"Ah, here you are, Senior Sister Qin." Sun Yao's light and charming voice snapped Qin Juan from her deep thoughts as the former entered the refinement chamber usually occupied by the few women sharing a single consort.
"Here I am, Junior Sister." Qin Juan giggled lightly as the slightly round-faced, innocent-looking Sun Yao couldn't help but pause.
"Yes?" Qin Juan demanded as she noticed the sudden shift. "Did I do something wrong, Junior Sister Sun?"
Sun Yao quickly shook her head.
"Of course, not. It's just… you looked quite graceful just a moment ago. So refined and inviting…" Sun Yao tried describing the mature allure that briefly shrouded Qin Juan. "Yes, you looked like Senior Sister Feng's mother when she is with Sister Feng's father."
Qin Juan blushed slightly and pressed her lips together.
"How bold, Junior Sister. Do you dare shame Sister Feng's parents by comparing them to a mortal like me?"
Sun Yao couldn't help but pale slightly. She broke into a cold sweat until Qin Juan giggled again.
"Don't be so stiff, Yao'er. I won't tell them if you won't… and truly, I am nothing compared to Elder Bai Qing. She practically radiates with love whenever she is around Elder Feng Jiu Ge."
"Exactly!" Sun Yao's gaze brightened. "You looked just like that momentarily, Sister Qin! You were glowing with love!"
Qin Juan froze before flushing a heavy red. She couldn't help but glare at the gullible Sun Yao and nearly smacked the top of her head. A few instances of Sun Yao's near-scorching stare whenever Lo Jik was present in the chamber with the rest of the girls forced Qin Juan to wonder if their junior sister was as innocent as she acted.
Huffing, Qin Juan stopped her research and pinned Sun Yao with a curious stare.
"Enough about me. What did you need?"
Sun Yao sat before Qin Juan and began her line of inquiry.
"Eh? Beasts?" The latter blinked. "Why the sudden interest, if you don't mind me asking, Yao'er."
"No particular interest, Sister Qin. This question just wormed itself in my mind. I hoped to consult Senior Sister Feng about it… but she is quite stressed these days. She isn't even present here even when Brother Lo Jik is around."
"And why should Senior Sister Feng only be present when Lo Jik is around?" Qin Juan inquired with a curious smile that didn't quite reach her observant brown orbs.
"A- Ah… I wouldn't know." Sun Yao spoke quickly. "It's just something I observed is all. What about my question, Sister Qin?"
Qin Juan maintained her look for a few breathes before nodding calmly.
"It is as you observed. Beasts have different and sometimes unique characteristics unlike regular animals of the same kind. For instance, regular monkeys won't compare to a bandit monkey in terms of upper body strength. Or a simple tiger wouldn't last against a white tiger. One of the reasons is the few wild gu worms attracted to their bodies that animals like farm animals cannot mimic. The true cause behind this attraction of gu worms and the wild beasts' distinguishing traits is none other than dao marks."
Sun Yao nodded at the explanation.
"Us humans can use bestial traits using gu worms—more commonly available in the form of several transformation path gu worms. But your doubt of beasts somehow possessing unique abilities far different from their physical characteristics is impossible. At least, I never heard of anything like that. For instance, a dragon is famous for its breath. A fire dragon breathes fire. A water dragon spits out a sharp jet of water. A wind dragon lets loose sharp whirlwinds. It is all possible due to their bodies and dao marks—and that's the extent of it."
"Only through the cooperation with wild gu worms on their bodies can they enhance their ability to investigate or create walls of element from nothing. Take us humans for example. Our specialty would be our wisdom. However, we need an aperture to actually use several abilities that a mortal human cannot copy ordinarily."
Sun Yao frowned.
"But…" She felt there must be something more to it.
"Of course, there are exceptions to every rule." Sun Yao smiled. "A beast might possess unnatural abilities if they attracted a gu worm with the use of granting its user passive skills. In such case, losing the gu worms won't necessarily mean losing the gu worm's ability. We… we witnessed dear's battle against that desolate beast. Even a beast comparable to supreme elders relied on the gu worms on its body. No matter the amount of dao marks on their bodies, they just don't develop strange abilities outside of their species."
Sun Yao nodded and chewed on her senior sister's words.
