novelraw Chapter 1255 - 1254 - Playing with Fire
Chapter 1255 - 1254 - Playing with Fire
Lind was back in the spirit world. After the revelations about the Covenant of Souls, he had to go back to square one. The ramifications of a mistake were too damned high to ignore but his thoughts did not change entirely.
It was clear that to make a body that could even withstand his soul, it had to be at least an Immortal. The only way to do that was to overcome tribulations. It could not be shallow either.
He would be facing the tribulations all over again! The Progenitor, True Lord, and regular tribulations would come at him one round after another.
On top of all that, he had far more elements and Laws combined with new comprehension. The tribulations he once faced as a simple World Realm would be nearly as terrifying as even an Immortal tribulation!
It was an issue but he had to see if the process could even work. Beasts might be wiser to start but honestly his draconic perspective would work against him.
Aether children were far more compatible with his needs and his understanding of their capabilities.
Still, the risks had become much higher with his new understanding.
"Maybe a dragon's relative would be better?" His eyes narrowed as he spoke aloud. There was merit in that thought as beasts did not suffer as many restrictions as people. Instinctively, beasts could progress effectively under his ideas.
It would not, however, yield the answers he needed.
Only at the Heaven Realm would beasts attain the level of intelligence needed to push Laws and other aspects of cultivation he would have had to test long ago.
"What about–what about the regular human souls?" It was not even close to the same process. Humans were being reborn naturally as part of the cycle of life and death. They did not manifest but he could still meddle with their souls.
He frowned deeply as that came far too close to the Great One. Still, it was a thought he wanted to explore for the sake of understanding any potential issues with the aether children.
It would be playing with fire at best and a complete disaster at worst. It did have one advantage.
It would not trigger the Covenant of Souls. The lives beyond the cultivation world were exempt for some damned reason but he had suspicions. It could be that the Covenant could only be applied once a soul fell under Heaven and Earth.
In other words, since cultivators did not exist in his old world meant there was no Covenant.
Such a distinction left him with a question he dared not ask. If life inside of the cultivation realms came from Qi and the Covenant, what came before it? How did his world pre-date the timescale he had read about in the archives of many powers?
His universe was, approximately, only several billion years old but the cultivators had existed for far beyond that from what he could tell. While time was a variable in the spirit world, the fact the Covenant did not exist in his old world meant his universe pre-dated it somehow.
The time variable also answered a question he had. How did souls frame the same era become reborn thousands of years or more apart in the new world? Time in the spirit world was not flowing in a single direction but many!
It was entirely possible he could witness his own rebirth!
In his particular case, that was not possible. Oresh and the old woman had revealed that beings like him were taken a different route to retain their memories. The Divine Realm cultivators being involved was a recent thing too but it did affect his path later.
They refused to explain how but assured him it was not harmful. Quite the opposite, in fact.
He pushed all his thoughts aside as he decided to finally test some of his theories. He would strictly stay in the Soul Realm for safety but it was still risky.
He flew up into the golden sky and waited. A vortex would form but he would have a small window to act.
At first it was difficult to time it but he was able to attune his senses to pick up the initial signs of the silver clouds moving in a certain way. Once that happened, he zipped over to sharpen his senses.
He had to pick the right moment before doing anything and he came to really sense how truly fragile the nascent souls were. They were more brittle than any glass. Graphite or other loose soil might be considered stronger than them!
He did nothing but observe every facet of the process and realized some patterns.
Complementary elements and Laws allowed an aether child to be very strong but it had no effect on the final cultivation realm. Once the dantian forms and the soul cores stabilized, the aether child was on their way to being born.
He narrowed his eyes as dangers cropped up the more he looked. Despite that, he could proceed. He absolutely could help the aether child progress but he hit the hard wall of the tribulations in every simulation he ran.
He had seen up close each of Annabelle's major tribulations. The inter-tier ones could be guessed but the major realms he had witnessed or studied intensely the after effects.
