Sage had made sure to check around with his Spiritual Sense before entering the Universe Ring. A night of drinking had spiraled out of control and led him sowhere hed never expected. While he wasnt the killer, he still was the one taking the heat.
The real killer must be sowhere laughing their ass off.
Hiding within the Universe Ring he had a choice in front of him. He could wait till they cleared out of the tavern and then try to determine who had done it using his Tiless Eyes. The problem was that the longer he waited, the longer it would take him to look into the past to see what happened. If he ca back four days later hed have to sit there maintaining the technique for a full day just to return to the ti of the cri. Even then, who knew when that trap was set, it could have been a few days earlier or it could have been weeks. If he sat in one of those rooms for days theyd think he was up to sothing. He could push his vision back to the ti of the cri before going into the tavern, but theres no telling how long hed have to sit in there rewinding. His energy wasnt unlimited, even with pills, Spirit Stones, and a cultivators body, hed get too fatigued after a few days of maintaining the technique without rest. If he wanted to see who did it, he would have to act fast.
The other option was to just stay hidden. There was still more than a week till Song Lu Tian and the other geniuses were set to return from Thunder Mountain Bridge. There was nothing stopping him from just keeping hidden and letting things cool off a bit. It didnt seem like the killer had attempted to fra him for the murder, and Tang Zhelan was killing off regular folk because they werent kicked out of their hotel rooms fast enough he deserved it. All he could hope was that sobody would notice that Tang Zhelan died in a different thod than that guard hed killed with his Twin Soul. It was a long shot, but maybe then theyd realize he wasnt the actual killer.
It does not feel good to be falsely accused.
After giving it so ti to stew, Sage didnt want to take the risk. Even if he found out who the real killer was, did he want to bring them to justice to clear his na? Of course not! That guy had it coming, if he wasnt accidentally involved he would have been comnding the mysterious killer. He didnt plan on sticking around here much longer anyway. After he finished his business with Song Lu Tian and the Zhu Clan, hed be leaving imdiately. Then he could head back to the Holy Fla Sect in a whole different kingdom. Even when he returned to the Dou Kingdom in the future, hed head to 10,000 Wave Province. The Tang Clan was powerful, but they were from a completely different part of the Dou Kingdom. In a few years, theyd probably stop caring about the death of one mber altogether.
Sage chose to stay hidden. He pulled out a mory sphere and dove into the library of techniques he received from the Tiless Master. Hed looked for disguising techniques from the Holy Fla Sect, but after finding the Human Seal he hadnt had the need. Now he did.
While browsing, he split his attention to Thunder Mountain Bridge. Hed stopped the Charming Lance Beetles growth at about the sa size as a small SUV. Any larger and it would be too cumberso for travel. This place also had a restriction against high cultivation level so it couldnt get past rank 3. Now that it was larger, Sage put to use the Hive Body technique and it beca an armored carrier for the ant colony. He had it walking slowly, ants streaming out in every direction to explore the terrain.
Using the ants to scout was a little tricky. Since he wasnt linked to them there wasnt any direct communication. All he could do is observe their behavior. On the plus side, he was modifying their behavior with every generation. Hed tested so of these tactics out when he was battling with Grey Beard. He didnt know when he had assimilated with one of the Stonecutter Ants, but their ancestral mories were present when he recovered his mind with the help of the Silver Liberator Butterfly. Since then hed been trying to understand the information and alter it to serve his purposes. For such a tiny creature, they were remarkably intelligent. The mories were essentially the rulebook for how to perform the different ant jobs in a colony. They each emit their own scent that denotes their job, when they havent slled a certain job in enough ti then so of them switch jobs and pick up the slack.
Individually, they were very similar to computer programs or robots. Acting out their set roles, yet also very cooperative and altruistic. If theyre trapped or attacked they release distress pheromones and other ants co to save them. When they find food they leave scent trails which others follow, adding their own scent trails. The stronger the scents beco, the more other ants get drawn to the task and by doing so strengthen that scent even more. With the task handled the pheromones dissipate and the ants disperse to other tasks. It was quite like a form of distributed computing, adding processing power to the most important tasks without any sort of controlling hierarchy, the tasks would increase or decrease their own demand for resources.
What Sage had been doing was creating new behaviors. Firstly, a set of states. When a certain pheromone was present, all of the ants except the Queen, nurse, and larvae, would switch jobs. They would organize themselves using their pheromones and the number in each job just like normal. The new jobs were actually created similar to a military ranking system. Sage thought of them like Generals, Colonels, Majors, Captains, Lieutenants, Sergeants, and Soldiers. A Sergeant would be present for every group of ten soldiers. A Lieutenant would be present among every ten Sergeants. A Captain for every ten Lieutenants, and so on. The ants would then only care about the scent of those in their sa profession and the nearest ant of a higher rank. They follow the ant of the higher rank and keep equal distance away from those with the sa rank as themselves.
The ants would then naturally form up into an army. Sage could then use his Hypnotic Eyes to give complex orders to only a few of the ants and have the commands ripple through the whole of the group. Of course, it was still a work in progress. The organization of the ants into groups and controlling their movent was very similar to programming flocking behaviors. That was of course studying how to create simple artificial intelligence controlling the movent of agents, actors or npcs. Each of these individuals need to know the position and direction of their neighbors, and then with three simple rules they will form different flocking formations or behaviors. Cohesion, creating a cohesive group by having an agent head toward the average position of their neighbors, ie the center of the group. Alignnt, head towards the average heading of their neighbors. Finally, Separation. Change direction to avoid hitting their neighbors.
Giving greater priority to different rules with create different formations. For example, low cohesion and high alignnt. The group would spread out loosely, but they would all head in the sa direction. They could sweep across the land like a carpet. With different ranking he might also set a Low alignnt for commanders. This would put them into tight groups, but each group would split up from the others. Each smaller groups heading would differ more and more from the one above it.
The more complex commands took a bit of trial and error.
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