The Broken Bronze Lionfish fell for his trap. Sage knew the beast’s philosophy of trading wounds and after giving it a test he used it to form his plan. Since it would never rest unless it could take one of its enemies with it, Sage worked to make the Silver Blackfish seem to be the most important enemy so that the lionfish would make the blackfish its main target of retaliation. If it was going to kill someone when it was defeated, then Sage gave it a target that could die over and over again. He purposely held back his strength and dragged the battle out for a long time so that the Silver Blackfish would be the main offensive force and draw the most ire.

Sage wasn’t a combat genius or a legendary general that could perfectly predict the flow of a battle or grasp the perfect moment to act. That was why he went into the battle with multiple backup plans, one of which was to fill the stomach of the Silver Blackfish with Ruby Blood. As a creature created out of a Heavenly Material and driven by soul fragments, it didn’t have a normal body of flesh and blood that could be poisoned by Ruby Blood. He had no way to ensure that the lionfish would swallow the blackfish, nor did he have any faith in being able to capture the big monster, but he got lucky and the Broken Bronze Lionfish was foolish enough to swallow the blackfish rather than ripping it into shreds with its many giant sword fins.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to fall back upon killing the Broken Bronze Lionfish or letting it destroy the Silver Blackfish while he fled. Now there was one of them on the Inner World he would later seal and use to diversify the seas. Then again, maybe that fish can be convinced. It might not be as stubborn as that damn crocodile. Fish aren’t that smart, maybe I can trick them.

With the major obstacle removed, Sage could return to what he was doing before. After placing down a pillar to use as a reference and keep track of the entrance to what he was tentatively calling a Hidden Domain, Sage was going to range farther away in search of the Ghost Armorana. Now that the distraction passed, he was free to return to these plans. That is of course after he took care of the other complication he’d run into. Sage swam down to the sea bed and sent his Spirit Sense into the many tiny holes on the rock and used it to envelop the sea anemone that had wanted to use him as fertilizer. He couldn’t really blame the creature for its actions since it was probably even dumber than the fish. Even so, it had attacked him and so that meant it was going to be a new specimen for the Inner World. He nabbed the clownfish first, since it would be a shame to break up such great friends. Then with the location of the anemone’s main bodies found with his Spirit Sense, he used the most violent and destructive method to dig it up.

He used his powerful physical body to pummel the rocks on the sea bed, smashing them into small chunks and then brushing them. He smashed down ten feet under the sea bed, cracking rocks and shifting sand to reach the anemone’s hidden main body. Feeling threatened it had already pulled in all its tentacles and ceased all motion to keep hidden. It had a tough outer cell with a rock like armor, and with its tentacles retracted it could cover up all weak points. Unfortunately, choosing to hide in its shell took away its opportunity to fight back. Sage brought out a blanket-like net of silk from the Inner World, tossing it around the shed-sized main body of the sea anemone and then using fresh webbing of his own to seal up the net. This blanket-like net was pre-prepared on the Inner World, it was of an extremely tight weave that made it very strong and left no gaps for the sea anemone’s tentacles to squeeze through. It was one of the many hundreds of things that the Soul Clone had created. With a weaving related cultivation technique and the ability to produce his own spider silk, it would be a shame if Sage didn’t do any research into making Magic Tools made of silk.

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A few days later he finally caught the trail of the Ghost Armorana. It turned out to be just as elusive as its namesake, but it stood no chance against his tracking skills. Calling it a skill was a bit of a misnomer, because it was actually just one of the functions of the Timeless Eyes. While he often used Foresight in combat, Hindsight was even more powerful in the right circumstances. No matter how evasive or tricky the Ghost Armorana was as long as it wasn’t completely invisible, he could always follow. He only needed to know that it passed by a specific location and then he could go there and zoom his vision back through time to find it. Then, with a sort of window into the past he could follow the target’s path in real time like he was right behind them. It was the perfect ability to tail someone without being discovered. It really was quite a shame he couldn’t teach the Timeless Eyes to anyone, or he’d definitely want to train a few operatives that could use Hindsight to spy and track.

Even with such an overwhelming method it actually took quite a bit of effort to track the Ghost Armorana. While it couldn’t turn invisible or teleport, it did something that was similar to those two powers. Whenever it ran into trouble, the Ghost Armorana along with its entourage of a dozen other fish, seemed to turn transparent and increase in speed for a span of time. They became extremely difficult to see in the dim light of the sea, and by the time this effect wore off it was almost like they’d teleported themselves to somewhere else. The few times that the Ghost Armorana ran into trouble wasted Sage’s time. He had to keep ‘rewinding’ his Hindsight and testing which direction the Ghost Armorana had moved in. When there was a conflict there was a sudden flurry of motion and thrashing bodies, enough to obscure the Ghost Armorana in its special state and Sage couldn’t track what direction it ran in. Instead he had to guess and check a proper route before catching the trail once again.

Following in the trail of the Ghost Armorana, Sage eventually tracked the big fish to a large rock formation. Among these rocks there was a series of tunnels and caves, which required a bit of effort on his part to avoid eels, fish, anemones, and other sea life. While tracking the Ghost Armorana with Hindsight, he couldn’t use Foresight, so he got some practice in undersea combat without being able to cheat. He was injured a few times, but he had the Blacksilver Fish to lead the way and spring any traps along with his powerful physical body and Jade Mantle to protect him. If he was a normal human cultivator in these tunnels he could have had his body destroyed a dozen times over because of all the ambushes he ran into.