Molting the Mortal Coil

The map had marked a place where the mines had caved in previously that was quite far to the east side of the mountain above. Sage knew that there was a canyon to the east side of the mountain, and he was hoping that the recent quake may have shifted the old cave in. If this was a bust, then he was going to start digging!

The constant combat with the spiders, living a solitary life with only insects and lizards for company, had quite a drastic effect on his cultivation. Sage feared he was going to be down here forever unless he grew strong enough. It had been the catalyst for him to advance more in these six months than he had in the previous six years since he arrived in this new world. His whole body was much stronger than it used to be, every last bit of him had improved with every level of cultivation. Even his senses were much stronger and now it was like he saw the same distance with the glow-stick as he used to be able to see with a torch. That last torch had been used up long ago and now he merely had a pair of sticks that he covered in Azure Moss and used as torches.

Another tactic he’d used was to put moss and the strange mud onto rocks and leave them along the path traversing the vertical tunnel. He traveled this route often and so the spiders left the glow-moss alone. This made the trip a bit more bearable, it made it more like the dimly lit paths in a movie theater instead of the terrifying descent into the abyss it used to feel like. By far though, the best benefit of his current cultivation level was that his Mantis was now fully two feet long and it stood a good three feet tall. She wasn’t quite strong enough to lift Sage, but plenty large enough for the silk to be very useful.

Prepared to make his assault upon the most promising, and the deepest, portion of the mines. Sage held onto the Mantises thorax (the chest area) and they leapt off the edge into the vertical tunnel. The Mantis strung a heavy line of silk behind them, the line holding them up and slowly spooling out of its spinneret as they descended to the bottom of the mines. Having already explored this area and use this technique more than once there was nothing really to worry about. His hunting had mostly pushed the spiders out of dominating the central vertical tunnel and having to set up webs down the tunnel routes he rarely traveled.

His poisoning a month ago had come as such a surprise mainly because the spider’s weren’t pressuring him as much anymore. This final route was the most promising but also the most dangerous. Each time he explored a little further, the floors here were slick with water and growing inedible moss and mushrooms in some places. There was a multitude of tiny things living in the small puddles and along the crevices in the wall but there was nothing even large enough for him to spend time collecting to eat. The first obstacle was just ahead, there was a huge crevice. Looking downwards it spread wide for a few hundred feet but spanned only about twenty. That width rapidly narrowed as about forty feet down it was only two feet wide. A strange obstacle, it was not even worth mentioning if it were not for its occupants. The crevice had many small cracks and tunnels which housed uncountable numbers of darkly armored centipedes. Their dozens of legs undulating as they seemed to glide over the rock and stones.

Immediately after entering this room Sage broke into a jog and then kicked hard, leaping clear over the twenty foot gap. Being on full alert not to get bit by any of those nasty little things. Many centipedes possess a venomous bite and the first time Sage was here a few days ago, one of them had bit his Mantis. She had died a few hours later and forced Sage to waste a day gathering qi to mature and merge with a replacement. The first time a mantis died was when he was nine years old, Sage had felt so sad, that first partner of his was gone. It was then he learned it was on purpose. All of the Chong Clan, and by extension the Lang Clan, had to keep from getting attached to their linked insects. Spirit Insects are very much creatures of instinct and discipline, barely more than biological robots. They should respect and care for their insects, as they were valuable tools. At the same time, the tool is not as important as its wielder, and a cultivator’s life was worth far more than any insect.

Leaping past the centipede crevice, Sage continued on towards the second obstacle. It was quite far, nearly half a mile before this second problem he’d recently solved. Stepping into a massively large cavern he took a minute to admire the place. A huge pool of water spread out in front of him. After exploring it for a few days, Sage had learned it was an underground lake with no path around it. Without any floatation device, crossing it was pretty exhausting. Sadly, that wasn’t an option as upon investigation, the lake was actually inhabited with some sort of predatory fish. Even worse, the fish tasted horrible, their scales being mostly cartilage and covered in sharp protrusions. They had very little meat and what was there tasted terrible. After much consideration, Sage had found a way across making use of the Mantises webs. It took a few days but using the stalactites and the Mantises flying ability, Sage created a sort of suspended bridge of webbing.

Tackling this second major obstacle, Sage had to shimmy along a single large rope of silk beneath his feet and held onto another rope of web to his left and right at about chest height. The three thick lines being simple enough for efficiency and quite stable to traverse. Walking over the lake slowly, he saw more than a few of the fish looking up at him under the dark waters. Or at least that’s what he imagined as he dangled over them in the air. The lake passage took quite some time to travel the thousand yards while walking on a rope. Two thirds of the journey complete, Sage traveled down the next length of the mines and reached the last obstacle that kept him from reaching the mark of the cave in on the map.

The tunnel here rapidly inclined, a near 45 degree upward angle. The slope ahead of him covered in slippery mud. That wasn’t the worst part though, as with just a glance it was plain to see that the mud was home to writhing worms. The worms grew ever more numerous as the slope ascended higher, but it was exactly this reason that Sage found this path so promising. It was because he actually knew what the worms were. They were known as the Bloodsucking Flatworm, and they were commonly found in swamps and marshlands. There was little chance they could be down in these mines unless this path connected up with the outside world. Even more telling was that in this direction outside the Lang Clan there was a massive swamp that was used to farm many types of valuable insects.

Now, I just have to get past these nasty little things.

These Bloodsucking Flatworms were similar to leeches that latched on and drained their target’s blood. Where they were different is that instead of just biting onto the skin and slowly drinking blood these flatworms actually burrow their way into the skin of their prey. Biting themselves an entrance and squirming their way under the skin. It was many times harder to remove them than it was to pull off a leech, but having read about them before, Sage knew how to handle them. There was a few possible treatments, neither of them pleasant. One option is to climb into a tub of cold water until the person began to shiver. The coldness seeping into their bodies affects the flatworms and causes them to slip into a hibernative state. From there you’d have to find each worm and made an incision in order to grasp hold of their body and slowly pull them out inch by inch from under the skin.

The second choice was to poison one’s own blood which the flatworms are feeding upon. Once the flatworms are poisoned they will crawl out of the body on their own and the cultivator can then take an antidote to the poison. The rest of the methods weren’t suitable for everyone as they were used by powerful cultivators to inject their qi into the body to target the worms directly. Usually those with elemental qi or special skills sent flame into their veins or froze out the worms without the need for water. In Sage’s case, he could really only use the first method as he had no blood poison to use nor a powerful qi technique to attack the worms with. So if he was caught he’d have to suffer quite a bit to recover.

Time to give this a go!