Molting the Mortal Coil

Chapter 798: Gold

After some thought Sage hypothesized that the Jinxi Ancestor must not possess the Brood Master technique. It was then that Sage pieced together the more likely story. The Golden Cicada had one more important detail: upon becoming a Nascent Soul, the egg is absorbed and their soul takes the form of the Golden Cicada. If their body dies the Nascent Soul can still take the form of a Nymph for protection, but that is only a side concern. With the Nascent Soul as a Golden Cicada it means that if they climb into another body they have two major advantages. First, if they fail to defeat the spirit of the body, they can retreat. They wont merely die if they fail to take over. Secondly, they can forgo attacking the bodys spirit and instead lay a Golden Cicada egg inside them.

A Nascent Soul merely had to leave their body for a few moments to place a Golden Cicada egg inside another person. If they wanted an egg from a Golden Cicada before this level it would take years of effort to perform a sort of replication of the egg within their dantian and then draw it out to give to someone else.

The Golden Cicada was helpful to cultivation and could act as a second life, but they were vulnerable to a Brood Master. If the Jinxi Ancestor was a Brood Master, then he was sure that at the very least the whole Chong Clan would have Golden Cicadas. On the other hand, if he were not a Brood Master, then it all made a lot more sense. If the Insect Immortal Index were added to this equation, then what if the Jinxi Ancestor were to link to a cicada egg before giving it to someone else? The link would work similarly to the Brood Master technique and give them control over whoever the egg was bonded into. Then, the Jinxi Ancestor could use that control to help him take over the body.

Hmm, Jinxi Po was already a Nascent Soul as well, right?

If this descendant with an egg broke into Nascent Soul, then their mind would fuse together with the egg. Then theyd be directly linked to the Jinxi Ancestor, right? Instead of just stealing a body easily, the Jinxi Ancestor could use a full Merge to combine the two Golden Cicada Nascent Souls. Since he was already linked, would that act like the Silver Liberator Butterfly and ensure he stays dominant? No, the link only made it so that a full merge could be performed, it didnt guarantee anyone in charge. How did the Jinxi Ancestor resist losing his mind? Maybe he had a Silver Liberator Butterfly of his own in the past. The Jinxi helped overthrow the Lang Clan long ago, so maybe he plundered one in the process.

Either way, Sage realized something hed always wondered about the Jinzi Ancestor. A full merge is a combination of minds, memories as well as bodies. After two minds are combined as one, the single creature at the end will have all the knowledge of both. More importantly, if the Jinxi Ancestor combined with another Nascent Soul, he could gain all of their knowledge of the laws. It was no wonder that the Jinxi Ancestor had so many different types of law energy. It was a good thing that the laws were merely a boost and not all powerful. The Jinxi Ancestor probably had many different fighting styles, but so many years of hiding them probably meant he still only favored the methods of his most recent merger. He was probably careful to use only the abilities that his new body had and had to keep his other skills hidden.

Sage had dueled the man as Jinxi Jao, where he used a wind and hypnotic sound law. Then he possessed his descendant, Jinxi Po, and gained a destructive sound law. He came after Sage using a bow with many expensive arrows, which must have been from a past life and what he considered his strongest.

It was actually pretty impressive and made Sage wonder just how many laws the old man had collected. On the other hand, it was quite a relief. Sage was just lucky that breaking through into Nascent Soul was so difficult. Especially since the old man couldnt just be giving out Golden Cicadas to anyone. If he wasnt careful his secret could get out. Instead he probably had just a few successors every few generations, and hed feed them resources hoping that one of them would be a genius that would comprehend one of the laws. Then if one of them did, he would put all his affairs in order then pass over control of the Clan and then take them over.

Of course, this was all just a guess. Even as chatty as they could get the old bastard to be with the Storytime Elixir, it was still not guaranteed to make them talk about any specific topic. It seemed there were some things that some people would not tell any stories about. Or at least that was the case until Sage finished his evolution this time. Having awakened the ability to dredge up these other bloodlines, Sage gained the ancestral memory and learned the Brood Master technique. He no longer needed the Storytime Elixir to make the Jinxi Ancestor talk.

A room that had been filled with the endless drivel of one story after another was soon filled with pained screams. An existence that was over ten thousand years old broke down into tears and begged for mercy.

Sage found out that his guesses were correct in all but one way. The old thing never had a Silver Liberator Butterly, nor did he have a way to help control the mergers to maintain his sanity. He went crazy. The Jinxi Ancestor did not do as Sage had done and merged with many beasts. Instead, the first time he merged was with someone weaker than himself when he had just broken into the Nascent Soul level. At that time, he was actually linked to someone else, and that person had been attempting to take him over. That person had been able to force the merger, but his greater power meant he was dominant. After that time, he had merged with others and each time he would remain dominant, but really it was just his personality that remained. Everything about them would be combined. The Jinxi Ancestors mind was something of a council, constantly debating with itself over the best course of action in any situation.

Sage realized how lucky it had been for him. If the Jinxi Ancestor didnt have such an abnormal mind, wouldnt his speed and reaction time have been much faster? Would Sage still have come out on top in that case?

Not intending to get pulled into that sort of mental collective, Sage had no intention of copying the mans practice of collecting laws. Sage had actually experienced this phenomena when he merged with the Genesis Spider, but he was desperate at the time and lucky that the spider didnt have an overpowering personality that could jade his mind too much. He specifically chose to merge with eggs or newly hatched creatures so they wouldnt have a lot of memories or strong personalities that altered him, and hed been lucky that the Genesis Spider lived a very simple life.

On the plus side, the Jinxi Ancestor had now become his loyal minion, left completely at the mercy of the Brood Master technique. Sage didnt dare to follow the Jinxi Ancestors method of collecting laws, but hed gained a very interesting technique instead.