Chapter 1 – Black Stone
Book 16, Starmist Sea– Chapter 1, Black Stone
The Amethyst Mountains were covered by that unfeeling, icy mist. Within the mountain hollow, Delia was currently seated quietly, her eyes closed. Today was as peaceful as always.
“Delia, Bebe!”
Suddenly, a voice rang out.
Delia, who had been quietly meditating, couldn’t help but be startled. She immediately opened her eyes and turned to look over. Right now, Bebe’s worried voice rang out as well. “Boss, why did you stop training? How is your divine earth clone doing? Did you succeed, or is it…?”
By the time Delia looked over, she saw that the sky-blue robed Linley, his original body, was already standing in front of her.
“What’s the situation?” Delia walked over, asking with concern.
Linley felt a surge of warmth in his heart. Nodding, he said, “Everything is fine. Right now, my divine earth clone is on the way back, and will arrive soon. Delia, Bebe, I’m sorry. I’ve made you worry during this period of time.” Linley didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry right now.
He didn’t know if he should say that he was lucky, or if he was unlucky.
He had just been testing Worldwalking for the first time when he had encountered the juvenile amethyst beast. However, because of this, his power had increased greatly. Indeed, blessings and disasters could be hard to differentiate.
Suddenly, footsteps rang out from afar. It was Olivier.
“Linley, you successfully escaped, right? I can tell just by the look on your face.” Olivier laughed loudly.
Linley nodded slightly.
“Boss, you successfully escaped. This is a cause for celebration! Although we might be stuck here a very long time and need to be a bit sparing with the wine, today, we absolutely still have to celebrate this joyous occasion.” With a flip of his hand, Bebe retrieved several bottles of fine wine.
Wine was extremely precious in the Amethyst Mountains.
Within the Amethyst Mountains, perhaps not even hundreds of millions of inkstones would be enough to trade for a single bottle of wine. After all, in the Amethyst Mountains, harvesting amethysts was simply too easy. Wine, on the other hand, was gone after being drunk. The Amethyst Mountains didn’t have any materials that could be used for making wine.
“Haha, today, drink as much as you like.” Linley laughed loudly. “Even if we drink up all the wine we have, it doesn’t matter!”
Bebe immediately stared. “Boss, you can be happy, but you can’t be so wasteful.”
Olivier was somewhat astonished as well. Delia looked suspiciously at Linley, asking, “Linley, are you preparing to abstain from alcohol?”
“Haha…” Laughing, Linley shook his head. “That’s not it. It’s because I’ve already found a method by which I can take you all out from these Amethyst Mountains.”
“Leave the Amethyst Mountains?” Bebe, Delia, and Olivier couldn’t help but be stunned.
After so many years, nobody who had entered the Amethyst Mountains had been able to leave on their own. Olivier and the others had tested it out as well, but weren’t able to leave the Amethyst Mountains at all. But Linley was now saying…
Delia, Bebe, and Olivier knew what sort of person Linley was. They knew that Linley wouldn’t lie.
But leaving the Amethyst Mountains, this was simply too unbelievable.
“Boss? You tellin’ the truth?” Bebe was filled with doubts, and he asked again.
“Linley, you’d better not be making me happy for nothing.” Olivier chuckled, but his eyes stared hard at Linley with a hint of expectation in them. If anyone else had said this, Olivier probably wouldn’t even pay them any mind, but it was Linley who said this.
Linley wasn’t the sort of person to lie!
“Linley, you have a way to deal with that astonishing gravity?” Delia went straight to the heart of the matter. If one wanted to leave the Amethyst Mountains, first, one had to deal with that astonishing gravity. The gravity of the Amethyst Mountains was something which not even most Highgods could nullify while flying.
“Don’t worry. If I said we can leave, that means we can leave.” Linley said with absolute certainty.
Bebe, Delia, and Olivier all had a hint of excitement on their faces.
“Boss, how would we leave?” Bebe asked.
Linley smiled. “Fine. I’ll give you a demonstration, as otherwise, you probably wouldn’t believe it.” Linley’s original body was capable of borrowing divine power from his divine body. Immediately, Linley’s body began to circulate with a surge of divine earth power, and he immediately activated it based on the insights he had gained.
Geomagnetic ripples spread out from Linley’s legs, stretching out into the earth.
