Molting the Mortal Coil

The Emerald Dragonfly was not exquisite because of its origins. Sage had mostly taken one of the Dragonflies he’d found at the Saffron Swamp and combined it with one of the Green Spiders he’d found in the Emerald Holly bushes. After finding the Seed of Life at that time, he’d completely forgotten about the Green Spiders and only years later did he appreciate their abilities. They weren’t actually that exceptional in any specific way, but Sage found them to be of quite high quality. They were the size of a tarantula from Earth and a brilliant dazzling emerald green color. Their bite also carried a paralyzing poison and overall they were a pretty decently powerful species of Spirit Insect. He’d even used them when he was first creating the Steel Silk Webspinners to introduce a higher quality of silk. The Emerald Spiders were the highest quality of spider he’d ran into so far and he quite enjoyed their coloring.

The Emerald Dragonfly kept the glorious gemstone carapace of the Emerald Spider as well as incorporating an elongated spinneret into the end of its abdomen. Its legs were also longer and more spiderlike than the Dragonfly used to have but they were able to fold up quite well and keep from altering the aerodynamics too much. A dragonfly could normally bend its tail forward quite far which it normally used to control its flight and for mating. The Emerald Dragonfly on the other hand used it far more as the forward bending tail let its legs reach its spinnerets so it could weave webs in all the many varied ways that a spider could. Without bending forward it could only perform very basic webbing functions like draglines, streamers and safety lines.

While it didn’t seem like much, the Dragonfly was already the air superiority fighter of the insect world. It has four wings with independent control of the pairs, a streamline body, and the ability to accelerate and turn better than other insects. A dragonfly can flaps its pairs of wings in alternating pattern to hover with perfect control, it can flap them in unison for maximum thrust and gliding for high speed maneuvers, or even use a staggered pattern to reach the highest straight line speed. Normally a dragonfly uses its excellent eyesight and superb aerial maneuverability to capture other insects right out of the skies. The Emerald Dragonfly on the other hand could use hundreds of others methods involving webs and capture lines. Flying nets, aerial construction like a helicopters, or Sage’s personal favorite the ‘speeder tripline’.

I can’t wait to find a huge quadruped and hog-tie them while they’re still standing up!

Charming Lance Beetle. Of the five new creations, it had taken the most time and effort. He had combined the traits of three different species instead of just two like others. Combining two Spirit Insects in the way he wished took many trials and errors with some intermediate steps in between. Finding descendants that partially had the traits he wanted so the next generation could end up with a greater degree of change than the last. Combining in a third insect basically doubled the number of generations. That said, with the ‘Mutate’ and ‘Mature’ techniques it still wasn’t much of a task. The real difficulty for the Charming Lance Beetle was actually the traits he was trying to pass on. Just like how he’d been unsuccessful in modifying the Silverbees, it was very difficult to get specific behaviors to transfer and some of the traits of the Spirit Insects were highly delicate and finely tuned. When he tried to change the Silverbees their Moonhoney lost most of its effect, there was something about them that it was very hard for him to identify. If he didn’t know how their abilities worked it was far too easy to change them and make them lose their special quality.

The Succubus Beetle was something Sage stumbled onto. A wandering merchant inadvertently caught a few of them and thought they were remarkable. He caught them and wanted to sell them, but realized that Insect Tamers were a pretty rare Profession. Eventually they found their way to the Holy Flame Sect and sat in their collection for years. When Sage advanced to the rank of a 3 star Insect Tamer he got access to the Sect’s Bug Collection and he immediately realized how useful the Succubus Beetle could be to him.

The Succubus Beetle got its name for its mastery of seduction. Or at least that’s what it seemed like. It used sounds, pheromones, and touch to confuse other Spirit Insects and walk untouched among them. Other Spirit Insects were not only unthreatened by it, they actively came to its defense. Even worse, they didn’t even fight back when the Succubus Beetle started to bite into them and eat them for lunch. Such delicate abilities and behaviors were very difficult for Sage to transfer, so he had been trying to combine it with anything and everything hoping it would stick.

He got lucky. One of the bugs he’d been raising as a combat beast finally gained the Succubus Beetle’s unique appeasement powers and the Charming Lance Beetle was born. The Combat Bug was a combination of a fierce Rhino Beetle that Sage got from another Insect Tamer. Pan Ping was his name, and he was a fierce warrior that collected huge battling insects. Along with Elder Zeng Shui, who focused on poisonous insects, they were they only three Insect Tamer’s in the Sect.

