Molting the Mortal Coil

The other trick he used was a remnant of when he was younger. Instead of guiding each limb and controlling the Spirit Insect like a puppet he let the insect take over. The control he had using different scent markers was very generic and because of his practice with them he started to use the same simple commands on his linked insect. He was either completely puppeteering them or marking targets and saying ‘attack’. With some more practice he returned to the old days. In the Lang Clan they learned how to control their Colossal Iron Mantis by sending mental images to the Insect. They would interpose the image of a fly on top of the man they wanted it to attack. Or an image of a mantis camouflaged and standing still on top of a stick followed by an image of the place they wanted them to stand and hide at. Each of the different mental images were pictures they studied as kids of the different types of actions they would want the Mantis to perform. When Sage switched to a Silverbee they didn’t understand any of the mental images as they were what a mantis would see so he had to learn how to direct the colony with different scents.

As he learned how to close just one eye for a quick peek he also trained in creating new mental images that would work with his new spirit insects. Each of the different bugs would perceive things differently and even feel differently for different actions. He trained by trying to memorize the way they felt and what they saw when they were performing the actions he was looking for. After a week he could send the image of a location and an image of a big cocoon and the Steel Silk Centipede would rush over and web it up without any other input on his end. He mainly focused on practicing with the Centipede and Dragonfly as their silk could be very useful in a pincer style attack when he wasn’t hiding within them. He had to visualize the different styles of silk spinning and attack patterns in a way that the bug could understand. The others were far easier to train as he just had to picture them in combat or motion and they would easily figure it out.

On the second week, Sage finally deciphered the Seal. Strangely, the visualization training with the Spirit Insect accelerated his progress. He had to form the seal within his mind, firmly picturing the complete moving and changing structure. Then he stretched out his spirit power and created a connection with the seal on the stone door. It acted like a conduit to connect with the seal in his mind. For an instant, Sage felt like he was the stone door. Every molecule of its being was now his own. He experienced every moment of its existence, being born of intense heat and cooling into solidness. Lying untouched for untold amounts of time before getting exposed to the open air. Tasting the touch of blades and chisels as its seperated from a single large mass and turned into a smaller whole. A seal capturing its being and the life of a door opening and closing, a passageway for a long time before it all stops. Sitting undisturbed yet again for much longer.

Sage seemed to experience it all in an instant before he returned to himself and he felt his control over the seal on the stone door. For a moment he felt like a god, before he realized he had no idea how to exercise his control. He didn’t know what he could take, or how to use what he got. After a few minutes, he finally found something. The rock was not just a huge piece of stone. There was an array within it that linked it to a shield around the cave dwelling. While the array was active the stone door was a solid whole with the outer wall of the dwelling. In order to get inside the whole array would have to be destroyed. All he had to do was seal up the array inside the stone and it would separate from the shielding array and create a hole he could enter through. The only reason he noticed it so quickly was because it seemed to be used to it. It was like there was already a technique applied to the seal and all he had to do was order it to activate.

When the array was sealed up, the glowing design on the front of the stone door grew brighter and then dimmed, sinking into the front surface of the stone and hiding itself. Sage learned that it was a higher level technique in the seal books. When a perfect seal was activated either the seal would hide itself in the target or the target would get hidden in the seal. Nothing would like to have all of its secrets completely exposed and out in the open. Exposing the crux was the precursor to the use of a technique. Once the technique was finished activating the crux hid itself once more. Imperfect seals on the other hand would show up like a moving mystic tattoo on the forehead.

The seal on the stone door disappeared, signifying that it was truly open. Sage stood up and walked towards the door, curious as to why nothing else had happened. At least until he remembered there wasn’t any other arrays on the door, there wasn’t an automatic opening system. Walking closer he leaned against the stone and tried to give it a hard push.

Nothing happened.

Looking to the edge, the door wasn’t recessed with an area for the door to slide or roll over to the side. Only one option left… but where’s the handle?

After a few minutes of searching he finally found the mechanism and nearly slapped his forehead. There were no handles on the door itself, nor was there one near the ground or at the top. He didn’t want to feel like an idiot if the handle had just fallen off so he checked the sides again and even gave them a bit of a pry with a spear. It was when he had the spear jammed into the crack and was tugging on it that he finally noticed a mechanism. A few feet to the side of the stone door there was another rock nearly the same size as it and also connected to the cave wall like the door. The dirt, dust, and vegetation covered it up just like it was a normal rock, but after a closer examination, Sage saw that it had a clear gap between it and the ground underneath. Before, when the array was intact, it was just as solid and unmoving as the rest of the mountain rocks, but Sage bumped into it when he was prying at the door and it moved ever so slightly.

Noticing the motion, he pulled the spear out and focused his effort on pushing the huge rock. Slowly as he pushed on the rock, the stone door swung open. The huge rock was actually built as a counterweight for the stone door, sinking into the wall like a swinging door. Sage walked over and grabbed the huge stone door, sliding it open and shut, nodding in appreciation of the craftsmanship. The door was perfectly balanced with the big rock and once the dirt and debris was out of the way it swung quite easily. There was no need for a magical movement array or heavy duty hinges that could handle a stone door weighing more than ten tons.

Stepping inside, Sage saw a handle on the inside of the door and drew it closed behind himself. He was pretty sure nobody was going to find the place since it looked undisturbed by others for who knows how long, but it was better not to take any chances. For a moment he thought about sealing it again, but given how inexperienced he was with seals he decided not to push it. Instead he left a few Alarm Crickets around the door and slowly slithered his way inside.

It was quite dark, but Sage’s eyes had been transformed when he melded with the Twin Ringed Soul Serpent and it gave him excellent darkvision. A normal person would feel like they were trapped in a deep forest on a moonlit night, only the barest bit of a glow barely showed the outline of things. Sage on the other hand felt like it was a brightly lit night under the full moon. He could tell that the extremely dim lighting was actually coming from a distant location around a corner and probably down a hallway or two.

The room he was in turned out to be a rough stone hallway. It was a perfectly smooth circular passage. Rubbing a finger over the wall, the stone felt as smooth as a polished stone even though it was the exact same type of stone that the rough rock and stone door outside was made of. It was as if someone carved a perfect tubular hallway then polished the walls like a gemstone and added a layer of fine gravel to the bottom to make the floor level for walking. He even stopped to drag his tail through the gravel a few inches down to feel that the passageway was completely round and not flat on the bottom. Somebody really did carve it as a circular tunnel. It’s not just round to be decorative. What sort of power can blast through stone so cleanly?