“Crackle…”
At the same time, the ground within a hundred meters began to ripple strangely. Linley smiled as he looked at Delia, Bebe, and Olivier. “What do you think?”
“Huh?”
Delia and the others were astonished. To their amazement, they discovered that the effect their body suffered from the astonishing gravitational force of the Amethyst Mountains had been weakened by more than 90%. Although the remaining amount of gravity pull was considerable, it was no longer enough to prevent the three of them from flying.
Delia, Bebe, and Olivier easily hovered up from the ground.
“Linley, what’s this?” Olivier couldn’t help but find this unbelievable.
“Right.” Bebe’s face was filled with astonishment. “Garlan and Jarrod had told me that even if one mastered Gravitational Space, it would be useless here in the Amethyst Mountains. Up till now, nobody has been able to nullify the gravitational force like you.”
Although some experts were powerful enough to fly despite the pull of gravity, that was just relying on pure power, unlike Linley who was using profound mysteries.
“Do you believe me now?” Linley didn’t explain further.
“I believe you, I believe you.” Olivier’s face was covered with delight, the many years of unhappiness all washed away.
“Boss, what about that strange wind region?” Bebe asked hurriedly. That chaotic region was the true culprit behind so many experts being trapped here.
Linley laughed calmly. “No need to ask. When we leave, I’ll deal with it.” Linley still remembered clearly how the juvenile amethyst beast, Reisgem, had said that in the area of the strange wind sound, by relying on this black stone, he would be able to pass through it.
“I have to spend some time giving a thorough review of this black stone.” Linley said quietly to himself.
After exiting the cave, Linley had been in a hurry to come back, and hadn’t analyzed the black stone. However, even that cursory glance he had given it had shown that the black stone had astonishing aspects to it. In particular, it held within it an aura that made one’s heart tremble, and the spiritual energy within it constantly changed. All of these things attracted Linley’s interest.
“But of course, I still need to spend some time preparing, and get a thorough understanding of the method we’ll use to leave.” Linley laughed. “The Amethyst Mountains are very safe. In the Infernal Realm, it’s very, very rare to find such a safe training area.”
“Indeed, aside from the flaws of the white fog here limiting visibility to a hundred meters, the astonishing gravity, and the boring, dull lifestyle…in the Amethyst Mountains, aside from the day of the Fog Wave, it really is quite safe in here.” Olivier nodded as well.
Right at this moment, the returning divine earth clone finally sprouted out from the stone, fusing into Linley’s original body. Delia and Bebe, upon seeing this, finally let out sighs of relief.
“Haha, Boss, let’s celebrate!” Bebe, having received two pieces of good news in a row, was naturally in an excellent mood.
After Linley’s group of four celebrated, Linley began to focus on his analysis of the black stone.
“This black stone contains within it an earth-type aura, and it also has a spiritual aura. It really is odd.” Linley carefully inspected the black stone, his heart filled with questions, and then he laughed. “Perhaps the black stone has some connection to amethysts.” Amethyst-top stones were naturally earth-style.
However, amethysts contained spiritual energy as well. This was quite similar to the black stone.
“Only, the aura of the spiritual energy in this black stone causes one’s heart to tremble…” Linley said to himself.
The black stone also held within it those 108 constantly fluctuating spiritual energy auras. These 108 spiritual energy auras were moving into constantly changing configurations, causing Linley to feel utterly delighted. The configurations he himself had developed thus far were just the basics.
But within the black stone, the naturally transforming configurations were on a deeper level.
Linley immediately calmed down and began to analyze the methods by which one would use this Gravitational Space technique. Although seemingly simple, controlling it for one’s own use was very complicated. It was much like how Linley had seen those 108 spikes on the back of the juvenile amethyst beast, but truly understanding the configuration had required a very long amount of time.
Right now, this was the difficulty which he faced.
However, Linley was absorbed by it…
“When Boss trains like this, he pays no attention to time at all.” Bebe muttered, not for the first time. In fact, he had complained like this innumerable times.
Delia laughed and glanced at him. “Bebe, calm down and train. It’s just been twenty years. It went by in a flash! Look at Olivier. As soon as he started meditating, he hasn’t woken up a single time. If you are so impatient, when will you be able to make a breakthrough?”
Bebe pouted but didn’t speak.
“Heeey.” Bebe’s eyes suddenly lit up. “The Boss woke up.” Delia hurriedly turned to look towards where Linley was seated in meditation. Right now, Linley’s eyes were open, and his face was all smiles. “So the black stone can even be used in such a manner. I truly am a fool.”
