Eternal Emerald Dragon

Chapter 480 - 479 - Starting Over

A week had passed on the ship, now called Nautilus in homage to a great ship ahead of its time according to Lind.

Kiran did not understand but she saw an endless sky outside full of bright white clouds.  There were no beasts nor anything else but they stayed above a layer of clouds unlike anything she imagined possible.

Further, she never saw Lind infuse Qi into the ship ever.

She grew concerned about that but he only smiled and said it was not needed.

He promised to explain more but he had been preparing their rooms for  what they wanted first.

"Now, who will go first?"  Lind looked at them but Mika suddenly looked terrified at the solemn look on his face.  Kiran swallowed her own fear and stepped forward.

"I will do it."  Lind looked down at her with his dark green eyes full of a heavy aura but he nodded and pointed to the area now encircled by sigils.

"Step inside the weaving.  Before we begin, I will explain what is going to happen.  Remember, once I start, I cannot stop."  She took a deep breath and moved through the very pretty sigils.

Since coming up in the sky, Lind had grown far more powerful.

He said he had to recover to his peak and they had to ascend for 3 days before he finally felt it was correct.  The rest of the week was spent with him cultivating and becoming even more formidable.

She was curious about the glowing vials on the shelf in her room but he said they would come later.

"To fix your foundation is impossible.  I want that clear.  The only way to correct it is to start over completely.  It means dispersing your cultivation."  Lind was lecturing to them as he prepared a few more things and checked over the weaving as he called it.

"Why start over?"  Mika asked but Lind smiled at him suddenly.

"The foundation is where all of cultivation begins and ends.  If you make a firm and profound foundation, the later realms are not only easier but the height you can reach is greater as well.  If you rush or take short cuts, while the immediate goals might be reached, the foundation will not be able to support your path far into cultivation."  His words were not difficult to understand.

It was like building a house.  If the supports and base were solid and well balanced, the structure above would withstand time and storms equally for a long time whereas a thin base and supports would crack and shatter on the first winds of a sunny day.

"While it is possible to have drastic improvements to your original foundation, you have to be able to withstand that transformation.  A shallow foundation will simply shatter into oblivion and leave you crippled forever."  He made it clear he could change them as they were but they would lose the ability to cultivate forever.

"So…what are you doing then?"  Mika calmed down as Lind explained it but Kiran felt her nerves increase as she suddenly understood what was about to happen to her.

Lind then looked serious as he knelt down and looked both of them in the eye.

"It is possible to safely disperse our cultivation but it is extremely painful.  For you, Mika, it will be easier as you have not faced tribulation, but Kiran has.  The dantian has to be carefully dismantled and the foundation allowed to disperse."  Lind then thought of a few things as he brought out another vial of liquid that sparkled.

"It will travel through the meridians and all the Qi will be forced to leave the body.  This will cause damage but not lethal damage.  It will feel like dying from what I am told."  Lind then smiled gently at them.  "You are both quite young so the loss to your vitality will be actually quite small.  Older cultivators would risk death simply from the time they have lived if they attempted it."

He then let them absorb that knowledge.  They had noticed that about him.  Lind did not simply presume he was in charge but spoke to them like equals most of the time.  It was very different from how they were raised.

When Kiran was only a Stone and Iron Tier, she had to listen to the Gold Tiers and the Head Man, but when she became a Gold Tier, she was expected to command the others.  It had been a scary experience at first but as time passed she got used to it.

Now, she looked at all her hard work and realized it was defective.  She felt terrified but she then asked the question Mika wouldn't.

"What about my tribulation?"  Lind nodded at her before asking Mika to leave.  She did not understand but he looked solemn as he returned.

"Despite how shallow your foundations are, talking about tribulations can cause enlightenment and I do not want him to have that right now."  Kiran had never heard of that but he continued.  "Based on what I can see and sense, you faced the bare minimum which is good for us."

He then used all his elements to show her something.

"The tribulation refines the fonts to the next stage as well as the rest of you but it is possible to undo it.  You will feel as if something vital is missing and it will be terrifying but it is important to remember 2 things."  Her elements of air and earth lit up.  "You are more than your cultivation.  You are starting over so it is not the end.  Hold on to yourself and recall your commitment from before."

He then dismissed the elements before looking right at her warmly.

"Also remember your desire.  You want to be strong and these steps are necessary.  Use whatever you have to keep those 2 thoughts and you will be fine."  The implication in his words did not escape her.  She glanced at the door but her question must have been obvious.

"Mika is in no danger.  As he has not faced tribulation, he will simply be in some pain as the Qi is removed from his body entirely.  It is not pleasant, but far easier."  A weight lifted from her heart as Kiran finally felt ready.

Lind was about to begin when a thought seemed to occur to him.

"Do you want Mika here?"  The question was simple but Kiran felt like it was a knife to her heart.  She slowly shook her head and he still opened the door.  "Your sister is about to begin but does not want you in here.  Please say anything you want to to encourage her."

Mika looked angry but Lind's aura made it clear he would honor her wish.

"You can do it!  You were already the best in the village!  Do it again!"  He shouted and it seemed to echo a bit in the ship but Kiran felt her heart warm as she nodded at him.  Mika then hugged her before leaving the room.

Arrays lit up that she knew without asking that they isolated them.

"We begin."  Lind now seemed like a deity deciding her fate as the sigils lit up.  At first she only felt a strange pressure gather in her dantian.  The 2 gilded fonts pushed elemental Qi into the golden core at the center of her dantian.

The pressure built slowly but then turned into pain.  The feeling of pressure from above then appeared but Lind was becoming blurry to her.  She was focusing on withstanding the pain and allowing the process to occur.

Suddenly, she felt like her soul was breaking!

It felt like something extremely precious was about to be ripped away as panic flooded her body.  She did not want to let go!  She needed that feeling to stay put!

[How did my husband die?]

Her mother's voice suddenly popped up and she saw the scene at the beach as the head man revealed the nightmare that was their reality.

The feeling of rage, powerlessness, and despair had filled her, but then a pair of reptilian eyes overshadowed the memory.

[Why do you seek to cultivate?]

Lind's voice filled her skull. She had given a reason, but she wanted revenge.  She wanted revenge for all the generations of people those things had taken.  Surely that was enough?

Disdain filled those emerald eyes.

[Is that all you seek?  What will you do then when revenge is gone?  What will your strength be worth then?]

Pain riddled her body as blood began to seep out of every pore on her body.  She was terrified and felt a gaping chasm waiting to swallow her if she did not hold on.  It was death, death was in that chasm.

Fear filled her unlike anything before.

[You can do it again!]

Mika's childish encouragement suddenly became an anchor and she saw in him all her anger and rage at the reality of their lives.

"I want to protect him!  I want to protect myself!  I want to be strong enough not to bow to anything ever again!"  Her voice suddenly filled her ears but the pain only got worse, yet the emerald eyes now looked in approval.

[Then choose to live.]

The vital thing was suddenly ripped away and her body became heavier as it screamed in pain.  The chasm came closer but she refused.  She felt like her fingertips were grasping the edge of a cliff.

Just a little more and she would fall to her death but she stubbornly held on as the storm ravaged her body.

Eventually, she felt like it got easier and the chasm seemed to slowly dissolve into nothing until blessed darkness closed in.  It was not the scary kind, but the kind she knew she would wake from again.

Before she passed out she felt a cold glass vial pressed to her lips and liquid given to her.

"You did well, now rest."  Lind's gentle voice carried her into sleep as her body's pain faded away.