Sage had no idea of the prowess of the Crystal Spiders, but he was ready to give it a try. Since Rocky told him to do it, surely it would be within his capabilities. Calling forth the Chameleon Mantis, he sent it into the forest to hunt a spider. At the same time asking Rocky a question, “Is this a complete eradication? Should I set up a formation to make sure none of them can escape?”

He was already trying to gauge the size of the forest and going through the formations he knew to see which would be best suited to this situation. For trapping, illusion formations were usually the most preferable, expending the least energy to keep an enemy under control. Instead of tying them up or building big walls it was easier to just confuse their senses. The only downside was whether or not the Crystal Spiders would be vulnerable to the formation. If they were puppets or constructs of some sort the lack of a mind would protect them from most of the effects of an illusionary array.

Rocky was taken aback, or at least that’s what Sage guessed given the slow response. So far Rocky had been completely dismissal of Sage, but he always had a quick reply. Another moment later he spoke, “We don’t have to wipe them out completely, just lock them back in.”

Sage nodded his head, that would make things much easier. Still looking at the forest he continued to browse all the Formation Diagrams inside his Storage Ring while asking questions, “What are the Crystal Spider’s weaknesses? Are they vulnerable to mental attacks and illusions? How large of an area will have the greatest concentration of them?”

Rocky was quick to answer this time, “They don’t have any flesh or blood, but they do have minds and they’re very brittle like crystal. They won’t burn, but they do melt and shatter. They should be most concentrated within a few miles of their breach point. We’ll have to find it first to know for sure.”

As they spoke, some loud noises rang out from the forest. It sounded like glasses clinking together, but magnified a hundred times louder. Sage closed one eye while Rocky looked over, the Chameleon Mantis having revealed itself as it struck a few times at a Crystal Spider. The first strike seemed unsuccessful, but the second one split a spider in half at the joints.

“They also seem to be weaker at their joints.” said Sage. He called back the Mantis before it was overrun, there were Crystal Spiders everywhere in the forest and he didn’t want to draw them out from the center. It would be better if they could infiltrate and draw them back to their nest before triggering an array.

Rocky looked at the Mantis, “That thing is yours? Not bad, Kid.”

Sage blinked, he was pretty old already, right? Calling him kid, is Rocky an old man under that cloak? The voice is gruff, but it didn’t seem hoarse enough. Sage handed Rocky a scent marker, “This will make sure my Bugs treat you as an ally. Give me a few minutes to prepare. I assume that sneaking in underground will be easier than a frontal assault?”

After handing over the marker, Sage sat down cross-legged and brought out another two Chameleon Mantids. The trio of Mantids hid themselves, guarding Sage as he started to merge with a Warp Worm egg. The Insect Immortal Index was not an easy to copy set of techniques so he wasn’t worried about Rocky spying on him. He took out a small pile of spirit stones and rapidly drained them to nurture the egg to hatch and grow. A few minutes later the Warp Worm had reached full size, ready to use. Sage had one last test to do, an incorporeal presence slipping out of his body and diving seamlessly underground. His Twin Soul swam beneath the ground and into the forest, finding the nearest Crystal Spider and diving into it.

A short while later the Crystal Spider stopped moving and crumbled upon itself like a shriveled raisin. A moment later and the Twin Soul returned to Sage, strengthened from the encounter. Eh, I really do need to take some time to go out hunting to strengthen the Twin Soul. I’ve been too busy learning techniques and trying to make money.

Sage rose to his feet and nodded to Rocky, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to follow you underground. Shall we test it?”

After saying so, Sage put the Mantids away and entered the internal space of the Warp Worm. Sending the worm to dive into the earth and burrow downwards. The worm didn’t have any eyes or even a nose. It relied entirely on vibrations. Using its sense of touch and hearing it had a form of tremorsense, which is why Sage was leery about being able to follow Rocky. Rocky seemed to treat the ground as a liquid and Sage wasn’t sure how that would translate to vibration senses.

To his surprise, the Warp Worm was in fact able to sense Rocky, but only barely. They were only a few yards away from Rocky under the ground, but the amount of disturbance he caused was the same as a snake a hundred yards away. Sage had the Warp Worm surface again and told Rocky the results, “I can follow you, but only within a dozen yards or so. If you’re faster, go ahead and scout it out. Once you meet up with me I’ll follow you to the nest.”

Rocky barely nodded his head before diving into the ground and Sage only caught the whisper of his passing by the time Sage had re-entered the Warp Worm and dove underground. The voyage underground was quite uneventful, though Sage did find out that this strange ground here was far more energy rich than normal soil outside of the Hidden Domain. It was even richer than the ground in the Holy Flame Sect. If he had known he could have saved a few spirit stones raising the Warp Worm.

Sage had the Warp Worm tunnel directly towards the center of the forest while he assumed Rocky was darting this way and that searching for some sort of entrance to the underground. At least that’s what he understood from what Rocky was saying. By the time the Warp Worm got near the center of the forest he felt Rocky waiting in front of them and he followed in his trail. What followed was slow tunneling around, wanting to disturb the ground as little as possible the worm tunneled at half speed.

An hour later, Rocky and the Warp Worm surfaced in a clearing on a small hill. Sage hopped out and started to look at the area, “This should be a suitable anchor point. Thankfully the tunnel they came out of only has three branches that lead to the surface. I was worried there would be dozens.”

Rocky nodded.

Sage nearly let out an audible sigh at Rocky’s treatment of words as if they were gold, “A few miles is too large of an area for Formation Plates. It till take me a few hours to create anchor points for a true array formation. This spot seems the most defensible so I’ll put the core of the array here.”

Rocky nodded again.

Sage almost voluntarily let his annoyance show on his face, but stopped himself at the last instant, “After we have them contained in the array we can head down and collapse the tunnel at a deeper chokepoint. It should be a better seal than just burying the three entrances. We won’t be so pressed for time with the threat contained, and we can make sure it’s properly sealed.”

Rocky nodded. Sage almost felt his eye twitch, but then Rocky said something.

“I’ll collapse the tunnel. It will be easy if I don’t have to worry about escaping Spiders.”

Finally. At least he heard the plan. I wasn’t sure if he just falling asleep with all that silent nodding.