Molting the Mortal Coil

Sage smiled as he looked down at his Iron Mantis. He was quite sure those that were afraid of bugs would be downright terrified at the sight of it. It had a dark grey, nearly black, carapace the same shade as cast iron. It’s forelimbs were like serrated knives, flashing about in the air as he had the little guy perform some strikes to see how fast it moved. He’d already nurtured it with his meager qi to reach an adult state, the cat sized mantis struck like lightning and with its wings it was extremely mobile. Given his current level, Sage’s Mantis was probably already a match for many normal animals, but it’s merely a distraction against another cultivator.

Sage learned in his reading that the wilderness of this world was filled with spirit beasts. They were just as powerful as cultivators, with a matching system given to them. So, a Rank 1 Spirit Beast is as powerful as a ‘Ki Building’ cultivator. Spirit beasts grow as they consumed spiritual materials. The lower level beasts eat spirit plants and drink spiritual waters. Predatory spirit beasts eat other spirit beasts, the end result being the intake of qi. Beasts couldn’t really cultivate until their rank reached a high enough level for their intelligence to rise to a human-like level. Before that they simply consumed each other, gradually increasing in power. Cultivators even hunt them for the same reasons. The meat of the spirit beasts was very rich in qi, helping cultivators improve quickly, and their other body parts could be refined for many other uses.

Spirit Insects were similar but differed in a few ways. Firstly, spirit insects didn’t really have personalities. They were like robots in that they had intelligence but no emotions, desires, or wants. They were even more instinctual than animals, making them perfect puppets for the Chong Clan and its branch families to control. The other main difference had to do with the Insect Immortal Index. These techniques circumvented the normal rules of spirit beast growth and cultivation. Instead of slowly growing in size and power as they consumed other beasts, the spirit insects were fed directly with the cultivator’s qi. They went from an egg to full size in a matter of hours with enough energy. This also created a restriction, instead of simply requiring more energy to grow stronger, the spirit insects required energy of higher level. It was a matter of quality instead of quantity.

Many considered this a good thing as how efficient insects were when working in swarms or colonies they’d be fearful of the wilds being completely overrun by hordes of giant and powerful bugs. Instead, spirit insects were almost a boon. If someone ran into an exceptionally powerful bug, it usually was a good indicator that there was a higher qi concentration somewhere in the area. This usually led to great spots to cultivate or better yet, natural treasures! For Sage and the Chong Clan, it also meant that the spirit insects were rapidly grown, but they were only as strong as their owner.

The clans and sects that raised spirit beasts focused their efforts and theoretically raised spirit beasts to be far more powerful than the trainers linked to them, but spirit insects required regular feedings of energy. That meant raising a high level insect required access to either energy from higher level cultivators or rare and precious resources. With the additional factors of comparably short lifespans and constant feedings, the Chong Clan was nearly the only group that chose to use spirit insects as anything more than just materials. They lived more than ten times longer than regular insects, but when many species of normal insects lived merely a few seasons at best… most spirit insects only survived a few years. Without the Insect Immortal Index’s techniques others are merely throwing money away to have weapons that were impossible to train and lasted only a few years.

Uncle Zhang told him that the high ranking members of the clan even controlled their Mantes to activate their own martial arts. Each rank the cultivator advanced, the Colossal Iron Mantis tripled in size! At this point Sage did some quick calculations and realized they lived up to their name. At the peak of Ki Building, the Iron Mantis is about 2 feet long. So that meant the Rank 4 ‘Foundation Building’ elders of the clan had truly colossal 54 ft Mantes. They’d even be large enough to ride on when a clan member got near the peak of Rank 2 when they were around 6 feet long.

Sage continued with his review of his powers now, quickly slipping into a light meditative state to look inside his body. He’d been practicing meditation for six years now and he’d learned long ago how to instantly enter meditation and also recently how to only partially enter a trance. He still had full control over his body and sensed the state of his qi internally, though his other senses were dulled and his reactions sluggish. The only qi techniques he had were those from the Insect Immortal Index, but his Golden Mantis Body had been progressing quite steadily.

