Molting the Mortal Coil

Miles away from that canyon where he’d escaped from the assassins, Sage spent a few hours in self examination. He truly wished to continue escaping as quickly as possible, but it was imperative that the Silverbee, the new Queen, properly establish the hive. The silverbee’s were inside Sage’s body after all, if something were to go wrong it could be disastrous. Additionally, the Silverbee Queen had just flown a few miles and fought a battle with the old Queen, she needed some rest.

The most important thing was to escape. Sage realized he had been naive to think he could go unnoticed. I thought if I didn’t show off my Lang Clan techniques then they’d never be able to find me. Seems they must have other methods, I have to get out of here as quickly as possible!

While the Silverbee allowed him a method of flight, which was quite powerful, it still wasn’t as reliable as using his own legs. Delving into the storage ring, he used the manuals to search through the herbs to find some that will dull pain, mixing up something to help. He’d been mainly operating on adrenaline for the last hour or so, terrified of the assassins finding him to finish the job. Taking one of the energy sustaining pills to keep himself awake, Sage then drank a small bowl full of water mixed with ground up herbs. It would function better after being heated, but he couldn’t afford to wait, the pain of his injuries was debilitating.

He knew that he would have to set his broken bones properly, and soon, or they’d just have to be broken and reset again later. Of course, that was the extent of his knowledge. He wasn’t a doctor or nurse, nor did he know any very well, he had just seen plenty of movies and tv shows where this sort of injury came up often. Fortunately, he had the introductory profession manuals of which one of them was a Doctor. He also had the advantage of being a cultivator, the meditation training and qi within his body allowed him to send his perception into his body. He could carefully examine his condition. Powerful cultivators could check each of their blood cells in close detail, which Sage was far from, but he was still strong enough to check the general condition of his bones.

Sage had already identified all the broken places when he first landed in the canyon, but now he had the Doctor’s anatomy training book open and was comparing his current bones to what they were supposed to look like. At the same time he marvelled over how detailed the book was, looking just like something from his modern world. It seems the special powers of cultivators in this world has advanced some areas of knowledge to be the same as my modern world… I wonder if any areas are even more advanced?

With the knowledge of what was broken and how it should be fixed, he then flipped open a couple more books. Looking for help with a splint or cast, as well as if any of the herbs he had could help his bones heal faster. It took him some time, but he found a dozen different options for medicine and treatments. He was tempted to use the fastest option, but it came with even more pain than he was already in. Realizing his own shortcomings, Sage didn’t want to push it too far. He’d only just found some courage earlier and wasn’t about to think of himself as a peerless hero that could grit his teeth and bear with even the worst pain. It was far more likely he’d just pass out from exertion and who knows when he’d wake up.

Instead, Sage went with a mild treatment that was reasonably quick, but required the use of a few treasures. Of course, he chose this route because he recognized the treasures needed as some of the things in the stack of unknown items he’d sorted out earlier. There was a strange looking flat bar that he thought was some sort of mechanical tool but he found out that it was actually called a ‘Bone Brace’. It contained Spirit Jade and arrays within, allowing it to draw in energy on its own and if placed in a splint healed bones faster than normal. Combining this with a simple type of salve he also found how to mix, his broken legs could be healed in a couple weeks instead of many months.

Once he’d applied the salve, placed the bone braces and then straightened his bones, with much grunting and wincing on his part, Sage looked for suitable bandages among the pile of fabrics. Surprised he recognized something from searching the medical manual earlier. There was a bolt of ‘Blood Drinking Silk’, famously used by warriors to wrap up their wounds. It was only ever stained by blood for a few minutes. Living up to its name it absorbed blood slowly, but more spectacularly it also emitted a life force aura as it did. This aura helped wounds to recover, which made it an excellent bandage. Warriors liked to create their underclothes out of it as it controlled the blood loss from wounds and helped to recover them.

Aha, what great finds. These are all precious for lower level cultivators. It’s just a shame none of the high level pills or medicines are here. Those things can regrow limbs in a matter of minutes.

Just like his previous assessment, it seemed more like a spectacular set of helper items for a low leveled cultivator. Everything was extremely useful and more valuable than the resources Sage had access to within the Lang Clan, yet at the same time it was all low ranked treasures.

I got a very big and well stocked starter pack. It’s like I’ve got the limited edition pre-order version now.

