Molting the Mortal Coil

Acting quickly, Sage checked if the Twin Ringed Soul Serpent was still living in the most simple way he knew of. Running close to its body he held out his hand and tried to scoop it into his Storage Ring. Things with souls or a consciousness could not get pulled into his Storage Ring so when the body suddenly disappeared from the ground, Sage knew it was no longer a threat. At the same time, the Twin Soul was still inside his Spiritual Sea and trying to distract him with sudden attacks and wary circling.

Wait… this serpent can be reborn when its body dies!

Recalling what he’d read in the description of the serpent, Sage had a sudden thought and ran back towards the spot where he’d first entered battle with the Twin Ringed Serpent. He had been digging a hole there and that was when the physical body struck at him. The Twin Soul must have inadvertently led him to an important location. The Twin Soul in his spiritual sea intensified its attacks as Sage got closer to that spot. Not even bothering to fight the Twin Soul anymore, Sage divided a small bit of his attention on simply staying within the light of the Seed of Life and floating away from the Twin Soul. The ghostly snake would constantly burn and sizzle as it flew into that green light. Each time it attacked it would lose soul matter and grow smaller. After the many exchanges it was already half the size it had started at, not longer looking like an anaconda and instead the size of a large python.

In the outside world, Sage pulled out his spade again and started to dig like he had been before. Sending his Spiritual Sense down to find the blank spot from before and keep watch on the space that didn’t exist. This sort of technique, that rendered one invisible to Spiritual Sense, was pretty useful, but since this thing never moved it had little chance to hide from him. Finally, he excavated the little burrow deep enough to expose the place his spiritual sense couldn’t feel. I knew it! An Egg!

A smile crept onto Sage’s face as he saw the small egg, barely larger than that of a chicken. It was a mottled brown and black, looking more like a rotten egg than the egg of a rare demonic beast. Sage used his Tiger Glove to pick up the egg, worried about poison as he examined it carefully. Seeing that there was no substances on the surface he moved his other hand over. The ability that hid the egg from spirit sense was still in effect and seemed to be like a large bubble twice the size of the egg that moved along with it. Sage tried to move his other hand into the bubble and then sent out his spirit sense through the hand. The idea being that if he was inside the little shield he might circumvent its protection.

When his spirit sense sank into the egg, Sage knew he was correct and carefully examined things. As he’d expected, the presence inside the egg seemed to match the Twin Ringed Soul Serpent he was fighting earlier, but it was far weaker. Haha, you’re mine now, Snake! I wonder how much the egg of a rare rank 3 demonic beast will sell for.

Letting out a pleased laugh, Sage was about to continue looking for treasures around this Lake of Souls when he suddenly had an idea. The Insect Immortal Index worked on all the creepy crawly wugs. There were examples of worms, bugs, spiders, scorpions, small lizards, venomous snakes, and even poison toads. How could a technique work on all sorts of different creatures without issue? Sage had wondered about this before in the past and had done research on the topic without conclusion. He knew that the Chong clan was actually named after this grouping of creatures that seemed to be grouped because they were all small and creepy with many of them being venomous. The people in this world seemed to think this linked them all together into a similar animal… species? Or was it kingdom? Sage couldn’t quite remember the terminology for all the different taxonomy ranks, but he did know the ‘Chong’ covered many different groups.

Certainly, this world was quite different from his old one, but he knew that spiders and scorpions were arachnids which were completely different from insects, but they were at least similar with tier exoskeletons. Snakes are reptiles and even further away from the first two, just like toads being amphibians. He wasn’t exactly sure how worms fit in but he was sure they were in a completely different branch from the creatures with spinal cords or exoskeletons. The only thing he could even think of that all these different things had in common was they all laid eggs. If the egg was the common link then why didn’t the techniques get used on birds or huge powerful monsters and were only used on little creepy crawlers? It’s time that I started testing out some of these questions. I’m going to look into this further when I get back to the Sect!

With a test subject in front of him, Sage smiled and settled the egg in front of him. Normally the Insect Immortal Index was only supposed to work on small poisonous snakes that were animals or small spirit animals. Sage wasn’t sure why, but he was ready to test it out. If it worked on a spirit animal snake, why can’t it work on a demonic beast snake? Since he’d lost his Silverbee Queen, Sage didn’t have to just test using ‘Mutate’, he instead chose to use ‘Merge’. Forming the shapes and symbols with his fingers as he released his Qi in the special pattern to activate the technique, Sage sent his energy into the small egg.

Almost instantly, Sage felt resistance. He was surprised, every other time in the past, when he activated the ‘Merge’ technique it was like slipping a key into a keyhole and all he had to do was give it a turn to form the link. The Spirit Insect would then be completely under his control as if he’d just grown another body part that had its own instincts and robot like brain. It felt like he had a little autonomous drone that he could give orders to. Amazed at the difficulty of performing the technique this time, Sage tried again, sending the Qi into the little egg with a bit more energy than usual, trying to overwhelm the resistance. Failing again, Sage was a bit discouraged. Maybe it really only works on the little things?

Pondering for a moment, Sage banished the thoughts of giving up and instead smiled. He was doing this with the spirit of science, right? What sort of scientist gives up after only two trials? He wet his lips and gathered his will, focusing intently on the little egg to watch for variations. Staring closely, he suddenly chuckled at his ineptitude and then started pulling tools out of his Storage Ring. A scientist’s best tool is careful observation! The more things I can measure, the more changes I will uncover.

In his past life he’d only been a computer scientist, which wasn’t much of a scientist after all, but he’d still learned the basics of the scientific method in school. He wasn’t an expert but he had more than a few tools for the different professions and within minutes he had set up an impromptu lab. Measuring the density of the energy around the egg, along with its temperature, mass, volume, and a couple other specialist tools that he wasn’t sure what they measured. The tools certainly worked and were used by different professions but they weren’t professions he’d practiced so he wasn’t sure how they worked or what they measured.

After a quick check of all the readings, the final step was to focus his spiritual sense upon the egg and delve inside to watch the effect as he formed the seals with his hands and Qi again before sending the ‘Merge’ technique inside. As the technique passed into the egg, Sage watched as a ghostly soul snake suddenly extended from the tiny embryo and slapped away the Qi technique. Pushing back against it till the energy of the technique was exhausted and it once again faded away.

It was at this point that the Twin Soul finally gave up its attack on Sage’s soul and slipped out of his body, swimming rapidly into the egg and wrapping itself protectively around the embryo. Sage was surprised, and also intrigued. Does the Insect Immortal Index only work on small creatures because their larger and more powerful ones have stronger souls and consciousnesses that fight back? Was it possible for him to subdue the pair of souls and complete the link?