Eternal Emerald Dragon

Chapter 1826: Chapter 1825 - Dancing in the Time Streams

Lind spent a few years preparing his workspace before heading out into the wider Haven Lands. It really did not matter too much as he was just making sure that once he started, he could go full force.

He did collect a few nearby ores, crystals, and even a few beast cores, but they were all in normal time. He just needed them to act as a basis of an isolation material when he was waiting for some elixirs or Forged items to settle.

Now that all his preparations were complete, the part most people would find difficult came next. In a sect or kingdom, an area under time manipulation had several options to be approached.

If it was a lower realm cultivator, they usually shut down the formation as the loss of a few centuries could kill them quickly. In the higher realms, especially after the Sliver Tier of the Immortal Realm, a few centuries meant nothing.

Yet, some extreme formations or weavings could still pose a danger until the Divine Realm. In those that did not worry, they could just enter but taking care to allow their body to adjust to the new flow of time.

It was an odd thing also to see people slow down and then almost freeze depending on the acceleration.

That was the first major difference in his Time Layer imposed flows of time. Lind casually came to an area of volcanoes and simmering gasses, it looked like the lava was flying across the ground as he walked up to it, yet he stepped forward without even a pause.

His dantian flared briefly but that was all. Lind never even felt a distortion as things synced up to his natural perception of time. He smiled as any power would practically demand he do the same for their herb gardens or mines.

Yet, outside of his Emerald Haven, he had no doubt maintaining it would be beyond anyone, even him, to keep it going beyond a few centuries. The Emerald Haven was connected to him directly and thus his dantian was the basis of the power.

Once created, he needed no external Qi stones or artifacts to keep it going. He had to put in massive effort to lay the foundation of it but that was the only prohibitive wall. If someone could overcome that, replicating the size of his haven was entirely possible.

His harmony, however, could not be replicated. He doubted anyone, even another 6 elemental, could make what he had.

As for the act he was currently pulling off, only someone that condensed a Time Layer of their own had a prayer of pulling it off.

Lind moved from one time stream to another without a ripple. There was no disruptance to the resources by his arrival. That was flat out impossible with a weaving or a formation. The barrier generated to then manipulate time would always have power flowing in it.

While such barriers were not able to stop a person, the disruption could cause issues big or small due to the entrance and exit of cultivators.

Some cultivators can smooth it over to an extent, yet they have limits. Even the smallest shockwave could ruin herbs or fracture crystals.

Lind smiled as he simply walked and saw the world behind him was hardly moving. He then began to carefully harvest natural Fire crystals, Celestial Fire crystals, and other resources.

He spent the equivalent of several million years wandering his haven that way yet real time was possibly only a year.

He was currently focused on the fairly easy ones as the more complex were not necessarily what he wanted. The more esoteric the methods needed, the more narrow the application usually.

There were a few exceptions.

In the depths of a zone of pure darkness, he carefully walked down a corridor of oblivion. There was no light, sound, or any physical sensation. Even his aura had limited use for him.

Still, he did not need it as it was one of the few areas artificially built to induce a certain resource.

Demon Void Stars were extremely rare but had a massive amount of uses. They were the ultimate expression of shadow Qi. Even a sliver of one could be sold for billions of Divine Qi stones.

There were some issues, however, in getting even that sliver. The chief one being that any exposure to light degraded it severely. Special jade cases or other storage treasures were needed to resolve that.

The other was the conditions were nearly impossible to artificially create because the elemental and interactive energies were so rare that very few had recorded them!

Lind had always been studying rare resources to try and improve his planning for future projects, but this one had been solely put in his haven.

The main issue was the side effect if he succeeded. The word void was not just a metaphor! If the Demon Void Star formed, it would consume everything! He had to isolate the conditions to create it and then add more protections to contain the void!

His power over time was a lifesaver! The void, in all its forms, still had to bow to time.

