This Qi Cultivation Technique was not actually intended to be used for professions. The creator gave it quite the pretentious name, not realizing that it would be later downgraded to something used almost exclusively by a Minor Profession: the Weaver. Or, at least it used to be a Minor Profession. Commonly, the professions that produced powerful assistance for Cultivators were known as Major Professions. The other professions were essentially providing assistance for the Major Professions and were named as Minor Professions. Farmers grew the Spirit Plants that Alchemists used to refine Pills. Scribes created the special papers and inks used by Talisman Masters to make their talismans. Butchers prepared Demonic Beast meat to be used by Chefs. Weavers create fabrics and textiles from Demonic Beasts and Spirit Plants for Tailors to use. Miners collected ore for Blacksmiths.

The Weaver was known as a Minor Profession until somewhat recently when the Weaver’s rose up against the Tailors and caused quite a commotion. They argued that they weren’t just a supporting profession for Tailors. Without them, Tailors couldn’t work at all. It started a huge argument, at least among the Profession community. In the end, the Weavers were successful. They were able to prove that what they did was much like the smelting and refining process that a Blacksmith performed. The Weaver and Tailor were two halves of a Major Profession rather than a Major with a Minor to support it. Other Minor Professions wished to gain greater benefits, but their efforts failed. Most Blacksmiths were also Miners, most Chefs were also Butchers, most Talisman Masters were also Scribes. Those who only followed a single Minor Profession were rare and so their movements never gained any traction.

Long ago at the Holy Flame Sect, Sage wanted to learn how to make magical armor, and found that magic clothing was far more popular in the world which led him to studying the Professions of Tailor and Weaver. He had acquired 2 Stars as a Weaver, and 3 Stars as a Tailor before he had to go on the run. After creating Formation Armor for the Hoplites and Dragoons he was sure his skill level had increased, but he had no idea by how much.

Why was this all relevant?

Sage had access to many hundreds of thousands of Dragoons. They could all produce Steelsilk. His True Body and Soul Clone could also produce an even more powerful type of spider silk that he had no name for. While he could have the Dragoons learn to weave, or sell it to human Weavers, he didn’t want to waste the powerful silk his Soul Clone could produce.

Weavers did not use looms like on Earth, they instead used their Qi and Spirit Power to individually manipulate threads to weave them into large textiles. Weavers used a special technique to turn materials into threads that harnessed the energy packed into the materials and during the weaving process they had to carefully merge and combine these energies together, similar to what went on during smelting by Blacksmiths or the volatile reactions while brewing an alchemical potion.

The Countless Ego Concoction was not created for Weavers, but its unique properties made it perfect for them. It is a Cultivation Technique that is also half a Mental Cultivation Technique. In a way it transforms the Qi and Spirit Power into a giant knot. Then, the cultivator carefully untangles that giant knot into smaller braids. Eventually, at the peak the Spirit Power and Qi consist of an intertwined network of many hundreds or thousands of threads. For a weaver, being able to split their focus into many parts is extremely beneficial. The more threads they can manipulate at once the faster and more intricate their weaving can be.

For some reason, the process of slowly unraveling and separating from a single whole makes the Countless Ego Concoction work better than the other Cultivation Techniques at dividing focus. Most of the others would try to split the focus in half, then half those two halves and so on. Other techniques might try to start with a small part and rather than make it stronger, they would grow more. Each new portion or thread of power would then be an individual focus. Yet, the Countless Ego Concoction ended up with more control and a greater number of focuses. It also innately entwined threads of Spirit Power and Qi together, and many Weaver techniques used both kinds of energy in unison. It became a perfect technique for the dedicated weaver.

The original creator intended for it to be used to manipulate many dozens or hundreds of weapons at the same time. She was a hidden weapons expert and with her Countless Ego Concoction she could throw out dozens of poisoned needles and control them in flight using a length of thread attached to them. Under her skillful control, the needles acted like they had minds of their own. Of course, the use of needles and thread made it even more desirable for Weavers and led to no small number of famous Weavers that were also warriors.

For Sage, this meant a cultivation technique to enhance a Profession, but also one that was still useful in combat. Just in case he ever got into a real bind again, he still had the option of bringing out the Soul Clone to increase his combat ability! With thousands of years to practice, all that Sage had to do was collect rare and powerful materials in order to make his Soul Clone into a top class Weaver and Tailor. Of course, that was only one of many tasks. Even without any conflicts to deal with, the Soul Clone’s time was completely booked.

Back in the real world.

After collecting the unusual couple, Sage wandered around at the bottom of an ice crevice for a while before he got bored. He collected a few more Thousand Quilled Blue Dogs and Sconce Cats, but after finding nothing else that interested him, he returned to the surface to finish his task. While he had a full year to complete this task, he wanted to be done sooner rather than later. Collecting a few more Demonic Beasts or a handful of Spirit Plants weren’t that important to him anymore. It was far more valuable to him to secure a source of Spirit Stones and an opportunity for those he cared about. He still had a list of those requiring retribution and it was almost time to start crossing names off.

Clearing the rest of the poison miasma went without a hitch. None of the remaining beasts gave him much trouble. He could see a few seconds into the future and had already learned all of their tricks. The Thousand Quilled Blue Dogs were pretty powerful, but all he had to do was dodge their quill attack and use the Blacksilver Pawns to prevent them from ganging up on him. Once their pack tactics and icicle attacks failed they were pretty useless. The Sconce Cats were nocturnal ambush predators, and as long as he saw them coming they were pretty skittish and more often than not he caught them with webbing when they tried to flee once he found them approaching. The Seething Purple Cobras were actually the easiest to deal with. He even started to let them bite him, just because it was the fastest way to subdue them. Since he was immune to their venom, their greatest weapon was completely useless against him.

When he finally finished clearing up the poison miasma, he was glad he hadn’t wasted any time as it took nearly six months to complete the task. In the beginning the miasma was easy to collect, but as it thinned it started to behave in strange ways, moving around like ghosts in the wind. Tracking down the last few wisps of the poison felt like hunting a ghost, but eventually a day came where there wasn’t a speck of the miasma remaining. Then he spent a few more weeks making sure every last shred of the miasma was collected, collecting every single one of the Seething Purple Cobras in the process.

With the old miasma gone, Sage repaired the formations in Duo Tan’s tomb, building a new entrance and then heading out to bring Elder Yi over. Song Yi was the 4th Elder of the Mount Song Sword Sect and she had arrived at the outskirts of Icefire Valley a few months prior. She had helped to track down every last scrap of the poison miasma and also carried the Core of the variant Green Fanged Toad as well as the antidote for testing. She’d already confirmed that the antidote was effective against the poison qi from the core, but it was now the moment of truth. She checked over the area, ensuring that the Mount Song Sword Sect had access to the heart of this new security system and then handed over the core.

Sage placed the core into the hole at the center of the Converting Soul Formation and then brought it all to life. A green mist rose out of the hole in the ground, a very obvious change from the purple mist that used to populate this place.