It turns out the green Armorana had a poisonous bite, which Sage found out about the hard way. He used the same tactics upon it as the normal Armorana, hemming in its whole posse of escorts and then picking them off one by one. It took only a few strikes for him to disable them enough for him to capture and send into the Inner World. Surprisingly, even the followers here were pretty impressive examples of their species, so Sage did his best not to kill any of them. The last two of the green Armorana’s guards were extremely fierce and Sage chose to overwhelm them. A quartet of Purple Mist Sect members appeared beside him and double teamed the two guards while Sage rushed in to deliver a knockout blow to the Armorana.

That was when it spun in place, opening its jaws and sinking a pair of fangs into Sage’s left arm in time with him smashing his right into its forehead. It was knocked into momentary shock by the blow and Sage wrapped it up with his Spirit Power, then tossed it into the Inner World. In just a few more seconds, the Purple Mist Sect members nabbed the other two and Sage sent all six of them to the Inner World as well. The poison was a type of paralytic and unlike others that might be compromised, Sage merely used it as a resource. The poison was pulled into his Poison Meridians and sent into his Poison Dantian and what he called the Nine Heart Arrangement. With his Foresight he’d already known exactly what the mutated green Armorana was going to do and he chose the path that led to it giving him a venomous bite.

These Armorana were smart enough to always make at least some sort of desperate play at the last moment, so he maneuvered into the position that the Armorana thought was its most vicious move. Instead, it was just letting Sage take a sample of its venom, which collected into the central chamber of his Poison Dantian. Then, he produced a sample of it and sent it into the Inner World so his Soul Clone had a copy as well. In less than ten minutes, four days of testing had already been performed and Sage had a small vial in his hand. He swallowed the liquid inside and sent it to his Poison Dantian, where it mixed with the venom from the mutated green Armorana. Then he pulled over the poison from one of the other eight chambers and soon a virulent new concoction was created.

He tested out this new poison upon the other Armorana boss, slapping his hand against the side of its tail as it attempted to ram into him with its large armored body. His hand landed on a spot where two scales met and a bright red liquid seeped between the scales. The liquid clung to the side of the huge fish like slime and then it pushed into its flesh, leaving a little red welt and disappearing from view. A moment later the huge Armorana’s tail thrashed uncontrollably and its forward motion came to a halt. Then its whole body went limp and Sage swam over and tossed it into the Inner World for further study. The rest of the giant Armorana’s entourage were also enlarged versions of their species, but they were utterly confused by the sudden loss of their boss and they also became testers for his new poison. He blocked their attacks with palm strikes, releasing the poison through the pores of his palm and sending them into paralysis without even making an attack.

After thousands of years of research, the poisons of the Lang Clan were highly refined, unlike the crude ones he used so long ago. In the past Sage had a mess of different poisons that he used because he felt they were the most powerful. When the Lang Clan had internal competitions they learned the ins and outs of each of those poisons far more than Sage ever did. They experimented with different combinations, and created new poisons from the plants of the Inner World and delved into areas Sage never took the time to explore. A single young genius would build up a single poison and use it to become famous in the Clan. Then, they passed it down to their descendants who would continue to improve upon it. They would receive great rewards for these improvements, but because of the nature of the Lang Clan as soon as they used the poison a single time it would already be assimilated by their rival.

A famous poisoner of the Clan would usually have many types of a similar poison so each successive attack was still effective. At the end of a fight, the opponent would develop an immunity, but the Lang Clan was not out to kill each other in these internal competitions. It was more of a show of their skill, showing off how many new poisons they could invent.

Sage, like the rest of the Clan, benefitted from these Poison Masters. Thousands of different poisons now existed in the Lang Clan, but they basically fell into a few schools. These schools contained the essence of those poisons he used in the past, passing down similar names and qualities. This specific poison used the mutated green Armorana’s venom, but it was only the newest iteration of a line of poison he called Ruby Blood. This poison originated with Guan Zhenyan, the Twisted Red Tendons that caused his muscles to seize up. It also incorporated the vicious poison of the small red scorpions of the Xie Faction of the Chong Clan as well as hundreds of other paralytics. Sage’s specific mix was aimed at affecting even the most powerful creatures as quickly as possible. They would always choose to sacrifice duration of effect and lethality in exchange for quickly disabling a tier six.

After capturing two Armorana and their attendants, Sage swam along in search of the Ghost Armorana once more. He still hadn’t strayed far from the entrance and in the interest of safety he swam down towards the sea bed. It wasn’t a clear bed of sand here like at Deep Shore, nor was it a brilliantly colored coral reef. Instead there were many rocks and stones with channels carved into them by the motion of the water. He took care to stay back and keep from startling them too much and instead he brought out a pillar of stone, standing it on top of the largest rock to use as a marker. A few fish and crustaceans were scared out of their homes by the huge stone, and a flurry of activity was started as they fled the area and became targets of the predators they sped past.

The pillar held a large quantity of Sage’s own aura, which he could use as to help him sense this location. Then, he would just need to swim upwards to find the entrance. Over the few hours he had explored around the entrance he didn’t notice any movement, so he could only hope that it remained stationary.

While he was admiring his handiwork, he felt an ominous presence and spun around in time to see a hulking mass approaching him quickly. He darted away in the other direction, kicking against the water powerfully. Glancing back he used his Foresight to test his results against the thing that was following him. The factory building that was following in his wake was covered with large fins, each of them spiked with multiple sharply pointed spines. These fins shot out at every angle and were thin enough to look more like wide bladed swords than the fins of a fish. This look was even more pronounced given its coloration. The whole fish was the color of aged bronze, like an old statue given life. Its body was patterned with crooked vertical stripes of a bright brass color that make it look like this old statue had cracked apart in places to reveal the fresh unaged material beneath.

Seeing himself getting stabbed by those sword-like fins in a dozen different ways, Sage recognized this beast: Broken Bronze Lionfish.