Eternal Emerald Dragon

Chapter 1716 - 1715 - Strange

Normally, when Lind condensed a Mystery, he was a wash with power flowing down his meridians and spreading from his dantian outward into his body. WIth it came an almost instinctive knowledge of the concepts being incorporated into the Mystery he formed in the layer.

The Qi Mystery, however, did not just condense into its layer. The multi-colored material in his dantian began to branch out not only to fill the layer but also to go back to his previous layers. It enhanced them, or he thought it did.

Rather than change the previous layers, it was as if the 5 previous layers had been waiting for the Qi Mystery to appear!

Qi had no beginning or end, only the cycle.

The words flowed into him more deeply and made sense to him. All of cultivation came back to Qi. Without it, even Body Refining was impossible. The specific moves and repetitions of sequences sped up the absorption of Qi into the flesh and blood of a cultivator.

The Qi enhanced the body's ability to improve and eke out more power than would be possible by working out alone.

The impurities are removed as well until the dantian is ready to be opened. The Spirit Cores are entirely from Qi. They formed due to compatibility, physique, and many other factors as he well knew now.

Regardless, each step was all about the refinement and improvement of Qi. The drastic power that came was fueled by Qi as the basis of even Laws and Daos!

Lind realized that the refinement and fusing of his previous layers was already including his understanding of Qi!

Condensing the Qi Mystery was like pouring water into a jar of stones! The gaps left were a perfect fit for the Qi to unlock the full potential of the foundation he had already built!

His mind tried to keep up but unlike his harmony, Qi was truly in everything to a level even he could not fully grasp!

It seemed without the other 2 Mysteries, he would not be able to tell all the changes!

Lind then tilted his head in confusion. He had suddenly realized he knew of very few Journeyman Tier with a Qi Layer! Why? Of all the layers, Qi should be the easiest.

He had always thought that. Now, he began to understand the strange ceiling of the Journeyman Tier.

He learned from Karu and others that some could simply not refine their layers or fuse the layer perfectly either. They could still advance but refinement became harder after that for previous layers.

Lind began to see how deeply Qi was underestimated and why it was delayed until the last step of the Journeyman Tier. It was the basic foundation and needed to be incorporated into each layer!

"So, 6 elementals will be insane once more." Lind felt enlightened. The Heaven Realm had seemed insane power and speed for the 6 elemental cultivators but he now saw the real truth.

Heaven and Earth are fair. He had heard it over and over again but he had never considered the potential future of a cultivator could be applied to their present!

If 6 elementals could easily advance like all other combinations, they would have long since dominated the entire cultivation world! No one could stop them! They could practically skip a third of the Heaven Realm. They could wield 6 primary elements which would just thrash any cultivator relying on Secondary versions.

All of that had been clear but only now, at the end of the Journeyman Tier, did Lind truly grasp the terror of 6 elementals.

The stark range of power inside the same tier of the Divine Realm had mystified him. Immortals were based on Laws and integration of the soul. A diligent but low talent Immortal could eventually display power of a gifted yet lazy counterpart.

Time spent was the variable essentially, but the profound power of harmonies had no counter from other cultivators. It was sheer numbers that would keep the 6 elementals in check and the initial struggle to temper the Cores and Fonts that no one else had.

All of that struggle, however, would reveal the truth. In the Divine Realm, Qi is essential to every Mystery Layer. If someone only focuses on Daos, Laws, or other explicit forms of power, they could stunt their progress outright and lower their ceiling of power dramatically!

A supremely strong Sovereign Tier could be only average as an Apprentice Tier!

Lind knew 6 elementals had to rigorously study and comprehend Qi far more deeply. Even the Harmonic Dragons could fully benefit from their natural consumption and progress ability other beast races enjoyed.

All of that struggle would culminate in monsters in the Divine Realm! Even the high bar of condensing Mysteries was tied to it! He had been so frustrated as to why they eluded him and now it was so clear!

