Sage ran the little girl through the same process he’d performed a year ago. Drawing upon her essence, using his own body as a converter and then pouring it into the egg. Ruanfu felt a little weakened, but it was nothing like the process of awakening her egg. That egg had been in a barely living form of stasis for who knows how long, while this new egg was brimming with vitality. Once the transfer was complete, Sage ruffled up Ruanfu’s hair, “You did great! King, you have my permission to bring her to town and buy a whole bag full of candy.”

Sage passed over a pouch full of Spirit Stones to the birdman and thanked both of them again. They stuck around to watch the egg hatch and the three of them watched a terrifying creature being born. The head of a snake poked out of the egg. It was mottled with a sickly green and yellow color, atop burnt brownish red scales. It was also dotted with many crater like pockmarks. As it slithered out further, it’s body was covered in circumferential muscles that made it look like a worm. Weirder still when it slithered out further there was a pair of wings covered in coarse matted down hair just like a bird.

While the other two were still marveling, Sage held his hand out towards the weird winged worm snake and sent some Qi into its body. A few seconds later he smiled, “Whew. We were lucky.”

Ruanfu and King looked at him, “This little thing has both of your bloodlines now, but it didn’t inherit the strength of your soul or mind. It’s mostly worm. Thankfully, we don’t have to do that again. Sorry for the strain on you, Ruanfu.”

They weren’t really sure what he was talking about, but Sage left them to their own devices. King brought Ruanfu and some of his wives, flying them all over to the border town they’d visited before. In the meantime, Sage took the little winged snake worm and quickly used the ‘Merge’ technique. After linking up, he rapidly matured it and used it to produce a few more offspring. Out of respect for Ruanfu he put the eggs into stasis instead of adding them into his breeding experiments, at least for now.

The Human Seal could modify his appearance, but an even better method would be to entirely change his blood, aura, and even his soul. All three of which would be modified if he were to merge again. It had already been quite a few years since the debacle of losing his mind last time so there shouldn’t be any difficulties. Last time he hadn’t spent enough time letting the different minds and personalities completely integrate before merging with others. Instead of his personality and self being the dominant party the other merges left behind remnants that eventually overpowered him in a similar manner to a person with multiple personalities might experience. The only problem was the other personalities were mindless insects and murderous Demonic Beasts.

In order to prevent that problem, Sage had instead merged all the beasts into a single whole and would then only require one final merge to combine them all with himself. Previously, he always made sure the traits he wanted were present with the creature he was combining with, but now that he had the power of the Silver Liberator Butterfly, he was performing a test.

Once King and Ruanfu returned, he asked King to task his offspring and wives to search within the Dou Kingdom. They were to look for territory suitable for forming more bases. He passed over twenty thousand Spirit Stones to use as funds, a full quarter of what he had left, along with his Oathstone. With the stone he could swear people to secrecy before they go out into public. He left King in charge of building a basic infrastructure for them in the Dou Kingdom, at least in the border province of Bronze Tiger.

In the meanwhile, Sage took that ugly little winged snake worm and holed up inside the Universe Ring. He started the complicated complete merging process and activated the power of the Silver Liberator Butterfly as he did. Spinning a cocoon for himself and undergoing a metamorphosis. Entering a strange dream like state he could feel the many facets of his own soul, but there was no longer any of those remnant minds messing things up. Instead it was only himself and the winged snake worm. The two minds slowly merged and there was only a momentary interruption in Sage’s thoughts. With only a few days of life, and being linked to Sage for most of them it was a pretty smooth transition.

Having initiated the metamorphosis on his own this time, Sage had more control. He attempted to use the ‘Mutate’ technique, altering the process of transformation. This metamorphosis let him pick and choose from many different bodily options, allowing him to carefully select his final result. That said, it wasn’t perfect. It presented to him all the characteristics of the creatures he’d previously merged with. His goal of using the ‘Mutate’ technique was to revert some of those component parts. To access not just the specific beasts he’d merged with in the past, but their ancestors as well. Just like the ancestral memories, he sought to access their bloodlines. Tracking such things could be done using DNA. Sage still had no idea if DNA existed in this world, but if it didn’t, a similar concept might still apply. Bloodlines seemed to be powerful and important for beasts in this world. At the very least, it was integral to his Blood Refining technique.

His first attempt was unsuccessful, but he did feel something change. He tried again. Thankfully, he already had an idea of how to modify the techniques of the Insect Immortal Index and he started to slightly vary the energy he was releasing. In the past he’d learned both the Lang Clan version of the techniques as well as ‘true’ versions from the ancestor in the tomb. At least with an example of a lesser and greater version he had an idea of how it could be modified and changed. After what felt like hours of experimentation, there was finally a response.

Each of the creatures he’d merged with in the past existed in his mind as a sort of shadowy doll of soulstuff. He could bring over their pieces and swap them out for the ones on a shadowy doll of his current body. The process was all performed within this strange space and controlled by his soul, which let him manipulate the soul stuff at his whim. There was no need for any clumsy physical limbs or dexterity to get in the way. His energy was in constant flux until those shadowy dolls had a reaction. The Qi from his dantian was saturating his body with what he could only call differing wavelengths of energy, until one of those wavelengths caused the shadowy dolls to unravel.

He was worried for a moment, wondering if he’d ruined everything. Only it wasn’t ruined. The shadows forms weren’t destroyed, they merely reformed. Breaking into much smaller pieces and forming into other shapes. Then they broke apart again and formed into more shapes that were even smaller in size. Sage altered the mutation energy and with a bit more experimenting he found how to control the process. Halting, reverting, or advancing it again. The more he broke the shapes apart, the smaller and less detailed they became.

Probably something like data loss through the generations. Diluting of bloodlines, maybe?

Regardless of the cause, it still gave him more choices and he quickly set about experimenting with different bits and pieces. His current form was pretty satisfactory, but it was still a bit too foreign in comparison to that of a humanoid. Also, as he had found with the Blood Refining technique, it was more important for a beast to have a powerful ancestry and inborn strength than it was to look good. No matter how beautiful or impressive he made his body look, he still didn’t stand a chance against even a disfigured pig if it was a half-dragon.

The way he saw it, there was another fork in his path. He could attempt to alter his body shape closer to that of a humanoid. Obviously, he would still be a beast, but if he had more human like proportions, walking bipedally with two arms and legs, it would greatly enhance his combat prowess. While he had never been a martial expert, he’d still spent many years training in the Lang Clan. In comparison, he had only the inherited memories of the Twin Ringed Soul Serpent to guide him as a beast.

On the other hand, he could go all in. Right now he was a spined flood dragon with a decidedly snake-like head. Instead of making his body more like a human he could try to match the draconic ideal he’d seen in pictures and chase after their full form.

Where was a coin to flip when you need one?