Eternal Emerald Dragon

Chapter 299 - 298 - Loopholes

Lind was wondering if he was dreaming but the old man stood there as real as any cultivator he had ever met.

"Ah, you can actually perceive my cultivation!  No wonder you are starstruck at my awesome–"  The old man had been smiling and puffed out his chest when a large arm came crashing down on top of his head.  "Ow!  Why do you always go for the head?!"

Lind felt sweat break out as Katie was only peak Iron Tier but she had just nonchalantly smacked a Sky Realm on the head!

Lind had fought Immortals but only when in desperate straits.  He did not just randomly do so!  Katie became much more powerful in his mind!

"Stupid Gramps!  Stop bragging about what we all know is the luck of the draw!  I am glad you are alive but don't test my patience in front of the Great Savior!"  Lind flinched at that title again.  Why?!  Why do they insist on calling him that?!

"All right, all right!  I get it!  Now, can you leave us alone for a bit!  We don't want those busy bodies poking their noses into our business!"  Lind felt several important questions flare up but he was dead tired.  He needed to cultivate but he wanted to return to the house he set up.

As Katie left, Lind thought he saw Beth glancing in and her relief was clear as he waved at her.  They were a good family and he liked living in their tavern.

"They are good girls.  Katie loved Beth since they were children but honestly I wonder if the spirits could have given her a bit more respect for her elders!"  Lind smiled as the old man laughed.  His flesh was rail thin but it was incredibly powerful!

The old man dropped a formation plate that easily cut off the outside world as his face went from warm to cold.

"I know who you are and I understand defending yourself, but what are you boy?"  Lind swallowed but before he could answer, a suppressive aura emerged from Lind as a woman materialized in emerald light.

"Junior, you should not ask for secrets of honorable cultivators.  This one has given freely what he could have used to create a terrible power in this tiny mortal realm."  Senior dragon soul looked impressive.  She looked like a mix between a human and beast.

Her face was human but her eyes were slits that were currently narrowed at the old man who looked ill.  Instead of just hair, she had horns that looked almost like a deer but then he remembered George showing him some anime.

The horns were within a full mane of hair but all the color was in ephemeral emerald lines.  Her robes were profound just to look at but her height was nearly at the ceiling which Lind wondered if that was her height in human form or for intimidation.

"Wha–Who are you, senior?!"  The old man felt like he was being crushed before he finally knelt to the spirit.  She felt more solid than any spirit he had ever encountered in his days as a World Realm, but what she was was clear to him.

A much higher cultivation realm!

"I am guiding this boy, that is all you need to know.  My end will be seeing how far he can go and I will not allow prying into his secrets.  Those fools attacked him and he fought back.  Is there any other issue here?"  Her voice was firm and Lind was strongly reminded of Granny talking to the Old Man.  A smile flitted on his face but he suppressed it as it was not the time to laugh.

"Of course senior, absolutely!"  The old man looked wronged as he was simply protecting his village from a possible threat.  Lind Frey was worshiped but there was nothing about him having a beast bloodline of such power in him!

"Seniors, I feel we are all on the wrong foot, please let me mediate this."  Lind did not want these 2 beings to become antagonistic.  The building might withstand Qi, but the shockwaves would shatter the wood like any other structure in the world!

Both turned to him when the senior dragon soul bowed before dispersing back into wherever she resided with him.  He really wanted to know exactly what she did but he felt her exhaustion.

"Senior..um?"  Lind looked at the very old man who seemed lost but then he coughed as he quickly straightened his robes as if he had not just been pleading for mercy.

"I am the Head Elder of this village, you may call me Nolan."  Lind was getting a little surprised at the level of Earth names in the Rakathi Wastes.  It made him convinced a reborn Earthling had risen to supreme power here at one time and tried to impose Earth culture to an extent.

"As you have learned, I am actually Lind Frey.  I have a senior with me who should be considered as still alive but at the end of their journey."  Surprise flared on Nolan's thin face but he nodded for Lind to proceed.  "As to what happened, I was nearly killed in that Inheritance nearly a century ago.  I was granted a rare opportunity due to one of my companions trying to sacrifice herself to save me."

Lind chose his words carefully but did not speak further.

Nolan looked grim before slowly nodding.  Truth be told he was not angry at Lind but he just wanted to keep his family safe.  Katie's parents were dead due to the dangerous hunts they had to do to survive.

"I understand why I angered that senior now, such an act is beyond reproach."  Lind nodded in agreement but his face must have betrayed his disagreement as the old man arched one of his shaggy eyebrows at him.

"I refused to accept her sacrifice.  I stopped her from dying but was granted a new lease on life due to that act being deemed honest."  Lind saw no need to hide that part as he fully expected to die.