With the help of the blood drinking silk, Sage nearly mummified himself. Wrapping up the splints, his stab sounds, and the many dozens of smaller cuts and slices those two killers had covered him with. Covered nearly head to toe with the white silk, he laughed and then called out the Silverbee. He sensed that things were already on track in the hive and he was ready to keep moving. Buzzing up into the air he had the Silverbee gain altitude and prioritised finding somewhere safe to hole up for the night. The day was quite eventful and he wasn’t about to start testing the limits of the Silverbee’s flight endurance while Sage couldn’t even walk let alone protect himself.

Finding a cave and giving it a once over, Sage reluctantly chose it as his home for the rest of the day. He had mixed feelings about being inside a cave. On the one hand, he never wished to enter one ever again, but on the other he felt a sense of comfort sitting in the cave. He’d grown too used to living in the confining darkness. Could be worse… at least I didn’t develop claustrophobia. That would be super inconvenient.

The Silverbees still had a few hours of daylight left so he let them out to forage. His linked Queen getting fed by her big colony. After thinking it over for a moment Sage decided to try and feed as much of the colony as possible using Qi Feeding. If the bees were eating less moonhoney, then he’d get to keep more for himself. His next thought brought a grin to his face, so happy he even repeated it out loud, “Haha, as I get stronger the colony will get bigger and bigger!”

The Silverbee Queen landed atop a large rock, and within its body, Sage let out a sigh of relief. Before them was a sprawling city, the capital of Water Apricot County, known as Earth Smoke. It was the first town that Sage had come across after leaving the 10,000 Wave Province. He’d rushed in this direction as it was the nearest neighboring province. The Fu Clan was a major power in the 10,000 Wave Province just like the Chong Clan and he only wished to escape their notice. He thought about going to the Chong Clan but he didn’t know anybody there and with all the stuff he had, he was worried about being robbed. If he showed off his Spirit Insect in front of the Chong Clan they would certainly figure out he had the true version at some point and he was worried what they would do to him. Instead, his goal had become to head to a far off land and start over from scratch. Somewhere nobody knew him and nobody was hunting the Lang and Chong Clan members.

Here he was, having just entered the Bronze Tiger Province and traveling a few hundred miles further to reach Earth Smoke. His body had fully recovered from his injuries, and he’d been traveling nearly a month to reach this point. It had been hard to get used to only one hand, but he was compensating decently now. Luckily none of his clothing had buttons or small laces! Exiting the Silverbee Queen, Sage started off on foot towards the city gates. He had been staying away from all civilization the last month, out of fear, and now that he was in a new province he wanted to gather information and buy more necessities before continuing the journey. His goal was to travel at least three provinces away before even thinking about settling down. Once he was that far, he figured on just traveling until something excited him enough to stick around.

Stopping in a restaurant, Sage ordered dinner and also traveling rations. He’d learned that food placed into his storage ring came out at the exact same state and temperature that he put them in. Sage had been flabbergasted and determined there had to be something amazing he could do with that later, it just needed some testing. He’d thought it was just devoid of air, but now it seemed like it might be some sort of stasis… it was far too interesting! Unfortunately, he was far too focused on training to worry about experiments, so it had just gone onto his list of things to research along with the dozens of bug related ideas he’d had. Most of the time he would travel at night, letting the bees forage during the day. He split the travel time with the Silverbee Queen, which gave him plenty of time to try to improve his strength.

After the restaurant, Sage gathered information in a bar. Asking about current events and the big powers in town, the county and the province. He learned quite a bit, and the main important bit of information he learned was that the Four Major Businesses from 10,000 Wave Province were here too! When he asked about this, he found an interesting old timer.

“Haha, this is something most regular folk don’t know but quite common knowledge among the well traveled. The Four Major Businesses have a presence in nearly every city on the continent! Many provinces welcome them with open arms and they have huge power in those provinces. Others don’t really care and the Four Major Businesses just act like any other big merchant organization. Even in the few provinces that have banned the Four Major Businesses you can still find them underground in secret locations doing shady dealings.”

At this point the old man started laughing and stared closely at Sage, “If you want to keep breathing, remember this, never offend the Four Major Businesses!”

Nodding, Sage bought the old man a drink as thanks and headed off on his way. There was still something he needed to handle before continuing his journey. It didn’t take him long to find his destination. A huge building in front of him had a sign above the door.

Thousand Treasures.