Molting the Mortal Coil

Many of the Inner Court Disciples were set ablaze by the idea of finding another huge treasure trove. There was more than a few who imagined having unfettered access to that Treasury they had saw earlier. No one had been allowed upstairs to view the Technique Library so the temptation was not nearly as great as the hundreds of treasures they all personally watched the Peak Master take for herself. Truly, the treasures were claimed for the use of the whole Sect, but in their eyes she was the one collecting them all and laughing haughtily down at them. Many dreamed of the day they could be the one looking down from on high and taking all the spoils for themselves.

With these thoughts in mind they rapidly dispersed into the Soul Taming Abode and started collecting objects that Sage, Ding Zhen and the others had missed. With their limited space those five had only been able to collect the most valuable things but given the scope of this place there was still many things that were quite valuable. Sheets off of beds made of rare and ancient silks. Intricately embroidered clothing with historical styles made of rare materials. Dishes and silverware made of unique metals and high quality jade. Small knick knacks, memorabilia, tokens, toys, and other small objects that were common long ago and had become rarities in the current times. So many common everyday items from hundreds or thousands of years ago would be worth quite a lot to collectors of ancient objects. They weren’t worth as much as weapons, armor or other objects that could assist a Cultivator, but even a single ancient music box could easily be worth enough for a mortal to live their whole life as a member of the nobility.

Soon, the majority of the fifty Inner Court Disciples had left the Library leaving behind only Sage, Ding Zhen and the other four, two unlucky Elders, and four Inner Court Disciples that were already eagerly pulling books off shelves. These four seemed to be entranced by the knowledge before them even if they weren’t allowed to peruse the History books or the Techniques on the second and third floors. Ding Zhen, Chang Xia, Lai Rong and the other two had already completely stuffed their storage bags with loot. They had already picked out all the best stuff from the Soul Taming Abode so they were just waiting around in the library. The two girls, Chang Xia and Lai Rong, actually took over a table and started comparing the jewelry and cosmetics that they had found and started trading back and forth. Sage chuckled and moved over towards the desk in front of the filing cabinets. Slithering over it and moving around behind to start searching through the filing system. Finding what he was looking for, he heads off down the aisles between the bookshelves and made his way over to a specific section.

The bookshelves didn’t just contain books, this was a library for Cultivators and in this sense all the many types of storage devices Cultivators commonly used were here. Some shelves had stacks of jade slips, others even had memory spheres. The shelf that Sage was looking for was covered in large scrolls stored on horizontal racks. Whistling softly, he made a rough count of the hundreds of scrolls and realized he had quite the work ahead of him! Picking out a scroll he lifted it out and set it across a pair of hooks on a shelf above his head, slowly unrolling the scroll as it unfurled into a large map that was easily four feet across. Perfect, I recognize a bit of this map. I can record these down and figure out all the missing features on the newer maps to figure out possible treasure grounds. Changed features might also lead to mysteries.

With this new plan in mind, Sage reached into his Storage Ring and picked out one of the Memory Spheres along with an anvil sized altar. The altar was a couple feet tall with a spherical depression on top that was surrounded by an intricate array of crystals. The Memory Altar was used to record things into Memory Spheres and had cost him a thousand Spirit Stones. The Memory Sphere he had purchased a decade or so ago and it was a massive repository of maps that encompassed all of the Shihu Kingdom. The Holy Flame Sect was essentially a County all to itself and it essentially held dominion over a whole Province, the Holy Flame Province. It was one of nine Provinces in the Shihu Kingdom, each of which was thousands of miles wide. The Shihu Kingdom itself spanned nearly a hundred thousand miles. Travel between these vast kingdoms was usually through the use of transportation formations, extremely fast Spirit Animals or massively expensive magical vehicles. Even mid-ranking Cultivators could spend decade traveling across these vast expanses and there was no telling what sorts of things were out in this unexplored areas.

Sage’s Memory Sphere had the most detailed modern maps of the Shihu Kingdom and its surrounding areas leading to the neighboring Kingdoms. It had a few large general maps along with hundreds of maps covering smaller areas at a larger scale to show more detail. The reason the maps were stored in the Memory Sphere was twofold. First, it allowed one to view the large area map and pick an area to focus on, zooming in by seeking out and bringing forward the corresponding smaller map. It had reminded Sage of the many mapping programs back on Earth. The second and main reason was that he could also add other maps into the Memory Sphere and continually build a better atlas for himself. He had already added the many maps he’d collected during his travels of the Dou Kingdom where he came from. Quite happy he had this Memory Sphere now, he held it in hand as he studied the map in front of him and recreated it within the Sphere. It took about half an hour before he finally copied the whole map down. Next he rolled the map scroll up, setting it upon the shelf, and hanging up a new map. This is going to take a long time.

The next day, Sage was interrupted from his study as Peak Master Zhen called everyone back to the Library and tasked them to continue with their exploration of the Saffron Swamp. The Peak Master and three Elders that were previously in reserve would be continuing the cataloguing of the Technique Library before moving down to the second floor history books. At this time, forty five of the Disciples took off to continue the exploration. Five of them had stayed behind to continue reading the books on the first floor. This of course included those four excited fellows from the day before who had got permission to reorganize the search parties and have the four of them placed on a single team. Additionally, there was one other Inner Court Disciple that had been injured while battling with a Demonic Beast a few days ago and he was added to the team to get more resting time.

Sage on the other hand spent the whole day outside of the Soul Taming Abode setting up a plethora of arrays. The other Formation Master Elder was busy with the Technique Library, which Sage assumed had an array section, and so Sage was in charge of rebuilding the defenses. The Soul Taming Abode had its own defenses, but the Peak Master was not satisfied using someone else’s arrays as there was no telling who else could decipher them. Additionally, Sage had to make the defenses large enough to accomodate the Flying Ship they journeyed to the Saffron Swamp on as well as a secondary campsite in case anything untoward happened and they had to abandon the Soul Taming Abode. Sage was annoyed at the amount of work, but at the same time his new nature approved of the Elder’s cautious nature. Most of the Elders in the Holy Flame Sect seemed to be very careful in their dealings. It makes sense… the Holy Flame Sect relies on their skilled Professionals and not on powerful Cultivators. They have to all be very good at getting the upper hand in business deals and not being tricked.

Sage spent the next day after that building up the food supplies again. He’d not prepared any meals for a few days so the stored food level had dropped. The Disciples didn’t forget to bring back more food, so it was only a matter of spending a day butchering the animals and prepping more meals. There was a special type of Storage Chest that had an array formation which kept the contents at a low temperature. Sage immediately started calling them ‘Ice Chests’ and even flipped it onto the side so it opened like a refrigerator. The others found it strange but didn’t stop him, even in this world it was best not to antagonize the one cooking your food.