<<<>>>
"Say, a myriad head coiling dragon, an immemorial desolate beast, possesses ten thousand dragon heads—each different and capable of acting independently. Not only that, such a mighty formation path beast can also create closed-space formations naturally due to the sheer number of formation path dao marks on its body. That will be its natural limits unless one involved the number of mortal and immortal gu worms it attracted." Old Man Desolate explained giddily. "The addition of these gu worms is nothing more than the attraction of dao marks from external sources."
"My main body developed a formation—Core Beast Formation. It can be used at any level. Even a rank 1 gu master can set this formation and use it on regular beasts, just like that punk Qing Lao used it on a rat and a hawk."
"Core Beast Formation forcefully fuses the beasts into a new creature. This formation would not have been one of my main body's greatest innovations if not for one additional aspect."
Lo Jik and Old Man Desolate observed a distant desolate beast. It looked like a humanoid green cactus with an inflated green body and comical holes for its eyes. The cactus beast surprisingly boxed against a tree and even shot out the pins on its surface on command.
"This ability to shoot pins on command is its core ability, master." Old Man hummed. "And this core is the true brilliance behind my main body's Core Beast Formation. It converts several beasts to form a condensation of dao marks hidden inside the beasts. Unlike the dao marks meant to enhance the effects of gu worms and even mark the bodies of the enemies once physically struck, the dao marks of this meta-physical core mimics the use of abilities granted by passive-type gu worms."
Lo Jik nodded as the duo continued traveling and observed many core beasts. They were all at a level comparable to desolate beasts!
"And because of this core, these beasts can also efficiently replace several materials in a gu formation without actually threatening their lives. They are reusable formation path materials!" Old Man Desolate laughed loudly.
Such creatures would definitely drum up quite a sum in Treasure Yellow Heaven. However, Lo Jik had no plans to sell them and let other gu immortals get a whiff of such a possibility.
He could visualize the dangerous potential of the core beasts.
Couldn't they replace other aspects of gu cultivation if they were already viable in formations?
Like… a killer move?
There were several exciting possibilities!
Lo Jik nearly laughed loudly as the numbers of desolate beasts reached one-hundred-and-eighty.
"Next… they are ancient desolate beasts."
"Why the gloominess, Old Man?" Lo Jik inquired as Old Man sighed deeply.
"Master, my main body used desolate and ancient desolate beasts as the base to manufacture useful immemorial desolate beasts. Each of the four immemorial desolate beasts have been vital in this grotto-heaven's continuous resistance against the endless rain of tribulations. However, the same cannot be said about these desolate and ancient desolate beasts."
"Even I cannot understand some ancient desolate beasts and keep them contained based on my main body's arrangements." He admitted with an embarrassed expression. "Furthermore, I am incapable of replicating my main body's feats and create another immemorial core beast. The sheer intensity of deductions needed to fully structure a lifeform of such a level makes me dizzy. Heck, my main body even used to randomly fuse some core beasts based on intuition alone without properly mapping out the cores itself."
Lo Jik fell deep in thought before smiling.
"I understand, Old Man Desolate. Show these ancient desolate beasts to me."
As such Lo Jik and Old Man Desolate made rounds of the entire grotto-heaven, from the sky to the deep ends of water bodies and earthen tranches alike. There were twenty-three ancient desolate core beasts in total.
Among them, Old Man Desolate was quite uncertain about the abilities of two peculiar core beasts.
One was a menacing-looking dark-grey tiger with darker stripes covering its body. On its forehead was a natural 'king' mark. Its bloodshot eyes seemed to pierce through the formation surrounding it as it sensed Lo Jik and Old Man Desolate before letting out a mighty roar. Most peculiar was its tail. Replacing a regular tiger's tail was a pitch-black scorpion tail.
The second core beast was entirely different from the devilish core tiger. It looked majestic and elegant. Bright golden fur, which looked quite special, covered its stream-lined body. While similar to a lion, mane and all, its snout was slightly longer and resembled a wolf. Its claws looked nothing comparable to an oversized cat or dog and adopted a golden-scaled dragon's claws. A detailed observation exposed similar golden scales under its golden fur. Strangely enough, it had two golden eyes and one vertical red eye in the middle of its forehead that glowed bewitchingly.
'This feeling…' Lo Jik worked his jaw. He had experienced this sensation before, or so his gut informed once he saw the three-eyed golden lion.
'A devil tiger and one auspicious-looking lion hybrid.' Lo Jik sighed. He truly couldn't make any head or tails about the ancient desolate core beasts and prompted Old Man Desolate to reveal the immemorial desolate core beasts.
