Sage went all in. He could still train human fighting techniques using his sealed body, and while it was a massive loss of efficiency to have to learn two different sets of techniques, there was little need for him to specialize in such advanced combat arts. From what he saw in the Timeless Master’s library, techniques could progress in innumerable ways. Some focused entirely on the body and its mechanics, some altered the body to control energy in special ways, others relied entirely on advanced control of energy or even transformed energy into unusual forms. It seemed there were endless permutations. He chose to give up on those that required a human form to pursue a powerful body.

The lack of physical martial arts specialized for his body was not a barrier. If he needed one, he could just invent one, right? What was to stop him? In the fourth rank, a Foundation Building cultivator already had a lifespan of close to two thousand years. If he could break through and form his Core, which he was only a few stages away from, his max lifespan would jump up to more than double that.

This was of course relative to a person’s rate of advancement. A non-cultivator, a rank 0, was for simplicity’s sake said to have a lifespan of 100 years. This wasn’t a hard number and would of course be dependent on their health or other factors. Once reaching rank 1, a Qi Building cultivator doubled their lifespan, creating a new maximum of 200. In practice it was said they could live to 200, but in fact they really only doubled their remaining years. If a person was fifty years old when they advanced to rank 1, they wouldn’t have 150 years left to live. They had already used up half of their vital lifeforce. They were halfway through their life so they would actually only have 100 years left.

Once you add in other factors like illness, poor health, sickness, or other things that might drain vital lifeforce or harm a person’s body it made for far more complicated calculations. Most people looked at it in a simple way: when you rank up, your remaining lifespan doubles. On the other hand, those who were approaching the end of their lives would go to Astrologers and Doctors to try and nail down an exact timeframe. The ideal maximum lifespans were something in the range of 200 for a rank 1, 500 for a rank 2, 1000 for a rank 3, 2000 for a rank 4, 5000 for a rank 5, and 10,000 for a rank 6. A Nascent Soul cultivator, rank 6, was already a world shaking figure. The most powerful people in the known world were at this level of strength. Sect Leaders, Province Commanders, Generals of the Kingdoms, and other lofty figures were the only ones to reach this height. Reaching rank 7 was only heard of in stories and it was said that those people would face a heavenly tribulation. They would be struck down, or ascend into the heavens.

Sage hadn’t even hit the century mark yet, and he had at least ten more of them ahead of him with even the most stingy count. He had been nearly fifty when he hit rank 3, which was about ten percent of his total lifespan for that rank. It might be worth calculating in more detail, but it actually wasn’t a concern for him at all. When he was killed, his body was reborn. His age had, for most intents and purposes, been reset. That meant he was actually only in his teens right now and had at least two thousand years to form a core and double the remaining time. How long could inventing a new martial art take? A few centuries at most. It would take a genius to create a truly powerful art, or to create something in just a few weeks, but even an idiot could create something passable with a few centuries of study and experimentation.

After a few days of experimenting with the soulstuff and traits of many ancestor beasts, Sage finally made his decision and his consciousness faded off. He went into a dream state, his body burning up some of its cultivation base and mass in order to complete the transformation. Even then, it was far from enough. In order to create a stronger body, it needed stronger materials. Since there weren’t any around, the metamorphosis process could only use energy. Compressing it and transforming it till it finally met the minimum requirements. It was all part of this Chrysalis technique. The ability he’d gained from the Silver Liberator Butterfly, and the main reason it would usually take months to complete. It was both the great beauty and weakness of the technique. Without the proper materials it would just take exorbitant amounts of energy to complete. The more powerful the end result the longer it would take. It was amazing that it could circumvent the need for exotic materials, but it was also terrifying that if the wrong choice were made it could carry on for years, decades, or even centuries if there wasn’t enough energy available.

Thankfully, there was an ample supply within the Universe Ring and the transformation process was finished in about six months. That cocoon the size of a semi-truck finally cracked open. Peeling back to slowly release a beast much much smaller than the one that had entered.

It had a serpentine body, with only the width of a bowl(as the locals would say). It’s length was also much smaller, being somewhere between eight to ten feet long, its rapid undulation made it hard to get an accurate estimate. There was now a visible distinction between the sections of its body. The first third was a long neck and head, the second third was more muscular with four limbs, while the final third was a long and powerful tail. No longer just a snake with arms, it was now more like a lizard with a long and flexible neck. The rest of its body was still just as flexible, but the torso was far more solid. Instead of merely slithering everywhere, it could also stand and run on all fours, supporting the rest of its body above the ground without trouble.

To that end, the limbs were far larger and stronger, similar in size to that of a muscular human but quite a bit longer and with clawed talons like an eagle. Each of the four limbs had five ‘claws’, 3 forward and 2 back. They were all very flexible and dextrous, they could rotate fully to change the claws to various cross or star like shapes and the rear claws had twice the range of motion to allow all sorts of grasping and gripping. The reference material liked to refer to dragons having ‘claws’, even though they were really more like prehensile toes(or very strong fingers) tipped with large talons. The hips were collapsible, the bone structure actually more similar to the shoulder blade and collarbone, allowing it to squeeze its body through small gaps.

The new head was far more in the style of a classical dragon than before. In the past it was much like a snake with wide set eyes on top of its head and a wide round snout with nostrils on top. The old shape fit that of a water snake or crocodile, keeping the eyes and nose out of the water and with a nose that could accommodate a distending upper jaw. Burrowing had not really been effective before, so there was no need to have the complicated jaw systems of a constrictor type snake. Most of the capability could be accomplished with a few extra jaw hinges and a separating lower mandible. It could still swallow things wider than its own head, while also being far more robust and powerful with fixed upper fangs and jaws. A dragon was said to have ‘the head of a camel’, which was very different than a snake head. Despite both having scales, the eyes were set further back from the nose and higher up with a brow and a glabella.

With the eyes placed back farther and a set of brows there was a lot more room for protection. Its whole body was now covered in thick vibrant green scales, which were quite exaggerated on its brows and cheeks. With just a squint the eyes would be heavily shielded. There was even a third eyelid, a nictitating membrane, to act as an extra defensive layer. Many of its scales were enlarged and shaped like spines and spikes around its brows, nostrils, lips, and forehead. A simple twist of the head would easily sweep aside most weapons with the forest of spikes. The eyes themselves hadn’t changed, vertical pupils that were wide and wavy in the center. Black pupils with a red outline.

The ridge of its back was no longer covered in large spines and from a side view it looked like it had metallic parallelograms along its back, the leaning squares swooping from back to front. That was only half the story, as there was a matching piece on the other side and they came together on the top to form a sharp ridge. The strange blocks ran all the way down its spine to the tip of its tail. Halfway down the tail they also appeared on the creature’s underside.

Between the strange spine plates, and at other places all over its body near joints, there were small crater like pockmarks, like tiny blowholes. The most unusual feature though, was its underside. The normal carp like scale pattern changed into a narrow horizontal scale pattern. The scales were also much smaller and many times more numerous.

In short, a green eastern dragon. Very small with an unusual spine ridge, but missing the hair, whiskers, and antlers.