novelraw Chapter 457 - 456 - Raw Materials
Chapter 457 - 456 - Raw Materials
"What do you want?" Lind was floating over an idyllic view of white sand surrounding massive lakes surrounded by a few copse of trees and grasslands. The being speaking was a massive salamander.
The azure scales showed it was clearly of water element but Lind also felt air strongly flowing through it. The aether beast was a peak tier 9 and the alpha of its territory.
"I have come in search of several things as you may have heard over the last 10 years from others." Lind had been very busy but had been essentially kicked out of his office by his wives to take time for his own pursuits.
Being a wise tactician, he surrendered and headed out into the deeper areas of the Wild Heart Isle. He had felt refreshed to fight some beasts and to study his elements once more. He had been at tier 4 for a short time relatively speaking but he had begun to advance once more at a much more rapid pace.
He also began to learn of the rich resources all around him.
Herbs were a given, but he had also found veins of crystals, metals, and other things he needed. He had traded his skills to those beasts that took up his offers. At times he had been chased out of an area, but in others he had enjoyed meeting new people.
The salamander's cold reptilian eyes did not seem impressed by his words at all.
"You have come to steal?" Lind frowned but summoned a few artifacts he had shown before. They were useless to a human or demon, but aether children might be able to use them. Aether beasts, however, could quickly feel the connection to the items.
The elongated head followed the large harnesses and leg wraps. The salamander noted they seemed of a size for her.
"Your toys are not of interest to me. You cannot settle here." Lind was confused. He had not made any such requests but then looked to the north.
"The Light Ravens claimed I was spreading out? I can make an Oath but if you spoke to Jin of the golden cobras, he would assure you I simply want some materials and be allowed to experiment. That is all." He would prefer to not make an oath but he would as he really wanted the items in the lakes below.
The salamander tilted her head as she was a distant relation to dragons and knew Lind could force her to obey, but he did not. The Light Ravens had been smearing the Moebius Sect at every turn but actions were louder to beasts.
The sect welcomed all who came to talk but fended off those that came to fight. Zhudao had become a strange defender of the sect over the years.
"I do not want artifacts, but it is said you can make cures." Lind was surprised by the swift change in topics. He smiled and summoned a few elixirs for her to examine. Some elixirs were fine for all but a cure would need to be tailor made depending on the cause.
The salamander seemed to be satisfied before looking back at him.
"Why are you here?" Lind pointed to the lakes.
"You have condensed water crystals and darkness crystals. I have also heard there are a few metals deep down. I only require them for experiments or if needed to resolve your issue." He could sense her displeasure but then she looked to the west and seemed to accept his request.
"Follow me and if you can resolve the issue, I will give you whatever you want." Lind realized she had been testing him. If he had failed, he would have likely never found what he wanted.
They flew over the lakes and Lind saw many beasts swimming or sunning themselves. They seemed at peace at first but his eyes narrowed as the population suddenly dropped off the farther west they went.
His own instincts actually became a bit riled as if something was off but he could not grasp what it was. What was going on?
They flew for a large portion of the day and Lind noticed the only beasts still below them were at least tier 5 or above. Anything below that was far away from them but the salamander did not stop.
He also noticed that some seemed to be injured but he did not recognize the injuries.
Beast attacks were common enough that he had evaluated thousands of patients during his time in the sect. He had been on Wild Heart Isle for almost 25 years but there was always something new to see, yet he was not happy that time.
Swords, spears, and other weapons were well known to him as well but it almost seemed like the injuries were self inflicted. Why?
They finally came up to a ridge that Lind knew led to sulfur pools and salt mines beyond. The stench in the air was strong but he had good control of his senses. A swift manipulation of air Qi solved the issue.
They crossed the ridge but then Lind froze.
The expected yellow steam and harder scent did not come. Some beasts and plants could flourish in that environment but were not very useful aside from some poisons. All of it was not there.
It was dead.
The rotten smell was not sulfur, but death.
"It started in a small cave but began to spread. If it touches you, it burns and will claim your life if not cut away." The salamander's words shook him but he then understood the gravity of the situation.
Pills could not solve such an issue but elixirs theoretically could.
"What happens to World Realms?" Lind knew beasts would move away from danger but he had not seen a World Realm at all for at least 100 kilometers. Close to the dead land was obvious but why so far?
The salamander was looking at him as if waiting for something but Lind just continued to float normally. Eventually she moved closer and started to sniff at him! What was going on?!
