Sage saw a shimmering object at the bottom of the hole, so he reached in with his Spirit Power, using a telekinetic technique to pull it out. A purple sphere with a feather-like pattern upon it appeared in front of him. The surface seemed carved with many long rounded scales with a shaft down the center and many slanted parallel veins. From the feel of its energy, it seemed to be the core of a Demonic Beast. He picked his brain for a few minutes before he remembered this description. Zhenniao. The Poisonfeather Bird. It was a famous creature, and very rare to find. The purplish black bird was a predator of poisonous creatures. Venomous frogs, snakes, and insects were its favorite meals. It was not only immune to their venom, but it collected it. The poisons it consumed found their way to its feathers, making it poisonous to the touch, and also giving it its name.

When a Poisonfeather Bird was at its peak, it was said to reach tier 7, the same level as those immortals that could break away from this world, or at least that’s what the legends said. Sage had already experienced someone breaking into that level, and that Dragoon he’d helped experience many lifetimes had found something and broke through directly. Lionheart Town suffered a small disaster from that Heavenly Tribulation. The core in front of him was not from a creature of the same level, but he could sense a faint power of law from it. He surmised it must be from an immature Poisonfeather Bird.

While the core was floating in the air in front of him, he noticed that the rapid flow of poison miasma suddenly came to a stop. The concentration in the room was still high, but he could sense a halt to the flow. He stored the demon core into the Universe Ring and took a closer look at the hole. Rather than the soul type poison flowing outwards, he instead felt a great amount of energy. He sent his Spiritual Sense down into the hole, following the path down to a place that made his eyes widen, “A spirit vein!”

He was shocked enough to exclaim out loud. Spirit Veins were like underground rivers of energy, they increased the concentration of energy in the outside world to make it easier for Spirit Plants to grow, which meant there was more food for the Spirit Animals. The greater the concentration of the energy of the Heavens and Earth, the faster a cultivator could gather it and increase their strength. Mountains had a higher level of concentration than other places, which is why they were used so often by cultivators to form their Sects and Clan homes on. Most people believed that mountains all had Spirit Veins underneath them that just hadn’t been found yet. Mainly because most Spirit Veins that had been found were usually near a mountain.

Spirit Veins weren’t just important for their high concentration of energy, they were also the source of Spirit Stones. The main currency of this world. They were basically energy gemstones. Or at least that’s how Sage saw them. Rather than being formed of various minerals along with heat and pressure, they required vast amounts of Qi. Of course, without a lot of research, Sage had no actual idea of what they were made of. Was it a type of gemstone that used the Qi as a catalyst? Did the Qi take the place of heat? Pressure? He had no idea. If he had nothing better to do, he could spend a few decades figuring out how to create artificial Spirit Stones, but he wasn’t that free.

Are there Spirit Stones in the Inner World?

Turns out, there wasn’t. The Formation Masters that had arisen over a few thousand years in his Inner World all had to make use of energy gathering arrays and formation plates powered by their own Qi. If they weren’t so important in guarding cities, the Formation Master profession might have died out completely.

Sage shook his head in disappointment. How great would it be to have Spirit Stone mines all to himself? Not all hope was lost, as this Spirit Vein he’d just found could also have a similar treasure nearby. First off, he finished his investigation and became confident that the mysteriousness of the Poison Miasma was actually a product of the array he was standing on. He flipped through Duo Tan’s Jade Tablets and found the origin of the array. It was called the Converting Soul Formation, and it transformed one type of energy into a sort of soul form. For example, if it was used with fire it would become a ghostly flame. It wasn’t very clear on what exactly that meant, but it didn’t stop Duo Tan from using it with the Poisonfeather Bird’s core. The only downside was that it wasted a lot of energy in the process. Sage also recognized the dispersing formation on the dome of the room around him, and he guessed that the damage it suffered was the reason for the periodic weakness of the poison miasma.

Before making any other moves, Sage actually put the Zhenniao Core back into place to restore the flow of the poison miasma. He looked back over to the hole in the wall he’d caused to enter this place and the dispersing formation that was only barely functioning now.

It’ll do for now.

He left the small chamber and dashed out into the poison miasma, heading to the border and crossing the dead zone between it and the forest. In the interest of saving time, he released his Human Seal and returned to his true form. The tops of his bent spider legs reached a staggering 600ft in the air, and the mountain in front of him became a hill in his view. His body, from tooth to tail, or chelicerae to spinneret in his case, was nearly 600 ft long, and his body a third of that in height, though the abdomen could fluctuate with how much feeding he did. Each of his giant spider legs had a length around a thousand feet, moving him hundreds of feet with each step he took.

In the past, he’d taken to the air, being carried inside one of his flying insects, an airship, or even on the back of a Tiankong. Now, he could move much faster using his enormous body. With the careful use of the Cosmic Traction technique, he skittered across the sky. He used a powerful leap to gain altitude and then stepped on the air to turn the fall into a glide. He couldn’t negate the power of gravity pulling him back down to the ground, but he could extend his air time. He could expend more energy to completely solidify space to run across the air, but he couldn’t keep that up for long. It was more sustainable to just jump up high and then drift forward.

In the interest of saving time, he released his full strength to scare away other beasts so he could move faster, but this also wasn’t without its downfalls. When he was leaping over a giant river, he saw a dark shadow form on the water, getting larger and larger. The water exploded and a pair of jaws, even more gigantic than him shot upwards as he was descending, perfectly timed to snap him in half. Sage rapidly expended energy and shot into the air, solidifying space enough to take a second leap in mid-air. The energy expended to support this huge body was far greater than in his human form, burning through most of his remaining energy.

The giant jaws missed and turned to the side, giving Sage a view of his attacker. The glitter of its eyes were familiar, it had diamond like facets and a leathery back. The Diamond Eyed Leatherback. Or at least it looked similar. A giant crocodile with diamond-like protrusions armored its eyes. The only difference was that this Diamond Eyed Leatherback was two thousand feet long, giving it a presence similar to the Living Disaster.

Weren’t these things in the range of fifty to a hundred feet long? Why is this thing twenty times bigger?