Lin Mu did not hesitate for a single moment.
He circulated his Primeval Essence immediately, scoured away every last trace of residual will within the Jade Tendon Gu, and branded it anew with his own mark.
He settled it carefully into the depths of his Aperture.
This Gu worm — one he had seized through his own efforts — had finally, rightfully, fallen into his hands.
By now, the distant horizon had already begun to pale with the first light of dawn.
Less than twelve hours remained before the Jia Clan Caravan broke camp and departed.
Lin Mu did not rest. He still had one final account to settle.
At dusk, the dying sun bled red across the sky.
Just before the caravan officially set out, Lin Mu made his way to the camp at a brisk pace and, without any fuss, handed over the remaining balance of four thousand five hundred Primeval Stones to the caravan's steward.
The steward took the heavy pouch, counted it through, and broke into a smile so radiant it could have outshone a field of blooming chrysanthemums.
"Brother Lin, you're a man of your word! With this payment settled, I can give Lord Jia Fu a clean account."
In this steward's eyes, the young man before him — one who had staked his own future prospects just to obtain a Gu worm for his master — was unquestionably one of Lord Jia Fu's most devoted loyalists. One of their own.
He clapped Lin Mu on the shoulder with warm familiarity and sighed with the air of a man imparting hard-won wisdom.
"Heroes are born young, as they say! With your methods and your temperament, Brother Lin, staying buried in a backwater like Black Blood Stockade is a waste of your talents. Next time our caravan comes through, I hope I'll be calling you 'Chief Lin'!"
It was a thoroughly worldly compliment — and a thoroughly realistic one.
"May your words prove prophetic."
Lin Mu returned the pleasantries with practiced smoothness and did not linger.
He withdrew from the camp and climbed to a vantage point on a high slope with an open view.
There he stood in silence, watching the Jia Clan Caravan below — a massive iron serpent stretching for several li — rumble forward amid the low, heavy bellowing of its beasts, winding slowly into the deep, treacherous forest of Black Wind Ridge.
For him, this grand market gathering had been an extraordinarily perfect feast.
Not only had he obtained the formula and primary ingredients for the Four-Flavor Liquor Worm without spilling a drop of blood...
He had navigated the tangled web of competing factions and squeezed every last drop of profit from the situation.
The grand market had finally, completely, drawn its curtain.
But that did not mean Lin Mu could rest easy.
On the contrary — in the world of Gu, the process of converting wealth into power was itself riddled with uncertainty and danger.
Lin Mu withdrew his gaze and made his way directly to the Grey Street Market.
Inside Old Ma's dim, cluttered shop.
When Lin Mu laid four Rank 2 Gu worms — each radiating an enticing aura — in a row across the counter with a single motion, Old Ma's one cloudy eye erupted with a terrifying gleam.
Even his breathing stalled for half a heartbeat.
"These... all four of them are Rank 2?!"
Old Ma swallowed hard, staring at Lin Mu the way one stares at something that shouldn't exist. "Brother Lin, this kind of move you're making..."
"Can you handle them or not?"
Lin Mu wasted no words.
"Old Ma, you know the rules — cash on delivery. As for selling them, the farther the better. Ideally straight to the Eastern Sea."
Every resource had its use. The value of a Gu worm depended entirely on who wielded it.
Lin Mu's Aperture had limited carrying capacity right now.
Keeping Gu worms he had no use for was not only a waste of resources — it was a liability that could expose him.
"Handle them? Of course I can handle them!"
Old Ma's face creased with excitement, every wrinkle bunching together as he nodded vigorously.
"Put your mind completely at ease. This old man has been working the Grey Street for more years than you've been alive — my connections aren't just talk. As long as no one asks where they came from, goods like these move easy."
Old Ma had been unusually talkative lately — but the moment a transaction of this caliber was on the table, the deeply professional instincts buried in his bones came through with perfect clarity.
All he needed to know was that this deal would leave him with grease dripping from every corner of his mouth.
After a swift and clean round of appraisal and exchange —
Lin Mu's pockets were once again heavy with a substantial sum.
Combined with the savings he had left over from before, his liquid capital had surged past fourteen thousand Primeval Stones — a figure that was frankly terrifying.
In this isolated, impoverished corner of the Southern Border, that was an astronomical fortune.
It was also the greatest foundation he possessed for his future assault on Rank 3.
Capital secured. Now — power.
Lin Mu returned to the Silent Stone District and sealed himself inside that dim, absolutely secure underground chamber.
And by a remarkable coincidence —
Inside Black Blood Stockade's magnificent inner courtyard, Lin Feng entered closed-door cultivation at almost the exact same moment.
Two breakthroughs, in two opposite corners of Black Blood Stockade, began simultaneously.
In the darkness of the underground chamber, Lin Mu sat cross-legged and brought his breathing to a state of perfect stillness.
"It is time."
A single thought moved within him.
The vast reserves of Rank 2 middle stage Primeval Essence inside his Aperture surged as though seized by some violent, irresistible pull — and in an instant, a towering wave rose from the Primeval sea.
