Scavenger Gourd

Biodata

Power Progression

Background

Yin Ming possessed the gourd before his transmigration. During Viscount Orson’s sacrifice, it remained in his sea of consciousness as a jade-green, warm-lustrous Corpse-Liberation artifact. Its existence gave him an escape route: he could release his Primordial Spirit and seek another body rather than die with Eno’s body. 1

The gourd also retained non-material inheritances received after Yin Ming’s encounter with Zhu Bajie, including the Purity law fragment and artifact-forging knowledge. After obtaining the Vast Sea cultivation method, Yin Ming chose the gourd as the medium for converting his True Immortal Dao Fruit into a new divine artifact. 5 7

Yin Ming sacrificed his accumulated cultivation during the forging process. Rather than stabilize the artifact with the Purity law fragment and guarantee an Acquired Spiritual Treasure, he gambled on creating an Innate Spiritual Treasure. The gamble succeeded: the transformed yellow gourd became the Scavenger Gourd. 8 9

After years of use as Yin Ming’s principal research and survival tool, the gourd underwent its second refinement when Yin Ming absorbed Ember, one of the Flameburning Fire Seeds. Ember’s template, based on Norman Martin’s will, became the foundation of an artifact spirit, while the Fire Seed’s abilities granted the gourd fusion and refinement functions. 211

Yin Ming later used the gourd’s internal space to establish Gourd Continent, a Model World intended to preserve Source Plane civilization and simulate a complete life-and-death cycle. After the three Flameburning Fire Seeds reunited, the complete Humanity’s Karmic Fire became the gourd’s artifact spirit and linked the inhabitants of its Sunside and Darkside to the flame. 246 259 349

Artifact Nature

The Scavenger Gourd is an Innate Spiritual Treasure with a single complete Divine Restriction. Originally, it had no direct combat power and was explicitly suited to support-oriented use rather than destruction. Yin Ming considers this more valuable than a stronger but less compatible treasure. 9

Its defining law is not literally a “scavenging” law. Yin Ming later identifies it as the law of Reshaping or Reforging: the ability to transform an original object into something better or worse. Its scavenging, extraction, purification, optimization, and reconstruction functions are applications of that law. 410

The gourd can be seized and refined by others, as its Divine Restriction is an unclaimed path of law rather than a soul-bound artifact limitation. Refining it requires Dao comprehension and ultimately a Dao Strife, while destroying the artifact requires at least Seventh-Ring power. 172

Its potential divine position is associated with the Beggar God or Vagrant God, reflecting its ability to turn discarded, inferior, and seemingly useless materials into valuable resources. 9

Although the gourd’s rank cannot be raised merely through Flameburning Fire, its internal space, refining efficiency, and functions can continue to develop. A true qualitative advancement would require numerous laws and an Eighth-Ring Law Integration Model. 211 350

Abilities & Skills

Analysis

The gourd analyzes anything successfully stored within it, displaying composition, properties, warnings, and extractable components in a detailed projected interface. Its analysis of black bread identifies ingredient percentages, health risks, toxins, and available Food Essence. 9

• Identifies material composition and usable components.
• Detects toxins, impurities, supernatural energy, bloodline traces, law-like components, and hidden properties.
• Can analyze products in reverse to identify ingredients and brewing methods, including Life Essence. 17
• Examines Yin Ming’s body as a complete status display, including constitution, spiritual power, lifespan, organs, meridians, bloodline power, and extractable biological components. 11 314
• Can inspect high-level resources and inheritances, including Abyssal Core Fragments, Flameburning Fire, and the law carried by the gourd itself. 327 349 410
• Bypasses ordinary soul-binding restrictions on stored knowledge. Yin Ming uses it to read the alchemical inheritance contained in Uda’s Silver Gear Orb. 274

Extraction, Purification, and Synthesis

The gourd separates useful components from stored materials, removes impurities, and condenses extracted essence into usable products. Its defining principle is maximizing a material’s utilization rate. 9 11

The gourd can also optimize and combine materials into more advanced products. Yin Ming uses it to brew Life Essence, develop Bloodline Potions, improve external-elixir materials, synthesize smokeless powder, correct the fatal casting flaws in his first revolver, and repeatedly recover failed potion materials for further experimentation. 17 18 27 34 36 236

Biological Optimization

Yin Ming can enter the enlarged gourd himself, allowing it to inspect and alter his body. This process can remove accumulated toxins and hidden injuries, but it does not eliminate the costs of excessive enhancement. 11

• Extracting toxins and old injuries raises Yin Ming’s lifespan limit from 45 to 99 years. 11
• Increasing brain nerve-cell utilization raises spiritual power dramatically, from 6 to 15 in one experiment. 11
• High-frequency brain enhancement consumes bodily energy and lifespan; Yin Ming’s lifespan cap briefly falls to 18 years during the same experiment. 11
• The gourd strengthens the user but does not protect them from the consequences of that strength. 11
• Yin Ming repeatedly uses internal inspection after battles and breakthroughs to identify parasites, curses, tracking marks, bodily changes, and hidden contamination. 56 60 151
• Its ability to optimize brain cells is constrained by the user’s physical limits; repeated enhancement can reduce the available optimization range even while increasing the body’s tolerance. 70

Spatial Storage

The Scavenger Gourd originally possessed mustard-seed storage space and could enlarge enough to draw Yin Ming inside for examination or concealment. Its internal capacity later developed into Gourd Space, then Gourd Continent, and ultimately a plane-scale Model World. 9 11 246 350

