Sage caught sight of a hooded head poking up out of the ground and then disappearing once again. Rocky must have been taking a peek on his activities. Sage continued the operation, using the Charming Lance Beetle to guide the army of bugs around. Just as he had thought, it became nearly impossible to control so many insects with any precision whatsoever. The best he could do was having the Lance Beetle release an attracting scent every so often. The insects would be drawn towards it and tighten their ranks a bit. He could only keep their attention for a few minutes before they started to wander off again to do their own things. The scents were weaker with distance and they got confused by the large mass of insects. Thankfully, the crystal forest didn’t have any other beasts or creatures as that would make the scent controllers even weaker.

As it was, Sage would use a couple minutes to have the army regroup then let them loose again to hunt. Then he’d move to another position a hundred feet away and start the process again. Since he had a whole forest to clear he wanted to wipe it clean bit by bit rather than just letting the bugs run completely wild. There was no telling how long it would take for them to naturally hunt down all the Crystal Spiders, he was also worried about the Crystal Spiders teaming up against lone bugs. The final and most dangerous concern was making sure he could recollect all of the insects again after the forest was clear. It wouldn’t be good to do all this work clearing out an infestation if he just replaced the Crystal Spiders with a new kind of insect.

After a few hours, the cloaked and hooded figure rose up out of the ground next to Sage. Sage was currently sitting cross-legged on top of the large array disc with a Lance Beetle sitting on top of him like a big turtle shell tent. Sage didn’t even notice when Rocky arrived, but he did suddenly feel the ground rumble under him. Opening his eyes, Sage looked around then had the Lance Beetle on top of him stand up, at which point he finally saw Rocky. As usual, Rocky kept quiet and walked over to where Sage was before sitting next to him. Knowing he’d probably get another lackluster answer, Sage still asked a question.

“Did you seal up their tunnels?”

As expected. Silence. Rocky’s hooded head just bobbed up and down a few times. Sage really wanted to just be quiet and compete with Rocky on who could say the least. On the other hand, he knew better. Such an action would be done out of spite. Even if he was displeased, it was far better to try and build amiable relations. Every person that you had a good relationship with was one less enemy you had. In addition, if you decided for them to become your enemy, you’d already have an advantage over them. Sage’s face didn’t show any of the emotions or thoughts he was rapidly processing, staying completely calm and placid through it all.

“My army of Insects should finish the first sweep through every section of the forest in a few hours. After that I’ll let them spread out and hunt down any stragglers for a day or two before spending another half day to round them all up again. We don’t have a time constraint, do we?”

Sage spoke with a friendly and deferential tone of voice, letting Rocky make the decisions. Rocky shook his hooded head and Sage took that as an affirmative. Sage tried to make conversation for the next few hours, redoubling his efforts on trying to gain Rocky’s friendship. Rocky didn’t seem to like it when Sage asked him questions to try and get him to reply and respond, but strangely he didn’t seem to mind when Sage merely spoke without expecting or waiting for responses. Sage grasped this opportunity and started talking about many different topics.

He spoke about the findings of his research on the crystal plants and spiders. Wanting to see if he could get more information out of Rocky, but unfortunately Rocky stayed quiet. Sage continued and just listed off all the properties he had discovered so far. He didn’t mention the Spirit Crystal like properties of the Brown Crystals, worried it might be a secret he wasn’t supposed to know. Still getting nothing out of Rocky, Sage started moving onto different topics to see if anything could draw Rocky’s interest. He tried talking about each of his different professions, then he tried stories of his travels and the places he’d seen while on the run. Still getting nowhere, Sage tried talking about the different beast and animals he’d read about in different books. Surprisingly, Rocky seemed a little interested, actually nodding or shaking his head to some of Sage’s conjectures and observations.

The talk continued for a few days, meanwhile the forest was thoroughly cleaned up. Just like Sage was worried about, it became a pain to round up all the insects again. The Charming Lance Beetle would emit the attracting scent and do laps around the forest. Each time it would have a few insects following close behind it which it then brought through the outer walls of Banyan trees. Sage made sure to seal the entrance once his linked Beetle flew back out to collect some more. With time, the majority of them were collected again and Sage did a headcount. A dozen less than he started with. The Lance Beetle flew around the forest once more, scouring the place for more insects. He found eight bodies which left four unaccounted for. The Beetle continued to search.

Sage on the other hand returned his attention to his body and sent the Lance Beetle over him out of the inner wall of Banyan Trees. There were far too many of the Insects here for him to keep control of, let alone bring along with him. From a young age, the Lang Clan always instilled in them to treat their insects as puppet workers and not intelligent living creatures. They were a tool, a weapon of war. It was time for a ruthless decision. Sage only knew of one method to determine the strongest bloodlines for Insects. Survival of the Strongest. The Sacred Banyans grew a new pair of walls, splitting off a smaller area within. Sage carefully used scent markers to separate and lead all of the Steel Silk Centipede’s into the smaller area. Once they were all inside the fenced off area, he very carefully mixed the friendly scent marker with the attack marker. The Centipede’s didn’t let him down, immediately assaulting each other while Sage sealed up the area. It was a bit mean to have them kill each other after they’d worked for him, but he didn’t mind too much. Everything he’d learned only reinforced that the Insects were very similar to living robots. The Twin Ringed Soul Serpent had been very difficult for him to subdue and link to, yet he’d never had an issue with the demonic insects even when he linked to full grown ones of his own rank. He also knew from his usage of the ‘Merge’ technique that they didn’t seem to have any affection or feelings from he could tell. They were like machines with programmed responses to different scents or conditions.

When there was only one Steel Silk Centipede remaining, Sage opened the area up and released Subduing Spores. After a few minutes, the Centipede slowed down enough for Sage to catch it and use Qi Feeding to link with it. With the new link he could rewrite its training. The mixing of the friendly and attack scents earlier was like a one way track, essentially confusing them to make their masters into their enemy. It was only intended as a suicide maneuver and put the insects into a sort of berserk state. He had to use a new link to retrain them from scratch. A few hours later, Sage was left with just one of each of his five Insect types, storing them into his Beast Bag to use as breeding stock later.

With Rocky’s help, the last few insects were rounded up or killed before Sage packed up all his supplies. The giant Formation Plate, along with two arrays were dismantled. Sage checked with Rocky before leaving the Banyan trees as they were. Without his influence they would grow very slowly, if at all. It was unknown whether or not they could draw enough energy from their surroundings to make up for the lack of sunlight, water and nutrients in this Hidden Domain.

Sage found the three Chameleon Mantis he left outside of the trapping array. Sage spent a few more days clearing out the last of the Crystal Spiders that weren’t trapped by the array. In the process he captured a few of them and stuffed them into an insect cage before they finally moved on to a new task.

The next couple weeks passed quickly. Rocky took Sage to another dozen different places in the Hidden Domain, but none of them were as exciting as the Crystal Spider incident. The vast majority of them were spent with Sage waiting around and researching the elements of this place. Sadly, Sage didn’t run into any more new and unusual things, after the forest, the strange lake, and the spiders things started to repeat. Sage figured he’d run into everything that this ‘ecosystem’ contained, at least above ground.

Finally, one day, Rocky turned towards Sage and pointed at a small cave entrance.

“My part is done. Time for you to work. Go in.”