Eternal Emerald Dragon

Chapter 856 - 855 - Monstrous Contraption

"What is he building?" Wen stood next to her grandfather as they looked at what had once been a simple 3 storey building that was now an amorphous shape in many places. Straight and simple corners were now curves of jade.

Windows had become places where fumes were sent skyward by metal pipes and what had been walls were now a mixture of cylinders, crystal nodes, and generally glowing sigils making up engravings of a weaving.

It had only taken a little under 2 years for the True Lord to be seen as a bit eccentric to completely beyond anyone's comprehension. The only person laughing happily was Hope who was now looking much more like a young woman than a girl.

Still, she acted far younger as she had only been alive just under 2 decades.

Her progress was stunning when that little fact was learned.

The Sunfire Clan had not just lost resources to the True Lord, although they would not complain if they had, but got back incredible elixirs, Forged items, and strange items with weavings engraved into them.

They made life convenient from simple lighting of a room without the need of Sunfire Stone to repairing fractured cores!

Damage during cultivation was no longer so easy to repair even for Soul or World Realms but Lind had been able to efficiently solve that! His herb garden had exploded once he stopped killing it with his experiments.

The walled off areas had become pleasant to look at but only dragons at Wen's level truly knew why. A True Lord in the dire times they lived became a beacon of stability for the very world.

It was why it was quite disheartening that people had been forbidden to enter the building for the last 6 months.

"Little Hope, you are sure he invited us?" Victus looked much better than when he first fought Lind. An elixir had actually restored his vitality quite a bit from an old injury he had been suffering from. How Lind had known about it was a complete mystery, but the effect had made her whole Clan celebrate!

The young woman now in dark gray robes nodded happily.

"Big Brother was crying and whooping a lot last night. I don't know why as he has isolated part of the house from me to avoid me progressing too fast." She was now in the Sun Tier.

After such swift progression, even Wen was concerned about her foundation but it was as solid as any rock. Still, Hope seemed to have finally slowed down for more than just being prevented.

It was like Heaven and Earth had been pushing her but now it was all on her to take the next step forward.

The trio moved up the neatly paved path of white stone lined in dark red brick walls. The walls glowed with weavings that protected and nurtured the herbs around them. Wen also noticed actual crops as they got closer.

Dragons needed meat more than any vegetable but they knew the value of trade. Lind had begun to clearly look to the future as the wheat, carrots, and so forth looked vital and tempting even to her!

"The rabbits would have loved the True Lord." Victus made a surprising comment but Wen could only nod. The herbivores tended to stick to their diets from before so such a sight would have been like a fine banquet to them.

"Bunnies! Do you know any bunnies Old Grouch?" Wen smirked at her grandfather's nickname but the old man both smiled and sighed.

"It might seem odd but a few beast clans could be quite helpful. There was a clan called the Golden Flash that specialized in speed. They actually made excellent training partners for us to hone our abilities as human shaped beings. In return, we protected them and did not hunt them." Wen had trained with them herself. She smiled sadly at never seeing those fluffy balls of fur ever again.

Hope looked sad as they entered the building before the pair of dragons froze.

If the outside was disturbing, the inside of the building was monstrous! Pipes, spheres, and various metal structures in support or mysterious were at all angles!

It was a mess but at the same time their instincts felt a thrum of power not far from the very limit of the Shard Tier! Had the True Lord advanced?

It was impossible as his tribulation would be beyond any living being to miss in the current state of affairs.

The sound of metal hitting metal was heard then a blaze of fire rose off to their right revealing a topless Lind working in front of a furnace.

His well muscled body was slick with sweat but covered in soot streaks as well. His hair was tied back and clinging to his backside. He wore leather pants that showed a few burn marks but that was all as he held up a giant metal channel of some kind.

It was a squared off shape that could channel a material when connected to perhaps the furnace or a molten ore. It was glittering for some reason to their eyes but he looked up and smiled at them.

With a wave of his hand, the furnace was snuffed out and cooled without damage or excessive steam! Such casual elemental control floored the 2 dragons. They had both fought with him and felt his power.

They understood how well he could control Qi but seeing it used in production so expertly made them feel ashamed. It was clear his production skills were far above his battle skills.

What did it say about the 2 of them that prided themselves on their battle prowess were defeated by him?!

