The nine towers were full of curves and arches, with Blue Icesilver latticeworks and Steel Silk cables crisscrossing back and forth along their sides. They were interconnected like suspension bridge pylons to create a large web-like structure in the air between them. The central tower was the largest and filled with living quarters, taking the role of Sage’s old manor as well as having space for the Hoplite and Dragoon workers. Sage planned to phase out all the Hoplites eventually, but he wasn’t so heartless to just kill them all. He let them live out their lives and raise Dragoon children to take their places.

The other eight towers were built to maximize his space and he designed them to use vertical farming. With the Dragoon’s ability to fly, they could much more easily grow crops on walls. By making use of the vertical space of the eight towers, crops could be grown without using up the limited land. There were even aerial bridges built between the towers and would let the workers move between them without having to bother with the ground. Sage had workers on the Inner World build him a few of his old devices for pumping and controlling water temperature. He installed a few on each tower to control irrigation and fed them with the neverending river that flowed into this space.

Once the towers were self-sufficient, he turned the land area into a wildlife preserve. He brought millions of insects over from the Inner World as well as many hundreds of beasts. Then he stored ten times as many of each in stasis, so that the Dragoons could reintroduce them to the wild in an emergency. Still, that left him unsatisfied and he had the Warp Worms dig out a whole subterranean tunnel system, stocking it with different sorts of fungi, insects, and critters that loved the dark. He made sure there were many caves and entrances from the surface world, so it could be used for animal dens and more room to breed bugs.

While he was at it, he even went a step further and had the worms dig an underground layer beneath the layer of caves. He filled it with water from the Inner World and set up a surface level lake, fed by the river and with some spiraling channels down to the underground lake. The way he saw it, that huge mass of rock and stone was just wasted space. He was also careful to leave large buffers between each layer and among the cavens, so only about half of the underground space in that one mile radius was hollowed out when all was said and done.

Only after all of this was properly set up and filled with beasts did Sage finally choose to go through with the Soul Spawn technique. He didn’t know how many beasts he’d end up eating before he finally matured, but after setting up a whole wilderness preserve, complete with ranchers ready to stock more beasts and even throw in crops if necessary, he felt a lot more confident.

Outside of the central tower, Sage placed the large egg and slowly cycled his energy through a specific set of internal pathways. Activating the technique passed down through the memories and blood of the Twin Ringed Soul Serpent. His Nascent Soul shifted from the shape of his human body, back to its true appearance as the Tree of Life, and then morphed into the form of a cobra, the same as the body in the egg. Then it slowly sunk inside and his mind blurred, slowly drifting away like he was going to sleep.

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One day, he awoke again.

He felt so very refreshed. He was bursting with energy, feeling fit and vigorous, and just like he’d had the most magnificent dream. He stretched his body and felt the now familiar feel of wood brushing against his scales. Ah, right. Scales. I’m a cobra.

Having just woken up, his dream was still fresh in his mind, and he tried to remember what it was about, only to realize it wasn’t magnificent. It was horrible. Vicious and full of blood and screams. He realized he was in a cave filled with rotting logs, and small bugs happily infested the wood. When he moved the many thousands of small insects moved along with him, flooding out through many holes in the wall and leaving the large tunnel exit for him to follow. He slithered through it and reached the surface where the many insects spread out along the ground like a carpet. Beetles flew into the sky and buzzed back and forth like they were hailing his arrival while the many smaller bugs on the ground outlined a path for him.

He was in the middle of what seemed to be a dense jungle, but after traveling along the path in front of him for a few moments the jungle opened up to a huge clearing. Vines climbed into the sky and he followed them to see not the canopy of trees but a strange web of smaller bushes, plants, and flowers in the sky. His gaze traveled along the line of that web to the ‘trunk’ of this tree, which he almost immediately recognized as the central tower he’d built.

Uh oh.

Moving closer, he found the tower was overgrown with vegetation, the most eye-catching of which was what looked to be a tree trunk a few feet thick, except it was curved, curling and spiraling up the side of the building like a ramp. As he traveled up it, he got a better view of the territory and also realized that the tree trunk he traveled was quite familiar. Once he was a few stories up, the tower started to have open air windows and he saw that all the rooms were basically overrun with plants and the tidy quarters that had been built for the Dragoons were completely turned to ruins.

The same had happened to his own rooms, the ones he’d set up at the highest floors. Most of them were turned into animal dens, and only his bedroom, cultivation room, and workshop were untouched because of their defensive formations. The rest of the place was completely wild. Looking out from this high point, he saw that the other towers were in no better shape and also covered with vines and a twisting tree trunk.

It seems my cobra body went on a rampage, and even knew how to use the Sacred Banyan.

Sage eventually sorted through his ‘dream’ and the rest of the Universe Ring. From what he could piece together, this cobra body of his was a true terror. It wasn’t satisfied with hunting the beasts and insects. It also killed every Hoplite and Dragoon, turning this whole place into a jungle and crowning itself king. Through the use of its Hypnotic Eyes, anything weaker than it was nothing more than its most devoted subject and it took enjoyment out of tormenting the other beasts and creatures. The Hoplites and Dragoons weren’t very smart, but they were far more fun to torture than normal animals so it took its time killing them all. After they were all finally gone, it grew bored and lazy.

Sage carefully applied a Human Seal to his heart and then called upon new Dragoons from the Inner World. He blinked in surprise when he saw them as they all carried shiny new spears and had thick and heavy armor.

Wow, new gear! Wait… how long have I been in here? I was just going to clean up in here before checking, but it seems I’ve got more important things to do.