Isn't this just cheating?

It was one month after the sect leader had told Alex he would be participating in some tournament and he was curently sitting infront of his cauldron. The mixture was now a deep green, almost black, and the lightning had shifted from silver to almost red. Sadly, this was as far as he could take it curently. Both his cauldron and the 'tribulation essance' was to little to push it fully into the next rank.

Taking out a random medium grade spirit stone and dropping it into the mixture, it was immediately dissolved I to pure qi, then was absorbed by the mixture. As its quality was as high as it would go, feeding it more would increase quantity instead. But at this point he had all he needed. Nuwa was next to him, two meaters long, with a slight red at the tips of her horns.

Alex was interested by the hole 'dragon bead' things, and planed to make one of his own with nuwas help. As she was a pure blooded flood dragon she had a small amount of true dragon blood, and as such the authority that came with it. Now that he had the best materials he could get, along with nuwas help, Alex started the process. Taking out a peak grade spirit stone, one of only three that he had, he threw it into the cauldron.

Unlike the mid grade one, he coated this one in some vital qi to shield it from the mixture for a moment. Once the stone was in, nuwa opend her mouth and let a drop of venom fall from one of her fangs, this would act as the 'approval' to form the dragon bead. Lighting the vital flame under the cauldron he began to melt the spirit stone.

Once the spirit stone was completely liquid, he moved the drop of venom to mix with it, keeping this mixture seprate from the corpse water. Once the drop of venom was fully mixed with the liquid spirit stone, he began to congeal it into a ball, which would be the core of the bead.

Slowly the core began to form, as this happend Alex added several attributed spirit stones to supplement the process, and get the core accustomed to lightning and water qi. Once the core was fully formed he dropped it into the corpse water mixture, again coated with his vital qi as if he used normal qi it would be absorbed by the water. He let one drop of corpse water seep into the core, and cfhe core began to wildly shake for a moment before calming down, a tiny hint of green staining part of its surface. Once Alex was sure the core was stable he let another drop in. the core Once again shook, but less this time.

By the fifth drop the core was completely stable, so Alex let two drops in. Again the core shook, and again he wated for it to calm down. 4 cycles later and it didn't react to two drops. Three drops, the core shook, it calmed down, Alex repeated. Slowly more and more of the core was stained dark green, and small specks of light red began to form, eventually spreading into what looked like cracks across its surface. Once the core was completely dyed deep green and red, he poured the rest of the corpse water into it.

The core didn't even shake once as 30 litres of refined mutated tribulation corpse water flowed into it. Once the cauldron was dry Alex put the vital flame at full blast as he cut open his wrist and let his blood flow in. Nuwas venom acted at the authorisation to form a dragon bead, while Alex blood acted as the signature of ownership.

It was also a great material for the final refinment considering the frankly absurd amount of bonuses it had, nuwa also added a small bit of her own into the mix as a bit of proper dragon blood didn't hurt anybody. Once the bead had absorbed as much of Alex's blood as it could he pushed the flame to its very limits, also feeding it his blood to boost it. After an hour of blasting the bead with the vital flame, Alex turned it off and took out the final product. A marble the size of a grape the was entirely black with red streaks across it.

Holding it Alex could feel a slight buzz coming from it that made his fingers numb.

[Trancendent calamity tribulation bead(unique): this dragons bead was going to becorm a rare+ grade [silver lightning corpse water dragon bead] before it was bathed in the blood of the [transcendent phisque] holder and the [Beast of calamity]. The potent powers within the blood of these two, along with a synergistic effect of both, have caused this bead to evolve into a unique creation, the only one of its kind. Once absorbed it will grant its used the ability to summon and control calamity water and lightning, along with transcendent refinement from both energies. Can be fused by either a true blooded dragon, or one of the creaters to become a true dragon bead, boosting all effects. If absorbed by one of the creators the other will gain a psudo variant. Recomended that host uses the bead, as nuwa already possesses a dragon bead.]

"Nice, I'm sure you don't have any complaints right nuwa?" Looking over at nuwa alex saw her shake her head, 'it is fine, I already have a dragon bead, and feel that even if I gain the psudo veriant it will not be much weaker compared to the true version.'

"Well alright then, time for a snack." Alex threw the bead onto his mouth like a piece of popcorn and swallowed. Very bad bad idea considering just holding it caused his fingers to go numb. the moment it reached his stomach it went wild, deep red lighting seared his insides while black energy rotted what remaind. Or that would have happend if it wasen't absorbed by green and silver energy. His [thunder tribulation refinment] and [corpse water refiment] greedly eat all the energy coming off the bead a it fought back for a moment, before realising that it had been absorbed by one of its creators.

