He had considered trying to acquire the egg of an extremely powerful Demonic Beast or Demonic Insect, but after mulling over these concerns for a while he abandoned that idea. There was no telling how long it would take him to track such a thing down in the outside world, or whether he could afford one in the first place. Despite his strength, his actual wealth had been severely depleted and after so many setbacks he hadn’t had time to raise a fortune of the magnitude required to purchase a rare and powerful beast egg.

Instead, he turned his focus to what he already had available. Would it not be more reasonable for the Clan he revived to follow in his own footsteps? With his concerns over the True Insect Immortal Index the technique would only be taught in its most basic form to the members of the Lang Clan and only those who had proven their loyalty and worth would gain access to more. Even with this safeguard, there would likely be many who would wish to follow in his footsteps and merge with other creatures. In addition to these concerns, he couldn’t forget the origin of his clan.

With all the lessons he’d learned in the past, he chose to make their new body as simple as possible, yet with the most room for growth. Combined with his other considerations, the form of the new body gradually came to light and Sage started another metamorphosis to bring it into existence. After spending many sleepless nights in thought and many months in a cocoon altering his body, he finally made a decision. He was still not completely satisfied, but he had already wasted a few years. Ling should finish mastering the True Insect Immortal Index soon so it was time to be finished.

A three foot wide cocoon was ripped in half and a body pushed out of the large crack. Thick strings of a mucus like substance snapped as it stumbled away from the cocoon. Its body was mostly lacking color, with a partially translucent carapace that showed off its internal organs, but the process was not quite complete yet. It slowly spread thin and frail looking limbs outwards. Then those limbs looked to be slowly inflating, gaining in size and mass. The color of its carapace changed, darkening and solidifying to take on a silvery sheen with warm green highlights.

Over the next few hours the body finally took shape and a large silver mantis stretched itself out. It looked quite similar to a six foot tall praying mantis, yet with a carapace reminiscent of silver foil with a few highlights that resembled green jade and an unusual look to its eyes. The eyes of this giant mantis had three distinct divisions with one pseudo pupil in each divided area, the three looking stacked upon each other. In the midst of this stretch, two pairs of wings were expanded from its back. The upper set was thicker and narrow, acting as a shield and cover for the lower pair that were much wider and also covered in a brilliantly colorful pattern of blues and greens.

With this new insectoid body, Sage dashed back and forth, striking out with his raptorial limbs to grasp a tree and then snap it in half. Then he tested his jumping ability and flight agility before finally coming to a stop and finding everything to be satisfactory.

I combined a few more things than I was intending to, but I wanted to leave the greatest room for individual growth for the clan without needing to do any further fusion.

Just like there would be those in the future who might want to fuse with other creatures, Sage felt there was also room for them to remove features. Especially since he’d included the Silver Liberator Butterfly’s abilities of self-chrysalis and clear mind. He did not want a repeat of his own experience with losing his mind to happen for any of his descendants. The next inclusion was the power of regeneration from the Fat Grass Worm, since that would give his children and their children the greatest chance of survival. He’d won many of his own battles merely by being able to survive long enough to identify a weakness.

As for the most outwardly obvious choice, the shape of the body, it was almost a no-brainer. How could the Lang Clan not have the body of a mantis? For this choice, he decided not to use his Chameleon Mantis, but instead the Fire Weaver Mantis he’d recovered in Lionheart Town. It was the descendant of the mantids he’d mutated while trapped in that mine so many years ago as a teenager. With his now skilled use of ‘Mutate’, he isolated the abilities of two of the Fire Weaver Mantids ancestors: the Colossal Iron Mantis, and Spirit Jade Beetle. As the original companion insect of the Lang Clan the Colossal Iron Mantis had a very unique ability of growth, while the Spirit Jade Beetle had the power to consume various minerals and transform its body into the equivalent of a Spirit Jade.

The growth power of the Colossal Iron Mantis had always served the Lang Clan in the past quite well, and those who chose to master it could increase their physical power many times over. Sage had also experimented a bit with the Spirit Jade Beetle’s power and found it to be very versatile. Making one’s flesh into a Qi battery would give the Lang Clan more explosive Qi reserves than others, but it also had other uses. The Spirit Jade body took a very specific mix of minerals to create, but what if they used different ones? After messing around with some tough and heavy minerals in a prior body Sage had increased the toughness and density of his carapace by quite a bit. By combining a very tough body with growth, he was sure he would have some powerful physical warriors in the future clan.

Along with these four features, he also included three others after some thought. After the discovery of how the Spirit Jade Beetle’s mineral body could be put to other uses, he made his other decisions with this desire for versatility in mind. First, the extraordinary eyes of the Sea Locust. Then, the Pheromones of the Succubus Beetle, and lastly, the Poison Meridians of the Fire Bellied Cobra. He’d only begun to scratch the surface of what could be done with these new eyes and he didn’t want his clan to miss out on the amazing way he could see the world now. He had a similar opinion of the pheromone power of the Succubus Beetle. It was extremely versatile and powerful, yet he had only made the most superficial use of it in the past to help with his Insect Taming and enhance his hypnotic eyes.

Finally, the Poison Meridians were something he’d planned upon at the start. The poisonous miasma surrounding the Purple Mist Sect made for a perfect defense system for his clan, but that only worked if his descendants were also immune to the poison. It was an exceptionally useful ability to have and also something of a signature ability of his. Especially since he’d modified the Blood of Fire Technique into the Blood of Nine Pits and used the Death Sparing Manual to create a poison dantian. Along with his Law of Corruption, it was possible to create a whole new school of poison cultivators in the clan. The use of poison was looked down upon by others, but Sage saw it as any other weapon: a tool. It could be used for good or evil, but because of its mysterious and deadly nature it was a powerful deterrent, which he saw as a benefit for his clan. A weapon that they would be immune to, which also terrified their enemies.