novelraw Chapter 173 - 172 - Surges of Power
Chapter 173 - 172 - Surges of Power
The Relic area glowed with soft blue light one one side and golden light on the other. In the exact middle, Annabelle sat in the lotus position as Lind sat nearby. Unlike Annabelle, he was holding a jade slip that he was concentrating on as she seemed to be cultivating.
Suddenly the light flared a bit and Annabelle was knocked out of her cultivation. She was not upset however as she looked right at Lind to see him smile.
"I was right, they are regular and they are at the World Realm. The interval is fixed but in a pattern." Lind passed the slip to Annabelle and she glanced at it before nodding in agreement with whatever she saw. "It starts at Sand Tier, then Stone, Iron, Gold, and finally Diamond Tier surges. It starts over after that and repeats."
Lind had been studying other aspects of the Relic the Aether Sect had not found useful to progressing. His lectures still occurred but mostly it was for those that were newly arrived or had questions on his theories compared to what they noticed.
He recalled the first day that a surge had broken his enlightenment. He had been angry because it was the rare matter related to space that was difficult to grasp, but now he was elated.
"Does it help?" Annabelle had been happy to help him as she could work on her formations study anywhere. Or, at least, that had been her plan. A few days ago, she had been with Lind near the water Qi stream when it surged enough to cause her formation to go out of control.
Lind had been stunned as the surge that had disrupted him had been nowhere near that powerful. It had started a new round of tests and some of the aether children had noted the surges as well but only that they existed.
As none of the streams got them past the relic defenses in front of them, also that they went inside somewhere with no return, they ignored them after a few attempts to see if they could get deeper into the Relic safely.
Lind had followed the golden stone troughs as far as he could go in either direction and was surprised to see the paths move far beyond the edge of the dome. He began to suspect it had not been a Ruin at all but a Relic alone that descended inside these mountains.
He had heard of it but it was not clear what the records meant by it. Wouldn't that just be an unstable Ruin? Now, however, he had a better idea. This entire structure separated from its Inheritance but lost nothing that made it functional.
He had a theory about the silvery metal as well.
It had the official name of aether silver since the Aether Sect supplied it in limited quantities. Lind, however, felt it was a qualitatively transformed crystal that had been created by the profound Qi dispersing whenever the Relic arrived. Sage was right on that front, but Lind suspected that the streams of Qi fueled the change to the entire mountain range.
Its strange properties were still being tested by Lind but he had stored some in his ring for examination later. A peak Soul Realm had limits and near Immortal Qi in that silvery crystal was certainly beyond them.
He understood why it dispersed when bound to another metal as the imbalance was in favor of the native metal to the realm versus the higher Qi. It was the same principle that prevented tier 2 Sky Realms from coming to the lower world. The density of Qi caused an imbalance making it hard to contain the higher quality Qi on the surface.
Immortal Qi was much higher and barring a dimensional barrier like a Ruin, Inheritance, or other similar occurrences, would be easily expelled once an imbalance occurred within the material.
Its property to allow direct control by Qi manipulation without a formation was something that would take more study, but Lind pushed it back as he annotated all 3 streams data he had collected.
They were in sync, perfect sync and power. There was no way that was natural but there had to be a reason it only did the 5 tiers of the World Realm in strength. The fact Sky Realm at tier 1 could not break the protections of the structure would indicate far more powerful formations still holding despite loss of protection.
"How are the formations holding when the same rule should apply for imbalance. What is keeping–" Lind glanced up at the dome of earth all round them and found himself in awe. The distortion was gone but the protection of Immortal Qi was still there.
The balance of the whole dome was far too powerful to affect. It would take thousands, maybe millions of years to make the dome more susceptible to Sky Realm Qi at tier 1. Until then, the formations inside the dome would maintain their power!
"Lind?" He was smiling and he hugged Annabell to him as he explained what he had understood. She was smirking at how giddy he was when a voice cut him off.
"Lord Rain already postulated that very theory over a century ago." Lind glanced over and saw Kelvin with his blue skin and black scales. His robes were the garish mix of the 6 colors but his face was calm as he looked at them. A few other aether children frowned at him that had been nearby, but he waved them off.
"I thought I had been given all the research on the Relic that was not secret." Lind was unsure what could be secret but he had not pushed. The streams were out in the open and so was the dome, but nothing had included what maintained the formations. Kelvin smirked but he kept his voice humble.
"Lord Rain did not submit it, as it was only a theory that is impossible to prove at the current time." Lind frowned as that implied Kelvin was trying to assert Lind's theory could not be proven. He smiled as a spear appeared in his hands.
It was peak grade 2 Forged during his training and flew up before anyone could blink. The moment it got close to the dome it shattered due to a flare of Qi in the dome. Lind was about to assert that as proof when he looked over to the blue stream and saw something interesting.
The pulse of power stopped!
He moved close to the golden stone but could not get much closer unless he wanted to fight his own water core. He summoned a halberd and repeated his experiment. The moment the halberd was shattered, the feeling of water Qi sky rocketed for a brief moment.
