Carrying the Sunset Rain Snake in his hands, it writhed around wildly, but was unable to aim its mouth towards Sage. Since the whole of the snake’s body was devoted to producing such prodigious amounts of venom, even touching its body was enough to expose him to it, but at a much lower potency. The venom that had already rained over him was enough to corrupt all of the Qi in his body, but thankfully his Poison Meridians were able to deal with it fast enough that it couldn’t corrode his Nascent Soul.

Sage carried the snake away from its den and moved to put some distance between them and the pools of venom that had built up in the area from their very short battle. The Sunset Rain Snake continued to spray poison like a firehose, but Sage kept it pointed towards the existing pools. After a few minutes it finally started to grow tired, or at least it realized that its actions weren’t getting anywhere and it finally closed its mouth. Sage wasn’t foolish enough to relax, but he did start walking back towards the place where he’d left the old man earlier. There was a high chance the man was already watching what was going on inside the defense array so far. If Sage were to fail he was sure they wouldn’t be shy about coming in to deal with his remains and collect his possessions.

The snake struggled a bit more as soon as it noticed the presence of the barrier, which means it must be more than a simple shield. Sage guessed that it had some deterring effect and focused more on scaring the snake away rather than trying to resist its venom directly. That would be quite in line with their strategy of just letting the snake live calmly while they couldn’t handle it. At the moment though, it was causing him a little trouble. He held the Sunset Rain Snake’s head pointed away from the formation array so the venom it was spewing out splashed to the side. After another couple minutes of struggle it slowed down, its body quivering from its fervent fight. It had just been saving its strength earlier, but now it had fought for its life and still ended up helpless.

“Have you seen enough? I have it under control, just make sure you clear us a path to wherever your cage is. I can’t stop it from spitting venom after all.”

Almost a minute later, the opaque barrier in front of him rippled and an opening many times larger than before formed. When he entered the door was barely human sized and he had to duck to get inside. This one was much more like a garage door. Probably because the old man didn’t want to take down the whole barrier yet in case anything went wrong. At the same time he wanted there to be nothing for Sage to get caught up or stumble upon along the way so he opened a big door to make sure there was nothing to trip them up. As he stepped out, Sage saw the strong old man in the distance, standing at least a hundred yards away and looking ready to run.

“Keep it pointed towards your right and follow me.”

Sage nodded, following along behind the old man. The old man was turned sideways and walking along the side of the path so he’d never show his back to the snake. Instead he was faced sideways with his eyes darting left and right to check the path and then watch the snake. Sage couldn’t really blame him, as the two of them had just met. Even if the Sunset Rain Snake was perfectly under Sage’s control, this old man didn’t fully trust Sage. It would be quite easy for him to just turn its head towards the old caretaker.

Their journey was quite a bit longer than the trip to reach this area and they walked in this tense state for nearly two hours before they reached the gate of the Clear Sky Academy. The same door they left from was now looming in front of them, but Sage immediately realized they weren’t going to be using it. In front of the gates there was something he would describe as an iron jar. The jaw was more than ten feet wide and looked like it would barely fit into the gate behind it. At this time, the caretaker that Sage had seen earlier feeding the beasts was standing on a small platform set up next to the giant jar and holding open a huge lid. The man was cowering behind the lid like it was a huge shield and nervous about the approaching snake.

The old man ran past the huge jar and took up a position near the gates of the academy. He yelled out commands to the two of them, “Do not let that lid drop until I say drop, Feng! Get into position on the platform and then throw it in on the count of one.”

While the old fellow was ready to rush inside, Sage and the caretaker found themselves shoulder to shoulder atop the platform at the mouth of the huge jar. The Sunset Rain Snake felt things changing and started to struggle. The caretaker’s eyes widened, but he didn’t move, showing off an astonishing amount of discipline. Sage kept the snake’s head aimed off towards the same area of forest he’d had it pointed at the whole time. It spewed a stream of venom, the shimmery golden liquid soaked a tree and stretch of bushes which rapidly started to wilt. All of the vegetation grew up in a Qi rich environment and most of them were various types of Spirit Plants. To suddenly have all their Qi eroded away left them suffering greatly and those getting hosed down by the venom weren’t likely to survive such high concentrations.

The old man waited till the Sunset Rain Snake exhausted itself again and then he suddenly counted out, “That’s it. Three! Two! One!”

Sage whipped the snake’s tail into the pot and then threw its head face down towards the floor of the huge jar. Just as its body passed the lip of the jar and before it reached the ground the old man called out, “Drop!”

The caretaker pushed the huge lid with all his might and Sage had to snatch his hands back to avoid the huge iron circle as it tilted forward and slammed down upon the top of the jar. The lid was connected by a huge hinge and now that it was closed, Sage could see the top of it was far more complex than he’d initially thought. The jar itself was quite simple, but the lid had a large spout or gutter-like protrusion to one side as well as a very intricate grate pattern. Most importantly, there were four large flat hooks that swung down and clamped onto the lip of the jar when the caretaker spun a large wheel on the lid.

When the old man heard the wheel click to a stop he ran over and pushed the side of the jar, causing it to tilt over to the side. That was when Sage noticed the jar wasn’t just sitting on the ground. What he’d thought were legs was actually a circular frame and the spherical jar easily tilted over to the side when it was pushed. Sage climbed down the ladder on the side of the platform and he got a better look at the huge jar. The frame it was on did have legs, but they were in the shape of clawed feet holding spheres. The caretaker followed behind Sage and walked over to the clawed feet along with the old man. Each of them pulled on something on two of the legs and then gave the whole frame a push. The spheres on the legs started to roll and Sage realized they were actually large ball bearings.

Someone in this world has mechanical skills? What?!