The success of the bio-computer pushed him and the researchers into a whole new area of development. The funny thing was that the computing power itself wasn’t even the reason for this change. They had merely gained so much experience with creating insects to fulfill specific purposes that they continued to create new innovations in this area. In the past, Sage had created the Hoplites and the Dragoons for specific purposes. Before that he’d only dabbled in making insects to use as weapons and utility tools, but this gave them more experience with creating Ancestral Memories and modifying the insects for highly specialized tasks. In the past he created the Torchfly, a modified firefly to act as a lantern for the city, but that only took a few Ancestral Memories to change their habits. The new insects they worked on were also insects taking the place of technology, like the Torchfly acted as a light, but they applied them to far different niches.
Magical Tools were extremely versatile. There were so many Array Symbols that there seemed to be endless variations and combinations. The methodology of their placement and combinations were similar to Formation Arrays, but not exactly the same. A formation used far more symbols as well as different lines and shapes between them to create a whole different system. Magical Tools on the other hand could use more and more complicated materials as well as multiple parts to combine effects. They were different, but both areas of study were very deep and complex, despite the common ‘language’ of symbols there was great nuance between them. The same went for Alchemical Pills, as they actually had to connect the symbols together to form a tessellation pattern in the form of a sphere at their higher levels.
Why did this matter? Well, despite all the combinations of symbols, different effects required the use of corresponding materials. If there was a sort of effect that he didn’t know the materials and symbols for there was a whole world of research and experimentation he would have to go into. Time wasn’t really a problem for him, but there was the issue of materials. The research expenditures of high level Professionals were essentially limitless. Most large powers could only afford enough for a handful of their top craftspeople to do top level research. Those high tier materials were just that expensive. Sage had a pretty good supply of these high tier materials from his combat in the Depths, but given the time difference between the Inner and Outer World this amount was basically trivial. Instead of wasting resources to try and invent new Magical Tools they could instead create insects instead.
There was still a limit to the natural abilities of Demonic Beasts and Insects that Sage had collected so far, but there was still a huge number of possibilities, especially when considering they could implant behaviors and different techniques into them. They found incredible results in only a short time by making use of a certain natural ability that he’d never got enough use out of himself. The ability originated with a Demonic Animal called the Fire Crested Iguana. It was a sort of permanently open Qi Pore that gave the iguana its signature head crest of burning flame. It was a way to emit Qi out of the body far more efficiently and powerfully than through just using the Qi Pores like Cultivators did. The downside was that these ‘Qi Nozzles’, as Sage named them, were always open and leaking the owner’s Qi out. Sage created a whole secondary meridian system in one of his bodies long ago so that he could get around this downside. Even so, he didn’t end up using it that much and the biological ‘real estate’ inside his body was not worth it. It was shortly after this time that he learned about how focusing on only a few natural abilities made them more powerful and effective.
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It was this same idea that he was now focusing upon. Instead of trying to squeeze this ability into his own body, why not make an insect that can do it instead? Insects were the perfect experimental subjects as they had very tiny bodies that used barely any resources to grow. Only when they finally reached the correct result did they have to invest greater amounts to make them grow into larger and more useful sizes. Creating insects to take advantage of the Qi Nozzles was very fruitful as it led to tons of modern conveniences. Fire natured Qi created bugs that could act as a lighter or cooking appliances. Ice natured Qi created an air conditioner or a drink cooler. Of course, these two areas were not really that big of a deal as they already created the Utilitree to handle heating and cooling in homes. Yet, it did add variety to the market and small insect tools that didn’t require Qi like reusable Magical Tools did.
The utility versions of this new bug were only at the first tier and could be worn on a finger. Yet, that was far from the limits of their size. As they got bigger and stronger their emitter became more and more impressive. This new insect, the Blastid, looked similar to a cricket, except without the large back legs and wings. It had a similarly sized head and thorax, but its abdomen was twice the size of them combined. Two thirds of its body was devoted to the abdomen so it could have the greatest Qi reserves possible. Its much smaller limbs were not really large enough to carry its large body around and were instead optimized for locking in place so it could cling onto the user. In the second tier it was large enough to wear around the wrist or forearm and could be used in a similar manner to a cutting torch or a blowdryer.
Things started to accelerate in the third tier as Qi could be expelled at a range in this tier and the Blastid that was mostly a tool suddenly became a weapon. At this level it was the size of a rifle and could still be attached to the arm or carried using its legs as grips. In the fourth tier it was large enough to be worn as a narrow backpack or cling to the shoulder so it could be used like a ‘bazooka’. At tier five it was the size of a literal cannon and was so large that it became very inconvenient to carry. Lastly, a tier six Blastid was the size of an SUV, at least theoretically.
They hadn’t spent the resources to raise any tier six Blastids, even though they now knew how to. The Ancestral Memories of the Law of Amalgamation from the Cardinal Protoherring was a great boon to them as it only took a little trial and error to ensure that their Demonic Beasts would have the potential to reach tier six. That said, it was no simple feat as the Cardinal Protoherring’s special Ancestral Memory was conditional. It was only awakened when a certain number of Protoherrings were grouped up over a long period before one of them would undergo a sort of mutation and receive the memory. They had to follow the same restrictions on the Blastid, only one of them out of every large batch would change and get this capability. The other reason they didn’t grow any of the tier sixes was the expense and the lifespan of the Blastid.
Demonic Insects had far shorter lifespans than Demonic Beasts. They actually lived a similar length of time as Human Cultivators, but compared to normal insects this was an astoundingly long time. Since Blastids were meant to be tools, they were altered to burn up their own lifeforce in order to increase their power. The many different natures of Qi could act as different weapons or powerful tools, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. The number of possibilities when making use of Ancestral Memories and Qi Techniques felt limitless.