He moved his body through the forms, his Uncle Zhang was not home so he had the whole courtyard to himself. His body felt so strong and powerful. He’d never had this sort of feeling back on Earth. Since he’d determined this was a completely different world long ago, he imagined this was what a superhero felt like.

Super Hero might be pushing it a bit, more like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Thinking of this point he ran and kicked off from the ground, leaping up into the air and soaring up onto the roof of the house he shared with his Uncle. Laughing madly the whole way as he looked over the courtyard like a conquering emperor. Sage had recently reached the 5th stage of the 1st rank, ‘Ki Building’. His Mantis was already a foot long, half the full size for a peak Ki Building Cultivator.

These people here are so obsessed with all cultivator ranks, it’s always such a mouthful. I’m just going to treat it like a new numeral system.

They split each rank into 9 stages and also made the distinction for ‘peak’ cultivators who were at the maximum for stage 9 yet couldn’t break through into the next rank. Conveniently that was 10 stages per rank. Simple enough, each rank will be ten levels. Sage decided to just refer to people by level like it was a video game or tabletop role-playing game. As a 1st rank, 5th stage cultivator that made him a level 15.

Ahh, much easier. So much less of a hassle. Maybe I’ll get other people to start saying it too.

Hopping back down from the roof, he went back to practicing his Golden Mantis, going through each of the movements that he’d learned in the last few years. This new life wasn’t as exciting as he’d once hoped it could be. Once he’d gotten over the initial strangeness of being a child in a different world, it was a great opportunity. It was like he was the main character of a game. He could get special powers and become a hero. The reality of things was far less exciting. Every morning was hard exercise and physical training until lunch. Then he’d have to study from books until the mid-afternoon and then it was meditation till dinner and for a few hours after it as well.

Even with all this hard work, he was only barely passable. Keeping up with most of the regular clan members was the best he could do. The plan for extreme amounts of hard work was only enough to keep up with the pace of everyone else. Such a shame he wasn’t a cultivation genius.

Seems being a computer programmer is pretty useless in a world without computers. My anime and video game hobbies only helped a little culturally. Why didn’t I pay more attention in chemistry class?

With such a filled schedule, the last six years had passed in a blur. His body sore from exercising, mind numbed from studying, and then he’d finish off everyday in meditation. By the time he got into bed he passed out immediately. There had been dreams of his old life, but he had done his best not to dwell on the changes.

He was actually supposed to be meditating right now, having just had dinner earlier. Uncle Zhang had gone out to drink with some of his old buddies from the army that were in town. Thinking of his Uncle reminiscing with old friends had reminded Sage of his old life and that was why he was being so introspective at the moment. Now that he’d grown accustomed to this world perhaps he had some knowledge from his old world that they didn’t have here. Many of the things he thought of that were helpful used materials that he had no idea how to make. Plastic? Gasoline? Dynamite? He knew only little snippets about them. Gasoline was refined from crude oil, and dynamite was stabilized nitroglycerin. Easy enough to say, but how can you actually create them?

I must be going about this wrong. I should focus on what I do know and not what might be useful.

So, what did he know? Thinking it over, he could answer a lot of basically useless trivia questions about his hobbies: anime, video games, and movies. That was all nonsense, so best move on. He was a programmer and though he didn’t use it much he’d once learned quite a bit of math and physics. So that was something. From what he’d read so far, most people didn’t know much math, only enough to handle business transactions. Only Merchants had to learn much about fractions and percentages. He also wasn’t bad mechanically, perhaps he could look through some of the mundane tools and equipment people used. Maybe he will ‘invent’ some upgrades.

Alas, he was still just a fourteen year old trainee. He’d probably just have to keep on training like he had been for the last few years. A thought suddenly struck him. He’d read in the library a book that detailed the dangerous regions in their county. He lived in the Lionheart town of the Jade Spirit County, and in the book it went over the 8 most dangerous places. Sage wasn’t planning on going to any of them, but he was reminded how each of those locations held special resources and opportunities. People put themselves into harm’s way in the pursuit of treasures and the hope of faster advancement.

He certainly didn’t want to head to one of those locations, but Sage actually knew of a similar place nearby. Somewhere dangerous, but also a source of possible treasures!