Plum Blossom Spider Gu

By the time Jiang Yiming returned to the foot of Sunless Mountain, it was exactly seven in the morning.

The slaughterhouse trucks had been on the road for most of the night and arrived one after another with their loads at the village entrance.

After taking the call, Jiang Yiming waited at the village entrance and stopped them from driving in.

"Hey, brother, is anyone here to unload the trucks? I've got somewhere to be," one driver urged.

"Just dump it on the ground." Jiang Yiming pointed to the grass down the slope beside the road.

The driver was dumbfounded. "Are you sure? Once it's dumped down there, it won't be easy to get it back up."

"It's fine. Just do as I say."

The driver checked with him again before turning the truck around. Once he had it in position, he raised the hydraulic lift.

The entire truck bed slowly rose, and all the meat inside slid into the grass down the slope.

"Don't just stand there, you lot. Do the same!" Jiang Yiming waved to the other drivers.

Just like that, all sixty tons of cheap meat ended up in the grass.

There was so much meat that even though the Gu Rearing Box had been upgraded to fifty cubic meters, it still couldn't hold it all.

Jiang Yiming had no choice but to wait until no one was around and let the Gu worms eat a third of the meat. Only then did he store the rest of the meat and the Gu worms together in the Gu Rearing Box.

Next time, I'll have them deliver it after dark. Morning is still too dangerous.

After muttering that to himself, he hurried back to his rented place in the village.

Back at his rented place, he sat cross-legged and began cultivating the Essence Absorption and Qi Intake Art, while the Primordial Gu in the Gu Rearing Box began eating frantically.

Four hours later, all the Primordial Gu had reached level five.

The sixty tons of meat he had bought for one or two hundred thousand had been almost entirely devoured.

He got up, stopped cultivating, and began refining Gu. It took him another nine hours or so to finish refining all the Primordial Gu.

"Phew..."

"Finally, I'm done. That took me a long time. It's far too slow!"

Jiang Yiming wondered whether he should buy another Gu Refining Plate to speed things up.

But Gu Refining Plates could only be purchased with gold. He had already exchanged his last three hundred grams of gold for Gu Refining Points, and now he didn't have any gold left.

If he wanted to buy more gold, it would easily cost him hundreds of thousands.

After turning it over in his mind, he decided to make do with one Gu Refining Plate for the time being.

After refining all the Primordial Gu, he had obtained 4,260 Gu Refining Points this time.

He had also obtained a great deal of Gu Essential Essence. Jiang Yiming's dantian qi sea was nearly full!

Once the Gu Essence in my qi sea changed from mist into liquid, my cultivation reached the First-Grade Gu Master realm.

Right now, the Gu Essence takes up thirty percent of my qi sea, and the Gu Essential Essence takes up more than sixty percent.

Based on my experience over the past few days, refining that sixty-odd percent of Gu Essential Essence will only yield thirty percent Gu Essence.

In other words, if I refine all the Gu Essential Essence I've accumulated, the liquid Gu Essence in my qi sea will fill about sixty percent of it!

Once the liquid Gu Essence filled it completely, he could attempt to break through to the second-grade realm!

At that thought, Jiang Yiming was even more motivated to raise Gu!

Besides the Gu Refining Points and Gu Essential Essence, Jiang Yiming had also obtained five Yellow-Rank Gu worms.

The success rate was relatively good, but the Gu worms he had refined were of very ordinary quality. Some had even worse cultivation talent than Red Tail and Ghost Face.

The only one that caught his attention was a Plum Blossom Spider Gu.

The Plum Blossom Spider Gu was much smaller than the Ghost-Faced Spider, only as big as a finger. It looked perfectly ordinary, but it had a special skill—Thousand-Li Flower Seeking!

After looking into it, Jiang Yiming had a rough understanding of it.

The Thousand-Li Flower Seeking skill was much like the pollen-tracking skill of Yulan's five-colored butterfly from before. Both involved marking a target and then tracking it.

The difference was that Thousand-Li Flower Seeking was more powerful.

When the Plum Blossom Spider bit someone, a plum blossom resembling a tattoo would grow at the site of the wound.

That plum blossom could remain in bloom for a month.

For that entire month, Jiang Yiming could follow the plum blossom mark to track down the person it had marked.

More importantly, the plum blossom mark couldn't be washed off like pollen. Even digging it out was useless. As long as the plum blossom's roots remained, it would bloom again.

If the Red Tail Centipede's Earth Escape was a divine skill for scouting, then the Plum Blossom Spider's Thousand-Li Flower Seeking was a divine skill for tracking!

Apart from the Plum Blossom Spider, the other four Gu worms were unremarkable. The skills they had awakened were all of little use, and some didn't even have skills.

Jiang Yiming spent 2,500 Gu Refining Points on five Yellow Gu Lotus Platforms. After settling the five Gu worms on them, he continued browsing the System Store.

First, he spent 500 Gu Refining Points on the pair of gauntlets.

[Snake Scale Gauntlets: The tips are highly venomous; excellent defense, particularly against fire and corrosion.]

Jiang Yiming took out the Snake Scale Gauntlets and put them on. He found that they were quite long, reaching all the way to his elbows.

Their blackish-purple scales overlapped, covering his entire forearms.

He moved around a little and felt no discomfort at all. Whether grabbing or punching, his movements were completely unaffected.

"Whoosh!"

Jiang Yiming struck out with a claw, bringing a rush of wind with it. He then saw five curved fangs emerge from the tips of the gauntlet, like those of a venomous snake. When he relaxed his grip, the fangs at his fingertips all retracted.

"Hehe, gauntlets with fangs. Nice!"

With fists like these, he could catch a bare blade with one hand.

Next, he spent another 1,000 Gu Refining Points on the Moon-Treading Footwork.

With this footwork technique, he was better equipped to keep himself alive.

Only by living a long time could he collect more Gu worms and grow stronger.

So when it came to weapons and techniques, he would prioritize those suited to defense.

After buying those things, he had only 280 Gu Refining Points left.

"Should I buy a Strength Pill or a Gu Strengthening Pill?"

A Strength Pill cost 100 Gu Refining Points, while a Gu Strengthening Pill cost 200.

After hesitating over it repeatedly, he finally bought a Gu Strengthening Pill.

The Strength Pill was meant to improve him, while the Gu Strengthening Pill was meant to improve a Gu worm's cultivation.

Now that he had the Snake Scale Gauntlets and the Moon-Treading Footwork, he didn't need to improve his own strength for the time being.

It was the Gu worms that needed improvement more!

After spending 200 Gu Refining Points on a Gu Strengthening Pill, he fed it to the Single-Horned Wandering Snake first.

The snake carried Jiang Yiming on patrols around the mountain every night, which held up its cultivation. The Gu Strengthening Pill would serve as compensation.

After the Single-Horned Wandering Snake swallowed the Gu Strengthening Pill, a layer of spiritual energy instantly radiated from the surface of its body. It was as though the snake were immersed in spiritual energy!

In moments, it absorbed all the spiritual energy into its body, instantly reaching the Yellow Rank Late Stage!

Its rate of progress had already surpassed that of the Three-Legged Golden Toad, which had the greatest talent!

Who would have thought a single Gu Strengthening Pill could have such an effect!