Molting the Mortal Coil

Sage returned to his human form. He also realized how silly it was for him to form a Body of Laws while still in human form. He’d made a huge mess out of his clothing for no reason. It didn’t actually have any effect on the Body of Laws. He still had a giant cobra body at all times. The Human Seal was like a filter, one that made him conform to the human shape and outward form. It didn’t matter what form he was in while his body transformed, it was his true body that was transforming, but the outward appearance of that body was filtered to appear human. He was actually just annoyed because he’d had to undress, since his clothing was soaked with gross filth. It would have been much simpler to just slither into a lake and then back out again.

With the Flares collected, Sage gave the area a quick once over, using his Spiritual Sense at full blast to pick up the last few stragglers and ensure the area was empty. Once he captured the last few of them, he wasn’t shy with the Flares’ base. They had spent a lot of time scavenging from the city and the surrounding areas. It may look like a junkyard, but Sage saw plenty of value in all the tools, parts, and even the metals and rubbers they were made of. While the cultivator world had all sorts of materials that could do astounding things, they were also lacking many things from the modern world. Sage wasn’t a material scientist or an electrical engineer, there was no way he’d know the exact processes involved in producing high quality steel or turning the sap of a certain tree into rubber. Just knowing the basics left him a far way from reproducing the steps himself with exacting detail.

He could of course use the scientific method to try and reinvent the wheel, so to say, but who knows how long that would take. He wiped the Flare base clean, sweeping up everything, not leaving anything behind. Even the buildings were torn apart and tossed into the Universe Ring to be sorted. It wasn’t like he was strapped for space and at the very least he could use them as research materials to help him reverse engineer their methods of creation.

At that moment, he realized he had settled all the pressing issues. He was now free to do whatever he liked once again. Of course, he was still stuck on this foreign planet and he still had two years left before he could get back. Oops, that is one matter that needs to be solved.

Thinking this far, he realized he needed to handle those two loose ends. Even if Guan Zhenyan had told him how he could accomplish the two goals, it didn’t mean they were solved. In fact, until the two years had passed and the Cloud Swallowing Thunder Eel was carrying him back, he would still have to worry about this matter.

Sage entered the Universe Ring and had the Chameleon Mantis carry it. He wasn’t sure where to go next, so he started to question the Flares. It turns out they were part of a larger organization, but only loosely. With the Hexacrats being so organized, all the random wasteland scavengers could only group up to protect themselves. Most of them didn’t believe in the ideals of their organization, they just didn’t want to be alone and be prey for others. The ideology was formed by a very powerful few individuals and other warlords adopted it to band them together for the sake of cooperation.

While this was all very interesting, Sage didn’t actually care about being involved. He was only here for benefits after all. He felt some sympathy for the people, since they were humans as well, but he was no saint. Nor was he a hero that could save the world all on his own. No, he was only here to collect the refuse that the Astral Plane dumped here. He was more like a dimensional trash collector. Trash that was very valuable, especially if you knew how to use it.

From questioning the Flares, Sage learned of the locations of two more Psionic Crystal mines, as well as the location of a Scyzur base. With a destination in mind, Sage set the mantis into motion. Both of the mines had already been harvested, but the Divine Egg and the darkest purple crystals remained. Even their boss wasn’t strong enough to harvest them and their presence slowly created more Divine Amethysts. At least that was in their own vernacular. Sage took the time to suck up to Tao Ba and gathered more information. The ‘Divine Egg’ was more commonly known as an ‘Astral Realm Fragment’, which would be quite obvious to those that know their source.

The other important item was the silvery metal that was used to create the Scyzur weapons and armor, which upon showing to Tao Ba he instantly recognized it as ‘Astral Silver’ and not ‘Silver-Lead’ as the locals called it. It had the strange ability of extreme resistance to Spirit Power. Against physical force or Qi it was only slightly tougher than lead, yet against the psychic attacks the locals used it was basically immune. Of course, that only referred to using their psychic attacks to directly damage it. It could still be moved with telekinesis or smashed apart by psychically empowered muscles and weapons.

Along with the Astral Silver, there was also Indigo Quartz and Lunarstone. Both products of the Astral Plane. Indigo Quartz is the purple shards used as projectiles, while Lunarstones are the dirty crystals used as power sources. Somehow these two materials interacted perfectly. Lunarstone crumbled into dust and empowered nearby Indigo Quartz, making it glow brighter and brighter till it violently released a burst of energy.

Sage couldn’t help but appreciate the parallel technology development of the Scyzur using these crystals and human firearms. Surprisingly, he learned from the Flares that they also had a form of projectile weapon, but they didn’t use gunpowder. They had no idea what he was talking about. They described something like a coilgun using electromagnets, but none of them knew how they worked. It was something from before the ‘The Great Flare’, and only the Hexacrats could still make them. He thought about trying to steal some, but he put that aside for later. Sage was still pretty sure that electricity didn’t function on the cultivator world as it did in other places, and even if he did take one, how would he charge it?

While the mantis was flying towards the mines, Sage brought out a pile of Psionic Crystals. He was sitting inside the manor in the Universe Ring and he pulled them over from the underground storage area. He immediately started absorbing them into the core of his mental fortress, focusing on a specific circle this time. After a bit of experimenting he even found that he could focus upon exactly which symbol he wanted to ‘light up’ and the absorbed Psionic Crystals would slowly awaken the larger symbols that led to his end result automatically. Remarkably, he found that the whole ‘Spirit Tree’ operated on powers of two. The first crystal created the symbols within his mind. Two more crystals had revealed the four overlapping circles. Four more could unlock one of those large circles that signified the Internal, External, Perception, and Manipulation.

Previously, Sage had absorbed sixteen Psionic Crystals. Since the crystals were evenly dividing their power, that put him just three short of unlocking the four main rings. Only one of the rings had been illuminated, but he quickly remedied that by unlocking the other three. This is so just wasteful in comparison to the natives that crudely absorb a crystal and just end up with a random power.

While he found it inefficient in comparison, he had full control in comparison to the natives getting random psychic powers. Also, he wasn’t facing a shortage of Psionic Crystals, so it really wasn’t an actual problem. Sage decided to focus upon the second problem he had, the one that Guan Zhenyan had given him only one solution for. He picked out the symbol that the man had told him about, “External and Manipulation path, the fifth major ring from the right.”

There were so many formation-like symbols and shapes on the ‘walls’ that it was daunting. Even with those directions, there were still a dozen symbols and arrangements of shapes inside the ring he was pointed to. Thankfully, he was told to find the symbol that looked similar to a Fire Controlling Array. Sage may not be a high star Blacksmith, but the Fire Controlling Array was one of the most basic things they had to know to forge magic tools. Since he found what he was looking for, he started absorbing more Psionic Crystals. He wasted a few experimenting, but before long the symbol in question was finally lit up. At that moment he suddenly knew the name of the technique: Ego Forge.