Eternal Emerald Dragon

Chapter 854 - 853 - Back to the Beginning

Lind understood his issue now. He had to have a ship that could generate its own power to fly if he wanted to have something like his sky ship.

Rather than gathering Qi from the environment, he had to make something similar to perhaps a Law Core.

Understanding, and creating, however, did not go hand in hand. How many years of study, experiments, and failures had had to persevere just to make the sky ships? How many libraries had he raided for any scrap of information on flying artifacts and Forging had he spent months in before moving to the next?

It helped that he was not starting from scratch, but he still had no clues on what he really needed to start.

The easiest to start would be reversing his energy distribution system. He still wanted an external collection but it would be closer to the doors or ladders where it only opened when needed and not constantly.

The Nautilus was constantly collecting Qi from the environment to fly and float. So long as it was active, it had an endless cycle so long as the crystal channels held.

Now, he had to change how that worked. Simply gathering was overloading the system he created.

Sadly, there was no way to create the wonderful mainstay of science fiction, antimatter. While he had used similar nomenclature for describing Celestial Qi, as he deepened his comprehension of it, it was not the antithesis of natural Qi.

It was like it was superior. It could alter and change any other Qi without the ability to interfere. The problem, as with Fiend Qi, was that it had to convert almost brutally the world to conform to its greater power.

It was tempting to him to try and use Celestial Qi anyway but the myriad issues for future production was clear. He was the only person alive that could use Celestial Qi in anything related to creation.

Hope was advancing and cultivating but showed no signs of the ability to make anything. She was interested, but had no talent thus far. Weaving was already long since passed the threshold but it almost seemed like she couldn't do any of them.

She needed things aligned with her Qi which simply did not exist. Everything was a Fiend treasure now.

It made him think there was something else missing but he only had to look past the Qi barrier wall to figure out that much. The old realm had been wiped out and something he had done allowed her to be born.

It was a seed and had yet to sprout but could not in the current world.

So using Celestial Qi was not an option as a power source but he might reserve it for other solutions.

Demonic and natural Qi could work together but even he would take considerable effort to manufacture something that could use both.

The many sketches, ores, and small artifacts began to spread across the building's lower floor.

Time was not unlimited. The more that passed, the more he felt the weight of it. The world was screaming at him and he could barely keep it at bay.

His connection to the dragons was much easier to moderate as unless he focused, it became vague all on its own. It was like tuning a radio for them but he also realized it was dangerous to focus on a single dragon.

He could disrupt them at critical moments if he was not careful.

The power of a True Lord was terrifying and he had to carefully master it.

Qi suddenly ran wild before the golden metal in his hands cracked and turned to dust. He sighed as he set it aside.

Another failure but at least it was not an explosion.

[Master, that was grade 6 arc gold, right? Why are you using that?] Haro's voice suddenly entered his mind and Lind smiled. Haro had recovered!

"Grade 7 materials, while available, are not as plentiful given our current circumstances. Besides, if I can get it to work with grade 6 material, grade 7 would be a given." He melted the shards left over and added them to a small pot on a shelf near the table he was working on.

The once large space was now full of failures, rolled blueprints, and more shelves than before. The Nautilus Class skyship had been reduced to its component parts as well.

Hope was sleeping peacefully on a hammock strung up between two solid shelves to his left as the sun had set long ago.

[I have watched for a while as I recovered, but I am still unclear on your current goal.] Haro had seen the birth of the skyships long ago so he knew as much as anyone about how they worked.

"Essentially, I determined that rather than a regenerative cycle of taking in Qi to power the flight and floating ability without the need of Qi from a cultivator does not work here. The density of Qi is one issue but the Laws are the other. I have to create something along the lines of a Law Core but not quite as that would need an Immortal to work no matter what." It was a serious limitation of that item.

Further, creating a Law Array and Core were very resource intensive.

Lind expounded on several other issues like the frailty of the material when trying to just contain the Qi as the arc gold had just suffered. Even grade 7 materials had the same problem but more spectacular failures.

It was the other reason he had stopped testing them for over a month now. Lind sat back in his wooden chair and adjusted the light crystal to dim as he needed a break.

The main issues were containment, distribution, and even the concept of the artifact needed to generate power. He could see why no one had come up with sky ships before but they were based on similar principles of the artifacts he had studied.

Grade 7 artifacts, however, did not adapt so easily to parallels for functions as Laws complicated things.

Law traces to minor Laws were as far as Lind had gotten but he began to suspect he was trying to build something that defied the rules of how Laws worked.

Perhaps he was going about it the wrong way.

[Master, what is a starship?] Haro suddenly asked a question that made him smile.

"An very old friend named George could answer that better but even I know of a few legendary vessels. The problem is all the knowledge is theoretical, not practical. No one had succeeded to make one before I was reborn." Haro knew all about Lind so it was easy to talk to the spirit.

Lind let his mind wander back to those old days in the office as George railed at the retcon of new series for his beloved shows.

"The gist of such vessels was to harness powerful forces that could be a bit self-sustaining or controlled by a material acting like a catalyst or buffer for forces that normally…" Lind suddenly trailed off as an idea came to him.

He kept trying to control Laws but things kept flying out of control because no material existed that could give him a way to even generate Qi or an interaction between them to gauge what he should be testing.

Thus he pushed various materials to breaking point only to find no alloy or catalyst mixed in could work well enough to contain even a simple coherent stream of Qi and Laws.

Without the corresponding Forging or inscriptions, raw materials would just break at the various limits they possessed.

Yet, he had seen such a process most of his life!

Six balls of pure elemental Qi flew in front of him as his hands carefully pulled each strand until an emerald flame appeared at the center of the circle. It was symbolic at the moment but it made him smile.

[Master?] Haro was curious what Lind was thinking of until the emerald flame suddenly solidified into crystal!

It had been only a few moments but now a glowing crystal was in Lind's hands.

"Haro, I can make harmonic crystals! I can condense harmonic crystals so long as I grasp them!" It was a very fragile one in his hands but it was a proof of concept.

[While that is impressive, Master. Why is it so exciting?] The spirit had a great deal of knowledge but it was not a cultivator nor inclined to make leaps of logic. Lind smiled as he condensed another round of elements but they were now demonic.

Before a few breaths had passed, a black harmonic crystal now rested in his left hand! The 2 crystals flickered with their respective colors but as he brought them together, the space between began to resonate and cause his hands to shake!

The emerald crystal was about healing, defending, or other generally supportive actions while the black was domination incarnate. The crystals shook until they shattered with stunning levels of power.

Haro was in shock!

[Master, was that…?] Lind nodded as he shook his hands free of the loose shards.

"I just generated World Realm level power with 2 Soul Realm harmonic crystals. I was wrong from the start but I am not sure there is a solution to this issue either yet. If the reaction cannot be contained, I will need to see what else I can do with them. Still, it is a massive step towards my power core issues." Lind was invigorated but only imprinted a jade slip before sitting down in the lotus position to cultivate.

He had to think more about it but he felt he was on the right path at last. It was a beginning and hopefully would slowly unveil the rest of possible designs as he moved forward.

A flash of a very famous fictional starship went through his mind. The crew of the 23rd century ship had even been seen by him in his youth but he never got what was so big about until his new life.

Being on the edge of going where no one had gone before was so exciting! How could anyone not want to try and see what was out there? He smiled and thanked George once more before concentrating on several scenarios and tests he could begin with once his cultivation session was over.