The two of them had a couple more of the strange drinks and grew steadily more intoxicated. Sage’s drinks were twice the size of Bee’s, but not because of their vastly different physical strength. Instead, his mental cultivation gave him some resistance against the drink’s effects even when he was consciously allowing it to affect him. Normal Cultivators had to drink very powerful wines and also consciously allow it to build up within them. There were many techniques that Cultivators had developed to expel the effects of poisons and alcohol from their system to sober themselves up very rapidly. He had to do a similar thing with the Infinite Immaterial Seat, letting the drink take effect upon him.

“I lost my strength soon after I got here, and I realized my future self must have a really good reason. I’m pretty much stuck here killing time, but what about you? Who did you piss off to get stuck here?”

“I’m not stuck. I’m here to get strong!”

“Strong? Oh, you’re one of those, eh?” her voice got deeper and she did what seemed to be her impression of a male voice, “When I’m strong enough, I’ll get my revenge!”

She laughed at her own joke, which got a snort out of Sage. He shook his head to her and she took another sip of her drink, “No? Then you must be that other type: I’ll never let anyone ever hold me back!”

He took another drink and shook his head to deny her second guess.

“You aren’t seeking vengeance or freedom? What do you need to be strong for? Wait… are you a tyrant? Is it for the money?”

She ran through a couple more options rapidly before Sage put down his drink and finally gave her the answer she was looking for, “None of those. I just want to see it all. Who or what is at the peak and what is this whole thing about?”

“This thing?”

“Cultivation, abilities, the monsters, the world, everything.”

“I see. Auntie Bee must be getting old. I didn’t even realize I ran into a cat. Don’t let your curiosity kill you!”

She laughed uproariously once more and this time Sage joined her. They drank the night away before stumbling out of the bar. It was only after they parted ways that Sage expelled the effects of the drinks and the muddling effects disappeared. Of course, he’d always had a clear perspective during the whole conversation on the Inner World. It was much like one of his selves was generating dialogue prompts to match his ‘drunken’ state, while his other self was calmly choosing which one to say. He’d continued to drink with the woman to get her to spill more information and they ended up talking more about their abilities and of the things she’d seen while she was here. Since she was stuck in the cities she hadn’t experienced much combat with the sea creatures, but she had seen quite a lot of life in the towns.

Auntie Bee told him about various marvelous items and devices that she had run into through the years. She worked in a warehouse sorting through goods so she’d seen quite a bit and she had fun bragging about some of their wondrous abilities. In return, he shared some stories of the fights he had with the local sea life. She’d been trapped in the city so long she missed getting out there and fighting.

After hearing about these items, Sage went out to purchase a few of them, and he got some strange looks when shopping in the stores of other types of ‘cultivator’.

Weeks later.

Sage had his eyes on an immense creature. In fact, it wasn’t just his eyes. He was actually standing on top of it, if you could even stand on something while under the sea that is. He wasn’t alone. There was actually a large coral reef along with the thousands of inhabitants of said reef attached to the back of this giant beast. It was not Sage’s first time running into this sort of creature, though this was a very different variant than the last one. An entire biome was being carried upon the back of an immense sea turtle. Sage didn’t recognize the breed of this Demonic Beast, just like he hadn’t known what that similar creature, the Living Disaster, was. It was only after attempting Soul Resonance with that tortoise that he realized it was a unique existence. Since he didn’t recognize this sea turtle, he was a little excited that it might also be a similarly unique existence. If so, then it might also have reached this state in a similar way and perhaps he could find another Heavenly Material inside.

He didn’t feel the presence of any Heavenly Materials, but he hadn’t felt it in the Living Disaster either until he went deep inside its body. Even if he could sense Heavenly Materials, it only seemed to work within a certain range and there seemed to be many things that could hide them from the Tree of Life. There was also a very high probability that this was just a rare creature so others hadn’t run into it before. It was constantly moving so perhaps it only recently migrated here. Sage had no idea, but as soon as he saw this beast he quickly swam into the reef on its back and got carried along for the ride. He thought about collecting some of the species on its back to see if they were different from the local sea life, but then he changed his mind. If he got into too many fights then there was a chance he could get knocked off this beast’s back and then lose track of the giant sea turtle. There was also the possibility that it might notice him at that point and throw him off on its own.

Judging the law energy swirling around the sea turtle with every sweep of its limbs, Sage could feel it was at least a few levels stronger than himself. If he took into account the size of this Demonic Beast, then it would not be an easy battle if he wanted to subdue it. It was also moving very rapidly and unlike the Hellmouth Ray that was eager to kill him, the sea turtle might just swim away once he tried to capture it. Sage observed its behavior for a while and though it usually moved at a sedate pace whenever something threatened it, it took off with a speed nearly as fast as the ray.

For some reason, Sage felt the urge to try something that he was pretty sure was a bad idea. It was just that it would be so poetic if he were to succeed now after failing in the past. There was also the fact that he’d always wanted a giant turtle with a city on its back. He steadied himself and manipulated his fingers into different signs, releasing a wave of mental force that sent a burning pain ripping through his mind. A pain that he had no way to resist. The pain magnified a few more times and he had to grit his teeth and struggle to retain his focus. He felt like his scalp was being torn off and burned at the same time, but after resisting it for what was an excruciatingly long time it finally stopped and everything faded away.