Dazed, Feng Jin Huang's divine sense ventured in Treasure Yellow Heaven. Her once bewitching features were now burdened by devastating grief as she quietly let the chatter of several other divine senses fill up the background. She hadn't slept a wink for a few days since she received some upsetting information from her father. Furthermore, her mother, Bai Qing, took over Bai La's duties within Hu Immortal Blessed Land. However, the mother-daughter pair remained numb.
Fortunately for Feng Jin Huang, a sudden wave of noise distracted her before she could wallow in sadness.
'What's going on?' She noticed a group of gu immortals surrounding a particular divine sense. It was a more prestigious section of the grotto-heaven where most of the well-established players in the market set their shops. Most of the notable slave owners and distributors also sold several variant human groups here and attracted Feng Jin Huang's focus because of her desire to carve out a position for herself among the competition.
Following the crowd, Feng Jin Huang soon saw one Desolate Core Immortal sell something interesting.
'Somebody is selling a great number of rank 5 Polished Crystal Gu worms.' She observed. Polished Gu series was rare and boasted the mouth-watering ability of increasing one's aptitude to the point of rank 5 Polished Crystal increasing one's aptitude by 50%! The batch of fifty such gu worms, even if rank 5, instantly attracted a decent attention in Treasure Yellow Heaven because of a few reasons.
First, many gu immortals still had a use for certain mortal gu worms for their descendants and promising disciples alike. Second, such a batch of gu worms instantly implied the seller's ability to produce even more gu worms be it due to their blessed land/grotto-heaven's unique habitat or a gu recipe. And lastly, the market for Polished Gu series was not a new one and was consolidated by two well-known parties long ago!
The shrewd gu immortals instantly sensed the arrival of a competition and tried to gain as much information as possible about Desolate Core Immortal's intentions. After all, several gu immortals knew about this vendor. Feng Jin Huang was also not a stranger to them since Desolate Core Immortal was one of the rare individuals constantly producing quality formation path materials and gu worms. They were quite an affluent party in Treasure Yellow Heaven.
Why would Desolate Core Immortal try entering the market for Polished Gu series?
It had to be known that the two metal path gu immortals occupying the majority share of the market already invested a lot in the recipe for this series of gu worms to the point of simplifying certain steps and using cheaper materials to produce the same product. They earned more profits per batch and could undercut Desolate Core Immortal till he was pushed out of the market.
Feng Jin Huang, presently, also dealt with a similar issue. Several big names in variant human slavery business were pressuring her by reducing their prices. Everyone knew who she was and were alert of her father. However, Treasure Yellow Heaven was quite a different location with its own set of rules. Not even a rank 8 gu immortal, much less a Feng Jiu Ge, could influence the market's cut-throat competition.
'Eh? He's not selling it for immortal essence stones?'
Feng Jiu Ge blinked once she heard of the conditions necessary to buy this batch of Polished Crystal Gu worms.
Desolate Core Immortal actually had the cheek to demand recipes of the rumored secretive paths established by the venerables, such as luck and painting paths. While Feng Jin Huang had heard a few odd mentions of these paths, she had yet to encounter a single gu worm of these paths.
Just as the crowd's interest seemed to wane, Desolate Core Immortal lowered the price.
'A batch of fifty precious rank 5 gu worms can be exchanged for a single rank 3 gu worm recipe.'
Feng Jin Huang noticed her surroundings get more crowded and soon understood the reason. Most gu immortals weren't as interested in the fifty Polished Crystal Gu worms as they were in witnessing a recipe for one of these rumored paths.
She was soon disappointed.
Nobody stepped up.
Did nobody possess such recipes? That was impossible. Feng Jin Huang believed someone from the Heavenly Lotus Sect must possess some painting path recipes. Desolate Core Immortal changed the conditions again just as the crowd started to thin.
The treasured light around the displayed gu worms shot higher in response to the addition of another batch of gu worms. The new lot of gu worms was not Polished Crystal Gu worms but something else.
Feng Jin Huang's eyes lit up with surprise.
There were fifty rank 5 Purple Relic Gu worms.
Such a collection instantly mesmerized everyone.
After all, Polished Gu series belonged to metal path and was known to possess a recipe after centuries of development in metal path. Relic Gu series, however, was notorious for being naturally refined gu worms in regions with high population density and simply couldn't be replicated. It was still unknown if Desolate Core Formation had collecting these gu worms over the years in their immortal aperture or if they deduced a recipe for it.
