Molting the Mortal Coil

There were many other beasts that Sage had wanted to include in order to pass down their abilities, but in the end decided not to. The spatial manipulation of Cosmic Traction was high on his list, but he eventually decided to leave that with the Tiankong Clan. It had such an interesting power that it would draw many to wish to use it, but it took so much training and practice that he feared it would stretch his new clan too thin. It would be better to let the Tiankong Clan focus all of their efforts upon.

There were also the Twin Ringed Soul Serpent’s powers related to the Soul Spawn and consuming the souls of others, or the Soul Fragment power Ruanfu had inherited, but for these powers Sage was worried about inner turmoil. The power to consume the soul of another was very secretive and mysterious. How tragic would it be if one of his descendants got a thirst for power and started secretly consuming the souls of the rest of the family? What if they targeted mortals in far off places where none of the clan would notice? That person might rapidly grow in strength or develop methods related to the soul. Who knew what damage they might cause? Especially since Sage knew little about soul cultivation himself, he was worried of the consequences.

He had also ruled out what he called the hydraulic system from the Genesis Spider. While it was in his own body and decently powerful, he felt it was quite similar to the Qi Pores he’d once used in the past. It had some promise, but it wasn’t as versatile or universally useful for his descendants. They were both far more interesting as research topics rather than self enhancements. In fact, he might have already started to transform his body in the outside world if it weren’t for the fact he had some plans in mind.

After testing out the basic functionality of his Soul Clone’s new body, he checked up on Ling and Jiao’s progress. Jiao was relaxing as she’d already mastered the True Insect Immortal Index. Sage had been curious in the past, but after they were married she shared that her Zhu Clan had also used the Insect Immortal Index. Combined with the message that the Lang Ancestor had given him, he suspected there was definitely a hidden story involving the Lang, Chong, and Zhu, but he wasn’t sure to what extent.

Sage spent a few days with Jiao, relaxing and getting to know each other better before Ling emerged from secluded training. With her mastering the technique as well, Sage gave them a pair of eggs from the Jade Sky Mantis, his name for the new body he’d decided upon. They accepted the eggs and after spending a night relaxing, Jiao went back into secluded meditation. Ling spent another day and night with Sage before she did the same, both of them planning to merge with the insect and shed their human bodies.

It’s quite weird to be combining my wives with… my children? Clones? Cousins?

Sage had bred the different insects and beasts to create an offspring with all the necessary abilities he wanted. Then he’d merged with it and used the Chrysalis power to shape it into the shape and combination that he wanted. It was far more precise and calculated than in the past when he’d first just merged with the Twin Ringed Soul Serpent and ended up with a snake-like lower body. Once he’d got the right body, then he used the eggs of a prior generation and used the ‘Mutate’ power to draw out his own ‘essence’ and use it to fertilize and change the eggs to better match his body. If he stopped there, they would only be mostly Jade Sky Mantids, so he then had to repeat the process with the next generation and the next. Each time they got closer to being a pure Jade Sky Mantis. The ‘mutate’ power wasn’t the normal method of fertilization, especially since it gave him control over the process, but it was still similar enough to be weird. Then, he bred Jade Sky Mantids without including any of his own essence, just accelerating the generations until they were finally a new and stable species.

Ever since coming to this world I’ve been dealing with gross bugs and other disgusting and terrifying things. This is just another weird mental hurdle I’ll have to get over.

He soothed himself with the thought that the merger with his wife's bodies would create a very different end result. Supposedly, marrying a second cousin would be distant enough to have low risk of birth defects, but that didn’t reduce the weirdness of it back on earth let alone here where bugs and magic was involved. He eventually decided to just ignore the whole situation and pretend like it had never popped into his head; he didn’t need to be thinking about his wives merging with his great great great great grandchildren. He’d already done many weird combinations and mergers in the past, so it was best not to dwell on them, especially since he could use the ‘Mutate’ power to avoid birth defects and combine creatures that could never actually breed together.

Performing a merger for the first time would likely take many months so Sage busied himself with practicing the Golden Mantis Body technique. He’d already made some adaptations so he could include the use of his Poison Qi, but now that he was in the new body of the Lang Clan, he wanted to make more drastic optimizations. The opportunity to do so was one of the other reasons he wanted the clan to all have the same body. The Golden Mantis Body was created to be used by the human members of the Lang Clan, so he was going to change it to be used with the Jade Sky Mantis.

By the time Ling and Jiao exited seclusion, Sage had finished his modifications, which was outside his expectations. That was mainly because they had stayed in seclusion much longer than he thought. Not only did they perform a merge, they had also used their new Chrysalis power to change their bodies to their own liking. They hadn’t removed any of the abilities he’d told them about, but they had added others from that vast pool of ancestors and changed the physical form to match their own aesthetic.

When they exited the seclusion chambers, Sage first saw Ling’s new body was far more colorful than the Jade Sky Mantis he’d given her. Rather than simple silver with jade highlights, she’d turned into a whole rainbow of colors and shades. Bright pastel pinks, blues, purples, and oranges covered her whole body along with a dozen colors that spread into the ultraviolet spectrum that a normal person could never see. She’d also greatly enhanced the power of her Pheromones and Sage was nearly mesmerized by just a soft whiff of her approach.

“Haha, I will now be able to pull off completely impossible deals! Who will dare haggle with me now?”

Sage observed her with a pair of Timeless Eyes and then gave her a Human Seal, returning her to her original look and kissing her on the cheek, “So, what shall you call this body of yours?”

“Paradise Mantis.”

He smiled and then they both turned towards a loud boom that came from the side. A massive shape filled the entire hallway, scraping the walls and ceiling with its sharply spiked body. Sage’s eyes widened at the terrifying creature that had emerged. This new mantis was blood red and its carapace had been altered to be covered with vicious three sided pyramidal spikes protruding in every direction. Squeezing into the large hall that Sage was in, the huge red mantis swung one of its forelimbs and sliced clean through a ten foot wide stone column. The stone rumbled and then the top half of the column dropped down a few inches to fill in the gap that had formed. With its movement, the ceiling above creaked and they heard a beam crack. The roof and ceiling collapsed inward, sinking a few inches before being caught by the shorter column.

Pieces of the ceiling and roof tiles had fallen down and shattered upon the ground, sending a flurry of dust into the room and also opening some holes to the sky in the chamber. The loud disturbance also caused a dozen Purple Mist Sect members to rush into the room and look up at the giant blood colored mantis with confusion. Poisonous purple mist seeped out of their hands, forming into various weapons which they were about to put to use, but then Sage called out to them, “Halt. There is no danger. My wife is just a little too enthusiastic about her new body.”