novelraw Chapter 177 - 176 - World
Chapter 177 - 176 - World
What was the saying? Time flies when having fun or a watched pot never boils? Lind could not recall but his scraggly covered face was deeply frowning at his storage ring. Time had slipped away as he meditated and comprehended but he was still stuck at the peak of the Soul Realm.
His limited food supply seemed to dwindle at a faster pace than he thought it should but then he realized what was actually happening. All storage rings were artifacts found in Ruins or Inheritances. They were not freshly created in the mortal realm, but all agreed they could hold far more and endure longer than any contemporary storage treasure.
Lind realized his ring he had only had for a little over 4 years, so far as he could count, was breaking down. It was stable, but the current environment was destabilizing it far faster than natural wear and tear.
The items in his ring that either lacked elemental Qi or did not have all 6 had begun to disintegrate within the 100 cubic meter space. His hair was itchy on his back and he deeply wished he could Forge a back scratcher!
His once clean cut features had been replaced by flaking skin, scraggly beard hair, and back length hair curled and frayed. He was not sure how long he had been at the bottom of the blasted cylinder but his temper was flaring.
"A clue, a guide, SOMETHING YOU BASTARDS!" Lind screamed and then froze as he stood holding his fists above his head. "Damn it, I am getting worse." Lind had yelled before but it was getting more frequent. If not for his past life, he was unsure the mere 2 decades lived in this world would have kept him sane.
Lind assumed a lotus position and cleared his head once more. He had lost all track of how often he had to do this, but it was getting shorter between intervals which he knew was a bad sign.
Worse, the surges were becoming annoying. Everytime Lind got into a good rhythm, the more powerful surges would always disrupt him. Even now, he was barely calming down when a powerful surge of World Realm Qi washed over his senses and brought him out of his meditation.
"God damn it! I refuse to die here! I refuse to let you beat me!" His rage came back in full and he was standing naked in the light of 6 Qi streams on the sand island. He was heaving in his anger and glaring with his dark green eyes at the silent golden stone all around him.
He looked in his ring and frowned once more as he confirmed more items had vanished. The protection of the ring was fading faster with each passing cycle of surges. Before long, he would have no food at all. His best guess was 4 to 5 more surges.
It would only give him a handful of days at best from what he could recall. He was out of time. His back was against the wall and a knife not only against his neck, but his heart as well. Death was coming and he could not find a way out.
The future he had visited had warned him it may not come to pass. His choices could bring an end to that path right here in this Relic. He refused to give up.
"What am I missing?! What do I not understand at this point?!" Lind had plenty of time to focus on his cultivation. He had perceived the World Qi and his own balance. He had studied all he knew about converting cores into fonts but the moment he tried to do so, his instincts screamed he was wrong.
His talent as an Innate Cultivator warned him the path he was attempting was wrong but he did not get a clue how to go forward. The shifting sand beneath his feet nearly made him stumble and broke his thoughts.
"Oh for pity's sake! Stop moving you lump of dirt!" Lind kicked the sand and immediately regretted it. It looked like sand and felt like sand but elements were infused into it. The fire sand burned but the water sand cooled it while the air and light sand wanted to float away while the darkness and earth wove it all together.
He had studied it completely but it still did not fill in the gap that would allow him to move forward. His desperation was increasing with his rage. He wanted out of the Relic, he wanted to see the sun and moon again. He wanted to be in the world again!
His body froze. His whole storm of emotions were silenced as that last thought took hold. He suddenly was remembering back to the days he did not believe in cultivation. He was only a Body Refining Realm but had no idea.
He was contemplating the study of the elements and how a person was made of all 6. The thread unfurled and without noticing he fell into the lotus position. What was a World Realm? They manipulated exterior Qi to themselves unlike Soul Realms, but how? How was that different from the tricks he had pulled off?
What made the world what it was? He had seen that this world was not a globe, so what made a world?
Earth, it had to begin with a place to be, to grow, and to live. It needed resources for living beings to use but earth was not enough. It needed warmth and succor. Fire had to exist in all its forms from a simple campfire to the blazing sun. Fire had to be deep in the earth to forge the resources of metal, crystals, and more. Water brought life. It cooled the blazing infernos from deep in the earth to bringing the gentle rain to wash away the dirt of the world.
Lind felt it. He felt it at long last but did not lose himself to excitement. Those 3 were not enough. Air had to carry the seeds by wind and allowed life to breathe. It allowed people to float when mixed with water and also carried the storms needed to renew the world where they had to go. The empty deserts were made tolerable by wind alone so the things did not stagnate.
