novelraw Chapter 193 - 192 - Future Promise
Chapter 193 - 192 - Future Promise
While there had been a fierce battle and a lot of travel, Lind had generally been having happy reunions with his friends and former masters. Cain and Harold tried to get him dead drunk now that he was at Stone Tier while senior Tyr and Yi tried to pressure him into having a wedding at the sect.
Lady Estelle looked much older than he expected after only a little over 6 years but her smile took centuries off. Lind had been able to get all his accumulated fortune that was burned immediately to replace what he lost in the Relic.
Lind had avoided Midnight like the plague but the man was insistent trying to throw some kind of banquet but Lind had no desire to go at all! He no doubt would be confronted with something worse than Valery Hall.
Solon had made a special trip to see him but had to wait until he returned with Cyntilla. The man was a Gold Tier now! He also relayed more information from Bord about his clan that made him frown.
Lind gave Solon some jade slips and elixirs for Bord to try and improve his cultivation. Lind could not restore his foundation as that would require dispersing his cultivation entirely to start over, but he could ease his path a bit more.
All of it had been quite enjoyable and Fey practically stayed glued to his side which made all the Maidens giggle at him. Now, however, he had come back to the alley of his Forging Master.
Fey had wanted to come, but Lind told her he would bring her next time.
Now that he was at the Stone Tier, the Immortal Qi was not as heavy to him but also his Sky Eyes and Sky Touch pierced much more of the secrets compared to before. The sparkling gray stone was as profound as before and he knew he could not put so much as a scratch in it.
A broad shouldered woman was at work in her shop but she froze and slowly turned around. Lind smiled as the cold eyes misted over and his Master blurred before appearing before him.
He was prepared for a similar meeting as he had had thus far, but instead the world tilted as he flew across the alley into the far wall. It took a good while for Lind to realize that he had been slapped across the street!
"Master?" Lind looked up into an infuriated face as tears fell from her face. He dodged her hammer coming down at him which just bounced off the stone of the alley. The power in that swing told him it would hurt but nothing permanent. Even so, he had no desire to be hit by it.
"How dare you!!" Her voice screamed out and Lind had to dodge once more as his confusion increased. Why was she mad? What was wrong?
"It is me, Lind Frey. Master I promise it is me! I broke through!" The hammer kept flying so Lind summoned his staff and a peak grade 2 shield. The shield cracked from the hit while he used his staff as a pivot point to flip his body away.
It did not matter as an Immortal was far above him in power.
Delenn tossed him around like a ragdoll and only after he had a few bruises did it finally stop. Lind was sore and a little afraid until she suddenly enveloped him in a hug.
"I thought you were dead!" Lind then realized. One of the items that had not survived was the special jade stone she gave him. It had shattered much like the protections on the Relic when an imbalance occurred. His master had 6 elements, but some were secondary rather than primary.
"I almost was, but I never gave up. I had a long way to escape was the problem." Lind felt wet tears fall on him as he spoke about where he had been and what took so long to return. He spoke of what he had learned about World Realm fonts. It was not just more profound, it was also connected to the world around him.
Delenn nodded as it was a revelation many got wrong. They thought the World Realm only controlled external Qi but it was more, much more than that. Lind then was allowed to recover and they had dinner where they chatted.
He got a new communication stone and she examined his storage ring. She arched any eyebrow at him for his patch job. She was more surprised it worked but praised it. She said it showed he had crossed into grade 3 already.
He then asked questions about what he had learned and understood before she gave him some more materials to train with but he had to learn how to Forge at grade 3 on his own since he had all 6 elements like he did.
He then bowed and tried to leave but she yanked him back to his old room and told him it was too late to go home. He smiled in chagrin but accepted her excuse. It was surprising to see an Immortal so emotional but likely it was partly that he had made such a good bond as a disciple.
Also, he had made those elixirs that gave her visions of home.
Lind awoke in the middle of the night as he felt something off. He walked out barefoot into the alley and walked towards the back. He had not been back there since Delenn showed him what put her here.
As he moved, he felt his Eyes start to hurt but he also felt a desire to know. He finally reached the deadend that became an open circle. Floating in mid-air was the Weaving. Unlike before, he could see more of it, but that was not what made his blood drain from his face.
It was damaged. He could just make out a tiny disruption in the Qi. It was not inflicted on it, it was simply never meant to last forever. He had no idea how long Delenn had been down in this mortal realm, but he knew even Heaven Realm generations had perished while she was here.
That meant this Weaving had existed for 10s of thousands of years. He knew there were tiers to Immortals that unlike the other realms had vastly different life spans. Based on a rough guess, his master had to be in the later stages of the Immortal Realm.
The frayed damage had clearly recently progressed and Lind's attunement to all 6 elements was nudged to wake him up.
"You see it now?" Lind nearly jumped out of his skin as he found Delenn in pale gray robes. Her dark eyes looked softly at him as she stepped up by his side. "It started a little over 3000 years ago. I am amazed it lasted this long. The strain to keep an Immortal shard realm here in the mortal realm had to be immense."
Lind nodded as he had recently experienced such strain in the Relic.
"How much time is left?" Lind followed the sharp lines that were somehow engraved in the very air but Delenn shrugged her shoulders.
"I am not a Weaver. Like elixirs, weaving is very wide in quality and ability. Forging is a bit more predictable but that is likely due to the materials involved. Although," A flash of the demon Forged artifact appeared in her hand as she looked at him, "I think maybe I have been closed minded too."
The derivative professions did suffer from that problem. Consistency was not easy to achieve. The greatest cause was that Lind had access to all 6 elements and was able to mimic demonic elements to an extent as well. All other cultivators had a variety of elements inside their dantians. Their comprehensions and quality of cores or fonts further cause issues.
