Molting the Mortal Coil

With the ants secured safely, Sage stored the Warp Worm in his beast bag and took out another bug egg to raise another new flying mount. There was only two downsides to his plan of switching through bugs to match the situation. The first was the time and energy wasted maturing them to full size, but the main problem was that it was far easier to raise a new one from an egg than it was to link to one that was already full size. It wasn’t really much of a detriment, but it did mean he’d rapidly fill up his Beast Bag and have to start releasing them into the wild. It wasn’t an issue now since he’d lost so many insects to that Demonic Plant, but it might be bad if he were to release the huge spirit insects into the wrong ecosystem.

With such good harvests from the first two encounters, Sage chose to go with a drop in speed to make his treasure hunting a bit simpler. This time he linked with a Chameleon Mantis. While it had a flying speed that was slower than the Emerald Dragonfly, it wasn’t by much. The Dragonfly’s huge advantage was airborne agility and flying endurance, not pure speed. It could pull off maneuvers that would dazzle other flying insects and made its way by plucking flying bugs out of the sky with its incredible aerial acrobatics and exceptional vision. He wouldn’t be able to travel as far on a daily basis with the Mantis, but it also made investigating treasures and opportunities much easier. I’ve already wasted a few days on chance encounters so why not spend a few more.

Over the next few days, Sage had the Chameleon Mantis investigate a half-dozen different locations. They killed a few Spirit Animals, a handful of Demonic Beasts and even hunted down a couple bandits. The bandits were rank 3 just like Sage and the Mantis, but with the stealth ability of the Mantis it only took a half-day to kill them off. Half of the dozen bandits were easily dealt with by picking them off one by one when they went off by themselves. The rest still in their hidden den finally caught on to the disappearances and at that point Sage ‘smoked them out’. He found some of their air vents with his spirit sense and stuffed them full of dried grass and tree branches. Once he lit them on fire their den soon filled with smoke and he teamed up with the Chameleon Mantis to ambush them as they tried to escape.

The only reason he even noticed the bandits was that when he’d flown over the only road in the area he saw a group of motley looking characters waiting beside the road. Looking closer he saw signs that they had set up traps to block off the road and they were all well armed and had tables and chairs waiting. It looked like they did this sort of thing often. Watching them for a few hours he realized they were the lookout team and after he followed some of them back after a shift change he found their hideout. When he realized that none of them were any higher than rank 3, he unleashed his spirit sense without reserve and found stacks of goods that looked like they came from merchant caravans along with women’s clothing, jewelry, cosmetics, and all sorts of items that made no sense to be stacked up in a cave in the wilderness. Normal Storage Bags only hold a small amount of goods, and many of those chests look like storage chests. Definitely criminals!

After wiping out the bandits, he snatched up all their loot and storage bags. The only regret was that he didn’t know if they had bounties out on them, and if they did he wasn’t confident enough to go into a town with his unusual appearance. Demi-humans were certainly accepted in many places, but he wasn’t about to wander into any random town without knowing if he was going to be accepted. None of the loot was anything to write home about, being at the same level as that of the Ding Family and Earthdawn Disciples. He found a few low level techniques as well as low rank mortal weapons. There was a decent amount of gold and spirit stones, but the real haul was the huge pile of trade goods. The goods weren’t that valuable individually, mostly just common trade goods and other amenities, but there was a large quantity of it. There was enough wooden crates to fill a small warehouse, and a few dozen storage chests full of goods. It was no wonder it was still here, the Bandits would have to hire a wagon team to move it all. Otherwise a normal storage bag could only carry one crate at a time. A storage bag couldn’t hold a storage chest, since they were both storage treasures. A storage bag couldn’t be put inside another storage bag. A storage treasure could not carry the same type of storage treasure. From how Sage saw it, they manipulated space in a certain way and putting one inside the other was like trying to expand the size of the space without knowing what you were doing.

The trick was to use different types of storage treasures. Just like how he had Insect Cages inside the Beast Bag. The Insect Cage worked by shrinking occupants, while the Beast Bag was a dimensional space connected to the outside world. He’d seen some traveling merchants that carried a large backpack which was actually filled with standard storage bags. In addition to being small, the standard storage bag was also heavy. The objects inside had only a quarter of their normal weight, but trying to carry a dozen of them filled with heavy trade goods would easily become impossible. The traveling merchant’s large backpack was actually a carrying treasure that worked to reduce the weight of things inside it. By combining the backpack with the small bags he was able to carry the same amount of goods as a small wagon team. Of course, these bandits didn’t have enough storage bags or smarts enough for this sort of plan.

Sage merely transferred the contents of all the storage bags into his storage ring and put the empty bags into a knapsack. The bags didn’t mean much to him, but they were still each worth about a hundred spirit stones, so there was no sense in throwing them away and he might have some use for them someday. With all the goods, Sage’s storage ring was suddenly half full, but that wasn’t much of an issue, if he needed to make room he just had to ditch some of the large and bulky goods.

There was only one road that was nearby his path from the Holy Flame Sect to the Seal Master’s Cave. The area was pretty far out in the wilderness, it just so happened that this road passed within a dozen miles of his route. In fact the reason he was so close was because of his escape down the river. The Ding Family and Earthdawn Sect members had been only a few miles from the road when he found them. Afterwards, he decided to check out the road since it was so close to his position. After taking out the bandits, Sage followed the road a while to see if there was anything else interesting.

Just as he was about to give up and head into the woods to rest for the day he noticed a group down the road. They were pretty far away and around a bend in the road that hid them behind some large rocks, but he heard a sound carry from afar and went closer to investigate. The Chameleon Mantis landed on the side of one of the large rocks and climbed up on top of it, looking down at a group of people. The Chameleon Mantis was practically invisible, its carapace changing colors to perfectly match the stone it was standing on. Sage listened in to what turned out to be an interesting conversation. It was similar to the last group, but with different participants.

On one side was a lone youth. He had long unruly hair and striking features. Tall and muscular without being large, slim yet imposing. He carried a single sword on his back and looked indomitable and arrogant as he stood his ground against a group of a dozen others. The dozen on the other side looked like a trading caravan. One man with an immense mustache, fingers covered in rings, was looking at the teenager with utter disdain. Behind him were three large and stocky men carrying huge backpacks. These four weren’t very well armed, but looked more like a merchant with three porters. The other eight seemed to be rogue cultivators, carrying weapons and with no matching uniform it looked just like many of the caravan guard teams he’d once been a part of.

At the moment the eight cultivators looked at the youth like he smelled funny. The youth merely looked back at them like he was immune to criticism and spoke harshly, “Watch your words, Old Men! This one does not recognize your seniority!”

The group sneered at him and didn’t hesitate to respond, “Now hear this, Young Man! Why do you have to cause so much trouble just because of a few harmless remarks?”

Sage tilted his head in the space within the Mantis. Looks like I get to see another show…