With the sneak attack unsuccessful, there was no need to hide it any longer. A golden light sprung up around his body, but unlike the times in the past when it was something of a formless aura, this time it took on its true shape. The golden energy looked to harden, like a form of neon body armor. It formed into chitinous plates segmented with joints that covered his entire body. The golden layer was an inch thick all around his body, fitting him perfectly with the exception of a few places. On his feet there were large claws extending from his toes and heels. His ‘helmet’ extended further and had a pair of narrow antennae and large bulbous orb-like eyes on either side. There was also a large snout-like protrusion over his mouth, but it was quite small in comparison to the two huge eyes.

By far the most eye catching difference though, was the huge blades coming from his hands. His hands were hooked forward with his index finger pointed down. The three foot long blades extended from that pointed finger and hooked backwards like a scythe. In addition to the sharp blade of energy, there were large barbs along his forearm. He lowered his stance, leaning most of his weight onto his back leg, with the front extending forward below the two sharp blades coming from his hands.

One of the older people in the crowd broke the silence with a sudden exclamation, “Golden Mantis Body!”

After that outcry, rumors started to spread through the crowd, “That’s the Lang Clan’s signature move!”

Even if the Lang Clan had been gone for over a century, even a rank 2 cultivator could live for 500 years, and since this was the Chong Clan there were many who still remembered the technique that Sage was using. The Lang Clan was known for their Golden Mantis Body and their partners, the Colossal Iron Mantis. Sage had combined his original Colossal Iron Mantis with many other insects while he was still a youngster. He was trapped in a cave and ignored the future potential of his mantis to make it easier for him to survive in the short term. How was he to know that when he finally got out the entire Lang Clan would be annihilated?

Due to Sage’s lacking cultivation talent and martial comprehension, he had never made much progress in the Golden Mantis Body. As a child he spent many years practicing it with his Uncle Zhang, but he was more eager to get more powerful so he spent most of his time on the Mantis Heart Manual to raise his cultivation rank. The Golden Mantis Body is a martial and Qi technique, a method to make use of the Qi in the body and incorporate it into a hand to hand fighting system.

The Jinxi Patriarch smiled softly at his challenger, “Major accomplishment of the Golden Mantis Body? You aren’t even two hundred yet, are you? With that level of comprehension, the Lang branch of the Clan will surely be well served with you as the head.”

The Golden Mantis Body had condensed to a high degree, looking like a suit of golden armor with head and arms styled after a mantis. It was a far cry from the faint glowing outline that he was able to conjure in the past. The Jinxi Patriarch had mistaken him for a great talent, but Sage knew that it had taken the Soul Clone a thousand years to finally master the Golden Mantis Body to this level. The Soul Clone had a diverse schedule, but it still spent at least three hours a day on this technique for a millenia. All of the pores of Sage’s body had to be widened and strengthened for him to reach the higher levels of the technique. Other techniques focused on a limited number of such pores and Qi channels. For example, a powerful palm technique would widen the path from the dantian to the hand and then expand all the pores in the palm to allow it to release greater amounts of power.

In fact, one of Sage’s most powerful techniques was the Divine Breath. The path between the lungs and dantian was comparably shorter and simpler than to the limbs and far fewer Qi pores were necessary for moving Qi within his own body. The downside being that he had to spend far more time strengthening his lungs, throat, and mouth to prevent them from being damaged, but his stronger than human physique helped make up for that deficiency. Even so, the main difficulty of the technique was not the changes to the body and its internals but the amount of control and finesse necessary to transform the Qi to such a degree. After the Soul Clone practiced for a thousand years, Sage only needed a year in the real world to change his body to the required level.

The Golden Mantis Body’s power was equivalent to the difficulty in practicing it. Immense. In the past, Core Formation Cultivators would have given him some trouble and he would have to resort to trickery and unusual tactics to defeat them quickly. With his mastery of the Golden Mantis Body, the Artful Life Alliance clans and sects had been toppled by him without any difficulty whatsoever. Each of them had from a handful to dozens of rank five cultivators, but even when they teamed up they still didn’t stand a chance.

Sage dashed forward again, stomping on that same crack he’d created when the fight started and causing it to multiply in size. He shot towards the old man and the air rippled again. Contrary to the last few times, there was simultaneously less dirt on the ground and also dust clouds in the air that hadn’t fully dissipated. This change in conditions meant that the spectators could finally get a better look at what the Jinxi Patriarch was doing. It was like the swirling dust clouds were suddenly cut in half and then leapt into the air. It looked like an air bubble formed around the man and then that large bubble bounced into the air. Somehow the air inside the bubble seemed completely undisturbed, but the air on the outside whooshed loudly, swirling to fill the space that had just been vacated.

When the Jinxi Patriarch bounced into the air to move out of Sage’s path, Sage let everyone see what had happened last time. He kicked the ground to change direction and lunged forward, jabbing his hand out and using the downward hooked blade on his hand to strike at the old man that had bounced into the air. This time, just as the last, there was a loud crack. The old man broke the sound barrier and shot out of reach of Sage’s golden blade. The air bubble around the Jinxi Patriarch popped and all the air inside used like a thruster to shoot him out of the way.

Having missed twice in the same way, Sage was not discouraged. In fact, he was merely probing the effectiveness of the Jinxi Patriarch’s technique. It was pretty simple for him to run and slash with his arm. He wanted to see if this movement technique was difficult for the old man to pull off. To this end, Sage didn’t bother to stop and chat this time, as soon as he missed his attack, he spun and pushed off the ground to dash towards the Jinxi Patriarch again. He brandished his golden blade again and there was another sonic boom.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The Jinxi Patriarch wasn’t given a moment to rest, bouncing up and then darting off with a loud boom. Over and over again he easily avoided Sage’s attack. Some of the less experienced members of the crowd started to get discouraged, “Is that all the branch head can do? I thought we were going to see the Patriarch's real power this time, but it turns out the branch head can’t even touch the edge of the Patriarch’s clothing.”