Eternal Emerald Dragon

Chapter 1641 - 1640 - Elemental Maze

Lind found himself in a familiar but far more profound place. He had either studied or heard of them but it was an Elemental Maze. Even from his elevated position, he could not perceive the totality of the path but he could feel both natural and demonic Qi ahead.

While it was a popular method employed by Inheritances, he was confused why the supposed peak of the Twins would use such a mundane trial.

Yet, he recalled the first trial being far more instructive than expected in regards to the Divine Realm.

He kept an open mind as he examined the entrance. It was crystalline. He was at his full power so he tested the material only to frown.

The elemental aura was clear but elusive. It was almost infuriating after seeming so obvious but he then took a long moment to back off and simply sigh.

He had to stop trying to cheat.

With his full power restored, he had tried to pierce the secrets of the trial without actually doing it. His reliance on his harmony and elemental theories was once again being revealed as a crutch.

His Master seemed to know him well.

He looked at the large entrance once more before calmly stepping inside. He expected some kind of obstacles based on the elements themselves but instead, he found himself in a world.

It was not a balanced natural world nor a demonic one. It was a mosaic, almost like artwork made alive.

He was seeing raw elemental forces work in concert but he also saw the imbalance between the 2 systems and smiled. The trial was about grasping Divine Elemental power.

He had a decent grasp but once more, he had underestimated the depth of it. It was the most foundational part of cultivation since entering the Soul Realm but now it was about integrating all of them to work at his command as well as become a part of him.

The Divine Realm was all about grasping power for himself and to stop depending on Heaven and Earth to temper him.

It was so much harder than he expected and he realized his foundation truly was shallow. The same old path of tempering was not the goal. It was building a solid foundation to begin to stand on his own.

He suspected he was being shown clues for future Mysteries since the Journeyman Tier was Heaven, Earth, and Qi.

He had thought he was more prepared for that tier but in just 2 odd trials, he was shown how naive he had been.

The actual facet of the Mysteries was far more than just condensing and strengthening but fusing with them. Now, he faced a similar trial about basic elemental Qi.

The shifting world was not to teach him, but to make him reflect and unravel the balance of elements within and without.

He first had to add the missing ingredient to the maze around him.

Celestial Qi flowed from his body with ease. Its quality was inferior by far to the world around him but that was fine for the moment. All he was doing was starting a cycle and that would be enough.

The instant the 6 Celestial elements interacted with the shifting colors around him, the imperfect dance began to become violent. Lind felt that backlash flow into him but he endured as his vast experience had long shown him this was a temporary issue.

Unlike Fiend Qi that consumed, Celestial Qi refined and interacted directly with the world.

Thus, it did not like being suppressed! Lind never once brought out his harmonic Qi. It would defeat the point.

He had to master all 18 without it just as he had to fuse his Mysteries without it. It was all about forging the pieces to their peak before grasping his harmonic factors.

It was not just about him, either. He realized all 6 elementals would face similar issues when they ascended and likely were.

It was not that he had been wrong but all his wisdom of earlier realms did not apply in the Divine Realm. It was almost a reverse path.

The harmony was an emergent property of their existence that interfered with the Divine Realm cultivation. They had to separate that integral part from the refinement and integration to grow that unique aspect of themselves!

His mind raced with new understanding and the Celestial Qi began to become more profound! Through the process of refinement, suppression, and breaking through, he saw the flaws in his own elemental foundation.

Pain lanced in his body and dantian as he began to enjoin the process around him within himself.

It was not a maze of the body, but of the elements! He came to some dead ends where what worked in the world would not work in a living being, but he quickly adjusted it. Blood seeped from several orifices but not a concerning amount for a cultivator.

There was also a limit. He sometimes felt like he was rushing down a path only to slam not into a dead end but a bottleneck due to his limited cultivation.

He could not go farther without the Mysteries to empower him.

Still, he felt not only stronger but as if the once monumental power of Laws, Daos, and Mysteries had become much lighter. He also finally noticed a change in his harmony. It was created at the birth of his 6 elemental Soul Cores and now that his elemental foundation had changed, so could it!

The harmonic Qi became richer and far more profound but also he felt something unexpected.

A familiar trace of Mystery energy! How?!

He did not know what it meant as it was just a trace but it would make his Art of Defiance and his Dao Weapon far more terrifying.

Still, he was not done in the maze.

Inside and out were now mirrors of each other but he had to truly interact with it to advance.

