Eternal Emerald Dragon

Chapter 1245 - 1244 - Hurdles to Making a Body

Lind returned to the spirit world. He understood what was happening on the way back.

They were literally stepping into space/time being fixed versus the chaotic nature of the spirit world.

He had no grasp of how they connected but the price had to be steep to go either way given how exhausted the old woman looked. Now that he was back in the spirit world, he felt less pressured in many ways.

The remainder of his conversation with the woman in silver was frustrating in many ways. She confirmed the cultivation world could never construct a compatible body for him. Even possessing would only burn out bodies in less than a decade if he tried to do that.

It would also burn his newly recovered vitality to his soul. That was an aspect he also did not follow very well. Apparently his recovery was unique to him.

He should have only had a few millennia left for his soul but now he was now going to live close to a billion years. That was longer than his original estimates!

With zero chance of making a body in his old world, he returned to the spirit world as, relatively speaking, time passed much more slowly compared to the cultivation world.

He really had a headache as they tried to explain how a timeless world had time pass slower and he just gave up on it for the moment.

The more intriguing issue was his return issues. He could go back as a soul, that was not an issue, but given the eternal nature of the soul, he could literally have a variance of millions of years if he was not careful.

It was only when he realized he was alone that he stopped confused.

Hadn't the spirits of Heaven and Earth wanted to talk to him? They only answered his questions and let him see snapshots of his family. They were well but his Mother concerned him.

She looked almost like a waif despite smiling with her grandchildren that came up to see her. The Endless Peaks was recovering but he was unsure if that future would come to pass.

As it was explained to him, things that happened after his 'death' were still not set in stone for him. He was like a pebble waiting to be thrown into a pond.

The ripples he created on his arrival may change some of the things he was shown.

If he had a body, the rough estimate would be within 5 to 10 thousand years which was much more reasonable.

So it still came back to creating a body for his soul. He actually knew of a few techniques he could have used but it required some sample of his body to have survived which was off the table.

Any old scales or other pieces of him would not do either as he had transformed his body in the 2nd layer. While some scales did exist from that, he had no way to communicate his needs to his family.

If he tried to reach out, the moment he interacted with the cultivation world would become his starting point then. He also would have to return forcefully and roll the dice on the time slip working in his favor or not.

That option was a no go for the low success rate, the time issue, and frankly he did not want to raise hopes only to be dashed if he failed to make a body.

The other techniques he knew of were a mix of forbidden and complex Arts that simply were not compatible or violated his moral code on many levels. Possession was also never a starter no matter how compatible a body might be.

He could, theoretically, be reborn from scratch but his memories would be buried until he was strong enough to endure them. It would be like a new person in his mind that would be swallowed by his mind later.

He did not like that path either. On top of which, that path required someone from his bloodline to be able to carry the baby to term. There were cultivators that did that secretly but were found out later.

He did not understand why they could not see the issues with it but either way, he dismissed that path harshly.

There were not many options left but there was one the spirits suggested.

He had accidently taken a step down a rare path when he first flew. He had taken control of the material of the spirit world and molded it into a facsimile of his dragon form.

It had been stable for a short time until he could not control it anymore. He had no idea how he had done it so that was a big hurdle but according to the spirits, he could actually make a body that way.

He felt that would take a very long time, longer than just going back as a soul to the cultivation world.

"You came back!" The children spirits came running over and he let them distract him as they played tag in mid air. It lightened his heart but eventually they went off to do whatever kept spirits busy in their world.

The original female child stayed and they played a simple card game between them. He wanted to know how she knew the game as it was very close to black jack but she just smiled and said it was fun.

He watched as the world moved around them. Its ever shifting landscape, the silver clouds in the sky, and the occasional sign of rebirth or manifestation.

He narrowed his eyes at the manifestation. His Eyes made the scene slow down as just above a vortex a shape was molded by the silver cloud feeding into it.

"So the vortex allows a physical existence to be here briefly but when it reaches a certain threshold it is sent out?" Lind was speaking aloud when a giggle drew him back to the game he was currently losing in.

"They are born! How else are you born unless you exist?" It was a simplistic but accurate statement. Still, his existence was no longer hinging on a body.

He froze. That was not quite accurate. A body had forged his soul to the point it fused with his crystal. He had never questioned it before but how did the soul endure if the physical crystal was gone?

He carefully examined his existence before he made a startling discovery.

He DID have a body. It was very faint but tiny slivers of familiar crystal were all over his body. The energy that made up his existence was woven into them.

Several things fell into place for him. The soul was fused to the crystal inside the dantian. When the body died, everything was lost. A body would lose its crystal and the soul appeared.

It was clear that the process was straightforward but then why were souls so weak? It was because the body that empowered everything was gone. All that was left was the processor but none of the inputs and outputs to put in a computer prospective.

The dantian was what regulated and allowed Lind to control his Qi in the first place. Without meridians and the rest of his body, he could not only not get stronger but even flexing his abilities was extremely difficult.

The only medium left was his crystal and it was disturbingly easy to disperse his energy that way.

"I lost a lot of my crystal but then got it back? How did that work?" He could not quite estimate the volume but it seemed roughly what it should be. He tried fusing the tiny pieces but they simply let his power flow through them.

That was another thing to add to his list of issues. A mortal body would do him no good at all. It would simply explode the moment he tried to fuse his soul to it.

That issue, more than any other, had prevented Immortals from reconstituting a body. Some could sacrifice their soul power enough to make it work but many could not. Dragons were a prime example.

Their sheer power would not bend even to their own will. While Lind was a dragon completely now, his control over his soul exceeded most dragons.

He might be able to make a draconic body that could withstand what he needed.

It still left it as a mortal that had to cultivate which instantly led him to his greatest hurdle. His harmony.

There was absolutely zero reference for making a body compatible with that.

"I win!" A squeal made him snap back to indeed find she had won the round. It made her 56 wins to his 34. "Again!"

He smiled and nodded. It was strange. In the spirit world, it was like his emotions were free from worries but a brief visit to that strange white room had made it all come crashing down on him. The lack of time made such a difference?

"It is a pity I can't directly construct a chamber to experiment–" He froze again. He slowly looked up to see the little child looking at him confused before she shifted. The old woman suddenly appeared behind her.

He looked up with a grim face.

"You said Heaven and Earth act as a bridge but what came before? How did Heaven and Earth come to be?" The old woman sighed while the little girl looked sad.

A wave of her hand and the very ground parted to reveal the interior. It was just as chaotic with flows of lava, massive mines of ore, and huge crystals always forming but that was not what drew Lind to his feet sharply.

Until it was pulled away he had sensed nothing but at the heart of the world was a solid and familiar feeling. It was a core of white and black. It was 2 parts equally balanced in a very familiar way.

"The spirits were born first. Yin and Yang are the parents of us all but they are dead. They have no emotions or desires. They simply are. The source of everything begins there." The old woman spoke reluctantly but Lind grasped it.

He could feel the immense pressure unlike anytime before. Heaven, white, was forever entwined with Earth, black! He was looking directly at the source of Heaven and Earth. All the rules, Qi, karma, and everything all came from there!

He looked up in shock.

"You–you mean to say this is the beginning of us all?" The old woman shook her head.

"It is a beginning but not the beginning. That is all I can tell you." He did not understand. What did that mean?! Still, it told him the most important thing. He had been overthinking it. He needed no chamber at all!

The entirety of the spirit world was a test chamber for Heaven and Earth!