Sage followed Rocky to another location, this time they were at the side of a huge lake. The ‘water’ in the lake was another of those strange liquids, this time a nearly transparent dark green, the shade of an algae filled lake yet the same transparency as clear spring water. Sage was already used to Rocky’s attitude and didn’t even bother asking where they were or what they were going to do. He just waited for instructions and got the same orders as before, “Wait here and don’t go into the lake. I’ll be back in two days.”

Sage just nodded, resigned to his fate as a piece of living luggage for Rocky. It wasn’t so bad after all, he had plenty of time to train and there was all sorts of unusual materials to study and gather. He’d already gathered quite a few specimen in his storage ring. A few different sorts of weird trees, vats of unusual liquid, crystal plants and grasses. He even had a big stack of crystal ‘lumber’ from chopping down the tree shaped crystals and stacking them up. He also had a big pile of the leaves and other vegetation. Once he found out how to use them he wanted to be sure he had some supplies to take advantage of. Most likely, he’d never be able to come to this place again, so this was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Studying this new area, Sage was surprised at the lack of the crystalline vegetation and after some checking he surmised that it was most likely because of the lake. The liquid in it was close to the gemsteel acid he had in his storage ring and after some experimentation his guess was the lake was filled with an un-processed form of the acid. They probably collected it from pools like this, put it through some distilling steps and ended up with the commonly known gemsteel acid. It’s just too bad that I didn’t ever pick up a liquid storage container. Oh well, at least I have barrels.

Even the number of barrels was disappointing, Sage grumbled inwardly at his lack of preparation. Sure, he didn’t have time to get ready for this trip, but he could have done such a thing at anytime previously. He made a mental note to prepare tools and materials for every situation he could think of when he returned to the Sect and proceeded to create some new storage vessels.

The lake wasn’t draining itself so the ground beneath it would surely be suitable. With some experimentation he learned it was lined with layers of a thick sort of sand and then a solid crystal layer. The solid crystal was unaffected by the lake ‘waters’, and after a test it was also untouched by the refined gemsteel acid that Sage had brought with him. This crystal was surprisingly far more ordinary then the other stuff he’d seen so far. The brown crystals were very brittle and easily smashed with blunt force. The problem was putting them to use to create a container.

Sage spent the next day testing out the lake water before he finally found a solution. The solution was actually just him giving up. Instead of creating a container, Sage changed his perspective. He lifted everything in the storage ring five feet higher and used the huge pile of ‘crystal logs’ to create flooring. It was only his consciousness inside the storage ring, and gravity did not function so there was no need for anything to rest on the ground or to be secured, it was all just a matter of perspective. Sage just drew the liquid into the ring and basically covered it with a rug so it wasn’t so disorienting. Given the size of his storage ring, Sage ended up collecting hundreds of thousands of gallons. He wasn’t sure whether this stuff was be valuable or not, but he may as well collect what he can.

The next day was spent in more testing, doing the previous tests on the new brown crystal and the lake acid. With no new vegetation to test, Sage attempted to use the various materials for forging. The ones that responded to the gemsteel acid he made into simple devices for testing and others he used spirit power techniques to inscribe arrays directly upon them. Since he didn’t have any detailed information on the materials he couldn’t just look them up in a book to learn of their properties and had to learn them all himself. A Magic Tool required different properties than normal materials did. Channeling Qi through arrays caused stress in the materials in a completely different fashion than the mere physical. It wasn’t heat, cold, twisting, tearing, hardness, or any of the normal testing standards from back on Earth. It was a completely different form of energy and materials had to be tested for their channeling efficiency, maximum channeling capacity, long term channeling durability and other similar properties in addition to their physical characteristics.

Unsurprisingly, Sage found that many of the materials were quite efficient for Qi channeling. Most crystals and gemstones were quite good and channeling Qi, but their physical properties usually made them unsuitable for weapons or armor. They were usually used for jewelry and accessories as well as internal components for large magic tools. On the other hand, Sage was quite delighted to find out that the crystals here had extremely high durability for long term channeling. Wait a second, there isn’t just a gemsteel mine here… there might even be a Spirit Crystal mine.

Spirit Crystals. Sage had first seen one up close in the Flying Ship he was on when he first entered the Holy Flame Sect. If spirit stones were alkaline batteries and spirit jades were capacitors, then spirit crystals were rechargeable batteries. They could be constantly drained and recharged of energy, making them into the main power sources for large magic tools and permanent formations. Energy gathering arrays were quite useful, but they were similar to solar panels. To gather useful amounts of energy took utterly massive energy gathering arrays. The other problem was that most huge defensive arrays required astounding amounts of energy. The energy gathering array would be a hundred times larger than the defensive array it powered, making it vulnerable to outside attack. To get around this problem, large numbers of spirit crystals would be used as a backup power supply.

Sage knew the source of Spirit Crystals would be well hidden, but in the meantime he could try and find weaker alternatives. He might not be able to have perfect batteries, but if he had a large supply of them it wouldn’t matter too much if they burnt out every so often. Running magic tools on spirit stones was terribly expensive, so if he had a large supply of inferior spirit crystals he might be able to figure out how to reduce the strain on energy use and extend their lifetime.

Surprisingly, the brown crystals were the best medium he had run into so far. Without hesitating, Sage started smashing up the area, carving out a piece of the brown crystal the size of a small house, making space in his ring and bringing it inside. Looks like I’ve filled the place up again… I’m going to have to start making decisions on usefulness now.

When Rocky returned this time, he didn’t seem any more torn up or damaged than when he left. Sage figured this spot was less dangerous than the first, or at least the danger wasn’t physical. Rocky looked around strangely, not quite able to place the changes in the area caused by Sage’s harvesting efforts. Something seemed off, but he hadn’t been there long so he didn’t really notice.

The two traveled to the next site, a tall dense forest of purple crystals. The trees were very tall and tightly packed, the forest was a maze of shadows, looking like darkness in the middle of the day. It was only then that Sage suddenly noticed the day and night cycle in this place. He looked up and there was no sun or sky, only grey clouds with light emanating from them. Even so, the light seemed to ebb and tide just like the light in the day and night.

Rocky was staring at the purple forest for a long time before he finally spit out a curse word, “Damn it. You have to put yourself to use this time, we’ve run into a problem. They’re leaking.”

Sage was expecting to get ditched again so this sudden explanation sent him for a loop. Of course, not a bit of that surprise showed on his face, the middle aged man just stood there with a placid face and looking at Rocky hidden behind a cloak hood. Rocky finally pointed to the trees, “Look closely.”

Sage glanced towards where she was pointed and couldn’t see anything out of place. It was only after staring for a few moments that he caught sight of movement. Upon the branch of a tree there was a nearly invisible specter in motion. Only the slight overlapping of joints and the contact of its legs upon the tree branch were noticeable in the dim light.

It had a body the size of a small dog or overly large cat, with eight legs and a multitude of jeweled eyes. The whole of it was as transparent as clear glass, like a sculpture having come to life. It was a huge glass spider.

“Crystal Spiders. They’re supposed to be trapped underground, we’re going to have to clean them up, find the underground entrance and seal it back up again. Their webs are very strong, so don’t get caught in them. They are like crystal, very hard, but brittle. Smash them.”