The last thing, the most essential, was the cycle of life. Light signified the dawn and darkness the night. The 2 forces made the waves of the oceans and currents flow between land masses while life settled onto the world by the cycle created. Time was born from that cycle so it could move forward in the world.
Lind felt all his anxiety fall away as his dantian began to have pressure. All 6 of his cores began to change as he pictured the shifting sand beneath him created by the 6 Qi flows coming together as he finally clicked the last piece in place. His harmony.
His foundation and cores were separate in the Soul Realm, but now his fonts would forge his foundation into a world. A world of sand. His flame filled his dantian but was now being compressed as the 6 cores turned into ornate fonts.
The simple basins he had seen in most were not enough. He needed the full power of his cores to be transformed and ornate fonts held on thin pedestals were surrounded by half disks in each elemental color.
The top of each font had Qi flow out of it as they turned inward and Lind grasped the final truth. His dantian was the world and the world was his dantian. He was becoming one with the world!
His eyes opened as an emerald glow filled them. He needed more!
The flow of Qi in the chamber reverberated as the sand beneath his feet began to break down into its component Qi. Six flows of Qi came for him, one from each stream. He dropped all his projections but guided it through his dantians as he began to finally breakthrough!
The elements were all strengthening his meridians and his dantian as pressure built pushing on his harmony flame. It was getting smaller and smaller but brighter as well. More! He needed more!
Lind turned his Sky Touch outward and began to pull the Qi actively from the streams and the surges were finally welcome. More Qi flowed into him as his body was being put through a painful change.
Black impurities began to be purged from his blood, muscle, bones, and flesh. His ratty hair and beard fell away completely as it could not withstand the aura coming off of his body. The dantian Qi finally reached a critical point and Lind smiled at it.
"BREAK!" The final wall shattered and his flame was converted by the 6 fonts into emerald sand. Lind had broken through to the Sand Tier successfully. His fully polished peak Soul Realm made it smooth and without issue as his body was improved. He guided all the Qi to every inch of his body so nothing was missed.
Lind felt his mind improve with his body as well and understanding of how limited his Sky Eyes and Touch were even if they could touch on that higher realm. He reveled in the feeling of his connection to the world and allowed the flow of Qi to become a cycle as his body and meridians were cleansed of any lingering impurities.
The putrid refuse was burned away by the Relic's 6 streams easily as Lind finally began to laugh. He had done! He had broken through and understood the simple thing that had held him back.
Cultivators improved the quality of their Qi and bodies to breakthrough but he had all the elements. He had to created the world inside his dantian to break through! He had to understand how his harmony related to it even if only grasping it. His harmony's balance fueled the transformation and connected Lind to the Qi in the world itself.
He followed the feeling and felt enlightenment as he glanced at his storage ring. He could not create one, but he understood what was going wrong. The ring had been created by a Forger with 3 primary elements and 3 secondary elements. It was a slight difference but the 6 streams were of primary quality around him.
It was enough with the age of the ring to begin to break it down. His instincts as a Forger used his breakthrough to fused the 6 elements to the damage arrays and change the quality from secondary to primary. It was only at the Sand Tier but it would stop the total breakdown of the ring. It was at its prime, he could only dream of affecting it.
In its current state, however, he was like rain on a field bringing relief. Giddiness flooded his heart and his Qi flowed outward as he broke through again!
Mid-Sand Tier. He had reached mid-Sand Tier! He could keep going but he finally slowed it down on his own and took back control. He wanted to analyze his body and dantian with meridians for all the changes. If he kept going he could risk deviation even with his talent helping.
Lind settled but then felt a shift in the world that let him keep the connection open. He could not close it off as much as he did in the Soul Realm but that was not all. He felt the Heavens. He felt something he had never heard of. The very air felt happy to him.
The world was celebrating.
Far above the top of the Silver Peaks, black clouds gathered but no cultivator felt fear, instead they felt joy. They felt the Heavens celebrating but then the Earth joined it. Treasures began to pop up all over the mortal realm as cultivators facing tribulations suddenly found it a breeze during the jubilation of Heaven and Earth.
Sage looked out from his palace and suddenly felt a disturbance in his wrist treasure. He pulled it out and an emerald bolt of lightning flashed down into a jade he pulled out. His shock was replaced as a single line was added inside of it.
He was not alone. Cimmeria, Starfire House, Sapphire Auction House and so forth had similar incidents but the greatest was in the Sarth headquarters of the Heavenly Maiden Sect and the Frey Clan in the Lotus Empire.
There was a lone bolt in the Dread Desert but all were distracted by the strange clouds covering the world as the jubilation affected all the cultivators. It was the same line over and over.
"I am alive."