Molting the Mortal Coil

The arrays seemed to have died down, which meant they were probably triggered by something specific. Pushing his luck, Sage had the Serpent approach the Well, ready to escape at the first sign of danger. When nothing happened, he grew only more curious until finally the Twin Ringed Serpent poked its head under that small roof and turned its eyes downwards to peer towards the bottom of the well.

Zing!

Right when the Serpent’s eyes dropped to the bottom of the well, it felt like a vicious beam of energy had zipped through Sage’s head. It shot into his eyes, through his mind and directly into his soul, rattling his very being. His thoughts started to grow slower, his senses suddenly dull, it was like his mind was drowning. Terrified, he moved his spirit power to try and clear his mind. Inside his spiritual sea it was like a heavy fog had rolled in, covering everything in a layer of confusion. Through the link he felt that the same thing was happening to the Twin Ringed Serpent’s Soul and the Twin Soul as well, both of them shrouded in a mental fog. Having learned from his previous experience, Sage quickly maneuvered his soul into the light from the Seed of Life.

His soul was lost in the haze, but he still remembered the direction that the Seed was in and his soul moved on instinct before suddenly floating into that green light. The area that the Seed of Life’s light covered was only half the size as it used to be, but not a wisp of that fog could get inside it. Sage’s mind cleared almost instantly once his soul flew into that light. It seemed he should leave his soul within the effect of the Seed of Life to protect his mind in the future.

With his mind clear, Sage focused on the outside world and looked down into the Well. Since they were already under the water there was no surface layer to cause reflections and hide the bottom from him. What he saw was what looked to be an eye about twenty feet down. It was half closed and staring upwards like the Well was merely a tube a giant was looking down. Surprised, Sage felt his soul stir as he gazed at the eye. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it was definitely something unique in order to be surrounded by all this array and protected by the Lake of Souls.

Observing carefully, Sage split his attention and started searching his reference books and starting with those that listed the most rare, unique, and powerful objects that could be found in the world. None of the reference books that were in his Storage Ring seemed to detail anything like this, but then Sage remember that he’d had a couple dozen Memory Spheres piled up in a cabinet which he’d only glanced at. At the time he learned what they were from that appraisal house, Sage was barely able to even read their titles and the majority of them had requirements in order to open them. Nearly half of them had something about ‘Inheritance’ in their titles and quite blatantly said that only a destined successor would be able to access them. When he later learned more about Memory Spheres he realized they were quite fragile and anyone who tried to force open their locks would merely end up with a pile of dust. It was the reason that most secret and sensitive information was kept on Memory Spheres even though they were many times more costly than other storage methods.

He only just now remembered as one of those Memory Spheres had the title ‘Heavenly Treasures’ and at the time Sage couldn’t view it because it listed a requirement of being a rank 3 cultivator. As it had taken him more than ten years to reach rank 3, he had completely forgotten about the memory spheres but now that the treasure was in front of him and he was searching everywhere he stumbled upon the spheres. With his memory jogged, Sage picked out the sphere he was looking for and moved the others over to where he was storing all the spoils from the earlier rooms. He planned to give it all a thorough searching later.

Heavenly Treasures

When very special conditions are created and the energy of the heavens vastly overpowers that of the earth, it can give birth to supremely unique treasures. Similar to how Spirit Plants or Spirit Animals can become more powerful and eventually gain intelligence and transform into higher beings; the Heavenly Treasures are evolved forms of the special elements and energies of the world.

Reading this Memory Sphere was like being inside a vast sea of words, like a floating database which he could peruse. The introduction was somewhat vague and inconclusive so Sage randomly picked a place and started reading. Heavenly Flames. They were special fires that used special energies as fuel and their temperatures were terrifying. Magma was but a candle in comparison to them and each one had its own unique properties. Quite interestingly, the list actually included the ‘Holy Flame’ which he had heard mentioned in his Sect. It was listed in this information just as the rumors in the Sect said: it was excellent at cleansing and purifying. It was one of the strongest at removing evil influences and as the Holy Flame Sect Founder had used it: excellent at refining materials. Founder Suhou had been a renowned Alchemist and Blacksmith that used the Holy Flame to do things that nobody else could and used his fame to create the sect, a place where those who focused on their Professions wouldn’t be taken advantage of.

The Memory Sphere was filled with information, each Heavenly Flame listed not only its appearance and where it was usually found, but also some of the rumored special powers and also a few bits of information on those who had once possessed such flames in the past. These sections varied greatly, some had full biographies and detailed histories of well known figures while others merely listed a list of dates they were alive and a few of their major accomplishments. The other thing he noticed was that all the records of people seemed to be from quite a long time ago, the most recent he could see was nearly three hundred years ago. It seemed that this Memory Sphere had been in the tomb for a long time, or at the very least it was never updated with more recent news.

Since he was searching for something he stopped reading in detail and merely started flipping through the objects and reading just their descriptions before moving on to the next. After nearly a quarter hour of rapid searching, he finally noticed something that caught his attention.

The Eye of the World.