Eternal Emerald Dragon

Chapter 1009 - 1008 - Kukan Stone

The beast tide was almost anticlimactic compared to what it could have been. The vile men and women were the only ones crushed beneath the wave of beast rage.

Lind had only seen the complete aftermath but it was a level of devastation he was used to. The only structures to survive were the Gate and the area displaced by the Golden Vermillion Inn.

Once they met Tsunade, the beasts actually were pleased and let her be. Beasts running a business were just fine but she was not so sure the inn could survive as there would be almost no traffic looking for an inn.

He had revealed a way to adjust the inn to accommodate beasts and the success he had with it. She had been stunned as it was an innovative idea that could spread to the other branches. He told her he was fine with her spreading it around but to leave his name out of it.

He had drawn more than enough attention.

As a favor, the beasts let him examine and collect the resources strewn across the ruins but he only sent it all back to the people currently with Teegan.

She was actually taking the people that could work stone there and carving out a place for them as it could be years before a Gate was built inside the cavern.

Further, she needed to lead. She had become far more serious in the dark confrontation and the beast tide that followed. Seeing Kun City in ruins made her hate the Shandor Syndicate.

Delenn was of the opinion the Eternal Flame Sect was aware that all their powerful elders that went with Gareth were dead. Gareth's death would also be known.

Lind hoped it would result in the end of that sect but he doubted it. If the Fiends had invested properly, there were likely a few more agents that would quietly take over before true danger could arrive.

Only time would tell as they had no network to check but Ogros Kingdom was a different matter.

It was enemy territory. The Shandor Syndicate had taken it over because the nobles had wrapped it up in a bow to do so. He worried about the villagers but he only had so much he could do at once.

Ousting the syndicate would not save the kingdom if he did not have nobility to lead it. It was a quagmire that was not worth his time currently.

Currently he had a much better distraction after the hellish rescue he had to do. He could not refine the kukan stone the way the previous masters had but he could examine it.

He instantly confirmed it was not a grade 7 material at all. It was above that!

No wonder they could barely get it to work. He was not even sure his Forging could do much to it!

Still, the fact they could inscribe onto it meant it could be done. He was curious to try!

The fact that only a spatial tunnel was the goal but he knew now that it also had an aspect of time! The stone seemed a dark gray but as his Eyes tried to pierce deeper into it, he felt like it was spiraling into a starscape!

Spatial nodes were arranged throughout the single block in front of him. They made up the 'stars' while the backdrop was not simple rock but some kind of material he had never heard of before.

The much easier to feel spatial waves were why it was called kukan stone in the first place but the Gates were made after a desperate need to travel fast between cities.

The inscriptions were wonderful to examine but he frowned as he understood the basic thesis underlying them.

The inscriptions basically laced a formation over the stone to invigorate the spatial nodes to resonate at a frequency between 2 Gates.

Unlike the Law Gate that took 2 points of space to make them one, the kukan stone could not seem to achieve the same result.

Teleportation arrays essentially tore through space along the network of platforms. It meant that each array had to be incorporated in a coordinate system to function but it was fairly easy to do so.

It was like getting on a train that then could have more stops added along that track or modify the track to branch to a new location for a new stop. It was a lot of work, but it was easily done once the resources were committed.

The Law Gates were essentially Lind's grasp of wormholes and using Laws to achieve that effect. Space was bent to the point of making such that a cultivator could take a single step to cross thousands of kilometers.

It was extremely resource intensive and needed a Law Binding on one end to work as he could not easily create them even in the 1st layer of the Celestial Fields.

The 2nd layer had proven Law Bindings were far easier to create but the resources would be exhausted to maintain a Law Gate network.

The kukan stone, on the other hand, while still resource intensive, could potentially give a real alternative to teleportation arrays.

Lind felt the resonance idea was not quite the best way to do it. He had easily torn the spatial tunnel after all!

He decided to test a few theories.

"Are you finally tired of staring at a rock?" A woman's voice broke his thoughts and he looked up to find the blind wolf in human form staring at him. She left the majority of the settlement to the trio Lind first met.

Her hair was like the fur of the rest but he felt her robes were closer to simply black. She had her arms crossed loosely in front of her as she seemed to look down at him.

