While the experimentation with his third meridian system seemed to be successful, it was still untried and reliant on the new meridian system being tough enough to handle the energies he tried to channel through it. Even if the mouth structure of the Warp Worm could handle an attack, it didn’t mean that it wouldn’t destroy the meridians.

I’ll need to figure out a way to strengthen the meridians without a cultivation technique.

The dragon bloodline didn’t just provide him with a higher quality body, there was also an ancestral technique carried along with them. The problem with ancestral memories was that they became corrupted with each generation. With a parent around to explain the intricacies, it wasn’t even an issue for direct inheritors. The problem came when the children weren’t acknowledged or lost. If they couldn’t repair the problems in their inherited memories through their own trial and error, their only other option was to try and reach a higher level of power. Every time they had a breakthrough there was a chance to rebuild some of the memories. Over time and many generations, the remaining memories and techniques would be quite thin.

Even the Breach Hawk, a very powerful creature, was far removed from the original dragon bloodline that made it so famous. It didn’t even have any of the memories of its dragon kin. It’s only remaining memories were a strong body and a single technique from its other line. The Breach Hawk was a descendant of the Void Wyrm. Most thought of it at a true dragon, given how powerful it was. Sage found that in actuality, it was a half dragon. It’s other ancestor was a creature called the ‘Space Worm’. It somewhat resembled the Warp Worm in appearance, but was absolutely immense. Sage had once seen it mentioned in a book as one of the creatures that lived among the stars.

The lone ancestral technique that the Breach Hawk had was its main claim to fame: ‘Cosmic Traction’. Sage found the name extremely lofty, but the ability was quite fitting. It was the main attack that King had been using upon him. Cosmic Traction was the ability to affect space as if it were a physical object. King’s talons didn’t need to puncture through armor or tough hides, he could pierce through space and stab directly into a creature’s flesh. He could ignore the resistance of the wind by forcing his body through a gap in space like a fish swimming in the water. That along with the ability to send out blades of space with a flap of his wings were merely aspects of the Cosmic Traction technique, skilled applications of the core technique.

Sage had of course already started to learn it and so far the best he could do was step and push off of space, similar to trying to run up a wall. When he pressed against space there was a high resistance and he gradually lost traction. The technique explained this issue, but it was a matter of his lack of skill. If he were to master it, applying his energy correctly would allow him to alter the amount of resistance or traction he felt. It said that a master could treat space with the softness and fluidity of water, or with the weight and solidness of stone. His own meager meridian system creation seemed like nothing in comparison to the endless possibilities of Cosmic Traction.

The last technique was the most intriguing. It was from the heritage of the Golden Egg. As he had been told, it did indeed come from the line of a dragon. It was far closer to the pure bloodlines of a dragon than the Breach Hawk was. At the same time it was also far more damaged and muddled in its memories than the Breach Hawk. The long time in stasis had done quite some damage to it. The Breach Hawk line had only maintained their singular technique, their other memories were basics for Breach Hawks. On the other hand, the Golden Egg carried many memories and techniques. The problem was they were all quite muddled and blurry. Sage learned the Golden Egg was from the Myriad Wyrm, a creature that was only a few generations removed from a true dragon, far less than the hundreds for the Breach Hawk.

Unfortunately, the memories were only small flashes and tidbits of knowledge. Sage’s hope was that Ruanfu might recover more of them as she increased in strength. His own advancement relied on cultivation techniques and not gradual strengthening of a beast core, so he would experience no restoration of memories like Ruanfu would. Even so, the sole intact technique seemed promising. ‘Soul Fragment’ was a somewhat mysterious name, but it was quite fitting. With careful practice, and great pain, it allowed the user to break off a fragment of their soul. This fragment could be placed inside an object and give the user some control of that object. An arrow could be made to fly around corners, twisting and curving in flight. A sword could seem like it had eyes of its own, striking backwards with unerring accuracy.

It wasn’t a true possession, nor could it provide direct control, but it was something similar. Just as a person controlled their body using the input of their senses, the fragment of soul acted in a similar fashion. Of course, it was only a tiny fragment of the soul so it was only a tiny portion of the ability that a person would normally have. The amount of control was greatly reduced, like a person heavily drugged or restrained. The senses were similarly impaired, like trying to move while tied up and blindfolded.

While it didn’t seem like much, it was actually very promising. Soul Fragment had no limits on its use, any number of fragments could be forged, given the user could withstand the pain of breaking off a piece of their soul. The amount of control and sensory feedback was more and more powerful based upon the strength of the fragment. The technique even answered one of Sage’s questions from long ago. The nature of the spiritual root.

The spiritual root was the source of ‘talent’. The skill of a person to perceive and control energy. Some theorized it was related to the soul, as those with weak souls would have weak talents. On the other hand, there were also those with very powerful souls that did not have great talent. It was a constant mystery. Sage found the answer in a throw away line of the Soul Fragment technique, something it barely gave a mention to. The spiritual root was the strength of the binding and compatibility of the soul and the body. Essentially it was a limiter on the soul. If a person’s soul was powerful, it did not matter if the spiritual root wasn’t enough to keep up. It still didn’t teach him how to fix his problem, but now he knew where to start looking.

Soul Fragment’s efficiency could be heavily influenced by the qualities of the item to be imbued. It was actually similar to the description of Necromancy that he once saw. Sage saw a description of ‘zombies’ and found out that it wasn’t just a joke. It was a book in the Timeless Master’s library, and said that Necromancer’s had a way to create a fake soul. Then they put the fake soul into a corpse and it could animate the body to move and act on its own. The fake soul was pretty pathetic, but it was enough to move a body and act out crude commands. They theorized that greater forms of undead were created with more powerful fake souls and required more skilled necromancers to control.

The biggest disadvantage of the Soul Fragment technique was the strength of the soul. Weakening the self to create helpers. There was also the decision on how much to split apart. The technique mentioned the dangers of splitting off too much. It certainly wasn’t a new idea, splitting the soul in half and putting that half into a puppet or golem. With such a strong fragment it was similar to an avatar technique. It was heavily warned against, because it was far too easy to commit too much to such a fragment and cripple one’s talent. Once fragmented it could no longer be combined. The soul was a hard thing to train and most only improved it by breaking through into new ranks. If they impacted their talent they would train slower and if they went too far it might become impossible to advance further.

All of this was odd to see in a technique for beasts, but it confirmed what he’d heard long ago. The truly powerful beasts didn’t just passively improve by eating to improve their beast core, they had cultivation techniques of their own. While Sage had the body of a beast, fundamentally, he wasn’t one of them and had a dantian instead of a beast core. Even if he figured out how to, he wouldn’t want to be one of them completely. Not only would he have no suitable cultivation technique, who wanted to face such a crisis of identity?

I may have the body of a monster, but I’m still human on the inside!