Lind finally slowed as he felt his dantian react. He had reached the final step and took a breath. He summoned a massive jade and crystal casket. The fact all energy was missing told him his goal had been achieved.

The trick to harvesting it was of course he could not use any Qi at all. Even a flicker of light of any element, would degrade the star.

He took one more step and all ground vanished. He did resist and was gently pulled forward. Gravity, elements, and all energy was being pulled into the star to fuel it.

The structure purified the energy and gave the best possibility of nurturing the Demon Void Star. Lind had already summoned a container before setting foot in the tunnels.

Time began to shift wildly around him yet not a bit of it affected him. It was the most difficult hurdle to overcome and Lind just floated through it!

The pull spiked and he quickly moved his arms. The large jade container became very heavy as he snapped the lid in place. The seals activated without a glimmer of light.

The pull vanished and his senses were able to spread a bit more. There were fairly weak proto stars forming. He smiled and carefully used his draconic flight to pull away.

Lind repeated such miraculous harvesting in various areas but only a few time distortions like the Demon Void Star. None could compare but he danced as if the shifts in a basic tenet of reality was nothing to him.

He carefully stored the most precious resources on shelves with wards ready to protect them. He had started with them because his next move would cause disruptions no matter how he tried to suppress them.

He was taking no chances.

Lind took a moment to center himself and return to his peak state. While it seemed easy, he had exerted a lot of energy to collect the most fragile or important resources across various time streams.

The structures around him were currently flowing in True Time. Whatever passed outside the Emerald Haven was what passed where he sat.

He had done that for the obvious reason that opening and closing of the aperture would cause a shockwave no matter what he tried to do to contain it. There was no longer a need to keep that true.

His eyes glowed with emerald light as his hands moved in profound patterns. There was no glow of sigils or even harmonic Qi. Yet, the very air around him changed.

He was directly altering the flow of Time!

It was unlike anything he usually did. There was no catalyst or a need for some buffer thanks to his Time Layer. It was still constrained by his facets, yet his facets were horrifyingly powerful.

It was like grasping music in his hands. It was something normally just heard or perceived with no physical way to change it just by bare hands. A tool or other medium was needed, yet Lind could not do it directly.

If he was to explain what he did, he defined a boundary by pulling on the flow of Time. The greater he pulled, the larger the area created. Once he felt the right size, he would then set up a cycle to create the speed he desired by anchoring to the past and reaching for the future.

Time would march at its normal pace unless he moved those anchors in the flow of time. The farther apart they were, the slower the present would go. The closer he moved them, the faster.

There were no better words but they fell far short of what he saw in his mind.

A cliff on one side that stretched to infinity to either side. It would slowly crumble as he got closer while on the other side was a chasm ever encroaching at the same pace. The past and future were not a balance on a scale.

They were hard to truly perceive even with his Time Layer so it was the best he could do. The present was an endless stretch just as much as the other 2 but it was barely contained chaos.

There were constantly shifting paths in both directions, fewer to the chasm, yet sometimes those paths came together to slow the pace of both past and future. The paths could also shatter and accelerate the pace.

Lind could not interfere with them at all. He could only perceive them. They could help him divine some things yet it was not as good as a true Seer. He could, however, raise both his arms and pull or push the cliff and chasm away as if they were toys.

If anyone that made barriers or structures to manipulate the flow of time saw his act, they would cry tears of blood and curse him and all his ancestors.

They had to labor for months if not years to achieve what he did in a few breaths! Lind still paid a heavy price but eventually the area of the new complex was now under a much faster flow of time.

He sighed and confirmed with a scan that there were several disturbed areas in the Emerald Haven but nothing too catastrophic. He was about to recover when he frowned.

At least 2 very delicate resource areas were now barren. It was clear the shockwaves had affected the flow of time briefly as it felt fine now. The nutrients had been fully consumed faster than they could be replaced.

He would have to fix that before he started his work. All in all, not the worst.

He could finally begin in earnest.