Molting the Mortal Coil

In his human form, Sage was sitting in front of a large sweeping table with an unusual shape. The top was flat yet it was not circular or rectangular in shape. It was instead a swirling oval shape and the underside was somewhat tear shaped, being wider on one side than the other. The surface showed off its true nature, giving off a pearlescent sheen, combining dark wavy lines and bright translucent shimmers.

Around the table were a quartet of matching chairs, each of them looked naturally formed out of a mollusk’s shell. The outside surfaces were rough and calcified while the insides were organically smooth and shimmery. There were no signs of toolwork or joinery on these shell chairs and instead looked grown into this strange shape. Someone had grown huge oysters into a specific shape and then split it apart creating beautiful chairs and tables out of one half of the shell.

To make things even more spectacular, the inner wall of this building had the same shimmery texture as the furniture did. A ragged opening was sliced into the wall, creating a large picture window style opening. The sill of the window was the same rough and calcified look as the back of the chairs. This fact combined with the view of the ‘buildings’ across the street made it apparent that not only the furniture was composed of oyster shells, but the whole building was too.

Oyster Quay. That’s what they called this city, and it certainly lived up to its name. Millions of one hundred foot tall oysters were clumped tightly together to form a huge city. The majority of them were not hollowed out buildings but actually living oysters. Someone a long time ago had pioneered the art of shaping and controlling the growth of oysters. No one was sure whether the giant oysters of Oyster Quay existed before this art was created, or if these giant oysters were created by the special art, but either way the two were entwined from long before anyone could remember.

Using this special art, and variations of it, the whole economy of the Depths had been formed. The giant oysters of Oyster Quay, along with a few other cities like it, had become the lifeblood of the whole area. That’s because these are the places where Spirit Pearls, the currency of the Depths, were produced. These building sized oysters could produce equally gigantic pearls, but they could also be manipulated to use their huge bodies to create a much smaller and denser pearl packed with energy. It was these super dense products that were the famous Spirit Pearls, being slightly smaller than a Spirit Stone, but with a thousand times the energy contained inside.

Used to fuel cultivation, the only advantage Spirit Pearls had over Spirit Stones was the reduction in size. They could carry a thousand times more energy around in the same sized Storage Bag or Ring. The most basic bag could already carry about a million Spirit Stones which was many times more worth than most people had and more than enough to power a lower level cultivator’s energy needs for decades. There wasn’t much need to condense so much wealth into a single bag. Instead, the only area that Spirit Pearls really excelled was to be used as power sources for a Formation Array. They weren’t more powerful, but it meant they had to be swapped out a thousand times less often. The only problem was they only came from the Depths and only those groups who had access to the Depths could get access to Spirit Pearls.

As a consumable item they would always need to be creating more of them to supply the market. The same was true of normal Spirit Stones, but those were produced in mines at many places in the Cultivator world. Or at least that was what was commonly understood. In fact, Sage was pretty sure that some of the most important resource sites that Kingdoms or Provinces had were formed around them. Since they were so vital to Cultivation he was pretty sure they had constant sources of Spirit Stones. How and where they were produced were secret, but it was likely the reason for more than a few Kingdoms to exist. The Depths seemed similar in that they ran upon the Spirit Pearls produced by this city. It wasn’t the only source, but it did supply the vast majority of the Spirit Pearls that were used.

Oyster Quay was not just a city, but it was also a giant living farm. They truly were masters of the oyster growing technique and they were famous for their beautiful craftsmanship. Sage had already purchased thousands of pieces of pearlescent furniture to use on the Inner World and also for his abode in the Universe Ring. It was far from replacing everything, but having rooms and buildings with unique decor was very useful for creating a change of pace. All the researchers wanted sets of the furniture which then spread to the whole of the Inner World Lang Clan. They also needed a large stock to supply the Prosperity Company to sell to all the richest people on the Inner World. It was a very simple way to collect more of the wealth and resources from the Inner World, using the cheaply purchased furniture from Oyster Quay as the most rare and high end decor. After Sage left the Depths they would no longer have a source so they truly would be extraordinarily rare.

Well, that is unless I can get my hands on that oyster technique. That would certainly open up a lot of opportunities, even if I can’t reproduce Oyster Quay.

The huge oysters were not the only unique part of Oyster Quay. These hundred foot tall oysters required a special environment to remain so strong and healthy. Upon first arriving in the city Sage had been amazed by the thousand foot tall sand dunes and the rocky canyon like city. The millions of giant oysters clumped together reminded him of both a modern metropolis of tall buildings and clusters of canyons and crevices because of the mineral appearance of the oyster shells. At that time the city seemed placed at the edge of the ocean, the final oasis before a vast desert. The ground shimmered with golden sand, sands which were burning hot in the desert but nice and cool because of the shade provided by the towering oysters.

It was only later that Sage realized how wrong he was. The thousand foot tall mountain of sand was not a dune. It was the shoreline. He’d arrived in Oyster Quay at low tide which left the city free of water. Later in the day, high tide had arrived and the water level rose many hundreds of feet, submerging the city and most of the sandy beach in the distance. During the high tide the city was entirely different. At low tide all of the oysters were sealed up making them seem exactly like the hollowed out ones that were used as buildings. It was only during the high tide when they came to life. These huge oysters spread open slightly and they started filtering the water, breathing it in and straining plankton and other ‘toxins’ from the water, pushing the now cleaned water back out. With millions of these giants working in unison the water constantly swirled and shifted.

It was also a time of great activity. In the low tide the city was akin to a bazaar, with shops and stores set out in the sun, enjoying the warmth of the day and doing business. During the high tide the city took on more of an agricultural feel. Many people swam about from oyster to oyster, checking their health and doing chores like farm workers checking their crops or livestock.