It seemed Nolan saw that as deep respect suddenly appeared in his eyes as he bowed to Lind.

"Perhaps that annoying title is more accurate than I believed."  Nolan mumbled but Lind immediately hopped to his feet.

"I am in no way a Great anything, let alone Savior!  Why in the world do they call me that?!"  His repressed exasperation was all vented in one moment and Nolan smiled then began to laugh uproariously.

"I am sorry, it is just do you not understand what you have done?  While we carved out a life here, the unusually high rate of 6 elementals meant we watched a lot of our kin die.  Just your elemental theories at the Soul Realm took survival rate from maybe 1 in 10 to 7 in 10."  Nolan looked at Lind with gratitude.

His daughter and grandchild both lived due to the man in front of him.

Lind felt deflated at that as he had not considered that aspect from what he had seen.

Suddenly he realized something.  The same thing that killed 6 elementals should have just tried to smite this building, but he had felt nothing.

"Senior, why are you not being destroyed and why was my senior not also struck?"  Nolan scratched the side of his cheek as it was an honest question he could not just dismiss.

"First, let me assure you that no Sky Realm can come to Rakathi as you have no doubt heard.  Those that have tried were killed or crippled in only a few breaths."  Nolan had seen more than a few fools try their luck as if the Heavens would bow to them for their destiny or some other nonsense.

"I have seen records to that effect, but then how are you here?"  Lind was really curious as he had to have been here most of his life.  Despite being a Sky Realm, Lind could tell he was as unstable as the Soul and World Realms he had seen in the streets.

"Ah, well there are some loopholes.  I guess you could say Heaven does not bar all paths.  The oases throughout Rakathi Wastes prove that but I won't kid you, I am not nearly as old as a Sky Realm should be."  Lind nodded.  Most of the cultivators in Rakathi lived stunted lives compared to their contemporaries.  If they could leave Rakathi, they could recover and have normal lifespans after that.

They would still have lost a century or 2 but if the potential was high enough, that would be a minor loss.

"I would assume you are no more than 3 to 4 hundred years old?"  The old man laughed darkly but nodded at Lind.

"My life is coming to an end but I can still endure the storms.  If I step outside the walls, I will die just like any other Sky Realm."  Lind accepted that but it left a large problem still.  Tribulations were terrifying from World Realm to Sky Realm.  Even the lowest potential cultivator could still invoke a tribulation that would wipe the village from the face of the world.

Nolan could see the gears turning in Lind's mind and was about to answer when shock spread on the young man's face.

"Luck, she said it was luck!  You don't face tribulations in Rakathi, do you?"  Lind felt like he was leaping all logic and reason, yet Nolan smiled as he nodded.

"We live in unending tribulations.  True, they are punishments, but if we survive Qi deviation and can push through, Heaven and Earth do not test us so long as we break through here."  Lind was stunned.

The neverending storm was like a lifelong tribulation.  The locals had to fight every day to cultivate, progress, and breakthrough under terrible conditions, but they did it because Soul Realms were at high risk outside the walls.

World Realms could leave but if they were too unstable, they too could not go far.  If, after all that pain and suffering, they make it to the Gold and Diamond Tier, they simply breakthrough.  There was no need for a tribulation as they had faced one their entire lives.

The risks increased as realms rose so when facing that ultimate chasm to Sky Realm, they simply had to survive the breakthrough.

It suddenly sparked an idea in Lind's mind but he only got a part of it!  If that was true, it was possibly the kind of path he had to walk to break through himself.

The pressure on his dantian had to be far higher than others, but it was incomplete.  His talent flared to warn him he was wrong so it needed further study, but coming to Rakathi felt even more right to him right then.

"So you are the ultimate trump cards of each village.  If some Diamond Tier tries to throw their weight around or becomes a danger, you are the final line that guards the people."  Lind looked at Nolan who now was solemn as he nodded at Lind's words.

"We watched your battle and would have saved you but there was no need.  My granddaughter was summoned with her wife to get you to safety without arousing too much attention."  Lind bowed in gratitude which made Nolan like him more.  Rumor was one thing but reality could be disappointing.

"Senior, I may have something of interest–"  Lind was about to ask to go back to the house he was at when his 6 rods suddenly appeared in front of him.

"We felt soothed in that house unlike anywhere we were, yet removing these rods was damned difficult, boy!"  Lind winced as he had no doubt the power flowing through the rods would have killed anyone else but Sky Realms.

"Yes, please don't do that again, senior.  Let me explain what I stumbled on."  Lind began to relay his creation of the rods and what he found when he cultivated inside the field.  As the words were relayed, Nolan felt tears fall.

Hope, this man brought hope straight to them.  He saw their plight and immediately tried to solve it.  How could he not see it?  He was a Great Savior!