Tribulations

Tribulations occur when crossing between Supreme Steps and can also be forced using talismans, but that's not advisable. Lightning strikes cultivators for various reasons, testing, punishment and refinement. Despite the relatively laid-back criteria for reaching Immortality on a Great World, people died with depressingly regularity if they didn’t take certain precautions when dealing with formations, or certain kinds of divination, or when doing alchemy or forging since all of these could prompt a tribulation.
Tribulation Lightning can also show up as other weird phenomena like flowers, small animals, weapons or even things like dragons, soldiers, weird signs or strange tableau. The form is usually unimportant. It is the colour and the number of entities that are important for the most part.
'Normal' Tribulation lightning can occur for almost anything that might provoke a tribulation. Will always be bolts of lightning, usually with little to no warning.
'Spiritual' Tribulation lightning is common at all steps, usually first encountered in cultivation at Golden Core Breakthrough. Either straight up lightning or appears in the form of supernatural aspects, strange signs or other oddities.
'Earthly' Tribulation lightning can appear much more infrequently from Golden Core onwards but is usually only seen in association with Nascent Soul or Dao Seeking Phenomena. It may appear as flowers, animals, or almost any worldly thing.
'Heavenly' Tribulation Lightning can appear in any circumstance. It is most commonly seen as a form of fate sense censure for some transgression. Usually, it is encountered by the average cultivator for the first time at Immortal Crossing. However, it can also be encountered at Golden Core Formation for some particularly impressive core types and within Dao Seeking if a person's principle is suitably exotic. It almost always manifests as pure bolts, but can also be weapons or signs that have some heavenly important; Dragons, Imperial Soldiers, Sages or an Imperial Style seal etc...
Tribulation lightning in breakthroughs will step up when it occurs. If Normal manifests, then it strikes once. If Spiritual strikes, it strikes however many times, and normal lightning strikes once for every spiritual strike. If Earthly Lightning Strikes, Spiritual and Normal lightning will also strike and so on.
Tribulation lightning arriving as censure will just be a singular occurrence, without however many strikes are warranted.
Grade 	Colours 	Strikes
Normal 	Various (but not white, black, gold, silver or purple)	1
Spiritual	White 	3
Spiritual	White Purple 	6
Spiritual	White Blue 	9
Earthly 	Blue Green 	6
Earthly 	Deep Blue 	9
Earthly 	Purple 	12
Heavenly 	Gold + Various 	9
Heavenly 	Gold + White 	12
Heavenly 	Gold + Black 	15
===== Special Tribulations =====
Grade 	Colour 	Strikes	Notes
Fate 	Black 	11 	Associated with breaking through to Immortal, usually in Mortal Realms
Judgement 	White 	33 	Associated with breaking through to Dao Immortal, where is almost always appears, but can show up earlier.
Denial 	Grey & Black	66 	
Retribution	Black & Gold	99 	
Execution 	Silver 	???