• When it contains stored objects, it can no longer be returned to Yin Ming’s sea of consciousness. 9 171
• Yin Ming, as its artifact master, can enter it voluntarily. 11
• Before the second refinement, living beings and objects containing self-will could not be stored if they retained resistance. 11 14
• A dead body may be stored only after its soul and self-will are absent. 14
• Objects carrying even a trace of a living soul cannot be stored, as shown by Red Nose’s soul-bearing stone. 20
• Alchemical Bombs also resist storage for unknown reasons, suggesting that their construction preserves some active supernatural property. 26
• The gourd can forcibly capture targets with special law-like resistance only by expending overwhelming energy to suppress that resistance; Yin Ming’s early attempt to capture Ember fails because of the enormous cost. 82
• Following the second refinement, the gourd can refine living beings before storing them. Once a being has entered Gourd Space, Yin Ming can extract, optimize, and control it through the gourd’s refining authority. 211 238 240
• The gourd is an effective but temporary shelter against high-level enemies. It can withstand attacks below Seventh Ring, but an enemy can seize the physical gourd and eventually attempt to refine or destroy it. 172 175

Element Crystal Production

After detecting elemental energy in ambient air, the gourd becomes Yin Ming’s renewable source of Element Crystals. He orders it to absorb air continuously rather than leave it idle. 26

• Element Crystals are raw Heaven-and-Earth energy that has not been converted into biological mana. 26
• The gourd can condense a fist-sized Element Crystal each day. 28
• Yin Ming uses the crystals as currency, cultivation resources, firearm fuel, and materials for magical research. 26 28 31
• Element Crystals also sustain magic plants and the early development of Gourd Space, which cannot naturally generate the soul and magical energy required by extraordinary vegetation. 105

Artifact Spirit, Fusion, and Refinement

The second refinement grants the gourd an artifact spirit based on Ember and Norman Martin’s will. The artifact spirit can execute preset instructions independently, reducing Yin Ming’s need to divide his attention. 211

• Ember can be ordered to activate delayed collection, such as drawing Yin Ming into Gourd Space after a preset interval to interrupt dangerous enlightenment or Dao-assimilation states. 211 365
• Fusion allows the gourd to incorporate laws and potentially form an additional Divine Restriction. Full law fusion would require the complete Flameburning Fire, including Flameburn and Shadow Touch. 211
• Refinement allows stored things to become part of the Gourd Space and allows living beings to be refined before collection. 211 238
• The complete Flameburning Fire accelerates the gourd’s assimilation and refining speed in proportion to the development of the civilization connected to Humanity’s Karmic Fire. 349 350
• By Chapter 414, the gourd’s bond with Yin Ming has become comparable to that of an arm or thought, greatly increasing its refining efficiency. 414

Gourd Continent and the Model World

Gourd Space evolves from a storage dimension into Gourd Continent, a self-sustaining Model World divided between a living Sunside and an undead Darkside. 246 259

• Yin Ming constructs its terrain by absorbing mountains, rivers, soil, magma, plant seeds, microorganisms, and other non-sentient matter from the Source Plane. 244 246
• Soul Crystals provide the missing soul-cycle foundation required for life within Gourd Space to develop intelligence. 247 259
• Ember administers the Model World as its functional “Heavenly Dao,” overseeing the preservation and natural development of civilization Fire Seeds. 248
• A Crystal Wall called the Life-and-Death Boundary separates the Sunside from the Darkside, establishing a fundamental division between the living and undead populations. 260
• Yin Ming can reshape Gourd Continent’s geography through his consciousness and treats it as a controlled simulation that can be dismantled and rebuilt if necessary. 260
• After absorbing Plane Force Crystals, the expanded Model World can contain an entire plane. Yin Ming subsequently siphons the mountains, rivers, earth, and magma of the Source Plane into it. 350

Relationships

• Yin Ming — Artifact master, reforger, and sole documented primary user. He transformed the original Corpse-Liberation Gourd into the Scavenger Gourd by sacrificing his cultivation, relies on it for survival and advancement, and eventually integrates its Reforging Law into his own path. 1 8 9 410 414
• Ember — Initially the apparent personality of the Ember Fire Seed, later refined into the gourd’s artifact spirit. Ember manages Gourd Continent, executes Yin Ming’s presets, and represents the hopeful aspect of Norman Martin’s Flameburning Fire legacy. 211 248 349
• Norman Martin — His undying will serves as the template underlying the artifact spirit and forms part of the complete Flameburning Fire fused into the gourd. 211 349
• Red Nose — The gourd indirectly verifies the authenticity of Red Nose’s soul offering: a stone containing Red Nose’s soul fragment cannot be stored because it possesses self-will. 20
• The inhabitants of Gourd Continent — The Sunside humans and Darkside liches exist within the gourd’s Model World and are connected to the complete Flameburning Fire through its artifact spirit. 259 349

Trivia

• The Scavenger Gourd’s name comes directly from its “waste recycling” function. 9
• Yin Ming considers it irreplaceable despite its original lack of offensive ability, stating that a treasure suited to its owner is the best treasure. 9
• Its ability to extract Mental Essence depends on the source having mental power stripped of self-will; it cannot simply seize a living being’s memories, lifespan, talent, or mind. 14
• The gourd’s actual governing law is Reforging or Reshaping rather than “scavenging”; the latter is Yin Ming’s deliberately informal name for its practical function. 410
• Despite being an Innate Spiritual Treasure, the gourd cannot simply create living beings from nothing. Its Model World requires Soul Crystals to support intelligence, reproduction, and a sustainable life-and-death cycle. 247 259
• The gourd’s expansion is distinct from an increase in artifact rank. Even after reaching plane-scale capacity, its advancement toward an Eighth-Ring Divine Artifact still depends on law integration. 350