Molting the Mortal Coil

He had already spent a year studying all the basics knowledge about seals. At the same time, he only had a crux encyclopedia that covered spirit animals and demonic beasts. They covered the basics for most species of animals, as well as more in depth knowledge on a few hundred of the species that were native to a specific area at a specific time. They two scrolls weren’t even something created in the Soul Taming Abode. From their introduction they seemed to be part of a set of encyclopedia that was released every few years. In the beginning of the scroll it had a sort of index to list what each volume of the encyclopedia covered. The organization was strangely enough named ‘Sorcerer’s Source’ and Sage wasn’t sure if it was some type of Sect or if it was a business. From the naming conventions, the scroll seemed to be from the ‘Copper Dragon Empire’ during year 6120.

Sage had never heard of such a place nor even saw anything that specified a year. Most places he’d been referred to the year using special events. People would say, “I was born 3 summers after the Great Flood.” or “Fifteen years before the King was coronated.” Even in the Holy Flame Sect they counted the date from their founding. The most formal date he’d ever seen was only in the Formation Master Hall. The most powerful formations would take advantage of the season and moon cycle as well as the position of the stars to create the most powerful effect. Weirdly, they didn’t track by the year, but by an astral calendar. It was only when Sage learned of the astral calendar and the star motions that he was assured he was actually on a physical planet.

For a time, he had wondered if this immense place he was at was even a planetoid. While up on the Flying Ship he hadn’t been able to see a horizon even with his vision spanning thousands of miles. At that time he was wondering if he was on some sort of endless plane or other sort of impossible dimension. Only when he learned that the stars had patterns was he more assured of where he was. Of course, there was still the possibility that it wasn’t a spinning planetoid, and some even more bizarre reason was the cause of moving stars, but for now he kept to the reason he felt most likely.

With no unified calendar to keep track of the full date there was no telling how old the encyclopedia was. On the other hand, from the list of volumes he got a peek at the possibilities of seals. Each volume was based upon a type of topic and location. For example, the first scroll he had read was ‘Spirit Animals of the Grey Toad State’ while the second was ‘Demonic Beasts of the Grey Toad State’. From what he knew, the Holy Flame Province was part of the ‘Shihu Kingdom’ and Kingdom’s were at the same level as ‘States’. That meant the two encyclopedia he got were from before the Shihu Kingdom was founded, from a very far away place, or perhaps even both. Either way, it showed how very vast this world was and how much there was to learn about seals. Some of the other interesting encyclopedia volumes seemed to cover different elemental forces like types of flame or water, natural formations like whirlpools and storms, mineral deposits like mines or mountain ranges, and there was even something about moods and spiritual attunement for communities.

Sage was amazed by how many things could be sealed. Did that mean in ancient times they could seal a volcano to harness its power? Could they capture the negative emotions from a community and put them to productive use? What other sorts of impossible ideas were they putting into practice? Worse yet, what stopped it all? There were so many questions that Sage immediately abandoned them and focused on what he could do. There was no sense wasting all his time on wondering about ‘what if’ and worrying about what happened to them all.

Just like now, in the present, he was sitting with his tail was coiled up in front of the large stone door and studying the structure of the seal upon it. The many designs and symbols in the center constantly changed in shape and color, even having different layers of motion and transformation moving at different speeds. Array symbols were formed of three dimensional symbols and infused with energy. They were like water tanks built in the shape of a letter and filled with liquids of different temperature. A seal on the other hand was like a holographic movie. Not only was there depth and intensity in the parts of the symbol it also constantly changed and moved over time. The crux was like a true name. To seal a person it was like playing a film of their whole life, mapping their dna, and detailing every one of their skills and abilities all at the same time.

Thankfully, the seal of a simple stone door was far more simple in comparison to a person. Having memories or intelligence magnified the difficulty by ten times each, the same goes for things that were biological in nature. It related to their changeable nature. The less an object changed over time the simpler it was to seal. Something like a rock that was basically inert and only changed due to outside forces was much easier to seal than say a plant, which even though it lacked intelligence and memory, could grow and change over time. All that said, Sage had only ever experimented with seals on some basic spirit animals. He didn’t know any crux related to spirit insects and demonic beasts were dangerous so he could only test out seals on spirit mice, and rabbits.

He knew the basic crux pattern for stone, but that was only brushing the surface so there was quite a bit for him to study on this door. Time slowly passed, with Sage studying the door for nearly ten hours a day. When he tried to study it for longer periods he only seemed to make less progress, just like staring at a kaleidoscope it seemed to make his eyes blurry and lose focus. Instead he would study a couple hours, then take a break to work on his other techniques or breed a few insects before returning to his studies. Sometimes he would step outside and train with commanding an Insect from afar to hunt food for him. Ever since he became able to enter the Hive Body of his Spirit Insect he rarely ever commanded them while acting on his own. After the string of battles he realized it would be a very useful skill if he could fight while also controlling an insect in combat. Previously, he would battle and just give general directions. If he wanted to take over it was similar to an RC Car. He could control their motion well only if they were within his close vision range. If they moved farther away or were behind him, he’d have to change to looking through the Insect’s eyes which meant he wasn’t looking through his own.

For his training he worked out a couple methods to work around this problem. The first was speed. If he could swap back and forth quickly enough he could just take a quick peek and give orders then return to his own body. The second idea was to train his other senses. If his scent and hearing were more powerful he wouldn’t be as disadvantaged when his vision was elsewhere. Lastly, coordination. It was like learning to play the drums, the hands and feet would need to follow a different rhythm and strike different objects. Sage had to move his body and participate in a battle while also looking through a different perspective and giving orders.

After a few days, Sage had made great progress on the Seal and also with his Insect controlling. With a few adjustments his performance was greatly improved. At first he tried to focus purely on increasing speed. He would close his eyes and in the span of a long blink he’d get a peek at what the Insect saw. The problem with this method was that he only had the barest glimpse. While it seemed exciting, Sage didn’t have the time to learn that memory technique he heard about from Earth. There were people who could open a door and look into a room for just an instant then close the door and remember every detail of the room they saw inside. It sounded pretty useful, but Sage had no idea where to start. Instead he found a different way. If he closed just one eye and accessed the link in just the right way he could get the vision of just one eye.

With just one eye closed it was very disorienting and created a blind spot, but it also meant he didn’t lose all his vision. With this new discovery, Sage had a path. From there he spent a few hours each day practicing to keep moving and functioning normally even while one eye was looking through that of an Insect. He couldn’t focus on both at the same time, but he could focus on the Bug in the moments of downtime or simple actions. It was like looking down to check a watch while running. If the road was straight and free of obstacles he could check the time and even the date without a problem. If he tried to go down a hill and dodge around a trash can while looking down he would end up with a face full of dirt. Similarly, in combat he could leap backwards and get a quick peek while he was floating through the air. While he was breathing in and condensing air with Qi for a burst of Divine Breath he could close one eye and have a look before releasing the breath.