Jiang Lu pondered for a moment, then decided to go and take a look.
The paths of poison cultivation and Gu cultivation were entirely different from those of alchemy and medicine.
Alchemy and medicine relied heavily on ancient texts, inherited teachings, and the wisdom of sages. Progress came through following established methods and drawing on the strengths of many schools.
Poison and Gu cultivation, however, demanded firsthand trials above all else. Only after a thousand experiments and ten thousand refinements in actual combat could one glimpse their secrets and break through their limits.
Though orthodox sects had never expressly forbidden poison or Gu Arts, they had always classed them as unorthodox practices. Most cultivators shunned them, recoiling at the thought of touching either one.
Within the Crimson Reed Domain, however, cultivators of poison and Gu had formed a school of their own, with rules of practice unique to them.
Here, poison and Gu cultivators who took disciples held nothing back, but showed no mercy either. New disciples signed life-and-death contracts with their masters early on, willingly testing poisons on their own bodies and feeding Gu with their own flesh.
Precisely because they spent years putting themselves through such trials, breaking down before rising anew, poison and Gu cultivation were among the rare paths where disciples could readily surpass their masters in both talent and cultivation.
Cultivators who had no one to guide them and did not wish to take a master could instead sell themselves as test subjects. They let higher-level cultivators test poisons and refine Gu on them, receiving spirit stones and cultivation resources according to the number and danger of the trials.
Countless low-level cultivators, trapped by mediocre talent and scarce resources with no path forward, chose this road to gamble for a chance.
Some survived thousands upon