Molting the Mortal Coil

After the painstaking job of altering the Memory Seed, Sage stopped messing with the Scyzur. He’d already collected a huge amount of Indigo Quartz, and Lunarstone, as well as a huge number of Shard Rifles from their treasuries. He didn’t plan on selling such weapons to anyone else, so the stockpile he built up was purely for his personal use. All he had to do was alter the Memory Seed so it looked like he only robbed four tribes instead of two dozen. He would hand over Indigo Quartz and Lunarstone to the Thundercloud Sect, but without any actual Shard Rifles to examine, their chances of making their own weren’t as high. He didn’t mind if they had the materials at hand, he just didn’t want to start circulating such deadly weapons into the Cultivator world himself. Even if they figured out how to reproduce them, their supply was far from endless. The resources weren’t unique, but their supply was likely limited. The chances of them becoming produced in large numbers and spread across the world were limited.

There was a high chance it could become an expensive speciality weapon for assassins, but there were already expensive magical tools that filled that role already, it would only be one more added to the list. In fact, Sage felt it far more likely that the Indigo Quartz and Lunarstone were used by Alchemists or Blacksmiths for specific recipes or devices already. Sage painstakingly removed the memories of him experimenting with a Shard Rifle so they wouldn’t easily make the connection.

With the intelligence from the Scyzur Tribes, Sage collected a dozen different Astral Realm Fragments within that half year. Since he didn’t actually have a use for them at the moment, he stopped chasing after them and focused his efforts on the resource that he didn’t fear giving to the Thundercloud Sect: Astral Silver. It was quite an interesting metal, and Sage didn’t have a problem sharing or selling it. Most Cultivators used Qi as their main route to strength. Spirit Power was only a support. Those who followed Spirit, Soul, or Body were quite rare and secretive. A metal that was highly effective against the Spirit Power route wouldn’t throw the world into turmoil. At the worst, it might lead to some of those rare groups getting bullied.

Sage went to the largest Astral Silver mine and set up shop. He used the Blacksilver Pawns to block up the entrance with large stones and set up a Formation Plate at the start of the mine. It was an illusion array meant to make the ‘cave-in’ look many times worse than it was to deter the mine being dug out. Once that was finished, he focused on a full-on mining operation. He bred a new Steel Silk Centipede and used its acid and vicious blade arms to start digging. The Blacksilver Pawns were used as a work crew, smashing the stones into smaller pieces and carrying them back to the Universe Ring.

Without any pressing tasks, Sage created a new Twin Soul. He had held back from doing so for months because he was worried about how it would work now that he was a Nascent Soul. As he expected, it was different.

Just as before he had to achieve an unusual vibration within his soul until it slowly looked like it was in two places at once. His first attempt was a failure. The second and third were as well. It was only after his Nascent Soul left his body that he was finally able to succeed. He had felt like there just wasn’t enough room, like he was trying to do laps inside a small room. On a whim he detached his Nascent Soul from his body and the glowing tree shape flew out into the open air. His next attempt was far easier and the Nascent Soul copied itself. In the past, the Twin Soul was nearly transparent and barely visible, a mere wisp of a spirit that could only serve as a scout and to directly attack the soul.

No longer. With his evolution into a Nascent Soul rank cultivator, the Twin Soul underwent an evolution of its own. His soul, mind, and core had been combined together. Just as before his soul split equally in half to create the Twin Soul. Only, this time the Twin Soul was split off from his Nascent Soul. That meant it also had a copy of his core and Spiritual Sea! Sage instantly felt weakened and he realized the drain, not only was his soul split in two, so was his mind and inner core. Normally, with the ability to prey upon other spirits and souls, the Twin Soul could increase its size and by fusing back with his own soul it could make up for the loss he suffered. Having the Eye of the World mitigated that weakness even more as he was constantly able to increase the strength of his soul without any risk at all.

Yet now, he was taken by surprise. The strength of his mind and Qi had also been cut in half and he had no easy way to replenish those resources. Wait a second, what about the Psionic Crystals?

He suddenly burst into laughter. The Psionic Crystals could make up for his losses in the Spiritual Sea! Even without a close inspection, he knew that the Twin Soul was far different from the past. With just a flicker of his will, he felt Spirit Power roar to life and it didn’t come from his main body! Then, a little green mote fell to the ground and a few vines sprouted up the wall. The vines wrapped together and soon there was a small tree sprouting out from the side of the rock wall.

Haha, it worked!

Despite the loss, the Twin Soul was far more than in the past. It was now more like a clone! It could use Spirit Power and Qi! Sage did a closer examination and he found that the nebula inside the Twin Soul was empty. It had no stars or planets, only the small motes of power in the periphery like a field of stars. In comparison to his main body, the Twin Soul’s Qi was quite weak, but its Spirit Power was equal! Even more surprisingly, with the duplication of his Spiritual Sea, it also split his mind. Now, the Twin Soul could be truly independent. He could link with it and share thoughts, or let it go on its own. It had its own mind and didn’t require him to multi-task to control it any longer.

Sage then used the Anima Cannibal technique to reabsorb the Twin Soul. He was happy to find that all of the mental energy and Qi power returned to him. Inside his core, many more motes of light flickered to life in that starfield, and the Spiritual Sea in the head of the Nascent Soul expanded in size. He was experimenting to make sure he recovered everything from the Twin Soul and not just soul power. Now that he had confirmation, he started rapidly absorbing more Psionic Crystals. He’d already decided that the Twin Soul would mainly follow the path of Spirit Power, so he worked to increase it before he split the Twin Soul off again.

Ten thousand Psionic Crystals later, the new Twin Soul flew over to the entrance of the mine. Sage left it on guard duty, the Twin Soul started studying Spirit Power techniques while Sage focused on mining Astral Silver for most of each day.

The linked centipede could work on its own, but he had to direct the Blacksilver Pawns. Even if they were as easy to move as his own limbs, he still had to devote attention away from his training. It was sort of like trying to juggle while doing math homework. It wasn’t impossible, but it certainly impeded his ability at both tasks. Thankfully, the new capability of the Twin Soul meant he could mine at a high pace while also studying psionic abilities.