Such a wealth finally attracted a suitor.
"Master, this individual says they does not have any recipes for painting or luck paths. However, they have a pill path recipe." Old Man Desolate informed the cultivating Lo Jik as the latter opened his eyes while resting in a shallow pool of water.
His eyes shimmered with a strange brilliance as if he could deduce several hundred possibilities in a second.
"I have heard of pill path…" Lo Jik mused. "But don't sell it now. It took me becoming a theft path grandmaster to uncover the clues to that inheritance left by Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable. One more push should attract that individual's attention… granted if he is still alive. Too much time has passed and I cannot be sure if his grotto-heaven still exists." He concluded wryly. All that planning couldn't counter the passage of time and degradation of fortune under heavenly will.
Everyone in Treasure Yellow Heaven instantly felt disappointed when Desolate Core Immortal rejected the trade for a pill path recipe.
Others grumbled but waited patiently. If the offer could attract one party, it could surely attract someone else.
However, their patience resulted in no rewards. The situation changed once again just as the crowd started thinning.
Rounds of gasps echoed in Treasure Yellow Heaven as the treasure light shot beyond what was possible for mortal materials and gu worms and surpassed the pillar of light witnessed around living desolate beasts!
The most surprising aspect of this change was the fact that the sudden pillar of light emerged due to a group of mere rank 1 gu worms.
It was a batch of fifty gu worms again, each rank 1. Feng Jin Huang observed in shock and awe as she momentarily forgot about the source of her stress.
Like others, she heard Desolate Core Immortal's explanation about the new batch of rank 1 gu worms.
Rank 1 Extreme Aptitude Gu.
The name was simple and concise.
And that, in of itself, was shocking enough! Nobody had ever witnessed such a gu worm before. Rank 1 Extreme Aptitude Gu only worked on rank 1 gu masters. However, no matter their aptitudes, using this gu worm would forcefully upgrade their aptitudes to one of the ten extreme aptitudes!
It was not a small change.
Adding this batch of gu worms was like dripping a water into hot oil as its entire surface instantly frothed and bubbled with excitement, nearly spilling over anything and everything!
The condition of selling this batch had also changed.
Desolate Core Immortal now desired a rank 1-5 luck or painting path gu worm recipe.
"Friend, pill path is no worse than these two paths when it comes to innovation. Do you know that it has the properties of refinement and wood paths?" The previous buyer instantly approached Desolate Core Immortal again. "Consider exchanging this recipe for my rare pill path recipe. You won't make any losses."
Old Man Desolate dutifully informed all this to Lo Jik before the latter denied the trade once more.
He was no longer restricted by lacking wealth and could finally look into advancing the attainment for specialized paths. Sure, pill path was an attractive prospect. However, Lo Jik wanted to establish a contact with a certain party.
Even using a recipe formed from those ten corpses received through his trade would be a worthwhile venture.
'The rumors suggest that Thieving Heaven cooperated with that man for a period of time. The hints in the few Thieving Heaven minor inheritances point at that man, too. Luck path… it's real. Not only is it real, I'm quite sure the information about that gu house I recently received through my trait belonged to that individual. It's highly likely that he also possesses more information about luck path after working closely with Giant Sun Immortal Venerable.'
Luck path… Lo Jik was attracted to such a power. Its prospects seamlessly improved the strengths of his trait by a great margin!
It didn't take long for Lo Jik to attract a few painting path recipes, too.
'Is he not going to emerge?' He frowned, slightly frustrated. He did not want anything to dampen the pace of his growth now that two of his greatest assets—two mortal gu houses—were operational and being worked to their absolute limits!
Being a great grandmaster was too addictive!
Lo Jik wanted more streams of knowledge and intuition dancing at the tips of his fingers.
'Is Extreme Aptitude Gu not enough?' Lo Jik pondered. 'Maybe he simply isn't browsing Treasure Yellow Heaven at this time… of course, I'm assuming that he still exists—'
"Master! Someone contacted us with a luck path recipe!" Old Man Desolate gushed. "It's… Shape Luck Gu."
Lo Jik inquired.
"What does it do?"
Old Man Desolate sighed.
"It's useless without other luck path gu worms, master. Apparently, Shape Luck Gu can be used with other luck path gu worms to shape one's luck and attract a certain type of fortune. However, the other party does not wish to divulge any other information aside from the recipe for rank 1-5 gu worms unless we sell him the recipe for Extreme Aptitude Gu."
