first floor with such a fast pace?"
The people waiting outside the tower were abashed.
Generally, a faster clearing speed of the first floor meant that this disciple had a certain level of skills.
"It seems I have underestimated him."
The leader of the deacons gave a nod of approval.
Arriving at the second floor of the tower, the formation pattern lit up. A demonic beast with a powerful energy dashed at Li Fuchen.
Slashing at the energy based demonic beast, Li Fuchen realised that his slash which was supposed to be overbearing; unexpectedly only dimmed the beast's body slightly.
Very soon, under the support of the formation's power, the energy beast once again regained its brilliance.
"Looks like I need to strike at the weakest spot on the beast."
What Li Fuchen did earlier was just to probe, as he slashed its forehead, which was where it was the hardest.
Contending for a few bouts, Li Fuchen stabbed right into the neck of the demonic beast.
Bang!
The energy beast exploded, scattering into formless energy of the heaven and earth.
"Using just 12 ticks to clear two floors. Looks like there is no reason for any concern to whether he can clear the third floor."
The crowd outside the tower once again bursted into a commotion.
"The key is how long he needs to clear the third floor."
"My guess is within 60 ticks."
"That is probably too fast! I am guessing 90 ticks."
Everyone was debating and each had their own opinion.
Inside the third floor of the Tower of Tribulations…
Li Fuchen could feel the formation pattern wasn't anything like the previous two and was the floor with the highest density of energy from the heaven and earth.
Howl!
A giant wolf condensed with energy was formed, its eyes glowed like two giant gems.
"Such speed!"
The giant energy wolf was extremely fast, with a flash of its figure, claws like five razor sharp knives appeared right in front of Li Fuchen.
Li Fuchen could only manage to evade without any chances to counter.
After about a dozen of exchanges, Li Fuchen managed to slash at the wolf's weak spot.
But what astonished Li Fuchen was that his blade couldn't destroy the wolf, only dealing some light damage. Under the influence of the formation, the wolf soon regained its glow.
"So that's how it is. The third floor energy beast has an abnormally high defence. A single strike at the weak spot isn't enough. Unless my attack strength reaches an unprecedented level."
"But being hit on its weak spot, slowed down the recovery speed of the beasts. It shouldn't have recovered that quickly."
On the outside, the water timer was already at 45 ticks.
46, 47… 50 ticks.
As the time slowly elapsed, the glow of the third floor had yet to be extinguished.
"Die!"
Even though the beast formed by the formation wasn't all great in attack, it excelled in speed, and only after multiple hits on its weak area could he defeat it.
As for the other spots on its body, no matter how many attacks were dealt, it would be useless.
After spending some time, Li Fuchen finally grasped the attack pattern of the giant energy wolf. Predicting the wolf's movement, it took 4 successive blades to settle the beast.
After the formation pattern went out, Li Fuchen exited the Tower of Tribulations.
"54 ticks, rank 60.
The lead deacon smiled while telling Li Fuchen his results.
"54 ticks?"
Li Fuchen wasn't surprised at all.
At the current junction, his ability was still far off from rivaling that of Fang Liehai and Gao Changtian.
Those two had higher technique ranks, higher cultivation levels, and seemed to have good body refinement techniques. Their foundations should be better than Li Fuchen's as well.
But Li Fuchen had his own advantage, his body's physical defense and offense.
Had Li Fuchen gone head on with them, he may not be on the losing side.
On the stone wall, Li Fuchen's plaque was hung at the 60th place. To anyone, it was an ever glorious position.
"So, he is Li Fuchen. Who knew he was actually this capable."
Within this crowd, at least half of them knew of Li Fuchen's name.
"What a ferocious guy, this pace of improvement is even better than the 10 prodigies."
"Touching on this topic, I find that something is amiss. If he had such a tremendous pace of progress, why wasn't he picked as a prodigy?"
"You still don't know this yet right? Li Fuchen is only a normal bone frame. Just a normal bone frame, no matter how good his perception, it still isn't enough to take on the title of a prodigy."
"Tsk tsk, in the history of the Cang Lan Sect, it seems there hasn't been any normal bone frame disciple with such a terrifying level of perception right?"
There were still some who didn't know Li Fuchen was just a normal bone frame, and once they found out, they were stunned.
***
Within a few days, the news of Li Fuchen obtaining rank 60 in the Tower of Tribulations spread like a wildfire across the entire outer sect.
Even though the rankings on the Tower of Tribulations wasn't able to represent everything, it was needless to say that Li Fuchen had the strength of a top 100 outer sect disciple.
'Although I temporarily may not require anymore contribution points, the demand for those points would probably be increased by 100 fold in the future. I would most likely suffer some setbacks in the future if I don't accumulate some points now.'
When in the Cang Lan Sect, extra contribution points were always a welcome and never enough.
Redeeming a peak-tier, yellow class martial arts manual required at least 1000 contribution points. Whereas a low-tier, mystic class martial arts manual would require at least 10,000 contribution points. Mid-tier, mystic class manuals required 30,000 contribution points.
A mid-tier, yellow class pill was worth a few hundred contribution points. Slightly over a thousand points for a high-tier, yellow class pill. Peak-tier, yellow class pills go for several thousand points. As for low-tier, mystic class pills that even sect elders desired, they were sold for tens of thousands of points.
In addition to that, treasure swords and armors all required contribution points to exchange for. Even though one may not require it at the Qi Realm, it didn't mean they couldn't be used in the future.
If Li Fuchen waited until there was a need for a large amount of contribution points, that would mean the delay of his progress.
Reflecting for an entire night, Li Fuchen decided to test his luck again at the ore mountains.
Comparing ore hunting and fishing, the latter would be a much reliable option. With Li Fuchen's skills, he could easily obtain at least 10,000 contribution points a month.
The ore mountain relied on luck.
With good fortune, it can't be certain, but maybe one could get tens of thousands of contribution points in one go. But during bad fortune periods, getting only a few hundred points per month was a common sight.
Li Fuchen felt he had great luck, otherwise, how could he have found so much Snow Silver ore in such a short period of time.
What Li Fuchen didn't know was that during the period when he was searching for ores, Guan Xue went to try out the Tower of Tribulations.
Rank 198.
Even though it was not as good as Li Fuchen's, when talking about progressive speed, she was already considered top class in the 10 prodigies.
And not knowing when, the news of Guan Xue and Li Fuchen coming from the same city begun to escalate within the sect.
This invited the attention and wariness from some people.
***
Half a month passed, Li Fuchen found nothing.
He had to admit, it was an unexpected success the previous time.
Wanting to find a large piece of low-tier, yellow class ore was already hard enough. What more can be said about finding a mid-tier, yellow class ore.
Grudgingly, Li Fuchen could only proceed to the Cang Lan Lake and begin his life as a fisherman.
At the same time, with his Scarlet Fire Technique reaching the bottleneck of the eighth rank, Li Fuchen decided to consume the Scarlet Fire Technique pill.
With the Scarlet Fire essence within the technique pill, breaking through to the ninth rank shouldn't be that difficult of a task.
Li Fuchen didn't forget that if he cultivated the Scarlet Fire Technique to the ninth rank within a year, he could receive 100,000 contribution points.