Before leaving, Sage met with his wives and children. He had a long conversation with each of them and found his first daughter’s antics to be particularly enjoyable. Yaling had chosen the route of the Insect Tamer, following in the footsteps of both Sage and her grandfather, Ling’s Uncle Yuhan the Beast Tamer. She had used her expertise to explore the Insect Continent on the Inner World and collect strange resources that she supplied to Yating’s business empire. In the outside world she was excited to explore the many insect species, but she had recently been sidetracked.

The Ci Clan had just become the Lang Clan’s branch family and Yaling was the one assigned to supervise them. The Ci, which meant sting or thorn, were known for their bees, wasps, and hornets. Yaling was also unusual in the Lang Clan in that she used her own variant insect derived from the Silverbees that Sage used so long ago. Since she was also a bee user, she seemed to have drawn the short straw. Sage found her complaints about the situation to be hilarious, which was a good distraction from the sadness of bidding everyone goodbye. Just like he’d parted ways with the Tiankong Clan, he was heading off by himself for a while. All of them had their own dreams and ambitions they wished to fulfill and he’d already spent hundreds of years with them all on the Inner World.

It was time to move on.

Sage had quite a few errands he needed to run, and the first one was tied to why he chose this time specifically to leave. That reason being that the Chong Clan was about to leave 10,000 Wave for good and he needed to meet with them before that time. Well, to be honest, he didn’t have much to talk with them about. His friendship with Xiezie had already fallen apart in the past, so he no longer had much of a connection to anyone in the Chong Clan. They were still technically close allies of the Lang Clan, but he had no personal attachments any longer.

He used a Merciful Mollusk Transportation Array to jump directly to Golden Cricket Cove and arranged a meeting with Xie Bian.

“Chong Matriarch. It’s always a pleasure meeting with you. Congratulations to you for your conquest! The Chong Clan’s new treasure halls must be overflowing now.”

“Chh, no need to resort to so much flattery when we’re alone. What is it you want, Lang Sheng?”

“Eh? You don’t like pleasantries anymore? Fine, have it your way. I just came to get that technique you used before the war. The one you used to create an illusionary map in the sky.”

She gave him a strange look, “Is that it? You could have just purchased it from Thousand Treasures. It’s nothing special, it just takes a lot of Qi to perform so only Nascent Souls care to use it.”

Sage could only sigh and give her a shrug, “I am still new to all the intricacies of higher ranks. In fact I’m going to go and remedy that problem soon so I probably won’t see you for a few decades.”

“Leaving the Lang Clan so quickly? Aren’t you worried about them?”

He gave the Chong leader a sly smile, “You have no idea what they’re capable of. I pity the ones that try to bully them like I was bullied in the past. It’s better if I’m gone so those targeting me won’t have an excuse to aim at the Lang Clan. You should be happy to have them as your allies.”

Xie Bian gave him a strange look and then just waved him off, “Fine, continue to be mysterious about where they came from. There’s a copy of that technique you want in the library. Go ask the Clan Librarian to take a look. All the books have already been collected for the move.”

Sage waved to her as he left and proceeded to find the person in question. The Librarian was an old woman with an extremely piercing gaze that belied her age. She seemed able to see right through him with a glance and he found it somewhat disconcerting. Before he could even mention what his purpose was, she turned her hand over and a Jade Tablet appeared on her palm. Then she held it out to him, “This is what you’re looking for.”

He wasn’t going to argue with her and he quickly sent his consciousness into the tablet. A moment later he handed it back to the old woman with a smile, “Thank you. Can I see any of the others? Nothing sensitive of course, but you’ll save me some time.”

She gave him a weird look, considering that he barely had time to glance at the technique before handing it back to her. Was he just checking the title or comparing a specific verse? She was told he wanted to learn the technique. Was she mistaken? How could she ever imagine that he had a clone living in a world with a different speed of time and that instant was far more than enough for him to copy the whole technique into a Memory Sphere. She was only asked to share that single technique, but the strangeness of the situation made her curious so she gave in to his demand and passed him another utility technique common among Nascent Souls.

He glanced at it just as quickly and before he said anything she handed him a third. At that point she suddenly decided that he was just teasing her and she took back the tablet then turned on a heel and left. She didn’t listen to him any further and while he could have gone back to ask Xie Bian for more, his goal for coming here had already been fulfilled so he decided to move on. Leaving the former Chong Clan compound he brought out the Red Comet and leapt into it. He shot into the sky and flew directly towards the south.

Some time later, he left the territory of the Dou Kingdom and entered the wilderness between Kingdoms. He traveled through the vast unclaimed land quickly, wondering if he should take a detour on the way back to explore what the Tianren to the West and the Eightfold Kingdom to the East had to offer. It was certainly an interesting idea, but for now he had a goal in mind and didn’t want to detour too far.

That said, he did make a quick stop along the way, flying over to the secluded mountain valley where he had once set up a hidden settlement of Hoplites. Before he’d ever developed the Dragoons and before he had the Inner World at his disposal he started a Hoplite village to act as a backup for their species and also an emergency hideout he could take use of. He didn’t want to spend much time here so all he did was observe them from above. He was pleased to find that they were prospering, though they hadn’t changed at all from the simple place he’d left. There weren’t really any advancements in culture, technology, or even comfort. They were using the same simple huts he helped them make, but they had merely built more of them.

I suppose it’s good enough that they have increased in number and don’t seem to be suffering.

After watching them for a few hours, he left once more and shot through the sky towards the Shihu Kingdom.