He had blocked off the concepts by ignoring Qi! It was only through enlightenment or resonance of the first Mystery condensed that he was able to pick his way forward!

Even those fundamental truths some of them felt like were not possible without Qi!

Old Earth may be barren so far as cultivators were concerned but life only existed thanks to Qi as well! Their souls were put into Samsara by the very Laws born with Qi!

Qi had no beginning or end, only the cycle. The words flashed again and the last part became clear to Lind. The cycle was everything. It was the fulcrum of all existence.

Matter and energy cannot be destroyed. It was a basic physics concept even he knew about but he had a deeper appreciation for it now. Qi was the catalyst for so much of existence but it was also the engine driving it!

Absorbed and refined by cultivators only to be released in the form of ever more profound Arts and techniques or their deaths. The stronger a cultivator got, the better Qi could become and more could be released and creating a virtuous cycle that kept generating the most powerful at the top and slowly drift back down and multiply into lower quality for the lower realms!

The mortal realms were not the beginning, just one more step in that cycle! The Divine Realms were not the end, just the peak of the cycle!

Lind finally felt his dantian settle down and his mind began to clear. The changes of power were now complete but he felt like an entirely new existence.

His finely crafted face and body flowed with power that terrified even him.

Not least because his Talents had seemingly gone far beyond anything he knew off. His Eyes could see everything. There were no secrets nor ability to stop him. His Touch could pierce any ward or defense as if it did not exist.

It was not about being a Divine Lord or even a 6 elemental, it was simply how profound his Mysteries were. Any Divine Realm might achieve that kind of power if they strove hard enough!

A cold sweat spread down Lind's back as he realized he had been unbelievably lucky. Outside of the Bastard, very few cultivators would spend centuries upon millennia revising every aspect of their cultivation to see if they could improve it or for issues without a grave need.

The desire to live longer and advance as quickly but as stable as possible simply drove the average person. It was understandable but the eventual cost would hit them in the Divine Realm!

Despite being a powerhouse to lower realms, they could be so weak that even a lower tier could kill them as he had done!

The cultists, for obvious reasons, were just fodder no matter their realm!

So many odd things finally came into focus for Lind but then he became solemn.

Assuming he was on the right path of thought, that the 6 layers were all interwoven by Qi, just what was the Master Tier?!

The Apprentice Tier was about his personal foundation while the Journeyman Tier was about the wider world. What was the Master Tier supposed to represent?

He thought he had known but he now knew he had to be wrong. If Divine Realm cultivators were building a foundation to begin to separate from Heaven and Earth, the Master Tier had to be about more than power and refined concepts. It had to be about stepping beyond!

How could he do it? What is the purpose of the Master Tier if it is not about power? So many questions but he still had 2 more Qi Mysteries to condense before that happened but he had to consolidate the current one.

The dramatic changes meant he had at least a few years before he could attempt another one but he could feel it. It was not locked away like before but just waiting for him to open the door!

So much struggle and one Mystery seemed to hand him the keys! His other self clearly knew the difficulty and the penchant he had for over thinking so they circumvented it. He also felt like some final thread he had not even realized was there was severed.

Whatever finale tie or path left to make him fall back into old habits was gone. He was truly alone.

In a way it was sad. It meant everything was on his shoulders and it made the pressure a bit heavier. Yet, it was not bad. His new knowledge birthed ideas he never conceived of. He had been completely blank on how to actually kill the Bastard.

It had been his greatest fear. He would gain the power but have no way to use it! Now, it had changed. He began to understand what he might be able to do and he would devote a LOT of his time to it very soon.

"Polish that neck of yours, Bastard. I am finally closing in and we will end this nightmare for the Divine Lands. Then, I will deal with the original you too!" He still had nothing on that being.

The sheer power had shaken his confidence until he felt the shift of his existence. It was as if he began to sense what was beyond the Divine Realm if only in glimmers and it no longer felt impossible.

So long as a possibility existed, he would grasp it!