Molting the Mortal Coil

The Seal Master’s Cave. Or at least that was what Sage was calling it. The stone door had an octagon engraved upon it. As he moved closer a glowing circle appeared in mid-air in front of the door. The points of the octagon on the door lined up perfectly with the circle, but as Sage watched different shapes and symbols started to writhe and undulate within the glowing circle.

More than a year ago when he had first arrived here, the expedition was just about to end and he couldn’t spend more than a few hours in front of the door. At the time he had just gained access to a library of basic information about Seals. The few hours in front of the door was only enough time for him to barely browse through them and realise that the symbols on the door was not an array formation. From what he saw in the books it appeared to be a Seal. After returning to the Sect they allowed him to browse the books on Seals that were recovered from the Soul Taming Abode as well as the related techniques they had stored.

What he learned had been thoroughly interesting. It not only taught him the basics of Seals, but also enlightened him to a few secrets. In order to form a seal, a Cultivator had to decipher the true essence of their target. For example, in order to seal a plant the Seal Master would need to know everything about that plant. Every characteristic, attribute, tendency, and detail of its existence. He’d have to know about the soil it was grown in, how many seasons it lived, the weather it had faced, the nutrients it had consumed, even the location of the plant that its seed came from. All of these things would eventually add up and allow the Cultivator to learn the true core of the plant’s essence and origin. The Seal Master’s referred to this true core as the ‘crux’. Once the crux was deciphered, anything could be sealed. The more perfect the crux formed, the more perfect the seal would be.

Of course, a truly perfect crux was a rarely seen thing. Most seals only served to seal up portions of their targets. For example, a Cultivator might know the basic crux seal for tiger shaped beasts. Without any other knowledge about a specific beast, if they were to use a Seal upon a random demonic beast that seemed to be a tiger, the seal would only restrict its capabilities. If the beast was actually of a tiger bloodline, it would be completely weakened in every aspect by about ten percent. If the specific demonic beast species was known and the Seal Master knew the crux of that species, the sealing effect might boost upwards to twenty percent. The more that could be deciphered and learned would lead to a greater and greater effect. A perfect crux was extremely rare and when used to seal something could completely trap an existence within. A perfect crux was used in ancient times to seal spirits, ghosts, elementals, and all sorts of other fantastical things within objects.

Only those privy to ancient secrets knew that the most powerful and storied artifacts from ancient times were actually created through the combination of Seals and Arrays. The more surprising thing that Sage learned was the relationship between Seals and Array Symbols. A seal was the expression of the crux of an entity. The perfect seal was the perfect expression of something, such that when it was formed that thing could be completely contained and controlled by the seal. Array Symbols acted like a vocabulary to control the energy and rules of the world. It had only been a small line thrown in to one of the general seal knowledge books, but Sage had deciphered it.

Array Symbols were almost like an inverse of the crux. A seal would trap something within it. Different Seal techniques could then be used to draw upon the energy of the sealed target. Array Symbols on the other hand would consume energy to manifest effects. A fire seal could have a raging inferno trapped inside it. The seal could then be tapped to gain the energy of the flames. A fire array on the other hand would get fed energy which it used to produce flames. A seal is like a hydroelectric generator at a dam, pulling power from the water, while an array is like a water pump, using power to drive the water.

There had been four seal related scrolls in the technique library of the Soul Taming Abode, or at least that’s what the Sect allowed him access to. Two of the scrolls were actually crux encyclopedia. One detailed spirit animals, while the other detailed demonic beasts. A crux encyclopedia was like a book of array symbols, it detailed the basic crux shapes related to different topics. Obviously, an encyclopedia could never be completely comprehensive, but at least it covered most basic types spirit animals and demonic beasts as well as more detailed crux for a few hundred of the most common animals and beasts that had been around the area of the Soul Taming Abode at the time.

From what Sage knew, half of the species that he saw in the crux encyclopedia were currently extremely uncommon and in some cases thought to be extinct. At least, that’s what the more modern books about beasts he read in the Holy Flame Sect had said. Given how large the wilderness areas in the world are, he wouldn’t be surprised if the so called extinct species had just migrated to more remote areas.

The other two techniques made a sort of set and actually fit their source. There was two main categories of Seal Techniques. Repress and Siphon. They were applied to a crux seal to alter its effects. One of the techniques he learned was called ‘Repress the Mind’ and focused the power of a seal onto the target’s mind. So for example instead of weakening the target of a seal by ten percent overall, ‘Repress the Mind’ would instead only reduce the target’s mind by twenty percent. In the case of the Soul Taming Abode this was a way for them to knock down the intelligence level of a troublesome beast to more easily trap it. They might also use it to dumb down a beast spirit to allow them to tame or trick it into serving them.

The second technique was of the other major category, ‘Siphon the Will’. Siphon techniques didn’t increase or alter the power of a seal, they were instead the method to gain energy from a seal. In this case, Siphon the Will would take any of the willpower of the target that has been sealed and give it to the user of the technique. Many Beasts are quite tenacious and the remaining beast spirits are created mostly out of strong willpower. Drawing on this willpower would help a Soul Taming Abode member have better resistance to pain, tougher nerves, and a greater tenacity.

The two techniques were quite reasonable for the Soul Taming Abode to have, the seals focused on their own Beast Spirits. With how well they would get to know their own tamed pets it served to reason that the crux they had at the time could be quite powerful. With these two seals they could reduce resistance to their orders and increase their own personal tenacity.

While useful for the future, the two techniques were of no help at all for him in breaking through the Seal upon the stone door in front of him. Sage instead had to start deciphering the seal in front of him on his own. From all the studying he’d done over the past year he quickly identified the purpose of the seal. Just like how a Seal locked away a person’s attributes, this Seal locked away this whole location. Unless he could decipher the crux of this entrance on his own, there was no way he’d be able to gain entrance. Once you learn something’s crux you can take full control of the seal.

When I solve this, I’m in! Time to get to work!