Old Long

Long Xuan's wild imagination continued to spread...

Before long, he looked out the window again and magnified the distant view. Once the landscape outside was enlarged, he had effectively gained Thousand-Mile Sight.

In fact, his Gu Recipe contained a great many eagle eyes, so even without this ability, his normal vision could already see extremely, extremely far—he could be considered to possess a lesser Thousand-Mile Sight.

Once Thousand-Mile Sight combined with magnifying vision, seeing ten thousand miles away would hardly be strange. However, to see that far, Eye Gu would likely need to grow further or undergo a transformation.

A transformation was equivalent to advancement for a Gu cultivator.

As Gu cultivators continually advanced, their Gu Insects naturally had to keep advancing as well if they wished to keep pace and avoid being eliminated.

However, Gu Insect advancement and Gu cultivator advancement were entirely different systems, so it was not called advancement, but transformation.

Gu Insect transformations depended entirely on eating. Every Gu Insect had different conditions for completing a transformation. Gu Insects themselves did not know what they needed to eat in order to transform; Gu cultivators had to research and explore it for them.

Moreover, there was far more than one thing that could satisfy a Gu Insect's transformation conditions. Every Gu Insect possessed countless transformation paths. Some were strong, while others were weak. Choosing which path to take was also something Gu cultivators had to carefully consider.

In short, Gu Insect transformations depended on eating. They might eat other Gu Insects, solid materials, or even artificial objects such as pills.

If they ate the wrong thing, then even after ten thousand years, they would never complete a transformation. But if they ate the right thing, they could transform rapidly, perhaps even several times in a row within a short period. Their advancement speed was far faster than that of Gu cultivators.

Because of this trait, even if a Gu cultivator's realm was very high, they could nurture Gu Insects matching their own realm in an extremely short time.

If Gu cultivators had realms such as the Spirit Gathering Stage, Marrow Cleansing Stage, Spiritual Sea Stage, and Spirit Severing Stage...

Then Gu Insect transformations were Mortal Gu, Spirit Gu, Unusual Gu, Variant Gu...

They corresponded one-to-one with the realms of Gu cultivators.

Long Xuan had yet to find a transformation method for Eye of Heavenly Secrets, but he was still far from the Marrow Cleansing Stage. There was absolutely no need to rush such matters.

One must never think of directly raising a Variant Gu while only at the Spirit Gathering Stage. It could be done, but once the master and servant developed too great a gap in strength, the consequences needed no imagining—either the servant would become the master, or the Gu Insect would backlash against its owner.

Therefore, Long Xuan had not begun researching Eye of Heavenly Secrets' transformation path. His foremost task now was to continue developing Eye of Heavenly Secrets' abilities.

At first, Long Xuan had not thought much of farsight. What was the use of seeing far? It could not injure enemies. But when he looked down at the ground, he completely lost his composure.

Although he did not yet possess true X-ray vision, he suddenly discovered that Thousand-Mile Sight could work in tandem with his cheat ability.

His cheat ability could ignore obstructions, after all, such as Spirit Insects encased in fossils.

His eyes clearly could not see the Spirit Insect, and his line of sight was completely blocked by thick stone crust, yet he could still clearly see the progress deep within the fossil.

It was precisely because his cheat ability had this trait that, with Thousand-Mile Sight's enhancement, he could actually see progress deep underground.

Though he had no idea what exactly was producing that progress, the discovery immediately made his breathing quicken. He could no longer sit still.

What did this ability mean?

It meant he could find underground Spirit Stone Veins, Metal Ore Veins, Fossil Ore Veins... perhaps even ancient tombs.

This was simply countless fortunes, countless opportunities.

"I'm rich! Completely rich!"

Long Xuan paced rapidly around the room in excitement, barely holding back a burst of laughter.

"Calm down, calm down. Do not be overjoyed or overcome with grief."

Long Xuan slowly calmed his excited emotions and continued developing Eye Gu's abilities.

The abilities he had thought of so far all leaned toward support. He wanted offensive abilities, preferably forbidden moves.

Long Xuan's mind turned for a moment, and he quickly thought of something else. Since Eye Gu's ability was to see the Microscopic World, even molecules and atoms...

Could he create things by using soul power to alter the arrangement of atoms and molecules?

Could he use soul power to remove or add electrons outside an atom's nucleus, alter the number of protons within the nucleus, and turn one substance into another?

Long Xuan sucked in a cold breath, utterly stunned. Clearly, even he had been startled by his own bold idea.

If his soul power were strong enough, strong enough to manipulate the Microscopic World, could he become a creator? His imagination was about to explode.

He did not know. He did not know whether his idea was feasible.