A cultivator was not the source of his own power, but the refinement of external to internal power. That fact had not changed, just shifted in meaning for the Divine Realm. He was not tempering his body and soul with Divine Qi but grasping it and making it work for him.

While injecting Celestial Qi into the maze had worked fairly well, actually pulling on the new balanced maze was like moving mountains! He could barely get a trickle to answer him!

Confusion flared before he began to experiment. The instant he used his Life and Death layers, he found the elements happily answering his command.

Yet, the strain on him was considerable. He was way too inefficient!

No wonder his Master was putting him through this! A Divine Realm Maester? Hardly!

Dao Grade was his limit because the fundamental path forward was drastically more difficult than before! The things Haro told him were correct and wrong at the same time too.

There would be a lot of tailoring needed to get maximum results but Lind now saw why. It was because using the old system of infusing intent, Daos, and Laws would require massive recombination to match an individual but he had no need of that!

He could feel it! That terrifying spear attack from before began to make sense. She had to go through the process to mimic what he was trying to do right now!

She was like a hybrid between an Immortal and Divine Realm process. She condensed her Divine Realm Mysteries while fusing them onto an Immortal Realm construct.

It was not a perfect solution but it was a massive step above what he had been trying to do with elixirs, Forging, and weaving.

He had thought his weaving was much closer to Divine Grade but he was so much farther from it than he realized.

He also saw that that woman was not going to become a Master Tier without a similar grasp of her flawed technique. Lind began again with his testing.

Time had no context but he suspected millennia passed before he finally figured out what he was missing.

He was trying to use his Mysteries like a tool when they were him. The condensed Mysteries were integral to his dantian and his life. It was why those concepts resonated so strongly and it gave him clues about why he failed so miserably at Samsara Mysteries.

It was no wonder it was the last part of the Apprentice Tier. Cultivators all experienced life and death throughout their long lives but even mortals could possibly form a concept if they had the capacity and the right experience.

Samsara was experienced by him but in a very limited capacity. He had not pondered enough on the implications of both his personal and external history with the process.

As for his current dilemma, he began making Storm Arts.

Rather than try to improve the Arts he had made with the Moebius Sect so long ago, he started from scratch.

He studied the flow of the 18 elements and began building the fundamental pieces like he had when he was a World Realm.

Divine Qi was not about control, it was about making it a part of himself and exerting his idea from himself onto the world. It was like his ships.

They were not single artifacts focused on flying but a myriad support, power, and other artifacts coming together to make a whole.

He had to approach it like that. Divine Arts pulled as much from their creator as they did the world.

Black clouds began to form but only that, still it was a seed from which a smile spread on his face and ideas bloomed.

He began simply with 18 Primordial Storms. Fire slammed down in gouts of flickering destruction, while water blasted everything away, and so forth. Demonic storms ravaged the world severely. Celestial storms were odd.

They did not directly destroy but changed the fundamental matter of the world. They took him the longest to master.

It was just like back then. They started with basic elements before trying to apply specific effects or physique backed Storm Arts.

Lind felt elated but exhausted. Despite being the basic form, he had completely wiped out his dantian entirely but there was a key difference between him and that woman with the spear Art.

She clearly used Heaven or Earth Mysteries to force Life and Death Mysteries to fuse but he did not need to do that step at all!

If she had other Arts, which was likely, then they would be on par with what he had just done.

It was also likely she could use that spear Art because it was a full minor realm lower in Mysteries than her current realm. It did not exhaust her as it did him.

Yet, he wanted to become adept within his realm and the maze was the best place to learn!

Time became fleeting but he trusted his Master. With the world on the line, there was no way time was not inverted for him. It was also not like he had any choice. To truly master being an Apprentice Tier, he had to go through these trials.

The Storm Arts evolved until he finally created a whole new set that could be adapted to anyone! The many lessons of not only his long life but the old mentality of Wyndam still guided him too.

His old friend had been a genius. He had recorded his discoveries much like Lind and together they had broken the seal on true 6 elemental Arts!

Now, those ancient discussions were still illuminating him on his new path. Lind bowed low to the past. His friend was sadly long gone but his legacy would endure. Lind would make sure of it!

The once chaotic mosaic of Divine elemental Qi now danced through storms of amazing power! The lesson finally got through to Lind.

He was in need of testing his foundation and ability to truly become a peak Divine Cultivator before he could face the true trials of the Twins!