"Ah, good! I am sorry to interrupt anything you were doing today!" To describe his attitude, Wen would use giddy as a child with their first treat.

He summoned a towel while Qi was expertly used to clean his body before them. He showed no issue with showing off his body while Wen felt her heart rate jump!

She hated her instinctive reaction as she knew a drugged up flirtation did not mean a thing. Lind had apologized for it and appropriately clarified things to her father as well without dishonoring her.

Still, once the spark was lit, it was damned hard to suppress it. The True Lord did not help things by being half naked when they arrived either!

Odd as it may seem, dragons were aware their human bodies should be clothed so the shyness of being disrobed was much stronger than expected when it hit.

"Come see! I finally got it!" They followed through the maze of tubes and metal supports until a faint glow was seen. It shimmered between violet, orange, and gold.

The closer they got, the clearer the feeling of power got as well.

Wen was the last to duck past an overhang of glittering dark metal before she found her grandfather frozen staring upward. Hope was just as gobsmacked as he before she slowly trailed her gold and crimson eyes up to something impossible.

A massive crystal with 3 strange flames circling inside it hovered over them with all the jade tubes feeding in the gigantic sphere around it. The sheer power coming off it was staggering but that was not what caused the awe in them.

What caused it was the feeling of Laws were unlike any she had ever experienced before. They were totally unknown to her and she had been alive when the world thrived. She had explored and pushed her cultivation to the peak of the Sliver Tier before it all came crashing down.

What were these Laws?!

"True Lord…what is that?" Victus finally found his voice as he put a hand to his bald head in wonder. He had seen far more than his granddaughter but even he felt the power of the Laws coming from in front of them was far beyond anything he understood.

"Hmmm, that is a good question. I did not name it yet. Essentially you are seeing the culmination of recreating a horrifying environment to see if I could pull off what I wanted. Now that I figured it out, I can shrink it and make it more efficient but still, I did not name it." Lind was smiling like an idiot as he rambled.

Hope giggled and even Wen found a smile sprouting on her face. It was a far cry from the grim and desperate man that came to their temple over 2 years ago.

That man had been filled with purpose but weighed down by the world. It had only gotten worse when he was confirmed as the True Lord Candidate.

"What is it for, Big Brother?" Hope asked the question they all wanted and Lind smirked before pointing with his index finger to the sky.

"It is what will get me to whatever it was that broke the realm. It can sustain Qi and Laws for power to my new ship. Now, I just have to build the damn thing." A frown crossed his face once more but it was more like he had thought of an annoyance.

"What is wrong, True Lord?" Wen spoke up but saw her grandfather smirk at her. She whacked him in the back of the head for whatever thought he just had go through it. Lind did not even ask about the action.

"It won't be like the Nautilus where I could go alone. I will need a crew." The larger skyships had crews mostly for manpower, repairs, and if the pilot needed something done while flying, but they could still be piloted all alone if need be.

The complex mechanism around them spoke of just one component to his new design and clearly it was not simple. Wen finally noticed a panel she did not recognize with moving bars of light and what seemed to be crystal inputs.

Lind followed her eyes and slowly nodded.

"The core needs to be monitored or it could run out of control. It is on a simple self sustaining cycle now which is very stable all on its own, but if anything goes wrong, I can do this." He pointed his open palm at the panel and 2 vertical lines went from deep azure to completely black.

The moment he did that, the feeling of power took a massive nosedive. The crystal became darker as the flames inside seemed to settle in their respective corners of it. The giant mechanism became much quieter but there was still a hum all around them.

"You–you–just shut it off like it was nothing?!" Victus was the most shocked of all of them. Such a complex structure could ignite such power but it was so easily turned off with a simple move.

"It is a little more complicated than that, but essentially yes. I had to have such a safety mechanism in place or the whole temple lands would be leveled with about another 50 kilometers in all directions would be in trouble." He was not casual about the danger but it made them appreciate the lengths he went to make things as safe as possible.

"And if that panel fails?!" Lind looked at Victus and then made his right arm transform into claws and scales. The massive limb swiped the panel entirely into pieces which made the hum die instantly. The entire mechanism went stone dead.

"The last failsafe triggers if any control system does not respond or is disconnected for any reason. It kills the process permanently." His grim eyes made them all understand he took safety as his top priority.

Wen looked up and had a thought pass through her mind. Just what kind of vessel will need such a massive amount of power?