Molting the Mortal Coil

Sage had just fought that Twin Soul and before the help of the Seed of Life he had been on the losing side. The Twin Soul was no doubt much weaker now than before, but he was previously fighting it inside his own Spiritual Sea. Now that the Twin Soul was encircling the egg he wasn’t sure how he was even going to be able to attack it. Before the internal battle, he had been able to damage it with a bit of flame, but how would he push the flame into the egg without destroying the Twin Ringed Serpent’s embryo.

After pondering for a moment, Sage realized how important soul attack and defense techniques were going to become to him in the future. If he didn’t try something now he was sure the two souls would recover and make it even more difficult to complete the merge. Sage quickly thought about every technique he knew before checking within his Storage Ring for options. Noticing something he immediately brought it out and set it onto the table he’d set up to hold all the measuring devices. Putting away some of the larger and obtrusive devices, most of which he didn’t even know what they measured, Sage set down a large round metal cauldron.

The eastern style of cauldron was far different than the western kind. It wasn’t just a large pot, but more like an old wood stove. It had a spherical body and clawed feet, as well as a few large spouts that didn’t extend outwards but instead curled over the top of its body near the lid. These spout like protrusions were actually vents. Their purpose was to allow an Alchemist to inject fire directly into the main area of the cauldron without removing the lid. Instead of putting the cauldron on top of a fire to heat it from below, an Alchemist used spirit power to control the temperature of the flames and the cauldron actually acted as a container to seal all the flames inside, with the vents to help control how much flame was introduced.

Knowing that fire could subdue spirits and souls, Sage placed the egg into the cauldron and sealed down the lid. Putting his hand onto one of the vents and sending in a tiny bit of flame he surrounded the egg with fire but kept the heat barely more than room temperature. He didn’t want to kill the embryo but the idea for now was to contain and possibly intimidate the Twin Ringed Serpent. With the egg surrounded by fire, Sage used the spade to make sure there wasn’t anything else useful where the egg had been buried. What!

He’d only been checking out of thoroughness but as he dug he noticed that the tunnel leveled out and looking into the hole he saw a small chamber lined with mushrooms. They were small and purple, tiny little caps that had just extended into disks and more than a few had been bitten off. Double checking with his material books, Sage smiled as he now understood why the egg was hidden here and what the Twin Soul had been doing darting into this hole. He had been wondering why it was so stupid to run away to such an important place but now he knew. They were known as ‘Invigorating Violet Caps’, a mushroom that was renowned for its ability to strengthen the soul when consumed.

Sage immediately collected all of the intact Violet Caps and left the half-eaten ones behind. One of the first rules of an Alchemist was to always leave a little behind. Some of the natural treasures of the world took decades or centuries to form, as well as very specific conditions or locations to be nurtured. By leaving the roots, it was leaving some for the future generations. If everyone stripped every resource bare then eventually these rare treasures might just die out altogether. Storing the Violet Caps into a jade box he took a moment to eat a few of them himself and felt his soul become more vibrant. The glowing shape in his spiritual sea becoming larger and denser, the fuzzy details turning sharper. That Twin Ringed Serpent’s soul seemed to weaken when it reincarnated itself so it would be planning on using these mushrooms to quickly restore its strength. Not bad, snake. Too bad you got too cocky and led me to your den.

Not wanting to disturb the rest of the violet caps, Sage checked to make sure there wasn’t anything else valuable inside before putting the dirt and mud back into place to keep the remaining violet caps from being disturbed. With that finished he decided to do a quick check of the things he’d taken from the rooms earlier to see if there was anything that could help him out here. There was a whole pile of materials and alchemical apparatus, along with finished potions, salves, oils, extracts and quite a number of pills. He wasn’t sure what they all did but he read the labels to make sure nothing seemed related to the soul. Many of the names seemed overbearing but nothing sounded like what he needed. Moving on he opened the three wardrobes and was surprised to see the level of the garments inside. They were all crafted from rare and high level materials, a few of them even were even at the level of magical clothing as he noticed array patterns embroidered at different places. One of the three wardrobes was filled with ladies garments so he focused on the other two.

He wasn’t sure what the level or effects of most of the garments were, but he did recognize a few array symbols and pulled them out, lining them up and picking out a dark blue robe with purple embroidery. Of the symbols he’d seen on the robe he recognized one of the formations as one that was a defense against soul attacks. He wasn’t sure if it was the best choice, but he was in a hurry so he quickly removed the cloud grey outer robes of the Holy Flame Sect and swapped his inner robes with the dark blue magic robe. Putting back on his Disciple robe over the top, Sage was surprised to feel his spirit power bolstered. Peeking into his spiritual sea he noticed that there was a shimmering violet mist floating around his soul that made it feel stronger.

Nodding his head at the gain, Sage picked out a random set of boots and slipped them on before checking the three desks. Pulling open drawers and finding dozens of little knick knacks and hundreds of different scrolls and papers. Rifling through the papers for a while, Sage gave up quickly and moved on to checking other things. He was sure there would be valuables among the papers but he was at a rush for time. Moving along to the gains from the throne room, he checked over the top grade magic weapons and none of the inscribed arrays on their outer surface caught his eye. Just as he was about to send his spiritual sense into them to check their inner structure of arrays, he noticed that pillar he’d thrown a blanket over and stuffed into a corner of the storage ring.

Moving closer he started a detailed examination of the pillar, still having to shield his light from the bright glow that bled out even while covered with thick layers of cloth. The pillar was covered in array formations, and he tried not to get too distracted trying to understand them. They were exquisite and beyond anything he’d ever seen before, but he was short for time and examining them would probably take days. Sage let out a gasp, finally finding what he was looking for. Upon the lowest part of the pillar, just where it touched the ground, there was actually words inscribed into the stone.

‘First ray of the dawning light.’

At first, he was confused. Was it like the naming of a piece of art? Had the craftsman who created this magical tool given it a very artistic name like a show piece? It was only after a bit more thought that he was able to discern that perhaps the name was not merely poetic. He couldn’t actually decipher or understand the array formations that were on the pillar, but he did get a general idea of the pattern of their positions. It was like being able to recognize an object as being a car without knowing exactly how the car’s engine worked or even knowing how to drive it. The arrays on the pillar were tuned towards containment, sealing in energy of some sort. When he touched the orb on top, eyes closed, he also felt it was a sort of crystal that was suited for containment.

Hmm, this might be useful. The sun is one of the most ‘Yang’ attuned things there is and if this is a ray of dawn, that’s certainly related to the sun.

With a possible plan in mind, Sage put aside searching through the spoils and called out the stone pillar with that obscenely bright light orb. His spiritual sense was inside the egg, watching its reaction as that light was brought back out into the world and bathed the surrounding area with its illumination.