Despite their origin being manifestation, their progress did not change much from other races. The one difference was their advantage. Anything related to their intrinsic skill was as easy as breathing for them.
It was when they branched out to professions, other Laws, and especially integrating the missing elements at the Heaven Realm that aether children start to fall in line with everyone else.
Annabelle was a bit of an outlier there as she had a rather smooth path compared to others but exposure to so many 6 elementals and his foundational theories were long ingrained in her.
In essence, her environment allowed her to have a much more flexible mind.
He could not do that with his current plans. The soul could be encouraged to endure, even perhaps taught but ultimately he frowned as every simulation came to the same conclusion.
He could possibly make an Immortal aether child but they would be the weakest aether child ever. They would not be able to progress on their own.
"No wonder the spirits object to my interference. It is so clear now that it will work but at a severe cost to the subjects. It may lead to my new body but how many corpses will be behind it?" He got burned. The spirits knew, or maybe suspected but did not stop him. They could not stop him.
He floated down and lay flat looking up at the sky. He stopped trying to watch souls and shifted his Eyes to just Qi. The gorgeous storm of light was mixed with the orbs of the spirits. It looked like a living work of art but it was just life.
In all its forms and possibilities, he just looked at life as he came to accept something he could not face.
He was reaching a dead end and his Oath was coming to nothing so soon after he accepted it. The irony of embracing being a True Lord yet realizing his grand plan was too dangerous to do.
He could do it. With his new revelations, the missing concepts were filled in and he could manipulate souls to improve their foundation but it would be the same as sacrificing them.
Pill and elixir fueled foundations were shallow, but they would still be better than the aether children that would result from his plans. He had been blind to the costs.
"You look sleepy." The little girl was not so spunky now as she laid down next to him. He sighted but nodded.
"I was so tunnel-visioned on the result I ignored the cost. Now that I know it won't just be me paying the price, it made me step back. I was in such a rush to be right, I did not think what all the fallout would truly be in the long run." He openly admitted as he returned to watching the storm of elements.
He was stunned how beautiful the chaos was but his company seemed to be worried about him.
"What will happen if you can't go back?" He shrugged his shoulders.
"Based on historical documents and a few I have seen fall short of their Oaths, I will lose all my foundation at least or maybe I will be dispersed since it was a True Lord Oath. Technically, so long as I keep trying, it should not be an issue but intent matters." He knew that last part was the real issue.
He had exhausted likely avenues due to the inherent dangers. Thus his intent was waning. He could not betray his own Dao path to achieve his goals. He had fallen into the trap several cultivators had suffered from for all of history.
Oaths were dangerous if they crossed your Dao. There was no way out in that instance that did not result in the loss of their foundation or fatal Qi deviation.
"Don't give up! You can do it! I believe in you!" He smiled as he patted her head. Her innocent words raised his dark mood quite a bit but he was about to talk when the swirl of elemental Qi made an unnatural movement.
His emerald Eyes narrowed as he looked at the section of sky full of shifting elements. The spirit world was chaos incarnate but it still had some constants. The main constant was the smooth transition from one state to another had been clear to him for quite some time.
Even as a vortex forms, it hardly impacts the transitions. Even the silver clouds that were consumed did not cause any unexpected consequences either. So, why was there an unnatural flow in the sky?
"What is that?" He pointed in a direction and the little girl became silent. He looked at her then and saw her face was troubled before she looked at him in the most serious way he had ever seen her.
"The bad man broke the promise but he also killed a lot because of it. He took all kinds of life. He took some of us too." He accepted that but it did not explain what he was seeing. "When he took us, he took the very fabric of our world away too. It is hurt."
Lind felt a new shock flow through him. The very essence of the spirit world was damaged when the Great One created his current existence?! It seemed even one more crime to layer on but then he froze.
The spirit world was hurt? What was he seeing then? Why could he only see it now? He felt a need to understand it as an instinct told him he might have a new hope. How it would lead to a new body he did not know but until he exhausted all options, he could not give up yet!