Eternal Emerald Dragon

Chapter 873 - 872 - True Technology

There was no door to open, just a large archway that led into a complex that jarred Lind's senses. There were lights that produced no Qi nor seemed to consume any. He heard the hum of electricity as he looked around and saw the soulless layout of an office.

Each cubicle had an artifact that looked a lot like a desktop computer but they were damaged or broken down from the passage of time. The breakdown was again very close to how Earth technology was designed to fail.

He had to reassure himself that he had dragons and hybrids around him as well as the flow of vile Qi in the walls. The contradictory technological modern world set inside a cultivation artifact bothered him more than anything else he had seen.

The mobile suit in the cannibalistic Inheritance essentially looked like the object but still followed the rules of inscription and refining of any artifact.

As he looked in one of the cases on a desk, he saw what looked a lot like circuit boards! Keyboard remains littered the desks as well.

A sudden insight made him look around at the walls more closely as a shocking thought came to him.

"Of course…" The other 3 glanced at him but how could he explain it to them. He looked at Gard and thought about it.

"Gard, if instead of a formation, someone created a form of natural energy to use, how many eyes or flags would they need?" The man pondered with a hand on his chin but it was clear he had trouble picturing what Lind asked.

With his new insight, Lind pondered for a moment and then walked to the wall near the doorway and felt with his fingers until an audible click was heard. A panel smoothly swung open to reveal dense lines neatly flowing with electricity and unlike the desks or rooms, were in pristine condition.

Gard looked interested but Lind frowned. He felt it was wrong. It was like someone had forced Heaven and Earth to bend to their will just because they could.

It meant it was not meant to be that way. It still gave him a few ideas but he pushed it aside as it was nowhere near the time to come up with new ideas.

"Don't touch it with your bare hands. Assume everything is trapped." He did not make up a lie, he felt Fiend Qi on each line but he was not sure what it was for. It did not react to him opening nor Gard looking them over.

The outer area was more office space all the way around but in ruins like the rest they had seen. They put off exploring the other exterior living areas as steps led up to the center area of the place they were in.

As they moved inward, the quality of items improved dramatically as they were clearly critical systems. Preservation weavings made of natural Qi suddenly popped up and standard flags made them up. They were also all mid-grade 7 at best.

The stark contrast in quality spoke volumes to Lind about priorities but also another possibility came to him.

"Gard, what would happen if it was turned on early?" The man seemed to brighten at the thought as he examined the flags and slowly nodded his head.

"It would make more sense at what we are seeing. The decay of that other area with strange artifacts seems unintended compared to the living quarters. It was almost like they were forced to turn it on and that is why there was no 4th connection on the lower side." Lind slowly nodded but it was just theory.

They needed some facts and finally had a chance as jade stones glowing around them were not directly tied to the flowing power of the place.

He had to dismantle some simple wards and a few traps but the jade slips were vast and had so much information that all 4 took turns at each set they could find. Jeryl and Oz had a lot of questions when technical things came up, but Gard was swiftly left in the dust by Lind.

Compared to them, he understood Earth tech far better. He never explained how he knew what networks or other things were, but simply what they were and how they applied to the current circumstances.

What the slips described was the intentional murder of the Celestial Fields and all realms connected to it.

The structure was a prototype, apparently, as others had been attempted but failed before completion. Each mistake informed a new design until the current horror they stood in.

It was simply called a Realm Refiner.

Lind also understood why the technology felt wrong. It was not that it forced Heaven and Earth to its whim, but it was forcibly breaking down Laws to make the technology work in the first place!

The rows of humming crystals around them were basically the final raw form of Qi, Laws, and life. Once refined, it was sent inward to the processing facility to be beamed upward.

He also realized there were 2 more structures in the higher layers!

It was all meant to refine all life and leave the inside safe for the followers of the Fiends. They all saw the truth of that lie on the way in. All life was just ingredients to Fiends.

As Lind studied, however, he became further confused. His theory of early activation did not explain the picture they built of how the structure was supposed to work compared to their reality.

The numbers, tests, and all indications pointed to a full refining of the Celestial Fields in less than 50 years!

How were they all still alive a million years later?!

They ran out of slips and the dust showed the scrolls had not been preserved like the rest of the apparatus.

"True Lord, how are we alive?" Oz asked the question he had but he could only shake his head as they continued to explore.

The feeling of vileness spiked harshly to the point the other 3 had to stop but Lind felt nothing. It was not like the other times where his harmony protected him. He simply was not bothered at all!

What was going on? Something had changed more than his strength.

Was it because he was a True Lord?

Even inside the structure, he felt a clear connection to all the dragons across the realm. He had thought he would lose it but he did not.

A sudden thought occurred to him.

"Can any of you cultivate?" Jeryl bowed and assumed a lotus position as the others watched. She barely started before blood coughed up and she turned pale. Oz put an elixir to her lips immediately and she regained her color.

Lind then mimicked her, but unlike her response, he only felt things were very thin. It was like there was almost nothing to pull but he saw the harmony panel on his sliver flare brighter than normal.

It told him what he needed to know.

"None of you can come with me. Stay here and see if you can find a control panel for any of these crystal lattices." The pulsing crystal caskets made up most of the space around them.

Lind moved inward and Fiend Qi was now actively thick in the air. It was not an attack, it was simply the most basic side effect of the thing hanging in midair.

It was a giant inverted pyramid with a lens on the wide end facing up. It was as black as midnight as Fiend Qi flowed like a river off all its sides. It was converting all that life and sending it skyward.

His skin glowed emerald as he crossed a final bridge to a control room.

NASA would not feel out of place at the rows of monitors and keyboards perfectly preserved but he narrowed his eyes to notice damage on one side.

Burn marks shattered 3 areas and the circuitry was long dead. What happened? Did it overload by pure chance and buy them time?

He did not know how it worked but before he could investigate, he froze.

All his senses tuned up and out. He was not alone in the room!

It was only then he realized there was not 1 drop of Fiend Qi in the room. The various monitors that still worked showed the rate of refinement, condition of the raw processors, and other things he could put together from the words on the screens.

He tried to pinpoint the feeling of being watched but nothing showed up.

He then went to a working station and used the mouse to move a cursor to the bottom of the screen. A toolbar appeared just like in his office computers.

It felt surreal to click and type as he was able to bring up more details but little else. It was basically nothing more than an observation station.

He tried several more and got a true scope of the power of the thing they were in. It was also clearly not working correctly.

The flow rate up was fine but the intake was far below optimum at 15%. He just could not find out why.

It frustrated him.

"If you are going to keep staring at me, at least tell me why this nightmarish thing is not working properly?!" He finally shouted into the room in frustration, not expecting an answer.

[You are not a Fiend nor dark ally. Who are you?] A voice appeared in his head and LInd whipped around to find a fragmented human man floating behind him.

A soul! A living soul of a human!