Molting the Mortal Coil

Chapter 986: Stars

The change in Sages inner cosmology greatly enhanced the natural environment of the world and the resources it could provide. Now that all the types of Heavenly Material were collected the world had taken a full form. Previously, the Inner World had functioned for tens of thousands of years, but the planet itself was like one that hadnt been fully terraformed. Since Sage had control over it, he could build things to be the most supportive of life, but there were still many limitations. He concentrated all the areas that were most conducive to humans in one continent while the rest of the planet was just used by insects as a habitat. Over time it had continued to improve as Sage collected Heavenly Materials and now that he had all seven types it could become a complete system.

As he gathered more and more Heavenly Materials it would add new energies to be added to the Inner World and allow it to produce more unusual resources. Theoretically, there should be some point where he had enough Heavenly Materials that the Inner World could produce everything that the outside world did. Sage doubted he could ever find that many, as it seemed like there was an infinite number of possibilities for strange items out there in the universe. Even matching the variety that was available on this Cultivation World seemed difficult, let alone the infinite variation on all the other worlds. As hed found on the Psionic Hidden Domain, there was no telling how many other worlds were out there that this Cultivation World had access to let alone the ones it didnt.

Sage focused more on these benefits to the Inner World, because the benefits to his own fighting abilities from the Heavenly Materials had become quite small. The problem of their use being different on the Inner World only became more of a hindrance as time passed. Being able to practice and train with the Heavenly Materials only on the outside world meant he would never be as good with them as he was with other options that he could spend a thousand times longer practicing. It was somewhat sad to think that these Heavenly Materials that could be the core of a persons fighting style were merely support for him, but the fact remained that they improved his Inner World and increased the amount of Qi he had to draw upon. After collecting one of each of the seven types, Sage felt a massive increase in his Qi stores. Previously, hed had much less available than others, but had a very high recovery rate. Now, he felt his Qi stores were equal to most others and he had an even higher Qi generation rate. There were still those with unique or powerful Qi Cultivation Techniques that probably had greater Qi stores than him, but he felt his generation rate was already top tier.

Considering I already have fourteen Heavenly Materials, it would be pretty silly if I didnt have an advantage!

It might seem wasteful to barely use the Heavenly Materials, but for these new ones even if he spent all his time on them hed only have a few years worth of practice. Yet, in the Inner World the ten years that Sage spent at the Clear Sky Academy was equal to ten thousand years. With access to such a large library of new knowledge and techniques, Sages fighting abilities underwent a huge change. With the addition of a few new Qi Techniques useful for a physical combatant, Sages main method of combat remained the use of his physical strength. Hed already showed off the Jade Mantle, and his Demonic Beast body was at a much higher starting level than other Cultivators. Along with his poisons, specifically the Sacrificial Blade from the Zhu Clan that boosted physical attributes, it was enough to solve most battles he was involved in.

The greatest changes were actually to both his main area of weakness as well as something hed overlooked for far too long. Upon being forced to go through his large collection scrambling for things to trade away, Sage was reminded of all the gains from the Psychic Hidden Domain. He traded away some of them, but considering how hed collected whole mines worth of materials he still had plenty more. Since they were limited resources hed always been carefully hoarding them. At the time hed imagined equipping a unit of Dragoons with Shard Rifles as their secret weapons, but he realized how powerful they were and didnt want them to be robbed. Hed also realized how vast an army of Dragoons he could create and their quantity was more useful that arming a few of them with powerful weapons. There were some Shard Rifles with the Lang Clan, but due to the limited ammunition they had, they were merely kept in reserve. Without being able to use the Timeless Eyes to predict the future, they werent nearly as useful for others to use.

The Shard Rifles were only the tip of the iceberg of what hed received in the Psychic Hidden Domain. Sage gave large quantities of Astral Silver, Indigo Quartz, and Lunarstone to the research teams on the Inner World. While it was a limited resource, they still had many thousands of tons which was enough that it could be used as strategic resources. Since they already had the Blastids to act as the main weapons, creating Shard Rifles was no longer necessary. Indigo Quartz absorbed the energy of Lunarstone and then released it somewhat explosively. Astral Silver was just the medium used to fire it as a projectile. Given these properties, he was also pretty sure it could be used as a power source, the combination of the two items having such a volatile reaction was something that just needed to be harnessed in the same way that something like gasoline powered an engine. On the other hand, since array formations allowed them to get past the main weight problem in a steam engine the Indigo Quartz might not be useful. That was why the research was generalized and not specifically focused on engines, there was no telling what sorts of things they could do with it.

Actually, Sage was more interested in what could be done with Astral Silver. The strange way that it was moveable with telekinetic force, but unaffected by other types of Spirit Power. This was also related to the last, and most important, thing from the Psionic Hidden Domain: Psionic Crystals. They were used to unlock techniques within the mind, a sort of specialized skill tree which Sage thought came from inside the crystals. To test this theory, Sage had a few of the researchers with the greatest talent in Spirit Power use some Psionic Crystals to unlock the same skill tree. Some were tasked with trying to rise through the tree on their own, while others used more crystals to unlock higher level techniques and then tried to teach them to others. Both routes turned out to be successful with enough time and a new lineage of Spirit Power was created. There were those who spent their contribution points to unlock new pathways in the Spirit Power tree and then spread those new techniques to others. Sage was among them, sharing all the techniques he knew already as soon as the method to pass them on was figured out.

Along with this assortment of new Spirit Power techniques, Sage was also training many new Qi Techniques from the Clear Sky Academys library.