Molting the Mortal Coil

The hundreds of plate sized array symbols filled with Sage’s Qi and began to show their effects. It took only a few moments for the light in the area to once again dim, the startling brilliance of the Dawn Pillar began to recede. At the same time, Sage pulled out some Spirit Jade from his Storage Ring and placed them at specific points among the formation symbols. He didn’t need any spirit stones as this array was mostly being powered by his own Qi, but the Spirit Jade would help boost the energy flowing around in the arrays to reduce some of the strain on his own Qi. As the energy started to build, the Magnifying Wheel began to show how it got its name. The dozen concentric circles of symbols that formed the large ring began to slowly move.

Even though the symbols were carved into the ground, they still began to move. The stone that they were carved into seemed to split into strips about a foot wide, each strip in the shape of a large disc a few inches thick. Rotating slowly and even starting to rise into the air, each ring lifting a little higher than the one inside it. It started to look like a funnel as the larger rings lifted higher than the smaller ones below. An inverted cone of stone rings were spinning in mid-air. At the same time the energy within the ring began to grow. The effect of the formation would even become obvious to even the most common person as the light from the Dawn Pillar was drawn in and completely sealed. The bright light that had been flooding the area abruptly disappeared and the area in the center of the large ring turned completely white.

At this time, the smaller ring started to awaken. The ground suddenly seeming to be sliced up just like the larger ring, with stone discs covered in symbols rising into the air. The smaller ring had a smaller number of circles around it, but the main difference was that the inner circles lifted higher than the outer ones. The large ring had a funnel formed over it while the smaller ring had a cone around it. At this point, Sage focused his full attention on the Egg inside the small ring and was ready to stop the formation at any point as it began to activate its full purpose. Here we go… time to roll the dice!

The dense energy around the Dawn Pillar seemed to form into a swirling pillar and blasted straight upwards only to smash against an invisible dome and splash downwards. The outer circle of the array created a dome shield that completely contained all the energy within. The large ring continued to spew out energy en masse only to have it splash against the dome and spray about like golden fireworks trapped in a fishbowl. A moment later the cone around the small ring seemed to create a suction for all that energy bouncing around inside the dome. Drawing it in to bombard the egg concealed within.

Sage carefully examined the Embryo to make sure it was unaffected and watched carefully as the Twin Soul that was hiding just under the surface of the egg was suddenly bombarded by the light from the Dawn Pillar. It was a success! The array was performing as he hoped, taking in energy and transforming it to the same realm as a soul. The light poured in and quickly started to melt the Twin Soul away. A miserable sound rang out, the pained hissing of the Twin Soul as it was cooked slowly under the light of dawn. Sage was pretty sure the Twin Ringed Serpent couldn’t understand or hear him but he couldn’t help but call out to it, “Time to yield, Little Snake!”

Within a few minutes the Twin Soul was suffering too much of a beating, shrinking smaller and smaller. At this point it was the same size as the Twin Ringed Serpent’s true soul and swam over to it within the center of the Snake Embryo. The two of them twining together and coiling up to try and resist the light bathing them. Sage kept up the pressure for a bit longer as the pair of snake souls shrunk to only the size of a thread before he finally stopped the array and put away the Dawn Pillar. The stone discs that were floating in the air slowly settled down to the ground, fitting back together with only a hair thin gap between them.

Sage started to perform the ‘Merge’ technique again, hoping that he’d now be able to succeed. He knew it worked upon normal snakes and their souls were usually slightly larger than the one he’d left the Twin Ringed Soul Serpent with. This time, when his Qi sunk into the Egg he still felt resistance but it was within the tolerance of the ‘Merge’ technique and soon he felt the link start to form. Smiling, Sage didn’t stop and kept pouring energy into the ability. A link that was formed through Qi Feeding took a variable amount of time as it required a saturation of energy before enough would enter to take over the creature. On the other hand, using ‘Merge’ to link a creature in an egg was much quicker, requiring only about a minute to form the complicated energy structure to link the creature’s mind to his own.

As he studied the technique falling upon the Twin Ringed Serpent, Sage had an idea why it was ineffective against more powerful creatures. The consciousness was part of the soul and linked to the creature’s physical mind. The ‘Merge’ technique seemed to lay a seal directly against the link between soul and mind, creating a way to control the creature through this path. In this way it was easy to see how weaker creatures could be linked but stronger ones would probably be able to smash through this seal and free themselves. Thinking over this point, Sage realized he’d might only be linked with this Serpent for a short while before its soul recovered. At the same time, he only needed it for a short while and with the success of his link, he moved to using the ‘Mature’ technique.

He popped another Green Revitalizing Pill into his mouth and used all his remaining Qi to accelerate the Twin Ringed Serpent’s incubation and growth. The egg hatched and the Twin Ringed Serpent began to grow, slowly slithering in circles as it rapidly molted. Shedding its skin nearly a dozen times before it had reached the same size as the corpse inside Sage’s ring. At this point in time he had to stop and with the help of the pill: recover his Qi. Another few minutes were spent building the inner space inside the serpent and maturing its physical body to a higher level. The serpent molted one last time, showing off thick sharp scales and a pair of horns angling forward over its eyes, the shape of its face looking more like a lizard than a snake now. Far more ferocious looking now, its pair of fangs had grown much larger and sharper, nearly double the size from before.

Pleased, Sage cleaned up the rest of the area making sure to leave nothing behind except of course the array he’d carved on the ground. Not wanting to spend the effort of erasing it he simply used the spade to throw some dirt over it quickly before sending his body into the Twin Ringed Serpent. He guided the serpent over to the dark water of the Lake of Souls and held his breath as it slipped into the black depths. A smile crawled onto his lips as he felt nothing and didn’t lose his life. He’d found a way to enter the Lake of Souls without being instantly killed. The plan was a success!

As soon as he read those rules about the Lake of Souls he was sure that it probably hid something spectacular and he had been looking for a way to search it. The crazy plan of trying to link with a demonic beast had sprouted in his mind as soon as he saw it enter the dark water and come back out again without harm. It was the only living thing he’d seen so far that could enter the water, everything else never came back out. Only those ghostly spirits and the Twin Ringed Serpent seemed unharmed. Even if his time linked to the Twin Ringed Serpent was limited, Sage didn’t mind. He just hoped to use it to search this Lake! Swimming around, Sage used the link with the Serpent’s mind to search its memories which were much more comprehensive than those of a Spirit Insect. At the same time, the Serpent seemed to be holding some stuff back even in its weakened state. Sage was curious about the memories, but didn’t worry about it for now as he found what he needed. The memories of the Serpent about the Lake and its dangers.

The Lake was about thirty feet deep and was uniform in depth the whole way throughout, save for the spots where dirt and rocks had fallen in from outside and formed mounds or small islands. With the rectangular shape on the outside and uniform depth within, Sage was even more sure that this ‘Lake’ was really more of a massive man made pool. At nine hundred feet wide and near a mile long, what sort of organization could build such a place and for what reason exactly? It was definitely not for bathing or recreation. Sage wasn’t sure, but he knew from the Serpent’s memories that there was something in the center of this Lake of Souls.