Lo Jik smirked. Of course, he wasn't going to sell perfectly untouched gu worms. It would be too easy reverse-refine their recipe in such scenarios. The other party also expected this much and wanted the recipe right off the bat. But why should Lo Jik do such a thing?
"This… Lang Ya Old Immortal also says that the recipe for Shape Luck Gu is quite old and the materials cannot be found in Treasure Yellow Heaven. However, he also has an improved recipe in his hands and would be willing to sell it to us for more recipes like Extreme Aptitude Gu."
Lo Jik's smile deepened.
Scarcity of materials? As if that could bother him anymore! He was not purchasing the luck path recipe for direct use in his gu set but to supplement his attainment. It could be the most useless luck path gu worm as long as it reached rank 5.
"Purchase the regular recipe. Also contact the gu immortals from earlier and exchange for those pill and painting path recipes. Tell the seller of pill path that we won't be selling him any more than thirty Extreme Aptitude Gu. Meanwhile, select the gu immortal selling the recipe for Canvas View Gu for the painting path recipe."
'Lang Ya Old Immortal… he's the one, isn't he?' Lo Jik rested in the shallow pool of water as Old Man Desolate completed the transactions.
'This gu house is truly amazing. It was the right decision in letting Old Man Desolate form a mortal gu house out of Wealth and Wisdom Gu Worms.'
Mortal gu houses were relatively simple to deduce for Old Man Desolate once Lo Jik deduced a similar killer move as the base and worked the best for the current Lo Jik.
His surroundings were no different from a public hot spring. A rim of smoothened rocks surrounded the shallow blue depths as steam curled around Lo Jik lazily. Beyond the narrow bed of soft sand around the hot spring were shoots of deep-green bamboos. They stretched up to fifteen meters and packed the surroundings densely with thins branches filling the gaps. Surprisingly, above the open space in the middle of the hot springs untouched by the canopy of leaves and branches was not the view of the grotto-heaven but a ceiling of bright and bewitching multicolored light.
Having borrowed the gu house from Old Man Desolate, Lo Jik didn't need to spend his essence and used the heavenly spirit's natural limitless primeval essence to activate the gu house again.
The multicolored ceiling of light slowly released tiny shards of light. Each light let out brilliant halos and entered the hot spring water.
Tadpole-like blue thoughts from Derivation Mind Gu appeared outside Lo Jik's body as the water bubbled hot under the effects of the raining shards of light, prompting the empty space to be overtaken by steam.
*Swish*
*Swish*
*Swish*
*Swish*
While Lo Jik was proficient in controlling his thoughts, even he couldn't help but marvel at the change in the speed of the fusion of his thoughts under the effects of the steam.
It was simply an incomprehensible upgrade!
Tadpoles crashed into each other and fused instantly or broke apart into smaller and swifter thoughts. Hundreds of thoughts fused into a single lump in less than a second with an incomplete gu recipe with an 80% completion rate!
This was the effect of rank 5 gu house—Pool of Wisdom.
'Wisdom Gu… it's just a mortal gu worm but it already allowed me to deduce so many recipes and then some more. Of course, my attainment is pulling most of the weight here. However, I could have still deduced several recipes without enough attainment if I kept using it.'
He compared the speed of his deductions for recipes with and without this gu house and realized the marked improvement of about 700%! This was all for mortal recipes, of course.
'How awesome is the legendary rank 9 Wisdom Gu if the mortal variant is already so useful?' Lo Jik mused. Of course, as one would expect after reading <<>>, using Wisdom Gu reduced one's lifespan. To overcome this issue would require one to have enough attainment in wisdom path, possess adequate lifespan to experiment with a killer move, and massive wealth to achieve all this in the first place.
Unfortunately for the gu world, Lo Jik checked all those boxes. The first deduction of Pool of Wisdom Gu House required Lo Jik to spend enough Lifespan Gu to keep hundreds of brightly lit Wisdom Gu worms in the brilliant ceiling above his head from siphoning his own lifespan. However, Lo Jik used the power of Wisdom Gu to rectify this issue and deduced another recipe for the gu house that siphoned the lifespan of the beasts held in a storage unit.
It was also the combination of this gu house and his advanced grandmaster-level attainment in theft path that he was able to uncover another one of Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable's true inheritance left hidden inside several refinement path recipes that Lo Jik inherited from Heart Refining Fiend Bai Kin alongside the minor inheritance pointing towards a certain someone in Northern Plains.