A torrent of deep crimson Primeval Essence surged upward with unstoppable momentum, driving directly and without mercy into the crystalline Red Iron Relic Gu that hovered motionless in the air.
Hummm—!
Red light, sharp enough to cut.
In that instant, the Red Iron Relic Gu trembled and rose — as though it had transformed into a miniature sun ascending within Lin Mu's Aperture.
It radiated a crimson brilliance that was vast and overwhelming, almost suffocating in its intensity.
The light burned like fire. It was as blinding and aggressive as a blade drawn from its sheath. In an instant, it flooded the white walls of Lin Mu's entire Aperture with blazing illumination.
Beneath that domineering, searing radiance —
Every Gu worm that normally moved freely within the Aperture felt the crushing pressure of this fate-altering force.
The Four-Flavor Liquor Worm, with admirable self-awareness, dove straight to the deepest reaches of the Primeval sea and suppressed its own aura entirely.
The Red Mud Gu, the Jade Tendon Gu, and the others flickered quietly at the bottom of the sea — waiting in perfect stillness for this transformation that would decide their host's fate.
Under ordinary circumstances, for a Gu Master to advance from Rank 2 initial stage to Rank 2 middle stage required months — sometimes the better part of a year — of slowly grinding the Aperture walls with Primeval Essence, expanding the Aperture's capacity and resilience bit by painstaking bit.
But now, the Relic Gu's dominance compressed that entire process into a single instant.
The Red Iron Relic Gu erupted with its vast crimson light.
It took the place of Primeval Essence entirely — becoming a torrent of energy that was savage and wild, yet filled with pure, primal foundational power — and drove that power with absolute force into the fragile white walls of the surrounding Aperture.
Under Lin Mu's focused awareness —
Beneath the frenzied flood of red light, the white membrane — originally only a thin, delicate layer — began to thicken at a visible, terrifying speed.
The white light within the membrane grew brighter and brighter, denser and denser, until it seemed to condense into streams of solid luminance.
Quantitative change gave rise to qualitative change.
Crack.
A sound — faint as a whisper, yet resonant as a great bell — detonated within Lin Mu's mind.
That membrane, which had once been somewhat insubstantial, reached its ultimate density — and gradually transformed into something far more resilient and solid: a membrane of water.
White ripples flowed across its surface in shifting, flowing patterns — now bright, now dim — radiating a fierce vitality and suppleness.
In this moment —
Lin Mu, and Lin Feng in the inner courtyard far away —
Shattered their cultivation barriers simultaneously.
Both broke through to Rank 2 middle stage.
But the breakthrough did not stop there.
Within the Aperture, the Red Iron Relic Gu continued to blaze with its final and most radiant crimson light.
It burned as though consuming its own life — replacing Lin Mu's own Primeval Essence — and drove the pure essence and foundational energy of heaven and earth into the Aperture with relentless force.
The newly formed water membrane received every last drop of that immense gift.
The ripples across its surface flowed with increasing ease, growing more and more stable with every passing moment.
Its work complete, it began to fade.
This state lasted approximately a quarter of an hour.
The Red Iron Relic Gu finally exhausted every last trace of foundational energy within it. Its once-crystalline body turned completely transparent.
Pop.
A soft sound.
The Red Iron Relic Gu dissolved into a wisp of ash and vanished within the blazing red light.
The overwhelming radiance faded abruptly. Inside the Aperture, stillness returned.
And this forceful, reckless acceleration had left behind not a single adverse effect — it had instead, with perfect completeness, spared Lin Mu nearly a full year of grueling cultivation.
Within the calm Primeval sea of the Aperture, a thread of Primeval Essence — far more concentrated than the shallow crimson of the initial stage, deep and rich as a peach blossom in full bloom — was slowly taking form.
Rank 2 middle stage Primeval Essence.
Yet for Lin Mu, this was only the beginning.
He did not pause for even a breath. His dark eyes erupted with a terrifying, razor-sharp light.
He grabbed a large fistful of Primeval Stones he had prepared beforehand and crushed them in rapid succession, greedily absorbing the natural primeval energy within, swiftly replenishing the Primeval Essence that had been depleted from his Aperture.
And under the refinement of the Four-Flavor Liquor Worm —
That freshly absorbed Primeval Essence — still the rose-red of Rank 2 middle stage as it entered the Aperture — passed through the Liquor Worm's process of consumption and purification, and its quality underwent another terrifying leap.
Its color — from rose-red — plunged in an instant into something far heavier and deeper: a dark crimson, dense and rich as congealed blood.
Rank 2 upper stage.
Lin Mu felt the savage, all-rending power surging through him and let a faint smile touch the corner of his mouth.
Meanwhile, in another chamber entirely, Young Master Lin Feng was still basking in the self-satisfied glow of his breakthrough to Rank 2 middle stage.
He could never have imagined — not even in his dreams — that the collateral branch outsider he had never once deigned to take seriously...
Had already reached, in the quality and explosive force of his Primeval Essence, a monstrous level that bordered on Rank 3 itself.