Molting the Mortal Coil

Sage picked up the scrolls and seeing no label on the outside, he sent his consciousness inside to take a peek. The first scroll was surprisingly called, ‘Instructions of Divine Paradise’. Confused, Sage read more and found that it was a complete alchemical manual. It contained a high level refining art named ‘Divine Breath’ along with easily a hundred different alchemical recipes.

The second scroll had no name but seemed to be a detailed record of someone’s alchemical work and experiments. Giving it a quick glance, Sage realized how detailed it was and figured this scroll could be of great help to an alchemist in properly concocting pills. Different notes about materials and refining procedures could be immensely helpful as most pill recipes only covered the most essential information and left out all the many tips and tricks that a master might have accrued over time.

Not even bothering to look inside the jade box, Sage hurried on to the next room and found an office like room and a door behind it that led to a small bedroom. The office was large and magnificent while the bedroom was somewhat small and only had a bed and wardrobe in it. Probably an important secretary's room, or the leader’s office with a spare bedroom for working all night.

Sage was about to scoop up all the desk ornaments, since he figured there might be valuable treasures a rich person might like to keep on their desk to admire and play with, but then he realized the desk wasn’t attached to the floor. He’d sold that whole grove of Emerald Holly long ago and there was plenty of room in his storage ring so he pushed the whole desk inside before taking along the chair as well. Thinking about it, he noticed the decorations seemed expensive as well and he stripped the room bare just like the last one. Leaving the Office completely empty before grabbing the wardrobe and bed from the bedroom as well. After making sure there was no secret panels on the walls or floor he moved off down the hall to the third room.

The third room was much like the second, and Sage still had room so he scooped up the office and the entirety of the bedroom. The fourth was nearly exactly the same, and Sage stripped it bare. It was nearly comical inside the ring as he’d stacked the three beds atop each other since he was pretty sure they held no mysteries, but the rare aged woods and fine silks would likely fetch quite a price from wealthy nobles.

Sage reached the end of the hallway and found the entrance to a circular staircase leading downwards. After making sure there was no array traps on the stairs, he started walking downwards. Fighting the urge to start leaping and skipping steps, he moved carefully wanting to make sure he didn’t stumble into danger. Finally, after quite some time he reached the bottom. Guessing he had traveled downwards at least a few hundred feet, Sage examined the room he was in. At the bottom of the staircase was a decently sized room, but it seemed to just be an entranceway. Across from the steps was a massive circular door, easily ten feet in diameter. The door and wall seemed to be created of a different material than the floor, ceiling, staircase and the other walls of the room. Almost like the big door and wall were built at a different time than the rest of the room.

Maybe somebody found this room and built the rest of the building upstairs to guard it?

Enjoying his random conjectures, Sage carefully approached the huge door and repeated his process for unknown arrays. First recording the entirety of the symbols and patterns he could see and only then starting to analyze them. After a few minutes he realized that the pattern on the floor was actually a sort of code key that someone created to crack the formations on the wall. After studying the previous formations in this building he had a simple understanding of the style of the Formation Master who made the place. The formation on the floor matched the building while the one on this large door was completely different.

About half an hour later, Sage finally figured out how to use the guide on the floor to unlock and open the formations on the door. Smiling to himself and thanking the Formation Master who created the key, Sage couldn’t help but marvel at the precision of the array that secured this room.

As the big circular door rolled into a recess in the wall, Sage felt a sudden wave of coldness roll over him. His eyes widening as he saw the contents of the room. It was massive. This room was cavernous, easily dwarfing the largest aircraft hangar. It was easily a thousand feet wide, a couple hundred feet tall, and a mile long.

What sort of ridiculously huge construction is this?

There was a large path cutting straight into the room a hundred feet before climbing a few steps and turning into a large stage. On either side of the path were hundreds of evenly spaced prayer mats laid out on the ground all facing forward towards the stage. Sage walked forward and climbed the steps to stand on the stage and look outwards at a massive pool of liquid. It appeared to be a lake of oily black water, but on second glance it was far from just oil like Sage had seen in his old life. The water seemed frozen around the edges of the lake and while mostly stagnant there were slow currents pushing the water around and swirling into whirlpools at times. Along the walls of the room there were easily dozens of cracks that had allowed the outside world to spill in.

Huge gnarled roots came in from one crack and dipped into the black water, showing up as black veins pulsing along the light brown tree roots. Other cracks seemed like the entrance to caves with insects and bats traveling in and out of them. The majority of them just seemed like the wall had fallen and dirt had slid into the room, forming little outcroppings of soil and rock in the lake that looked like it had been created to fill a perfectly rectangular stone bed. The edges of the black lake were rimmed in cut and fitted stones which made it appear to have been created by someone, yet time had corroded the walls and let nature in.

A cold wind and a chilling howl rang into the air as Sage watched a ghostly apparition rise up from the depths of the lake and pounce upon a bat that was flying past. The apparition was in the form of a ghostly head and only a vague blob for a body, like it could be blown apart by the wind at any time yet it never was. The face was very vague, the feature indistinct save for empty black eye sockets and a mouth full of terrifyingly sharp fangs. Pouncing upon the bat, the ghost didn’t seem to be able to touch the living creature at all until those sharp fangs snapped together around its body. The little bat fell out of the sky, dead instantly, its little body plopping into the black water and disappearing without a trace.

What is going on with this weird water?

Flabbergasted, Sage started to explore the area around the stage and where the prayer mats had been set. Sage wasn’t sure if the mats were special or not so he took them all, making a stack inside his ring, only to finally find a clue when he scooped up a mat and saw a small note underneath it. The sheet was titled, ‘Meditation Chamber Rules’ and seemed to be a set of basic rules that one might see at a school or church detailing behavior. It seemed pretty simple until Sage read down to the last line, ‘Do not touch the Lake of Souls’. He finally seemed to have learned the name of this strange place.

Having wished for a spectacular treasure, Sage was not about to give up yet and started to explore the rest of the massive room. Slowly walking around the edge of the lake and looking out into those black waters for signs of changes or differences. As he walked he realized why that note said not to touch the water as he saw a few animals slip down a pile of dirt and splash into the water. A small lizard caught itself and only its tail dipped into the black water, yet merely seconds later the little lizard stopped moving, rooted in place. Curious, Sage walked over and picked up the lizard with a set of tongs only to find it was dead. It didn’t seem to be poisoned, but the lizard was definitely dead with nothing outwardly wrong.

Sending his Qi into the little lizard and observing it with his Spiritual Sense, Sage examined the lizard’s meridians and even performed a dissection before he finally concluded that the lizard’s lifeforce had been completely drained. Terrified and glad he hadn’t touched the mysterious black water, Sage continued on his exploration until he suddenly felt goosebumps and reached out with his spiritual sense. Something was nearby and it was definitely dangerous.