"These four are instrumental in surviving the tribulations, master." Old Man repeated proudly. "This is the first one and the gentlest of them all."
Lo Jik found his breath stolen by a thing of sheer beauty and power. He stood closer to a beast comparable to a rank 8 gu immortal and instantly felt a crushing pressure trying to suffocate his very being. Only Love Gu's unflinching and unyielding aura managed to remain conspicuous enough as Lo Jik observed the sleeping green dragon. Two long green whiskers floated from its snout and floated like celestial ribbons even as it snored soundly. Two antler-like horns stretched from the dragon's forehead.
The most surprising thing was the very telling sensation Lo Jik caught from this dragon. It was unquestionable…
"Human path…" Lo Jik whispered softly.
"Ah!" Old Man Desolate gasped in surprise. "You know about human path, master? How amazing! And here I planned to surprise you with such a mysterious path." He smiled and nodded.
"It's my main body's last creation before his demise, a human path rank 8 immemorial desolate core beast—Wish Dragon. It was the culmination of my main body's research in human path."
Lo Jik trembled.
There was human path research to be inherited here? He nearly wept tears of joy. Still, he suppressed his urgency to devour such delicious findings and allowed Old Man to introduce this magnificent core beast.
"Truthfully, much is unknown about human path. However, Wish Dragon has a great ability to grant wishes! Yes, master. My main body traveled far and wide and once discovered a Thousand Wish Tree sapling. Later on, the desolate tree began withering and my main body used Core Beast Formation on it in a desperate attempt to preserve its greatest quality—to grant wishes and creating gu worms."
Lo Jik's mouth dried at a visible pace as he gulped audibly.
'Thousand Wish Tree is a human path desolate plant? That's news to me, too. Wishes… I did hear about the Thousand Wish Tree being able to use its fruits to create the gu worms wished upon it by a gu master. The more precious the gu worm, the more of its fruits are consumed.'
"Can it create an immortal gu worm?" Lo Jik questioned.
"Yes, master." OId Man grinned. "As long as you have a complete recipe, that is. Of course, it mimics the Thousand Wish Tree and the wishes come at a cost. Instead of using fruits, the core beast Wish Dragon would have to compensate for the wishes with its life. However, that would be too much of a waste. So, my main body made sure to design the fusion of beasts in a way that it had another ability."
"Every wish forces the Wish Dragon into a slumber. The more precious a gu worm, the longer its slumber. Last, I used the recipe for Rank 7 Atmosphere Gu. It's already been ninety years. A rank 6 immortal gu worm forces a sleep of hundred years. And a rank 7 immortal gu worm temporarily retires it for a thousand years."
Lo Jik nearly lost his shit.
No wonder this beast was instrumental in this grotto-heaven's survival. Old Man Desolate could have wished for several rare mortal gu worms that were already extinct with complete recipes. It was simply too profitable. Heck, Lo Jik obtained too many obscure recipes for extinct gu worms that he had been unable to replicate or modernize even now. He could simply wish for such gu worms.
"Why don't you add a formation to increase its pace of time, Old Man?" Lo Jik frowned, already feeling impatient. He didn't have nine-hundred-years of patience in him.
"I… I didn't dare tamper with the formations around the four immemorial core beasts, master. My main body designed all these formations with these four beasts as the main cores themselves. While he was a great formation path talent… I pale in comparison. Any accident with these four might spell my end."
Lo Jik sighed and nodded.
"A wise decision, Old Man." He praised, making Old Man Desolate glow in happiness.
"Onto next beast!" Old Man grinned as the duo appeared in a dark space. This time they did not directly observe the beast since it was wide awake and active unlike the slumbering Wish Dragon.
This core beast was remarkably small for an immemorial beast.
It was white and equine with an androgynous appearance resembling a qilin with a long mane jutting away from its face and gold-tipped hooves. The duo observed it through a floating display in the darkness, surely a core of the formation surrounding this core beast. There was no suffocating pressure or sense of indescribable majesty naturally oozing from such powerful beasts.
"This one is more aloof and doesn't like interacting with others. I primarily use this beast's ability to deal with most of the more straight-forward tribulations. It's a transformation path immemorial desolate core beast called All-Beast."
'All-Beast…' Lo Jik repeated the name in his mind as the heavenly spirit continued.
"Ordinarily, All-Beast can adapt to any path by transforming all the transformation path dao marks on its body to said path. Its special core ability is none other than transforming its dao marks seamlessly."
