It seems they’d purposely kept a few secrets from Sage about the Shifting Jade Mountain. This wasn’t really a big deal, as it had happened many times before. Of course, these ‘secrets’ weren’t really secrets at all and more just a way to make better use of his time, or as a fun surprise. In this case, there shouldn’t be anything detrimental about it, but it would be more exciting if he got to experience it for the first time in person rather than in a report. There was also plenty of other information that Sage wasn’t directly privy to as he couldn’t spend all day just reading reports about the events happening on the Inner World. Instead, everything important was just given to the Adjutor to learn, and Sage could look it up if he needed it. Of course, he could also just ask the team in the command room, but the Adjutor could be faster and also acted as a backup.
After looking like she was checking things off on her stone tablet, the woman turned around and started to walk up the boarding ramp. She walked in front of them, putting her backside right in front of Guan Zhenyan’s face making it hard not to see the subtle sway to her hips. Sage was last up the ramp and watched this with amazement. Were they trying to surprise him with such a show? Who thought that he cared about such things when he was traveling around? Or maybe it was aimed towards their guest? What sort of research had they been doing?
It was only after they walked onto the deck of the ship and saw another pair of people waiting for them that Sage realized who the perpetrator was. A familiar face greeted him, the man smiling happily while having his arm around the waist of another woman dressed similarly to the one who led them aboard. There was also a creak from above and Sage glanced up to see another moving around in the rigging. That face was the same one that had been on the Shifting Jade Mountain back when it called itself ‘The Glutton’. The man in front of him was a smaller version of that huge statue: the Artifact Spirit of the Shifting Jade Mountain.
Guan Zhenyan walked over and blew a puff of purple smoke into the man’s face, “It seems I underestimated you. Your taste in women is far better than I would have thought, given your,” he paused to wave his pipe up and down, indicating the man’s bulky frame, “style.”
The fat man, Xiang Fei Long, was dressed up in a navy colored suit, with a flat cap and a corncob pipe, with a white turtleneck that made him look like a ship’s captain from the 1800s. Only, the suit wasn’t made of wool, but many layers of dark silk giving it that ephemeral quality that Cultivators always preferred.
Sage gave the man a much closer look with his Spirit Sense now, which helped him pick out the subtle clues in the spirit’s aura and power that identified him as a spirit and not a real person. With this realization, he also saw the same signs among the women who were occupying the ship. He spread his Spirit Sense out and counted at least five of them on the deck, and who knew how many more inside.
At least the inside of the ship is hidden from my senses.
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The mystery of the situation had now been dispelled and Sage sighed upon the Inner World as he called up those who didn’t bother to tell him about what was going on with the Artifact Ship. A thin fellow was bowing low in front of him, looking like he was about to start kneeling and begging. The nervousness of the man was magnified by Sage’s stare.
“So you didn’t think you should warn me about this nonsense?”
“Forgiveness. Our orders were to prioritize the speed of the Shifting Jade Mountain. After thousands of years of testing, the spirit’s mood had a greater effect upon the artifact’s power than any design efficiencies we instated. Even if independent testing showed us the most efficient shapes and materials, the Shifting Jade Mountain would actually have better performance when it deviated from our designs and made its own choices. As we forced it to take certain shapes and forms, the Spirit started to include more and more of our design choices.”
“So, you are just training him to know what the best shapes are and then let him choose what he likes otherwise?”
The man deflated again after getting worked up talking about his research and Sage just waved him away.
Back in the outside world, he just glared at the Artifact Spirit, “Let’s go below deck.”
Being surrounded by all these women that the Artifact Spirit was manifesting might be enjoyable for Guan Zhenyan, and the spirit, but Sage just felt it was gratuitous. The Shifting Jade Mountain didn’t need any crew. There was no need for rigging and sails as the whole ship was under the control of Xiang Fei Long. In fact, after they were below deck and into a luxurious dining room, Sage locked eyes with the Artifact Spirit, “Alright, enough games. Show me the outside view and the course you’ve plotted.”
The fat man looked offended, but then he grumbled and an elliptical orb appeared, floating in the air over the large dining table, showing the outside of the ship as it was already flying through the air. Sage had brought it out with a destination in mind, which the spirit knew before they ever boarded. Sage reached up and brought the orb down lower, as the spherical ellipse shape gave a full view of the outside world. By walking around it, he could see in every direction. That meant he needed to be able to walk around, above, and below it to get a full view of the surroundings. After making sure the ship was being properly piloted even while the spirit was starting a banquet.
Sage wasn’t really interested in any debauchery or nonsense that might be going on, so he just went to a cabin, bringing the orb along with him to keep the spirit honest. Instead of engaging in that nonsense, he had much more important things to do. He took a seat on the bed and crossed his legs, focusing inwardly to make a better connection with a presence far in the distance. By closing off his normal senses, it helped him connect better with that fragment of his soul he’d left behind. Most of the work was done on the Inner World, but this focus increased the level of fine control.
Far away, back in the Tianxia Capital that they were currently flying towards, there was a singular fragment of soul still remaining. The one Blacksilver Pawn that had been left behind on purpose had hidden itself deep underground nearby where it had been linked up with the huge mass of trees Sage was using to assault the Spire. It had acted as a bridge for his Qi, letting him continuously power the mass of roots that were used to assault the Chain Ocean Palace’s holdings. When Sage fled from the Sea King, that single Blacksilver Pawn had separated from the mass of roots and hid itself till the Sea King was occupied. After that significant power was gone, the Pawn moved itself into position beside the Spire and waited for one of Spire’s occupants to stumble onto him.
For this occasion, the Blacksilver Pawn had altered its shape, taking on a body of a common tool: a sword. It reshaped the Blue Icesilver part of its body into a sword body, hiding the most concentrated part: the soul and a fist sized lump of Black Enhydros. With just the Qi being supplied through the Soul Fragment it was easily able to take on a simple shape that matched the ones people preferred.