Linley turned and urged, “Bebe, come over.”
“What for?” Bebe didn’t quite understand.
“Get a feel for my Gravitational Space.” Linley said.
Bebe raised his head, then immediately walked over. Disdainfully, he said, “Gravitational Space? Give it your best shot. I, Bebe, have a really powerful body. Your Gravitational Space won’t be able to harm me, no matter how powerful it is.” Bebe was fully confident, and indeed, precisely because of his tough body, Linley had asked him to come.
“Get ready.” Linley immediately began to use it.
“Crackle…”
Geomagnetic ripples spread out from Linley’s feet, spreading out through the earth and continuously transforming from within it. The strange thing was, the black stone was currently floating within Linley’s sea of consciousness, and the 108 rays of spiritual energy within the black stone were moving in exactly the same manner as the geomagnetic ripples.
It was as though the two were moving in accord.
“Haha, the gravity is quite something, but it’s nothing to me.” Bebe said delightedly, but suddenly, Bebe’s face changed. He frantically shook his head. “Boss, stop playing around. My head feels miserable.”
Linley immediately halted.
“How does that feel?” Linley laughed while looking at him. This was all as Linley had predicted it would be.
Bebe stared at Linley in surprise. “Boss, just now, my head felt so dizzy. That feeling was just, just like how when I heard the strange wind sound in the Fog Sea. It was that sort of feeling. My head felt extremely miserable. How’d you do it?” Bebe somewhat didn’t dare to believe it.
“This is the effect of a treasure I received.” Linley explained.
Actually, in the later stages of his analysis of the black stone, Linley had discovered this. It was at this point of the analysis that Linley realized why the juvenile amethyst beast had said that with this black stone, he wouldn’t have to worry about the influence of the strange wind sound. It was because the special effect of the strange wind sound and the soul-effect of the black stone were identical!
Linley suspected…
“Perhaps, within these Amethyst Mountains, there is an extremely large ‘black stone’, capable of impacting and spreading out to a range of hundreds of thousands of kilometers.” Linley guessed.
“Linley, what are you testing out?” Delia walked over as well.
Bebe turned his head and grinned. “Delia, the Boss is now extremely powerful, and I even daresay that we definitely won’t have any problems in leaving the Amethyst Mountains.” After having tasted this technique, Bebe was now completely confident in Linley.
Delia’s eyes lit up. Walking over to Linley, she said, “Linley, shall we head out now?”
Linley frowned slightly. “No rush. Delia, the Infernal Realm has too many dangers hidden within it. We should wait until we are a bit stronger before heading out. Right now, I’ve only fused two types of profound mysteries. However, I am confident that I should be able to fuse three types of profound mysteries very soon!”
“Fuse three types?” Delia and Bebe were both surprised.
There were quite a few experts who had fused two types of profound mysteries, but the number who had fused three was extremely, extremely low. It must be understood that many Six Star Fiends had only fused three types of profound mysteries. As for fusing four….even Elquin, the Seven Star Fiend, had only fused four.
With each increase in level, the power would increase tenfold as well! The difficulty, as well, would also increase exponentially.
For example, Linley had fused the Throbbing Pulse of the World and the Gravitational Space. To fuse a third type of profound mystery, he would have to have the third profound mystery find a ‘joining’ location for both of the other two types of profound mysteries, which would be the foundation for the fusing. Only then would fusing become possible. Finding the ‘joining’ location, however, was extremely difficult.
For example, Linley had spent a long time looking for a ‘joining’ point between the Throbbing Pulse of the World and the Gravitational Space without success and without any breakthroughs. Afterwards, he had used the ‘Essence of the Earth’ to have these two types of profound mysteries find a ‘joining point’.
“I’m confident in being able to fuse three profound mysteries, but four?” Linley couldn’t help but think of the ‘Worldwalking’ technique. Up till now, he hadn’t had a single insight into how he would fuse Worldwalking with any of the other three profound mysteries. To fuse four profound mysteries, he would at least have to begin fusing Worldwalking with the other three profound mysteries.
But he hadn’t even found a joining point; how could he then fuse it with the other three?
Most likely, even after spending ten thousand years, he still wouldn’t be able to do it.
“The higher I climb, the harder it becomes.” Linley understood.