His jaw was a bit sore. He’d had his mouth open for the last hour with his mouth pressed up against the side of a large gourd. The wood-like texture wasn’t unpleasant, but his huge fangs were extended and folded over the edge of the Storage Gourd. Guan Zhenyan had visited him and forced another new poison into his body, merging it with the one already there. It took Sage the rest of that day and night to recover from the pain and after a bit of exercise to deal with the lingering effects he had started to produce poison. It was an uncomfortable task, but it was a lucrative source of income. With Guan Zhenyan still preventing him from walking into the city on his own, he had to take advantage of every money earning opportunity he had.
After collecting venom for an hour and a half, Sage finally pulled his mouth off the Storage Gourd and stretched his jaw muscles. Even as flexible and high ranking as he was, it was still uncomfortable to maintain the same position for so long. His huge cobra body rolled and undulated, slithering him around the room for a few laps to stretch out. Then he activated the Human Seal and returned to a more manageable size. Putting away the Storage Gourd he was finally ready to put his Spirit Cultivation into practice.
The first step was the most difficult, just like it had been a shock to first form the island in his consciousness, reshaping it took a strenuous effort. The feeling was somewhere between getting adjusted by a chiropractor and having braces put in, except inside his brain. In short, not a fun time. Even so, compared to the weekly poisoning, it was child’s play. Soon enough, the island in the center of his Spiritual Sea was now a perfectly round circle as large as he could get it. Since he already had a whole map drawn out of what he wanted his own Infinite Immaterial Seat to look like, it was far easier to create than he thought it would be. After following the method of manipulating Spirit Power laid out in the technique, it was really just a matter of time. He focused his Spirit Power and very slowly it condensed a sort of solid matter from out of the air inside his Spiritual Sea. At first, a piece the size of a tiny grain of sand took him nearly a minute to form. He kept with it, and as his skill with the technique grew, so did his speed. The little specks of ‘matter’ combined together effortlessly and he used them to build the walls of his maze, starting first with a giant outer wall at the border of the island. After a few days, he could form a brick sized piece of matter in a minute, but at that point he had to suffer through another round of poisoning.
Sage kept at it and within a few weeks his speed was many times faster than before, forming a brick sized piece in only a few seconds. He’d made good progress, having laid out a basic outline for the maze, but at only a couple bricks tall. His training was suddenly interrupted.
“Hey Kid. Come out. It’s time to build our new money factory.”
“What? Oh… the Inner World! Has everything arrived already?”
“That’s right. If you don’t get over here immediately I’ll make you grow another pair of legs. Time to rebuild your World Core.”
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Sage thought the threat was a bit weird, but then he remembered when trying to run faster they used the saying ‘I wish I had been born with an extra set of legs’. It also gave him the odd mental picture of a snake with human legs stapled on. Of course, he’d been in a dragon shape previously, but those legs were more lizard-like in configuration. He was already on the move as he was having all these silly thoughts, and he reached Guan Zhenyan’s main manor a moment later. The man liked to have a minimal crew of guards and servants, and they were all familiar with Sage by now so they let him pass without even saying a word.
When Sage walked in, Guan Zhenyan pulled out a small jade bottle. He popped off the top and poured it out. Instead of falling to the ground, a little ball of clear water floated in mid-air in front of him. At first glance it looked like a field of glowing green light was supporting the liquid in mid-air, but after watching for a while it became apparent that the water was the source of the green light. Guan Zhenyan waved his hand and the ball of glowing water flew over to Sage, “With such short notice, this is the only Heavenly Material I could get my hands on. Some old geezer has had it for a few thousand years, but his time is running out. He traded it to me in exchange for some training. He only has a few hundred years left if he doesn’t break into the Saint Realm.”
An almost pitying look entered Guan Zhenyan’s eyes for a moment, but then he quickly recovered, “Hurry up and refine it. That Green Lifewater was only being used to extend an old man’s life, but its best purpose is to water Spirit Plants and Demonic Plants.”
With another Heavenly Treasure in his hands, Sage didn’t waste any time. Before Guan Zhenyan posed extra conditions or took it back, he quickly spilled some blood upon it and drew it into his Dantian. It entered the Life Nebula and rapidly zipped through the empty space until it touched down on the surface of the Inner World. It passed through the ground like it wasn’t there and entered his Inner Core. It passed through that glowing wall and flew over to where the other Heavenly Materials were rotating around the Seed of Life sapling.
Just like the last few Heavenly Materials, when Sage started to meld with it, the Green Lifewater’s will didn’t fight against him. Instead it accepted him wholeheartedly. Almost immediately it’s power swirled into the Inner World and started to mix with the water that was powered by the Eye of the World. It wanted to have an equal distribution with the Eye of the World, but as the first one there, the Eye of the World remained dominant. Sage realized he had control over things, but he didn’t butt in yet, instead just observing for a while. Then he withdrew his consciousness and smiled at Guan Zhenyan, “A success.”
“Of course. If it wasn’t, you’d be a real disgrace as a holder of the Seed of Life.”
Then the man pulled out a Storage Ring and tossed it out. Sage caught it in mid-air and was astounded by the mountains of resources inside. Guan Zhenyan spoke before he could ask, “Let’s start the mental link again, I’ll guide you. It will be much faster than letting you stumble around and not set up the growing conditions properly. Don’t object, each of those plants has its own ideal conditions for growing. Just think of it as a free bonus lesson.”
When he put it like that, Sage didn’t really have a reason not to agree. His consciousness sank into his Inner Core and connected with the small flower growing there next to the tiny tree of life. As before, he felt Guan Zhenyan’s presence, just like the man was looming over his shoulder. Then he flew up and out of the Inner Core again to overlook the Inner World. He pointed out Ruanfu’s settlement, the Hoplite Villages, and also the whole continent where insects ruled. Guan Zhenyan gave him a mental nod, “Not too terrible really. Those Hoplites, as you call them, aren’t too terrible of an idea, but they’re unfinished products in my eyes. Move all those Hoplites into one spot for now, you can use them as your groundskeepers later, but they need to get out of the way for now.”