"It doesn't affect you?" Her question caught him off guard but then he noticed that she was protecting her body with a thin film of water. He suddenly became cold as he transformed his eyes and the blackened landscape became sharper.
Bones were everywhere in the barren stretch of land. As he looked behind he saw even more bones but they had been pushed towards the ridge away from the healthy lands. As he looked, Qi was being used like a simple barrier to try and slow down the corruption of the very land.
Why had no one heard of that?!
He floated down before the salamander could stop him. His instincts did not flare, as if he was in no danger but he took some precautions with Qi on his clothes and body. He used his Touch to pick up the flecks of black that now made up the surface.
"Desolate. Not even a trace of Qi, but why?" Lind spoke out loud but did not recognize what was happening. It was as if the very rock had been drained of all its essence forcibly.
He thought of Fiends but beasts hated them as much as anyone else. They would kill anything that even remotely was linked to them and their senses were difficult to avoid.
"How are you doing that?" The salamander stayed in the air but Lind ignored her. His eyes and senses were trying to find the source. He could see that the bones were only intact near him but were crumbling the farther west he looked.
He moved carefully and examined a few things as he went. Organic items were in a worse state than stone or minerals. What was doing it, however, completely eluded him. There was no feeling of Qi of any kind that he knew of.
He did not summon any artifacts as he doubted they could withstand the area like he seemed able to. He had tested it with his robes as if he retracted his harmony, his robes began to break down but he still could not discern the cause.
The salamander stopped following him which told him even tier 9 Sky Realms could not come to that place. Lind felt nothing, even his harmony hardly exerted itself.
Such a thing bode ill as he only knew one thing that his harmony easily counteracted.
A cave finally came into view and it was odd. Where everything else was dead or corroded, the pristine gray stone stood out like a sore thumb. Why? Why did everything else get ripped apart but that cave stood fine?
Lind paused for a long time and the sun almost set before his Eyes finally found something near the very base of the opening to the cave. It was a flicker of Qi, Fiend Qi, but it was so small he almost missed it.
He quickly engraved the air around him and a peak grade 4 Weaving took shape to purify the area. The sigils blazed with his harmony and he saw an immediate improvement that finally confirmed it was Fiend Qi at work.
Why couldn't he sense it?
He carefully moved above the cave and the moment he was above it, he felt all pressure vanish from his harmony.
"Concealment for the cave I get, but why can't I sense what is killing everything?" He swiftly summoned several artifacts and infused his Qi. A distortion of the air followed but it caused a flare up of arrays that were far more profound than any he had ever encountered.
A sudden fear appeared in Lind's mind.
"It can't be." He pushed his Heaven Eyes and Heaven Touch to the limit to just barely see tiny threads of Qi flowing from the mouth of the cave. The arrays stopped it from hurting the cave but the single leak flared again and a new wave headed out along the path of destruction.
"Heaven Realm!" It was Star Tier level Qi. He could not sense it because it was so faint but also powerful. It was not an active attack but like an infection! He quickly examined the stone around him but found no additional protections.
It made sense as beasts were very sensitive so isolating the Qi was already a risk. Altering the nature of the stone would possibly alert the beasts. Lind easily channeled earth Qi and it ripped a hole into the interior. The moment the hole was exposed, Fiend Qi flared but was contained by the arrays.
Lind's harmony also purified it but he noticed it was only barely able to. What he found left him shocked.
Corpses. Neatly stacked corpses that were processed for later consumption. Beasts, humans, demons, and other living beings had been reduced to a Fiend larder. They had also been there for years from what he could tell. The protections had suffered some kind of damage and a leak had begun.
The preservation arrays radiated the interior and that was the source of the illness of the land.
He transformed and swiftly flew away from the cave. His emerald light broke the fine lines and starved the flow of Qi farther away. He made a point of creating a massive area cleansed of the Qi but it took him days.
Only when the salamander came back in sight did he realize he was almost out of the dead zone.
"Summon the other leaders. It is Fiends!" His words made rage come off the salamander while it roared to the sky. The signal was sent out but Lind was not done. He began to engrave sigil after sigil into the air.
The simple became complex and swiftly became profound. His soul was being pushed to its limits until he almost passed out but it finally coalesced. Emerald light flared in the sigils as the entire area was cut off.
Lind was only able to mimic his harmony for a short time with weaving but it would protect the beasts for now. It also would act as a warning if something touched that cave. He anchored it to those arrays so it would actually feed the weaving until the balance shifted back to the Fiend Qi and the process would start again to corrupt the land.
His vacation, such as it was, came to an end abruptly.