It immediately calmed down and looked for a place to stay, befor settling down where his dantian would form, as a copy apeared above the alter in his mind palace. His heart was not left out as the remenent energies absorbed by his two statuses was used to refine it to match the other two cultivation centres.

[Congratulations host for gaining the title [Trancendent calamity tribulation bead] curent effects are the ability to summon and control calamity lighting and water, and refinment from both. More will be unlocked as host progresses in cultivation and spell mastery.]

[Spells [lightning control] and [water control] have evolved into [Calamity lightning control: heaven 3(entry)] and [Calamity Water control: heaven 3(entry)] statuses [thunder tribulation refinment] and [corpse water refiment] have evolved into [Calamity thunder refinment: tier 2] [Calamity water refiment: tier 2].]

Alex felt the rush of knowlage flood his mind as the methods of basic lightning and water control where overwriten by their calamitous versions. Strangly, he coulden't seem to understand them completely. This was a first, as with every other technique or spell he had, he was either the creator and their for had perfect understanding of how they worked, or they where to low level for him and he could perfectly understand them from the very beginning.

But as the two spells where remade he could feel they he could only understand 3 to 5% of them. But even that was magnitudes more powerfull then there previous veriants. Luckily Alex could tell that if he wanted to he could sill use their old versions, and his enlightenment was slowly working away at understanding the spells. Unlikely he could also tell that with his curent knowlage of the world he would only be able to master 10 to 15% of the spells at most.

"Might as well test them out." Alex started with calamity lighting control. Rasing his hand he began to push his qi though the proper pathways, only for it to be yanked out his meridians, alongside some spiritual energy, against his control to properly power the spell. As alex began to feel his reserves of qi begin to run dry, the spell finally activated. A deep red bolt of lightning, the size of a chopstick, forming in his hand, radiating enough power to burn his skin. Dispelling the lighting soon after it formed for his own safety he checked his qi levels to see how much had been drawn out.

Qi: 10%

Inner qi: 50%

Spiritual energy: 90%

The missing 50% Inner qi was from the creation process, just because it lasted longer against the corpse water compared to normal qi didn't mean it was fine by any standard. "Looked like for every 9% of qi it used it also needed 1% Spiritual energy. I can't imagine how a normal person is meant to use this spell, I have 82 strands of qi 3,500 times more pure then the avrage, and it almost drained me dry."

He coulden't imagine it because it wasen't ment to happen, if any other cultivator at his rank tried to use that spell it would drain them dry of qi and spiritual energy in an instant, along with their inner qi before finnaly useing their vitality as fuel, and even then it would only make a bolt as long as a tooth pick and as thin as strand of hair at best.

At alexs curent mastery of the spell, at full power it would summon a bolt of red lightning three meters long that would act as a conduit to summon more calamity lighting from the sky, as well as to be used as a weapon in general. It could even be used as a finnal attack by throwing it, forming a bolt of lightning magnitudes more powerful than the summoned kind.

The reason for its small size when Alex used it was due to a lack of energy, it would take 50 years of lifespan to power the version his current mastery of the spell gave him. Alex was soon brought out of his focus by a notification.

[Nuwas trait [dragon bead of silver lightning and emrald water: psudo-tier 3] has evolved into the title [psudo-transcendent calamity tribulation dragon bead]. Nuwa has gained the spells [control calamity Water: heaven 2] [control lightning Water: heaven 2]. Due to nuwa being under core formation rank these spells have been locked temporarily.]

Looking over to nuwa her horns remained silver, but their red tips had become streaks, spreading through the rest of the horns. "You feel any changes?"

'My bloodline purification and cultivation have increased in speed by a small amount, and I can feel that my old dragon bead had transformed into one simaler to what you ate, with the only difference being it feels like it feels, empty, somehow.'

"Well the descrpition did call it 'unique', so it probably has some hidden quality to it that stops more from being made. i could probably do an exchange to make it so your one becomes its own seprate thing, making it its own unique dragon bead."

Hearing that Alex would seperate what she saw as a connection between the two, she quickly exclaimed 'no! I mean. no, thats fine. And I feel that it will grow with me as it is anyways.'

Confused at her outburst Alex said "Alright then. Fine by me, offer still stands if you would like to in the future though." After saying this Alex put his cauldron away and got back to cultivating. His mind palace had reached lesser rank 1 recently and he could feel it wasen't far off ranking up again.