By contrast, alchemy, refining, and formations were far more consistent. So long as the quality of Qi was achieved and control kept, the results would be predictable. The tradeoff was variety and capacity of limits.
Lind felt something come into focus as his bottleneck in Forging was loosened. Delenn smiled at him as she was aware of his discovery. Lind still examined the weaving but he could not make any sense out of it. It was too profound.
It would be like if a peak grade 7 elixir was put in front of him. He might recognize pieces of it, but the Immortal level elixir was just beyond his ability.
Still, the fact parts of it could be perceived meant he might really have the gift for weaving. He would need a master for that if he wanted to explore that path. He had yet to find a single reference to it but Forging had been much the same.
"Can we do anything to stop it?" Lind knew the answer but he had to ask. Delenn patted his head like he was a little child but her smile was forlorn.
"No. Only I could affect it and the only thing I could do was to speed it up. I have no desire to speed up my death. I am quite used to being alive after over a million years." Lind arched an eyebrow but made no comment. Only an idiot would ask for more details on her lifespan.
"May I know about Immortal Realm lifespans?" He had been curious for a while but he was focused on safely breaking through to the World Realm. Now that he had, he had some confidence based on his progress so far. He knew a sliver about the Heaven Realm but he was deeply curious about the Immortal Realm.
Delenn contemplated but she understood Lind was looking for clues. It was unknown if his success would continue but at least the Iron Tier seemed a sure bet. She was secretly glad he would have likely have 6 centuries ahead of him.
"I will not tell you much but understand that Immortals pursue elemental law or Dao law or both depending on their focus. Becoming an Immortal sheds the last of your mortal constraints which includes your dantian." Lind was surprised by that part. How would you cultivate without a dantian?
"Hmm, I suppose I should back up. Do you know how to break through to the Heaven Realm?" Lind shook his head. He knew Sky Realms changed their dantian once more into a Sky Core. It is a perfect circle of what looked like crystal shards evenly divided up by how many elements they had. After that it was filling up the core and compressing the quality for each tier.
"Heaven Realm is much like the World Realm. It is a transitory step where your core is shattered from the Sky Realm into a star field." Lind was floored by that revelation as well. He was supposed to make his dantian into a starfield?! "After that you progress through the Star Tier, Moon Tier, and finally the Sun Tier. Your Sun danitian will then act as a furnace for your body, soul, and dantian to make them all one."
"So in 2000 years, a Heaven Realm has to create a sun in their dantian?" Delenn looked at him oddly for a moment but then giggled.
"Oh spirits no. A Star Tier lives for 2000 years. A Moon Tier lives for 10,000 years. A Sun Tier can live for close to 80,000 years. Each Tier adds a great deal of lifespan to you. I can see why you might only know about the Star Tier as, much like tier 1 Sky Realm can stay down here, a low Star Tier can stay on the Floating Isles." She looked at him in amusement as she became serious.
"Now I will skip a lot, but the Immortal Realm is broken into 5 tiers. Sliver Tier, Shard Tier, Crystal Tier, Radiant Tier, and Sovereign Tier." Lind wondered at the changes in tiers but since he would have no dantian, perhaps that drove the changes. "A Sliver Tier can live for 500,000 years. A massive jump, you would agree? The following tiers see massive increases but it takes a long time to progress as well."
Lind grasped it and was stunned. The further the cultivation, the steeper the curve of progress and lifespan went hand in hand.
"I am a Crystal Immortal. I was born in the Vital Layer of the Celestial Fields." Lind's confusion was clear but she waved her hands. "Nevermind, that is more than you need to know. Just know that a Crystal Tier Immortal can live for 10 million years."
Lind was first shocked but then looked at her in frustration. She had said she had been alive for only a million years. She had only lived for a 10th of her life!
"Is there no way to save you?" Delenn smiled again at his question but shook her head.
"Even if the fool that sent me here wanted to, the power needed to retrieve me would be at the Sovereign Tier at least. If I was very lucky, a team of Radiants could reach me. Keep in mind, I do not understand weaving at all so perhaps a Crystal Tier could bring me back if they learned how to bridge back to me." Delenn only spoke of it but Lind felt like a bolt of lightning flashed in his mind.
He looked at the weaving once more and something he had been trying to grasp finally came into focus. A melting pot appeared and Lind began to drop in grade 3 stones like eredar and selaran. He then used rare grade 3 metals in each element.
Delenn watched in curiosity that changed to awe as she saw her disciple use his elements as he grasped a concept very few could at such an early stage of cultivation. The space before Lind shifted and changed until it seemed to flow into his melting pot.
Sweat broke out on Lind's forehead and his Qi was draining at a severe rate but he felt it. He was so close! The disturbance finally stopped as he Forged the material into a fine shape. It was not just any shape, but a ring.
"Impossible!" Delenn was shocked as the ring cooled and stabilized. It was a grade 3 storage ring! It was impossible! How had he done that?!
"A bridge. That was the difference I could never figure out. A storage treasure essentially compressed space into a smaller object with formations and material tolerance, but storage rings were so small and so big." Lind smiled as he held out the dark stone ring to his master. "I promise, Master, I will come back for you. I swear on this success!"
Delenn felt her heart fill with hope. He was a child but he kept surprising her.
"You may not have much time. Even so, I think I will put my faith in you, my former disciple." Lind smiled as she took the ring and examined it. Compared to Lind's ring, it was only 20 cubic meters of space to his 100 cubic meter, but that was still far larger. That larger space was bridged to the ring. It was not a direct compression but creating a pocket of space anchored to the ring by a bridge.
Lind looked at the weaving and swore it had to hold on. He would not let his Master down!