Sage had combined the Crimson Rhino Beetle with that huge Mosquito he’d captured in the Saffron Swamp. He wasn’t sure what sort of mosquito they were, but they were the size of a fist. The Crimson Rhino Beetle was a brilliant red color and big as an oxen. Eventually he was successful and had a Blood Red Rhino Beetle the size of a cabin. He wanted it to be even bigger, but he stopped when it was the maximum size that his Hive Body could contain. A normal Lang Clan Hive Body maxed out at about a ten foot radius sphere internally at the peak of Rank 3. Sage had the full true version of the Insect Immortal Index so he had reached the same size at only stage 4 of rank 3. I gained two stages in a year… those guys with all the natural talent have it so easy.

He also had a space inside his meridians that had an equal internal volume as the main space inside his Dantian and while the two were connected the Meridian space was a network of narrow tunnels. It was suitable for many small insects but anything larger than his palm was impossible.

The beetle was a weapon of war, heavily armored, huge and with an intimidating appearance. The huge rhino horn also held a secret, a retracting mosquito proboscis. After goring a target with its horn, it could then extend the proboscis like a syringe, injecting an anticoagulant and then draining its blood. Better yet, the underside of it was concave, which created a tent sized open area. This place served two purposes, first it was the location of the blood sac which inflated as it drew blood. Secondly, not only did this area protect the blood sac, Sage could stand underneath the Beetle and be protected by its massive bulk like an armored igloo.

When Sage got lucky and added the appeasement abilities of the Succubus Beetle flawlessly to the ‘Mosquito Shield Beetle’ he was ecstatic and the Mosquito Shield Beetle was completely superseded. It was now a perfect multi-purpose creature. Armor and horn for battle, wings for movement, pheromone appeasement for stealth, and a secret weapon. The best part was that Blood Essence from Demonic Beasts could be used in many ways and with the Charming Lance Beetle, Sage could collect it without having to kill or capture the Demonic Beast.

The final of his three greatest creations was barely a creation of his own. Barely even a Spirit Insect, it was a pitch black earthworm a foot long. At least that’s what it was when he found it. Sage was surprised as he was told about the traits of the ‘Refinery Worm’. Many worms could consume soil and then leave castings in its wake after processing the organic matter in the soil. The Refinery Worm was famous for being able to eat and tunnel through all sorts of matter and not just soil. As long as something was ground to a small consistency it could eat it and then pass it back out again. As the matter passed through its stomach, the Refinery Worm would consume some of the matter’s energy. The reason it got its name was that Cultivator’s realized that they could grind up violent and overbearing energy sources and put in some Refinery Worms. Afterwards, the remaining energy would become gentle and perfect for training. For example the Horn of a Devil Unicorn was a fearsome energy source that a normal Cultivator would die if they tried to absorb directly. If the horn is instead ground up and fed to Refinery Worms the energy is a perfect tonic. A third of the energy might be lost, but at the same time it becomes useful to Cultivators instead of a deadly lure.

Sage was intrigued by the Refinery Worm and started to study it. It already seemed like a strange worm that had already been discovered and put to a remarkably novel use. Sage on the other hand, thought it could do far more. When he bred them to much larger sizes and started experimenting he was rewarded. Not only could it consume energy from matter, it could also consume any form of energy. Sage’s favorite experiment was when he launched a ball of fire at the Worm’s mouth with a testing device. The ball of flame disappeared into the Worm’s mouth and then spat right back out of its tail end. Amazed, Sage tested how much power it lost in the process and started his breeding. He didn’t care about adding other traits, instead just strengthening what it could already do. He found the limits of what it could consume and increased them.

The ‘Warp Worm’ was born. Currently, the rank 3 Warp Worm was able to consume the energy of a Rank 6 attack and spit it out right back through it tails only losing a stage or two in power. It was like there was a portal connecting its mouth and tail. Sage even found a way to strengthen the insides of the worm and even Magic Treasures and other physical objects could pass through its body without causing damage. An arrow, thrown knife, or flying sword wouldn’t get returned back to the source through the tail, but it wouldn’t cause any damage and just get deposited on the ground. Sage even upgraded the size and elasticity of the worms till its body was three feet wide and could stretch its mouth open to double that size. The large size and improvements made it a great tunneler so it was an excellent underground mount as well as a defensive weapon.