Even though he was thinking about treasures, the truth was, he had little way to bring them out. The only way he was going to get any loot out of this place was if he approached Song Lu Tian or one of the other geniuses and either hitched a ride or convinced them to take his insect along. There was a single storage ring around the Charming Lance Beetle’s leg, but the chances of him smuggling it out were quite small.

Leaving the problem for later, the ant colony was now large enough to do its own hunting. He left the Charming Lance Beetle there to watch over the ants, while the Twin Soul was now free to start exploring. The first task was to check up on Song Lu Tian again. He’d been watching the man’s progress the whole time. Normally such a thing wouldn’t be possible, but Sage had modified the Beast Bag for just such a use, long ago. He added an extra array to the bag that made a small gem on the outside of the bag into essentially a magical surveillance camera. There was a small hole between a few of the floor mats inside the Beast Bag, by looking into it, you could get a hundred and eighty degree view of the outside world through a panoramic lens type of view. Beast Bag’s were connected to the outside world so energy, air, and sound could enter and exit it. Normally, sounds would be dampened, but Sage made sure to amplify them next to the view hole and made it so he could make out most of what happened outside.

The Twin Soul rapidly flew off in the direction that Song Lu Tian had headed towards a few hours earlier. This metal jungle was quite large and Song Lu Tian was quite fast, so it took a few more hours before the Twin Soul caught up to him. At this point, the man was cleaning out another one of the groves filled with Double Flowered Ice Camellia. Pleased at his perfect timing, Sage was glad to see the mission he requested would be completed perfectly. The only problem was that he came to a decision point. Should he keep his watch over Song Lu Tian, and back him up if needed? Or should he use the Twin Soul as an advance scout for the insect army?

Impatient as I am to explore this place… it’s best to protect my investment.

Sage had the Twin Soul follow along in Song Lu Tian’s path, following from a distance and observing his actions. At the same time, he also took the opportunity to take down a few of the beasts that were planning on attacking the man. With some practice Sage got the hang of the right timing to hunt would be predators. A beast would notice Song Lu Tian and at that point it was at its most alert. It wanted to make sure the target was alone and not a decoy. After a period of extreme caution, the beast would then switch to a hunting mode. Then it would stalk closer and closer, extremely wary until it finally made its move. Sage found the best time to be just as the beast was switching into a hunting mode. Just at the moment when it took down its guard and started to plot, that’s when the Twin Soul would rise up out of the ground and dive into the beast like an impaling trap.

As time passed they traveled past more of those pillars emitting cool air, along with others that Sage couldn’t identify the purpose of. From what he could tell it was some sort of cooling device, and the blinking lights made him wish he was here with his real body. They looked very much like electronics, and he dearly wished to see if the rules of the world were different here on Thunder Mountain Bridge. The so called ‘Thunder Mountain’ looked like it was covered in lightning rods, and this ‘jungle’ looked like a superstructure for a very heavily reinforced building. The places that were warm seemed to be the result of damage, the cooling pillars in those zones had been damaged and many even had pools of water form near them. The pools having turned into ponds or small lakes and attracting even more sorts of beasts.

The cultivators of this world were oblivious, but from Sage’s point of view this place reminded him of that whale ship he’d unsealed in the hidden domain. These special areas seemed to contain clues to worlds with much greater levels of technology than the one full of cultivators. What was most unusual was that this place was actually filled with all sorts of unusual treasures. This place seemed to be saturated with energy, most specifically lightning Qi was everywhere and combined with the differing levels of cold environments, plants, and beasts to create unusual combinations. There were actually quite a few special materials present here that had always been listed as having an unknown source in many material manuals. Seems that this place was the mysterious source, or at least one of them.

After a quick sweep of the area, Song Lu Tian left the way he came from and worked his way back to the surface. Sage made sure to hide the ant colony when the big guy went past, and they were back to the upper path after only a few detours. Song Lu Tian didn’t turn down treasure so he would stop to harvest each of the rare materials he knew. At the same time, Sage made sure to note the rough location of the materials that Song Lu Tian didn’t recognize so he could have the Beetle scoop them up.

Once they were on the surface, Song Lu Tian moved much quicker. While the underground area had far more treasures within it, he was far more interested in going to the places that hadn’t yet been explored. The treasures he would find in such a place would be far more rewarding, or so he thought. So far he’d just found natural resources that would naturally be regrown. If he went someone unexplored he could possibly find one of a kind treasures and not just be picking grass and flowers.

The only unexplored areas were those the furthest in, so he moved quickly, traversing the hundreds of miles down the bridge at high speed. He got into a few big battles along the way, the most violent and powerful beasts were living the closest to the Thunder Mountain. Huge bulls with metallic silver plating on their bodies and copper colored horns were slain by the dozens. He even used a herd of them as a shield to avoid a tiger that looked like its fur was literally a layer of crackling electricity. He was smaller, faster, and also didn’t contain any of that delicious lightning Qi that the Tiger liked, so it didn’t bother to chase.

Eventually, he fought his way to one of the unexplored regions and ended up in a deadly confrontation. He had hopped into a large crack on the ground and entered the underground layer of the bridge. The sound of battle immediately rang out. The Twin Soul quickly flew in to observe and what Sage saw was astounding. It looked like they had found a warehouse area. It was a long narrow room with rows of huge shelves from floor to ceiling. On the shelves were many metallic and polymer crates and drums. Sage couldn’t recognize the material they were made from, nor the style. It was merely his guess given the outer shapes and patterns of indentation on them. They looked like the sorts of shapes that were used to add structural support to plastic boxes or metal tins. Just like an I beam, or a sword fuller, they seemed more than just decorative.

The sounds of battle weren’t an illusion, Song Lu Tian was actually engaged in battle with what Sage could only describe as robots. They looked like large crabs made out of black metal, with large sliding parallel clamps instead of pincers and legs that could extend to lift them up into the air. They also had an assortment of lenses and lights on their faces instead of a mouth and eye stalks like a crab would. On their backs were things that looked very much like some sort of cannon, firing out brilliant flashes of energy. Song Lu Tian had left marks on them with his Sword Formation, and even sliced off a few of their pincer clamps, but none of them seemed even slowed down by the damage. They didn’t actually move terribly fast, but there were already four of them gathered around Song Lu Tian and Sage could see at least a dozen more shuffling over from the other side of the warehouse.

I wonder what’s in the boxes? Maybe these ones won’t self destruct like the ones in the Hidden Domain.