With the failure bubbling beneath his skin, Sage ran his Qi through his meridians and tried to clear or affect the change. Unfortunately, the strange energy percolating within him seemed to be completely transparent to his Qi. Starting to grow worried, he began to try everything he could think of to bring it under control. He felt a reaction of some sort when he drew upon the Poison Laws, but it was only a slight response and then nothing else afterwards. Finally, he found a path when he tried to just insert his own Spirit Power into his body. Surprisingly, the mental energy was able to affect the weird force traveling through his body.

It was just too bad that it wasn’t enough. It was like there was a river of energy flowing uncontrollably around his body, and his Spirit Power was a pile of sandbags. With careful effort he was able to channel and redirect the energy inside him, but he’d run out of sandbags. The most he could do was hold it back from affecting the most important parts of his body. With the rampaging energy going wild inside him, he could feel his muscles twisting and shifting. The outside of his body looked like a piece of cloth in the wind, a sight which was somewhat disturbing.

It seems I need more Spirit Power.

With this new concern, he no longer cared about the distribution of rewards and immediately started to absorb the fifteen Psionic Crystals he’d collected. From the bodies of the Flares he’d found that in the teams of two, there would be one man with two crystals while the other had only one. They’d been far weaker than the Fisher Punk, and it led him to believe that the number of crystals obtained was what determined the power level of the people on this world.

After a few hours, he’d finished absorbing the crystals and the formations within the core of the Infinite Immaterial Seat had gotten deeper and more intricate. Also, entirely new formations had begun to take shape. The strength of his Spirit Power had also reached a new high and with some more careful effort he brought the strange transformative energy within his body more under control. The rippling of his skin had become far less severe than before, but it hadn’t stopped.

He walked over to a polished bronze mirror and took a look at his face. The weird undulations weren’t as obvious as he was thinking they would be, but every few seconds there was a ripple, wave, or small wrinkle. Sometimes they flowed by and disappeared in a mere instant, such that a person might think they imagined it. Other times, it was like a worm crawling across his face, just under the surface. He shook his head. I definitely can not be seen in public like this. This might be what the Flares look like under their masks.

Unable to bring the problem under control in any other manner and with a solution staring him in the face, Sage quickly linked with a new Chameleon Mantis and rode it out of Hollow Phase. With his increased knowledge of the base he was easily able to avoid the people with golden emblems. He also knew how the four tunnel entrances worked so he didn’t have to sneak in through the ventilation shaft deep underground this time. The mantis could camouflage itself to hide in any location and it even had wings to fly through the air. While it couldn’t change colors fast enough to stay hidden while it was flying, it could still take on a similar coloring to a bird. It was still difficult to spot from below, and only its motion really gave it away.

Sage spent some time running, but most of the trip was done inside the Chameleon Mantis. Getting past the Flares encircling the city was somewhat time consuming, but it wasn’t very difficult. The Flares were not looking for a small mantis, and by choosing to walk past them, they had little chance to notice it. By the time the sun fell the next day, Sage had returned to the entrance of the Psionic Crystal mine. The bug flew down into the tunnel and very carefully skirted around the various traps and tricks that the team had setup when they were here. As foreign as this world was to him, Sage would have had a hard time getting past without triggering anything. It was just too bad for the Hexacrats that Sage’s Twin Soul had been watching them the whole time.

Once he reached the final chamber where the Psionic Crystals were, Sage used the Chameleon Mantis to deactivate the very last device. He thought it was some sort of surveillance device, but couldn’t be sure. Either way, with it disabled, he hopped out of the Chameleon Mantis, sent the bug into his Inner World, and brought out a Spirit Torch to illuminate the cavern. Previously, he’d been able to observe with his Twin Soul, but now that he was here he could feel the immense pressure weighing down on him from the huge pile of pink crystals. Only now did he fully understand what the others had been going through when they were slowly advancing towards the crystals and cautiously scooping them up off the ground. While he had an idea of what they faced due to their chatting, he hadn’t actually experienced it.

He took a step into the perimeter the others had formed around the mine. Breaking the barrier that they’d formed, he was suddenly assaulted with the illusions and mirages they’d been talking about. Try as he might, the visions were truly impressive. With a little bit of testing he realized that they only seemed to affect his sense of sight and hearing, which matched up with how the group had slowly stumbled around the room like they were blindfolded. The strange energy around the Psionic Crystal Mine seemed to completely overwhelm Spirit Power, absorbing it before it could penetrate very deeply into the room and without their sight, hearing and psychic powers, the Hexacrats had to rely upon their devices and prior experience to slowly collect a few crystals.

Sage, on the other hand, had far more means at his disposal.

He stepped back out of the strange energy field and started to test the most effective method for gathering up the crystals. First, he tested his Spirit Power and found the results to be similar to how they had described it. He extended a single cord of Steelsilk, using the Spirit Strings technique to make the line slither like a snake towards the Psionic Crystals. After moving just a few feet into the room, the string stopped moving and Sage felt like his Spirit Power was just falling into a bottomless hole.

Next, he switched over to using his Qi and was pleased to find it mostly unaffected. It felt like he was pushing through an area of resistance, but his Qi wasn’t drained away or harmed. It felt more like an area saturated in Qi, which if he tried to manipulate his own Qi in the area he’d have to push aside what was already there. It was a little more strenuous than normal, but still feasible. The most annoying part was actually the loss of control. Like most cultivators, he would usually use a small portion of Spirit Power along with his Qi to help guide and control it. It was an automatic action, such that he’d almost forgotten that he was doing it. Only now, in this Spirit Power free zone was he reminded. The loss of fine control was made worse by the fact that he hadn’t spent much time learning Qi techniques. He mainly only knew supporting techniques and a full set of wood natured arts.

For a moment, he thought about growing a Sacred Banyan to collect the crystals for him, but he chose to try out a much simpler method first. A tar skinned humanoid appeared in front of him and the oily black skin glistened under the glow of the torch in his hand. The Spirit Torch was essentially just a Spirit Stone with a light array carved on it, so the torch looked quite unlike those of this world as well as his original world. Sage tossed the stone in his hand into the pile of crystals and was happy to see that it didn’t seem to be affected by the strange energy field. The Blacksilver Pawn walked towards the crystals and reached down to pick one up without any issue.

While his tests hadn’t been very thorough, he’d at least confirmed a few hypotheses. While the Psionic Crystal Mine seemed to be the bane of Spirit Power, it seemed to only have a small effect upon Qi and Formation Arrays. Spirit Torches were some of the simplest formations there were. They were a simple light source and also very fragile. Since it hadn’t been affected by the mine, then it was likely that other formations would also be effective inside that odd energy field.

Sage released the other eleven Blacksilver Pawns, each carrying a Storage Ring, and they quickly set about scooping up the Psionic Crystals like a pack of locusts. Unfortunately, the function of stuffing large objects into a storage item was a mix of Spirit Power, Qi, and physical strength, so they couldn’t just collect huge piles of them at once. Instead, they were forced to carefully push them into the rings one at a time.

At that moment, without any other warning, Sage was knocked down to one knee. A very important connection inside him had suddenly been severed and the backlash caused him to cough up some blood. His hand went to his chest and he frowned. My Twin Soul has been destroyed.

That’s when he heard a loud voice echo down the tunnel, “What? Just one little mouse in my trap? Come out here and meet your fate.”