The meeting didn’t end there, though there wasn’t much to say from Sage’s end. It was mostly a discussion among the ‘Clouds’ of which the majority he wasn’t even able to hear. He merely waited patiently and tried not to look like he’d be easy to kill. This wasn’t normally something he was concerned about, but in a room full of people stronger than him, some which seemed quite peeved about his very existence, he suddenly grew an interest. If one of them suddenly thought it might be easier to kill him while the others were distracted, they might end the whole argument.

Fortunately, he made it through the rest of the meeting without incident. He wasn’t given any time to prepare or change his mind, even after the oath, the Thundercloud Sect didn’t seem to trust him. He was only given a few moments to pass some emergency items to Songji in case he didn’t return, and then he was escorted away. Three of the ‘Clouds’ watched him carefully, conveniently the ones he knew: Peach, Violent, and Blue. They brought him into an inconspicuous looking building in the Thundercloud Sect and then down a stairway into a basement level. Then things went dark and Sage felt all of his senses being blocked for a few minutes.

Deprived of all his senses, Sage was forced to inhabit his own mind without any outside stimulus. Such silence might easily drive some people to an odd place, but most cultivators didn’t have that problem. If a cultivator couldn’t handle long stretches of lonely silence and utter solitude, they couldn’t advance very far. It was one of the main barriers for those trying to reach past the second and third rank, which was where the majority of cultivators were stuck. Finally, the outside world returned again and Sage found himself surrounded by rough stones. The four of them were now in what looked like a cave. The removal of his senses was likely to keep the location of this cave a secret.

They gave him a few more minutes for his senses to completely return and adjust to the new surroundings before they started walking down the stone tunnel. Their path was lit by a few Spirit Torches wielded by the three Clouds. A very simple device, just a Spirit Stone with a light array carved on it, it reminded Sage of a battery with an LED glued to it. The two men carried their Spirit Torches in their hands, but Peach Cloud put hers into her cleavage. Nobody said anything, so Sage kept his mouth shut. After walking through the pitch black and completely featureless cave for about an hour, there was a sudden change. Remarkably there had not been a single living thing the whole time and only now that they reached the end did Sage understand why.

The grey stone of the cave had changed to a grainy matte black rock. The tunnel they had been traveling down was about ten feet in diameter, but the chamber they stepped into was easily ten times that. The path ended just in front of them, sweeping to the side and sloping downwards like a ramp around the outside of the chamber. They walked up to the edge and the light from the Spirit Torches was cast down into the large chamber. As they approached, Sage had started to hear a soft crackling noise, which as they stepped into the chamber ramped up in volume. The chamber was filled with many narrow pillars that looked like stacks of circular discs that were placed haphazardly, jutting to the sides like an ancient plate balancing game that had been frozen in stone. If he tilted his head they looked quite like a stone crankshaft, but that wasn’t the most eye-catching part of the room.

Bzzck!

The most impressive thing about the chamber was actually the source of the crackling noise. Buzzing arcs of electricity were dancing between the large pillars of flat black stone. The places where the lightning danced weren’t the same matte black color of the rest of the stone. Instead they seemed to travel along thin channels of gold, shiny veins making quite the contrast with the dark walls and brilliant electrical arcs. More surprisingly, the arcs of energy were confined among the pillars in the center of the chamber. They extended from the ceiling to the floor, but not a single electrical arc jumped to the outer wall or even came near the ramp they were descending upon. This is definitely some sort of Formation.

When they reached the bottom of the ramp after circling the room a few times, the three Clouds finally broke their silence. The Doctor, Blue Cloud, walked towards one of the pillars, the lightning jumping around him. It struck towards him, but instead of causing damage it just seemed to wrap around him, circling around his body a few times and then striking the pillar he was standing next to. Peach Cloud stopped at the end of the path while the old man, Violent Cloud, walked up to Sage and held out a small golden token. It was covered with small symbols and shapes at a scale that a normal person would need a magnifying glass to even notice. Instead, the small disc just seemed like a golden coin with a rough texture.

“This is your entrance pass, don’t lose it or you’ll never be able to return. If you die, it will find its way back to us.”

That wasn’t very reassuring.

After being passed the token, Blue Cloud seemed to have finished what he was doing. He gave a nod to Peach Cloud at which point she smiled, “I can feel her coming. Good work.”

She then turned to Sage, “In a few moments, the guardian beast of the Thundercloud Sect will arrive. That token will protect you from the lightning, so when she arrives just walk out to the center of the Thunder Pillars and walk into her mouth.”

Not a stranger to unusual beasts and creatures, Sage wasn’t grossed out by the idea of climbing into a beast’s mouth. Instead, he was more worried about the token working properly and keeping the lightning from destroying him. Peach Cloud seemed to sense his apprehension and she actually sent a glare over at Violent Cloud before explaining to Sage, “Use your blood to link with the token.”

That was a close one!

He quickly did as told and felt a connection established with the golden coin. An odd energy slid over him, and he felt the strange crackle of static electricity like he was wearing fuzzy socks on a thick rug. Only, there was no static shock, only the constant building feeling. The oddness was interrupted by a deafening crack of lightning. The booming noise rattling the entire cavern, causing some loose stones to shift and roll about.

In the center of the chamber, between the tall pillars, a cloud of energy began to form. A swirling blue mass, gaseous yet lined with crackling electricity. It looked much like a nebula, except on a small enough scale to be indoors. The swirling sphere began to take shape, no longer a loose sphere it started to take on more definition until Sage realized it created a face. Not a humanoid face, it was a more squashed oval that tapered to a blunt point that made up a snout and a long jaw. It turned to the side and concentrated spheres of lightning coalesced into a pair of beady eyes that shifted to focus on the closest person, which just happened to be Sage. Peach Cloud broke him from his visual assessment with a shout, “Go, move into the pillars and hop into her mouth!”

As she spoke, the giant lightning cloud monster opened its mouth, inviting him inside.