"Actually, yes." Qi flew out of Lind as it sank into the stone and the feeling of profound pressure appeared until 2 stones began to glow in sync. He narrowed his eyes as a faint tear in space appeared between them.

The pack mother snorted at his results.

"Not even as good as the human refiners. I expected more." Lind ignored her but could not deny her assessment. He closed his eyes and recalled how the tunnel felt.

It was like someone had strung spider webs between the 2 Gates but instead of the very delicate legs of a spider, the clumsy steps of people had to walk across them.

His fingers shifted from Forging to weaving. Sigils began to shimmer in the air but unlike any before, the pressure of Laws radiated from them!

It was not a slight incorporation but pure power of Law coming from each one!

The woman stepped back as her instincts warned her of something dangerous was coming.

The sigils were connected by traces to each other and then to the kukan stones. The moment they couched, a gaping hole into the void appeared!

Winds were about to draw everything into it when an emerald sheen covered it.

"Bingo!" The unfamiliar word made the woman arch an eyebrow but she had to accept he had pulled it off that time.

"So what did you do exactly?" Lind turned and smiled as he approached another block to his left before he started again.

Very soon, another tear appeared but now the black void vanished in the first one. It was a swirling pool into a tunnel that looked almost like solid stone.

He dismissed his cover and a cool feeling faintly came out but he stepped into it and found a short tunnel inside. It was far more opaque than the previous trip. Further, he could definitely feel the Time Laws far more powerfully than before.

"Hmmm, not bad but not too stable." He took another step and came back out into the sunlit world. The single audience had grown to a much larger one. He frowned as he saw Delenn looking concerned with Tsunade also about to enter the other end of the short tunnel.

"How long was I gone?" Delenn looked at him sternly but it was the blind wolf that answered.

"A week! You vanished to all my senses! I could not find you at all!" That surprised Lind but he then understood. The time factor had been inverted. Unlike before where time was relatively short compared to traveling in the physical world, it was now accelerated!

"I messed up the time aspect of the kukan stone. I have been able to increase the stability for space but it made time flow much faster. What was a few moments for me was days out here." His words did not relieve them but Delenn seemed intrigued.

"Allow me?" He nodded and she hopped inside. He lost all sense of her! He did not touch a thing as he caught up with the rest. Only 3 days passed when Delenn appeared.

"Well?" She looked stunned when they told her. "I never stopped moving. It was only a few breaths at best!"

Lind nodded but then felt inspired.

"Of course!" His hands lit up and both tunnels began to vibrate as a screeching sound was heard. Sigils were rearranged before he finally stopped and grabbed a loose stone. "Catch!"

He tossed it in one opening and before anyone realized it had already come out the other side!

"What did you do?" Tsunade could not understand. It was almost like the stone left before it entered!

"I was so focused on stabilizing the tunnel aspect I also made time far more stable as well. The less time that passed inside, the more stable but it makes the outside pass far faster. It is very close to the speed of light issue." He saw their confusion but then decided to explain it from a different angle.

"It is possible to go so fast, that Time Laws distort. Time for the runner feels the same but around them it is going far faster. They seem like they are at a still point to an external observer. The kukan stone is not simply a spatial stone, but space and time." He gently put his hand through one of the openings but it did not appear on the other side.

All waited until he pulled it back and every cultivator was confused. The hand that had been inside was brighter and lacking any sign of dust compared to the rest of Lind's body.

"All I had to do to correct it was make Time flow faster inside the tunnel. It is not a complete solution but it shows time can be manipulated as well. My hand discarded an entire layer of skin as well as my clothes could become clean due to the Forged abilities I put into them." Shock spread on all their faces as they looked at the dark stones around them.

Kukan stone had always been thought of as a spatial Gate, but Lind was telling them it was also a Gate through time!

"So,you can make a new Gate?" The blind wolf asked the question and he firmly nodded.

"Not only can I make a Gate, I think I can make one that works for a fraction of the cost and is far more efficient to boot!" He smiled wide as he got to work experimenting. He had to figure out the ratio of Time and Space to get it just right, but now that he understood the basics, he knew it could work!

Delenn was the only one there shaking her head in chagrin. Her student was about to change the world again!