Molting the Mortal Coil

Such an interesting name was of course not used for an uninteresting technique. Sage was amazed at the summary of the skill and had to make sure he wasn’t just remembering it wrong.

The Timeless Eyes see beyond the constraints of time. The left eye can see into the past and the right eye can see into the future.

Such a description was just too terrifying. Sage had to read more before he could even calm his rapidly beating heart down. Something like seeing the past and future was just too… overpowered. When he read more he realized the description was true, but it wasn’t the whole story. There was lots of limitations and drawbacks. The version of ‘Timeless Eyes’ that Sage was gifted claimed to be only the first three of nine levels. It was an incomplete technique, but it put even the True Insect Immortal Index, Sage’s strongest ability, to shame.

The first level, ‘Hindsight’, used the left eye to focus upon something and slowly experience its past. The limitations were of course many. The speed at which he could view the past was limited by his level of cultivation. After doing some calculations from the examples, his rank was essentially a rewind speed. Being at rank 3 meant he could only speed back through time at three times normal. So it would take him one day to review the last three days.

The second level, ‘Foresight’, used the right eye to glimpse the future. It could only peek a few seconds into the future, depending on the effort and power of the user, but even a slight glimpse could be amazingly useful in so many situations.

The third level, and the final he was imparted, was called ‘Principle Vision’. The first two techniques certainly had their uses, but they were merely laying the groundwork for this technique. Using both eyes at the same time, the past and future would be seen at the same time. While the sights could not be controlled, it had a special use. The summation of past and present was used to form a crux. While it didn’t form a perfect crux, it could easily push a crux to 70 or 80 percent perfection.

While it didn’t sound like all that much when explained simply, the potential for such abilities was innumerable. The main thing that surprised Sage was the third level technique. From what he read about Seals in the general knowledge books, a crux that was greater than 30% suppression was only something performed outside of combat. Long study to research a target’s environment, individual traits, common habits, and background details was needed. Without indepth research, it was nearly impossible to create a more fitting crux. Only the most legendary of Seal Master Legacies and Sects could create more powerful Seals quickly enough to be used in battle. Most Seal Master’s drew upon previously sealed objects to increase their own abilities or to unleash attacks. He even saw mention of famous Sealing Sects that raised certain types of Demonic Beasts from birth, controlling every factor to create nearly perfect Seals. The sealed beasts could then be used for labor, combat, or any number of things using the seals to control them.

The ability to create a powerful crux in a short amount of time was astounding. The only real downside was that in the current world, Seals were outlawed. Even after Sage trained to the third level of Timeless Eyes, he would be limited in how he could use it. If there were any witnesses they would be like timebombs, and heaven forbid he let anyone too powerful take notice. He would be calling a calamity upon his head.

Oh well, Seals will just have to be my final trump card and a hidden support.

Sage gave upon on his musings for now, returning his attention to the library at his fingertips. He had just finished copying over a stone tablet before he was lost in his analysis of the Timeless Eyes. Standing up he returned the stack of stone tablets he’d just copied to a shelf and grabbed the next stack. He was being careful to keep each stack separated, using the time it took to carry them back and forth as an excuse to get up and stretch. Resting his mind for a half-minute before he settled back down onto a chair and simultaneously activated the Memory Forge and Stone Tablets.

Time flew by. Even with his prior practice it took nearly the whole three months for Sage to finish copying down every last Stone Tablet into a Memory Sphere. It took far longer than he had first calculated because of the content of the tablets. Sage found that the majority of them contained more than just simple instructions on the techniques. Most of them even had the experiences and tips of other Cultivators included within. These experiences would vastly improve the speed someone could learn and improve with the corresponding techniques. They were like having half a teacher there to answer questions and guide someone on the path to mastering a technique. Recreating all this guidance and instruction into a Memory Sphere took far longer than simply transcribing long texts. Sage was even worried he wouldn’t be able to finish his transcribing until he found out that the last few rows of shelves were filled with basic knowledge and information textbooks. He had already mastered the trick to transferring simple text and illustrations so the final stone tablets were copied down quickly.

With only a few days available to him, Sage returned to the Training Room and asked about its capabilities. He was thankful to learn that it was mostly set up to create a room to test out techniques and not to directly assist in improving. If he had missed out on such an opportunity he would have been far more upset. As it was, he was regretful, but he had made his choice.

The Training Room had a very powerful outer barrier so none of the energy expended would damage the room. Even more amazing was that it also gently dissipated the energy so the people in the Training Room wouldn’t have to worry about the power reflecting off the barrier and coming back to harm them. It also had hundreds of practice weapons and training targets. The targets and weapons were also very advanced. The targets had self repairing functions as well as being able to choose targets of different durability or with set responses to attacks. They were more like robotic training partners than target dummies. The weapons were also similarly useful, with different options that could add resistance to energy channeling or different types of movements. If a person could adapt to fighting with the different types of resistance they would be much stronger afterwards without the resistance. It was sort of like weight training for weapon skills.

Instead of training for the last few days he had left, Sage focused the last of his time on studying the different training weapons. He was studying the subtle changes in weapon design and the formations laid in them to learn the secrets used in their creation. The idea of using resistance or obstructions to train wasn’t anything new, but Sage had never heard or seen it applied in this way to weapons.