Currently, Lo Jik put his attainments to use and comprehended the luck, painting, and pill path recipes at an unimaginable pace. To put it to perspective, he would have ordinarily needed weeks to fully digest these recipes because he had never even touched these concepts. Now, however, he sped past through most of the obstacles due to Wisdom Gu.
Nothing seemed impossible to the current Lo Jik… and that was true to a certain sense.
Anything was possible in the gu world as long as one comprehended enough secrets of the great dao and boasted magnificent wealth to put such comprehension to work.
He left the Pool of Wisdom after three hours and appeared before another mortal gu house.
Unlike the more nature-driven wisdom path mortal gu house, the current structure was majestic and tall building. Two auspicious-looking golden dragons framed the structure's red-tiled roof with two heavily-plated doors blocking the entrance.
Pushing open the entrance allowed Lo Jik to witness the gu house's interior.
It was vast beyond the exterior size of the gu house and filled with nothing but an endless stream of golden light. The light traveled like crashing waves and reached the very beginning of the hall where the tides turned gentle and stretched up to the spot Lo Jik stood in before receding back into the endlessness of gold.
Human path gu house—Sea of Wealth.
The concept behind these two gu houses was the same.
Once Lo Jik activated the gu house, he observed the golden sea turn turbulent. It crashed into the floor not far from Lo Jik before spitting out several sets of materials.
'Using a lot of Preservation Gu worms in these two gu houses was the right decision.' Lo Jik already had the intuition of creating a loop of constant wealth and materials using Wealth Gu with Preservation Gu. This gu house completed that vision and happened to be more stable than a killer move, which could fail and injure the gu master.
Collecting the materials, Lo Jik left to refine the gu worms and understand the process more intimately before introducing further corrections.
The final result would be handled by Old Man Desolate to produce even more copies through the huge number of hairy men in the grotto-heaven and consequently supplant Lo Jik's attainment.
Of course, he didn't forget to study one of his recent platinum achievements from Qin Juan.
It was a simple information path gu worm that held the information for something truly extraordinary—a treasured immortal gu house with several aspects of gu cultivation, including food path. It was the one thing that inspired Lo Jik's minor scheme to acquire a single luck path recipe. Nay, it was the one true definitive confirmation of the existence of luck path, driving Lo Jik with the single obsession of making luck dao the second path he obtained a great grandmaster-level attainment in after human path to make his trait focus on it when acquiring a great many rewards.
'But I've already reached the ceiling of the rewards I can obtain. Lifespan gu worms are good and all… but the quality of inheritances I might obtain as a gu immortal would surely be of a whole different level.'
'Gu immortal… I will soon be able to crack a few gu immortal recipes using Pool of Wisdom gu house. It reduced the time necessary to achieve the goal from countless years to months. My speed will improve as my attainment in other path rises.'
He sighed and summoned Old Man Desolate.
"I won't be able to return here for the next few days. In the meantime, I want you to keep supplying my Dreamer Gu worms with rank 5 Shape Luck Gu worms."
"Aye, master. May I ask what's keeping you from returning quickly?"
Lo Jik massaged his aching forehead. All that deduction may not have expended his lifespan, but it surely exhausted him mentally.
"It's kept as a secret from me," he replied. "But the higher-ups must be at their wits' end if they're summoning me."
He thought internally.
'It must either be Fairy Yi or Feng Jiu Ge. The rest of the gu immortals already know better than to give me a chance to earn more contribution points and grow unchecked. Even then, their timing is unusual.'
***
Alternate Title: Old Man Lang Ya getting eager for Extreme Aptitude; Feng Jin Huang's worries; Small commotion in Treasure Yellow Heaven; Rank 1 Extreme Aptitude; Cracking the recipe for Relic Gu Worm series; Elusive paths; Pill, painting, and luck; Lo Jik's two mortal gu houses; Endless wealth; No longer an issue of materials; Mimicking legendary Wisdom Gu; Deducing recipes; On the brink of immortal recipes; Lucky break; About to use trait to excavate luck path goodies; Qin Juan's achievements bringing sweet rewards; Shape Luck Gu; Old Man Lang Ya: Luck path… Luck path exists! *Can we get much higher… so high~~*; Decrypting another Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable's inheritance; Do you know that bungee gum has properties of both gum and rubber?; Do you know that the pill path has properties of wood and refinement paths?
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A/N: Apologies for the delay, I started binging LOTM and also began preparing to write an og cultivation-smut novel
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