Eternal Emerald Dragon

Chapter 1575 - 1574 - New Understanding

Lind awoke to the tide rising to his prone form. A question bloomed as to what affected the Void Ocean but he doubted even Haro had that answer. It was a minor thing but he was curious about the rise and recession of the tide of something that held myriad worlds within it.

Lind got up and noticed the various battlefields were almost cleaned up by the native beasts. The ships held no more answers for him but the resources inside were good for him.

He also found some interesting pieces of information. The people that came were not simple harvesters but professional killers sent out to destroy or kidnap targets. There was no information on him specifically but they had learned via the faction survivors.

He also confirmed that the ones he saw die would live again. The oddity was the target of information that likely saved his life.

They wanted to know the secret of how a Divine Realm could be killed despite taking precautions to preserve that life. Haro had told him of such methods but they came with risks. He had just experienced how hard it was to kill a Divine Realm too.

Despite getting hit with the intent to harm him, his body had withstood it. Haro did confirm they were not holding back entirely. They wanted to kill him but get the information too.

Haro would not know about the worry of the cultists or the faction. Even he did not know what had happened but without corresponding knowledge from the faction, Lind could only guess.

Based on the fact it had to do with his Art was his only lead. He had no understanding of the mechanism and it was not related to Fiends alone. The source of knowledge had come from the faction, not the cultists.

They had no idea who he was. They did not know he was the enemy of the Fiends at all. That meant he had stumbled on something unexpected. His harmony would not lend itself to the kind of death he had just learned about.

He conjured the Dao of Defiance and his Art of Defiance was given form. He compared the 2 to see where they came together or differed but it was like trying to compare a distorted mirror to the source. The Art of Defiance pulled its various abilities from the Dao but it was not solely the same.

It also used his own understanding of each facet while combining with his will and now the Mysteries he had condensed.

His Life Layer was the only one completed back then so the Death Layer had not contributed at that time.

The three Mysteries did not lend themselves to easy correlation to effects but Lind felt like he was at a threshold. He had refined his layer to a more profound level yet he had never thought in terms of the world around him.

"Haro, can Mysteries do something the cultivator does not understand?" Lind asked aloud but his spirit had no answer. It was not something anyone could answer.

The whole reason they were called Mysteries was because both the cultivator had to condense them and others did not grasp the nuances of them from the outside. Lind began to return to his old thought process.

Everyone had assumed 6 elementals could never advance without external help but the flawed elemental theories were the direct cause of issues.

Cultivation was not a gift from the Heavens but the slow process of mortals striving for more power. The Soul Realm had been reached and people had to figure it out after it happened.

The same happened with each major realm. Lind had never found records to say when people had struggled but it was clear that long ago, they found what worked and stopped exploring as they strove for more power.

He had no idea how long it took since cultivation began to get to the pieces of knowledge that helped him revise those flawed theories.

He now stepped back and really tried to understand Mysteries. He had been told by Haro that his speed was insane. Why?

Why was he so fast? The only time he had encountered anything similar was when he stepped from the Sky Realm to the Heaven Realm.

The accepted progression was to shatter the Skycore and make it into a star field as the basis of the Star Tier, but 6 elementals skipped it entirely. The whole point of that tier was to condense secondary elements for other cultivators and they had no need of it.

The natural progression had been turned on its head but only by all the previous steps the 6 elementals took.

Lind also knew harmonies had to be part of it for them to be successful too. The vast glittering horizon made him wonder if he was the only one to prove those theories to such success?

There had to be others but he had deviated even farther. He had pushed his theories to the other 2 elemental sets and began to see the relationships between them too. He had proven that a natural cultivator could learn other elements but his harmony was the bridge that made it possible.

Others had tried to replicate his success only to find they could only add 1 or 2 more before they hit a wall.

The 6 elementals could still progress but adding just a part of the other elemental systems had slowed them down immensely.

Lind had been researching it when he could but his most recent lifestyle had been focused on his own progress. Now, he had nothing but time. He returned to his research mode.

He knew the cause and effect of what had happened, but not the method. He dared not experiment near the mountain so he went to the shoreline. He focused on his Art and his dantian.

He felt the energy there but he was looking at its structure and what he could perceive. The assumption that Mysteries were a new form of energy from condensing his Dao and understanding into a physical form was undeniable but why? Why did it happen?

The other realms seemed to follow the path of refinement and improvement. The body became strong enough to release the Soul Cores within. The Soul Cores were opened up after they were refined to fonts to forge the Qi into the corresponding Tiers and fill up the dantian until it becomes the hardest substance possible, the Diamond Tier.

The seed of that tier laid the foundation for the Skycore and then the Heaven Realm was the massive step in quality beyond until a cultivator remade their dantian from a starfield to a sun.

The final shattering of mortal fetters was upon them as they destroyed the chains with the power of the sun to form a solid anchor for the soul. The Sliver Tier was the revelation that the soul had been refined to the point the body was no longer necessary for survival.

Lind understood them all intimately and had studied them extensively for his own survival and advancement but the Divine Realm had been walled off and he was understanding why.

It was ephemeral. It was not that it could not be explained in simple terms but that words failed to convey it. Further, Heaven and Earth became more involved the higher the cultivation realm.

Mortals had no concept of spirits or the world beyond their own, but Heaven Realm and Immortals were swimming in them. Further, concepts gained power. Laws were not just the rules of how things worked but power that could be tapped into and incorporated into their dantians, their very soul!

Lind's eyes snapped open! That was it! His soul was the source of Heaven and Earth! The Spirit World had been a world of souls. They were reborn regardless of source but could never stay!

He had been alive there but only by chance. It was not a normal thing.

Yet, he recalled the feeling of Laws and Dao flowing there as easy as breathing! So why were there no Mysteries?

"We are stepping beyond Heaven and Earth." He spoke aloud and thunder rumbled loudly. He was a True Lord but that was not nearly as impressive as before, still, he felt anger. It was not his own.

He slowly stood up and summoned his Dao Weapon. He had not understood why parts of his Mysteries seemed to resonate with the weapon but now he knew what to look for.

"Life Defies Obstacles, Death is but a Door, and Life Never Ends. They are the ones incorporated with it and I think I understand." Mysteries were not new energy but concepts given form! They were his power alone!

That realization let him see more. He understood why it was so hard to start his Mysteries but once begun, his massive foundation of knowledge, struggles, and experience led to the next.

It was also when he confirmed that Haro was wrong. Divine Realm cultivators did have discrepancy in power between them but it had nothing to do with the quality of their Mystery, it had to do with the age-old problem of ignorance.

Success replicated seemed like a truth but it was not. It was just a success. The true measure of truth was running out of answers to questions. Lind had so many and never stopped looking.

Sometimes he discovered something well known to the world already but other times he found new ways of looking at accepted norms that were so very wrong. They were wrong now.

A concept given form was something he had vast experience in! His harmony!

"By the spirits, 6 elementals don't just touch on the Heaven and Immortal Realms, they touch on the very foundation of the Divine Realm!" Thunder cracked over his head and he saw bumps appear all around the island!

The krakens and leviathans were all looking at him! Lind slowly swallowed but Haro appeared next to him. They did not know what was about to happen but after a long stretch of silence, the sky cleared and the beasts retreated.

"Master, Heaven and Earth are far more powerful here. It is also unwise to speak aloud anything that touches on hidden truths without regard to consequences." He was starting to understand that.