With the rat men restrained, Sage locked eyes with one of them, “Tell me about the world.”

Only, the response was unintelligible. While his intention was transferred, he didn’t speak the same language as these rat people. Their speech, if you could call it that, was a sort of guttural chittering. He tried a few other ways to speak with them and then gave up. He threw the whole lot of them into his Inner World, putting them next to the mothers of the five Tiankong Siblings. He took away all their equipment and instructed some Hoplites to learn their language and put it onto a Memory Sphere. While Sage no longer trusted Hoplites in the outside world, they were more capable of learning than the Dragoons. He already knew of their flaw, being absolutely loyal to their superiors, no matter who they were. Only, in the Inner World, Sage was like a god. The Hoplites were downgraded from soldiers into stewards and caretakers. If only I could increase their intelligence even more I could have a whole race of craftsmen and researchers working for me.

The Memory Seed rode in his body and it acted like a sort of invisible camera man, recording the world and events that happened around him. It couldn’t see inside his body, read his mind, or track his consciousness. Hmm, now that I think about it the Memory Seed would be perfect for making some reality shows. We may have to share the Airships with others, but the media business is untapped ground. If only cultivators weren’t so hooked on training all the time.

The giant cockroach only got a little more of an examination before Sage sent it to an Insect Ranch on the Inner World. It appeared to just be a giant cockroach, but with slightly more intelligence to put it on the level of a cow. It didn’t seem to have any extraordinary characteristics, but better safe than sorry and Sage didn’t want to miss anything. Next he examined their equipment. Surprisingly there were a few things that seemed at a much higher technology level than the Cultivator World. The goggles were double-pane and had a small circle in one corner with an actual magnifying lens built in. On the Cultivator World, glass was only used to make decorative trinkets. They weren’t even making windows out of it, let alone knowing how to create magnification or using two panes to prevent fogging up.

While ragged and torn up, the clothing also showed a more modern touch. Metal buckle and clasps with rivets and metal grommets on the belt holes. They weren’t exactly new, but they showed a high degree of craftsmanship. With how ragged and disheveled the rats had been, for them to wear such clothing meant it was either pretty common or they went out of their way to follow a style even if it meant their gear was ripped up and worn out. The other interesting thing was the materials. They had knives and other small tools with composite plastic handles and rubber coatings. Sage even found something that looked similar to a flashlight, but the power source was unlike any battery he’d seen before. Despite the odd look, after a few tests he determined it was indeed electric. So, this ‘Hidden Domain’ is not under the same restrictions that the Cultivator World is? Interesting.

He wasn’t an electrical engineer, and he also didn’t have access to any of the proper materials to be cobbling together devices. On the plus side, if even these beat up looking rats had such equipment there would likely be more of it here. The most unusual thing they carried was their weapons. They reminded Sage of a firearm, given their long barrels and shoulder stocks, but they were quite unusual otherwise. They had barrels created out of some sort of silvery metal that Sage couldn’t identify and had thumb activated firing triggers. They used a sliding collar to accomplish their breech loading and Sage discovered two different kinds of minerals being used. Something that looked like dirty ice, but without being cold, was loaded into a lower chamber and then sharp blade-like purple crystals were loaded into the barrel. It took him a few minutes to figure out the operation and he was satisfied to learn they weren’t reliant on power from a wielder like the Magic Tools of the Cultivator World.

With his initial research complete, he tried to rein in his control over the poison laws and keep from giving off such a big aura. He had to constantly release Qi, using it to reduce the level of poison constantly flooding his body. The amount of energy expended was less than his recovery speed, but it was still flowing through his body and wasting nearly half of his power output. I’ll just have to rely on the Blacksilver Pawns a bit more. Shame the Dragoons and other insects aren’t adapted to this world… Mmm, maybe there’s a use for that Cockroach after all.

He gave the Universe Ring to one of the Blacksilver Pawns and then disappeared into his, focusing his attention on his Inner World. In the Inner World, time moved at a drastically faster pace than in the outside world. As it was inside his body, he couldn’t actually enter it with anything other than his consciousness. Even so, while inside his perception of time could also speed up, to allow him to experience the Inner World at a normal ratio. So, while he couldn’t train normally, he could still have extra time to think and experiment.

He’d given the rat people over to some Hoplites to learn their language. Without anything to rely upon, it could take years to slowly piece something like that together. Especially since the Hoplites weren’t that bright to begin with. Yet, with the time dilation, it would take less than five days for a full year to pass in the Inner World. In just 90 days, nearly 20 years would go by. Sage wasn’t worried about them being able to learn the language, he was actually more concerned the rats would die before the Hoplites could complete their knowledge.

Sage wasn’t here for that. Instead he went to the Insect Ranch where he’d sent the giant cockroach and used it to breed a variant of the Warp Worm and the Dragoons. From what he saw, the skies were pretty clear so if he wanted a guaranteed way to escape he’d choose to go underground. He didn’t plan on completely replacing the Dragoons at this point either, but he also planned to tweak and improve them as much as he could. They weren’t meant to be the most powerful creatures, but the most efficient. Just like a colony of ants. Even if an individual ant wasn’t a match for most other insects or creatures, they made up for that with numbers and in order to focus on quantity, it was important to make each individual as simple and efficient as possible. Or at least that’s what it came down to for him. The more complicated they were, the more energy and resources they took to hatch and raise to maturity.

When he exited the Universe Ring a few days later, Sage was met with two new discoveries. The first, was that his assumption had been correct. That greyformation he’d seen from above was in fact a city. A ruined and devastated city, but a city nonetheless. The second, was that the number on the back of the golden token had ticked down to ‘107’.

Ahh, so it was weeks. Wan Ling is not going to be happy about me being gone for two more years...