"It would seem your skills as a Forger are overra–" Kelvin barely got the words out before a grade 3 spear was at his throat.
"ANNABELLE!" Lind stopped her. He was not pleased by the words either but he ignored them. "Kelvin, the shield over the streams vanished for a moment." Those words drew all their eyes. Just like the dome, the top of the streams were protected except when the Diamond Tier Surge went through.
Now, however, Lind had broken through it by sacrificing grade 2 weapons!
"Master Frey!" An aether child summoned a glaive that was peak grade 3. Lind nodded and they thrust their weapon up to the dome above them. Unlike the grade 2 items, it only bounced off the dirt but made not even a scratch in it.
All looked confused until Lind summoned another spear. Instead of tossing it at the dome, he placed the tip above the flowing blue Qi and touched it. The weapon cracked while the tip shattered. The shield flickered over the Qi but the Diamond Tier surge also came through at the same moment.
Lind had to back off but the shield took far longer to come back than before.
"Forged items affect the protections!" Lind nodded and they moved back to the main camp while Kelvin stood there fuming at his humiliation. Annabelle glared at him but Lind kept moving and she ran to catch up which seemed to infuriate Kelvin more.
The small group returned to the tents and went up to the wavy air that marked the start of the protections of the Relic. Lind waved them all back and stayed outside a good distance before summoning a war hammer. He had run out of spears or polearms.
The hammer spun in the air and shattered against something in mid-air. Unlike with the Qi streams or dome, the distortion slowly dissipated to reveal a stone path of the same gold color but made up of tiles. They waited but there was no sign of the distortion returning.
"IT WORKS!" The cheers drew the attention of the rest of the camp, including the groups working on their own areas. Lind carefully looked over the area cleared and noted broken formation arrays on the raised pathway walls on either side of the stone tiles.
"I see. I think I get it." Lind was mumbling as he had a blank jade slip pop into his hand and noted down their discoveries in order. He had just been thinking on the aether silver and its properties but he had never considered a possibility.
"Master Frey?" Jon had come and was looking at the newly cleared area in awe but Lind held up a hand before a smile spread on his face. Emerald flame exploded outward from his hand and the formations began to disperse slowly but surely at a speed that was unbelievable. How was a peak Soul Realm doing what Iron to Diamond Tiers could not?!
"I got it!" Lind let the formations disperse and saw the arrays were broken once more. "I can create an imbalance!" Jon was confused but then his face cleared as a smile spread but a quick look at Lind saw he had lost nearly ¾ of his Qi just to disperse an area the size of a single room sized tent.
"Why?" Jon needed that but then Lind frowned as he summoned a staff that looked kind of lumpy yet it was peak grade 2 from what Jon could sense. Lind tossed it to him and he looked back at the Forger but only saw him point at the staff. Jon sunk his senses into it before he was surprised.
His World Qi flowed easily and was able to withstand it. It should be getting damaged but then he realized there were parts he could not get to work that allowed the load to be dispersed.
"I discovered part of making an item generically compatible was to use pathways for unused elements built into the items to disperse the imbalance load. However, if a 6 elemental uses that same item–" Lind brought forth another clearly failed item but it immediately flared with emerald flame. Jon saw it easily endure such pressure but that was all he could perceive as harmonies were not well studied by the Aether Sect.
"Now watch." Lind tossed the charged staff at the distorted space but instead of dispersing it, the staff bounced back like so many other attempts they had tried over the millennia. Lind pointed at the staff in Jon's hand and he tossed it.
Unlike what happened with Lind's, Jon's staff shattered and the distortion began to slowly disperse.
"It reverses and surges the Qi through it. My dantian is not suppressed here, so if I used a weapon like you saw, it will be treated the same as a refined one that only allows active channeling. The load compensation I built into my Forged items, however, gives the Immortal Qi somewhere to go which instantly causes it to destabilize." Jon felt like a weight was lifted off his heart.
It could be done but he saw Lind frown.
"What is wrong, Master Frey?" Lind smirked and summoned several ores before tossing them to Jon. He looked at them and nearly fell over backward. Burnt beryl, solan, sherite, and 3 more metals that were all peak grade 2 items but they were immensely expensive. They were also in very high demand for artificers and weapon refiners.
"It is physically impossible to make enough items to open a path with my creations. It does, however, give a lead. We need Forged items with my load dispersal built in. I need to experiment to see if there are lower quality metals that can serve the purpose." Jon nodded and summoned a communication jade to relay some orders.
Lind moved back towards his tent but then he glanced at the streams and frowned. Jon immediately understood. Forging was a delicate balance. The surges of power would disrupt him the same as anyone trying to cultivate with the 3 elemental streams shared in their dantians.
"I will head back to Sage's palace. I apologize but it could take some time." Jon waved it off and saw Annabelle follow Lind back to the spatial tear. He wondered if they could finally make a breakthrough after all the years of making a snail's pace.
No one noticed Kelvin at the back of the crowd with his fists closed so tightly blood began to seep out. He whirled from the group and followed after the couple. If not for being in the dome, water and darkness would likely be swirling around him, but he fumed quietly as the shadows swallowed him up.