Lo Jik couldn't help but sigh in amazement.
"The formation using this beast can make use of this ability and change according to the tribulation. So, I can either adopt the dao marks countering the tribulation or the same one as the tribulation to better resist it."
They moved onto the third one, observing the core beast through a distance yet again.
"This is also based on a fortuitous encounter my main body encountered a while before he broke into rank 8. This core beast uses the famous immemorial beast, once mentioned in <
Lo Jik observed the massive, orange-furred nine-tailed fox. It was also sleeping like Wish Dragon but its slumber was nowhere near as deep as its long furry ears twitched every now and then.
"This beast is a pure formation path immemorial desolate core beast. Using its core ability, I can store a formation in each of its tail and use it instantly."
Lo Jik's brows rose in amazement. It was quite the skill for a formation path gu immortal.
"This nine-tails is quite aggressive but…" Old Man shuddered. "He is nothing compared to the first immemorial core created by my main body."
They observed the last creature. As if sensing the duo, the terrifying being raised its head and started directly into the floating screen—separated by space alone.
"Brrr!" OId Man shuddered and snorted coldly. "He's got such a temper, master!"
It was a massive dragon… a creature that far surpassed Wish Dragon in terms of length and size. Differing from Wish Dragon's serpentine body, this beast boasted an entire upper body covered in black, round, scales, which, in turn, were decorated by spiraling, blue markings. His eyes were white and beady, and his head was round and blunt with four, large, elongated plates extending backward. His large wings were feathery in appearance, akin to a bird's.
"I call it Dragon Eater. He exclusively eats dragon-type beasts and refuses to consume anything else. And he runs quite rampant, master. Most importantly, he's a space and time path immemorial core beast with extremely destructive tendencies. His dragon breath can cut through space itself and his core ability is to transfer anything it consumes in another space within his body. That space is significantly large, like a continent. However, it's no blessed land, so there is no tributary of time flowing through it. As such, time for everything it eats is frozen, making him the perfect storage unit. Hmph, of course, if not for his aggressiveness!"
"Can it consume attacks?" Lo Jik asked candidly as Old Man nodded.
"Indeed, master. I use Dragon Eater to deal with unorthodox tribulations. But as you can expect… such a thing would cause the dragon to gain the dao marks from the tribulation itself."
Lo Jik was slightly alarmed by this revelation but he refrained from losing his composure. After all, such a thing meant that Dragon Eater's composition of dao marks experienced a change and he was no longer a perfect fit for the formation around it. It made him a risk as he could attempt an attack on the grotto-heaven itself with his temper. However, such a thing did not occur. There must be a reason why Old Man could continue taming Dragon Eater despite such a convenient loophole.
As expected, Old Man laughed loudly, prompting Dragon Eater to snarl hatefully.
"However, the formation created by my main body extracts all the dao marks aside from his original ones!"
Lo Jik also smiled.
This had been more than an eye-opening trip. Old Man truly broadened his horizons.
As such, Lo Jik licked his lips and spoke lightly.
"Lastly… the inheritance. Take me there, Old Man Desolate."
***
Alternate Title: Soul Land in Gu Land aah FF; Tang San where?; Lo Jik about to get influenced by author's will to create a human core beast using a bunny with long brown hair for… reasons; Auspicious Three-Eyed Lion; Ja Sun does not like this shit; Release more chapters, cries Ja Sun; Quest Maker meets Smut Maker; Shenron at home *Wish Dragon*; Arceus at home *All-Beast*; Kyubi at home *Nine-Tailed Formation Fox*; Acnologia at home *Dragon Eater*; Arceus in pokemon: God *Arceus in Gu Land: Boot-leg Mahoraga*; A grand fortune; Dark Devilgod Tiger; A human path immemorial desolate core beast; Human path shitting all over meta once again; Digimon ahh beginning; Beelstarmon when? LILITHMON when?; Lo Jik about to create monster baddies?; Old Man Desolate be like: Spread open, master. I'm going to broaden you… r horizons; Freaky owner and heavenly spirit; Sun Yao knows; Qin Juan getting mature glow *Meanwhile: Wrinkles on Sun Yao's index and middle fingers grow more prominent*; The youngest gooner of the trio; Based Qin Juan and Feng Jin Huang: Use their stress-relieving consort *Meanwhile their gooner junior sister: Huffs in erotic ideas*
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