During those three years, there was another setback. The Soul Clone gravely injured its Nascent Soul and had to waste a few decades recovering. During this time it could use only a fraction of its Qi, Spirit Power, and Soul. Sage was able to use Psionic Crystals and the Eye of the World to accelerate its recovery, but only to a certain extent. It was unable to train using any cultivation related techniques and spent most of the time following scholarly pursuits. It studied the many techniques of the Timeless Master’s Library, but couldn’t practice any of them. Instead the Soul Clone established a research organization and used others to test his hypothesis, studying many of the weird things Sage had noticed over the years, but never had the chance to look into. None of these things were able to directly increase his strength, but helped to enlighten him to the differences between this world and the Earth he knew.

The cause of this injury was actually the step that Sage was facing now. The incorporation of his new Poison Core into his already established Nascent Soul. When the Nascent Soul first forms, it incorporates the Core, Spiritual Sea, and Soul into a single whole. Trying to add a second Core to a pre-existing Nascent Soul was no easy task. The Soul Clone tried many different ways before finding a path that might work. This route was based around a simple premise: congruency. He hypothesized that as long as the Nascent Soul and Poison Core were compatible enough, they would have no problem combining together.

To achieve compatibility he used two different methods. Firstly, his Nascent Soul naturally took the form of the Tree of Life, as it was based around the cultivation technique given to him by the Seed of Life. So, since it was a form of plant life, Sage mixed one of his poisons into his Poison Qi, the light pink gas, Killer Garden. This poison didn’t harm plants, but changed them into a medium to deliver a poison. If his Nascent Soul is a plant, then making his Poison Qi harmless to plants would help, right?

Just changing his Poison Qi didn’t seem like enough, so Sage wanted to do more. He first thought of implanting his Poison Core with a Soul Fragment, like his Blacksilver Pawns, but the downside of that technique was the Soul Fragment could never be recombined with his soul. The next idea he had was to use the Anima Devour technique. An ability of the Twin Ringed Soul Serpent, this is what the Twin Soul used to consume the souls of other creatures to strengthen itself. The problem was that Anima Devour was destructive. It bit off pieces of the soul and consumed it. It wasn’t a smooth way to combine a Core into his Nascent Soul. Even if it worked, wouldn’t he be just chomping up his Poison Core?

The Soul Clone finally made an attempt by combining these ideas. Sort of. There were still a few other useful techniques from the Twin Ringed Soul Serpent, and considering Sage’s lack of teaching in matters of the soul, he had to rely upon these ancestral techniques to guide the way. Along with Anima Devour, there was also Anima Cannibal, the technique to reabsorb the Twin Soul into the original soul to consolidate the soul power. The problem was that it only worked upon the Twin Soul, which in this case would be the Soul Clone. Sage was not eager to rebuild the Soul Clone, especially since he had no idea what would happen to the Core he made for it with a Dragon’s Pearl. So, he was forced to experiment instead. He attempted to find a middle ground between creating a Twin Soul and a Soul Fragment. One that he could then infuse into the Poison Core and then absorb them together into his Nascent Soul.

The Soul Clone was gravely injured during this process, straying far too much towards a clone of a clone, which seemed to be impossible. After recovering for a few decades it tried again, and with the experience of the first attempt, was able to make progress. Many Soul Fragments were created, but most of them had defects and he destroyed them with Anima Devour to recover most of his wasted soul power. With luck, just as he was about to fail again, he found a route to success and created a sort of Twin Fragment. It wasn’t a clone, yet it resonated with his own soul enough that he could use the Anima Cannibal technique to absorb it.

At the sixth rank, the time of the Inner World moved 100 times faster per stage. Since Sage was level 67, that meant 700 times faster. While three years passed in the outside world, the Soul Clone had 2100 to get it right. Even with the many decade long set-backs it suffered, it still had plenty of time to find the way forward. Once Sage finally finished forming his Poison Core, he incorporated Killer Garden and then formed a sort of parallel soul fragment and imbued it into the Poison Core. The Poison Miasma was the base of the Poison Core and it was already a soul type poison, which made it highly compatible with this forced absorption. Very carefully, he used Anima Cannibal to consume the Core and combine it with his Nascent Soul. His Soul Clone had already done the same a long time ago, but Sage was still excited.

Two Cores! They may not be the best individually, but there’s two of them.

He laughed inwardly at his continuing trend of using quantity to make up for quality. If one engine isn’t enough, use two! He also knew this wasn’t something he could do again, or that anyone else could do. Only because of these unique circumstances and his own specific advantages was he able to pull this off. It also worried him because if he could do it, couldn’t someone else? Those people at the top of this world, were likely to have means he could never even imagine.

I can’t ever become complacent again. I have to keep getting stronger or someone will just try to use me as a stepping stool again. I finally realize why all those people act so arrogantly. They’re trying to scare people off so they don’t get used as fertilizer.

With his Poison Core complete, Sage rose to his feet and walked deeper into the Poison Miasma. There was another objective he had in mind. It was an objective that he would never have mentioned to the three from the Mount Song Sword Sect. He walked through the miasma, and this time he didn’t avoid the Seething Purple Cobras. They tried to hit him with the poison mist that sprayed out of their pores like a cloud, but it did nothing to him. It was drained into his poison meridians and stored in the Blood of the Nine Pits. The strongest of them used a venom law, but his Law of Corruption overwhelmed it and with the Blacksilver Pawns, he knocked them out and sent them to the Inner World. Placing them into the same valley that the Soul Clone had trained in, the one filled with Poison Miasma. The only problem was that the poison mist slowly dispersed over time. Without Sage constantly adding more, the poison in that valley would have slowly faded over the course of hundreds of years.

Sage wasn’t heading into the mist just to capture these cobras, but to find the source. Even if he took all the Seething Purple Cobras away, would they still be as powerful without this Poison Miasma as a living environment? Since Icefire Valley was at the center of the poison miasma, that meant the source of the poison was placed somewhere else. Without any other clues, Sage chose to use the simplest method and find the place of highest concentration. The miasma thinned out once every few decades, giving the Mount Song Sword Sect an opportunity to enter it. That time period had ended years ago, but Sage no longer felt any oppression from the miasma now that he had a core formed from it. The miasma wasn’t even a gas, so to him it wasn’t even as restricting as the air was. It almost felt comfortable, pressing up against his internal organs.

Ahh, that’s nice. I wonder if there’s anyone else in this world that can use poison as a sauna?