Molting the Mortal Coil

Sage’s twenties felt like they flew by. He was learning so many new things, dabbling in all the many professions that Holy Flame Sect had grown famed for. Learning new things was a great distraction for him and his three dormmates were the first friends he’d had in this life. Eventually the other three moved on, their cultivation rapidly passing him by. Sage remained friends with the three and they would get together at least once a year and drink the ‘Delicious Dream Wine’ they first bonded over.

The talents of his dormmates brought them to the middle stages of rank 4 before Sage finally accumulated enough wealth and resources to finally break through to rank 3. It had taken nearly twelve years and Sage was now a 42 year old level 31. With each stage one advanced the body would expel impurities, strengthening the bones, tendons, muscles, organs and skin. The major change from Qi Building, rank 1, to Qi Condensation, rank 2; was to condense the qi in the body from a vapor to a liquid state. Changing from a loose fog into a guided stream flowing through the meridians, rank 2 was the mark of a true cultivator. Advancing into Sea Forming, rank 3, was mostly a matter of accumulation. The liquid qi in the body flowed out from the dantian, passed through the meridians and then out of the body in the form of qi techniques. To reach rank 3, the qi in the dantian had to accumulate from a small puddle into the form of a massive ocean. Each stage would expand the size of the dantian over and over again until finally the dantian grew from a pond, to a lake, and then a sea.

Sage had taken dozens of Qi Increasing Pills, bathed in many body refining baths and even saved up to train in the Sunfire Pagoda. One of the eleven training types was known as ‘Essence Training’. On the Essence levels, it was like there were dozens of tiny holes in his dantian and his Qi spilled out of his body into the training room. He had to furiously operate his Qi Cultivation Art to draw the Qi back into his body. It acted like resistance training for his Qi gathering speed. Each time he spent time in the Sunfire Pagoda on the Essence levels he would increase his cultivation speed.

Sadly, he hadn’t realized how useful the Sunfire Pagoda was until he was in his mid-thirties. From then on he spent the majority of his time earning contribution points in order to purchase more time in the Sunfire Pagoda. When he finally broke through to a Sea Forming cultivator, Sage was finally able to take the tests and become a true member of a profession. The next few years were spent taking tests and Sage rose from the level of unfortunate apprentice to a weak, yet respectable personage.

Yuan Hu, Geng He, and Qui Hou celebrated with Sage. They were now proud to tell everyone of their accomplished older brother. Sage had become an official member of six main professions, along with four of the supporting ones. Most people only ever focused on one main and one or two supporting professions. The name of Lang Sheng became known around the lower levels of Holy Flame Sect. Sadly, even as a figure to look up to, he was still a sad case. So gifted with knowledge and skill yet handicapped by his lack of cultivating talent.

Even as a member of so many Professions, Sage was still only 1 star rating in each of them. The star rating mostly correlated to the ranking system. For example a 1 star alchemist mainly created pills and formulas that benefited rank 1 cultivators. They could still be useful for higher ranks but weren’t nearly as effective. Blocked by his lack of cultivation, Sage focused on the areas he was skilled in and in a few years he reached 2 stars as a Formation Master and Tamer.

He tried not to use his Insect Immortal Index techniques which is why it took him so long to advance. It wasn’t that he wasn’t proud, but he didn’t wish the skills to be public knowledge. He was actually using the Taming as a cover for his bugs. Formation Master was truly the area where he shined, as he formulated equations to simplify the formations. Instead of having to memorize hundreds of permutations of formation setups he came up with a formula and just plugged in the variables. Each star of a profession was easily twice as hard to earn as the last one for most people but for Sage, learning a new formation only took a few days to derive a formula. He even hung up each of the formula pages on the walls of his storage ring, all he had to do was peek into the ring and he had the formula at his fingertips.

In his fifties, Sage gained his third star as an Insect Tamer and his fourth star as a Formation Master. He was quite impressive among the Formation Masters, being able to form formations that were higher than his own cultivation level. With four stars that meant he could build a formation that would work against rank 4 cultivators and as a rank 3 Tamer he could raise and control a spirit insect, spirit animal, or demonic beast up to rank 3.

After nearly thirty years in the Holy Flame Sect, Sage was not strong enough to officially be an elder but as a member of a number of professions he was as respected as one. With each rank a cultivator’s lifespan would increase, a rank 2 could easily reach 200 years while a rank 3 could get to 500 without a problem. Even in his fifties, Sage looked to be in his thirties as the aging process was tied to when one reached different ranks. There were some highly talented Elders that still looked like they were teenagers even though they were over a hundred.

Sage had been on many short trips outside the Sect and some much longer ones during his Apprenticeship as a Hunter. They mostly stayed within a thousand miles of the Sect and hunted the many mountains and forests outside the mountain range. Today was different.

Lang Sheng had been chosen to act as an escort for a training mission. A batch of a hundred Inner Sect Disciples were being taken to a remote location and Sage was picked out along with a dozen others to act as support. Peak Master Zhen Zhen was leading this expedition, even with her crazy name, and bringing along six elders. Sage was among the last six non-inner sect disciples, each of them chosen for their specialties in one area or another. Sage was curious why he was picked but he found out later that he was chosen for his multi-talented background. The location they were heading to was completely unexplored and nobody knew what exactly they were going to run into.