He only felt that this thought was far too terrifying, horrifying to the point of making one's hair stand on end.

This was not merely the power to create all things. If he used this power on an enemy, directly destroying their DNA or simply turning the entire person into something else, Long Xuan felt a chill run down his spine just imagining it.

Unfortunately, his soul power was insufficient. He simply could not conduct experiments involving control over the Microscopic World.

Even if this wild notion of his was truly feasible, he would still be unable to accomplish it anytime soon.

To truly develop such power, his soul power would likely have to be unimaginably terrifying. As far as he knew, even becoming a Gu King might not grant such formidable soul power.

Furthermore, even if this wild notion became reality, he could probably only create ordinary objects.

Spirit herbs, spirit pills, Spirit Stones... most treasures carried spiritual power. The heavenly treasures and earthly gems of this world contained far more nonmaterial things than spiritual power alone. How could he possibly create them merely by manipulating the Microscopic World?

Therefore, even if he truly developed this ability, he would likely still need to personally search for most cultivation resources. He absolutely could not create them merely by manipulating the Microscopic World.

Living creatures were even less worth mentioning. Spirit Insects, Gu Insects, and spirit beasts were absolutely not things he could produce. Which of souls, spiritual power, or lifespan could be created by manipulating atoms?

After considering so many limitations, he gradually calmed down. This move might grant him the ability to turn stone into gold, but becoming a creator was nothing more than wishful thinking.

Since he could not research this ability in the short term, Long Xuan stopped thinking about it.

As a new type of Gu appearing in this world for the first time, its inventor possessed naming rights.

After pondering for a moment, Long Xuan named it Eye of Heavenly Secrets, believing the name was quite good.

After naming Eye Gu, his eyes shifted. Using Eye of Heavenly Secrets' ability to see a thousand miles away, he looked toward Old Long's residence...

Inside a crude thatched hut, a burly old man sat cross-legged on a straw mat. Before him floated an alchemy furnace, suspended in midair under the control of his soul power.

A clump of violet flame burned beneath the alchemy furnace, radiating scorching heat.

He controlled the violet flames as they burned beneath the furnace, the heat sometimes strong and sometimes weak. Before long, all the materials within the furnace had been burned into ash.

"Damn it! I failed again!"

"Only three materials short! Just those three materials! I'm only one step from the door, so why can't I cross it?"

"It's already been ten years! These three materials have ground me down for ten years. Damn it!"

"The Hundred Flower Pill is the most potent spirit pill for increasing cultivation at the Spirit Gathering Stage, without equal. As long as I complete this incomplete Hundred Flower Pill formula, the Long Family's strength will rise another level. But why can't I take this final step?"

"Was this failure caused by incorrect materials, or by the success rate?" The old man roared in a violent rage, his emotions extremely agitated.

On the table not far from him lay an ancient pill formula, emanating an archaic aura and seemingly weathered by many years.

However, this ancient formula was incomplete, with one corner missing. By sheer coincidence, the missing portion contained the three most important ingredients—the most valuable primary materials. Not one could be absent.

And by another coincidence, Long Xuan, from an extremely distant location, saw the pill formula completely. It was truly careless. How could something like a pill formula be left lying around so casually?

Yet the old man knew nothing of this. Someone had stolen his Alchemy and pill formula without his realizing it, and he was still roaring away.

Peering over with shifty eyes, Long Xuan muttered, "No wonder Old Long has been staying in that broken grass hut and never coming out. So he has been in seclusion all this time, trying to repair an incomplete formula."

Though the incomplete formula lacked only three ingredients, Long Xuan often worked on Gu Recipes and knew from experience that those three ingredients might take an ordinary person an entire lifetime to complete.

The number three was small, but there were simply too many kinds of spirit herbs in this world to count. Even choosing random combinations of three produced countless possible combinations.

To complete an incomplete formula, others had to repeatedly refine pills. Not only did that consume time and effort, but they might not even be able to determine whether a failed refinement resulted from incorrect ingredients or improper operation.

One had to know that alchemy had an extremely high failure rate in any world.

The greatest difficulty was that experimenting with pill formulas required resources. Every failed experiment wasted an entire furnace's worth of materials.

One or two furnaces might be manageable, but if failure continued without end, even a mountain of gold and silver would eventually be exhausted.

Completing an incomplete formula was a bottomless pit. Even emptying one's entire fortune might not yield any results.

What was missing from this incomplete formula just happened to be the first three and most expensive primary ingredients. He would have to repeatedly experiment with the most precious materials, and the enormous cost invisibly increased the difficulty of completing the formula even further.

Yet what others could not accomplish, Long Xuan could.

Eye of Heavenly Secrets had allowed him to figure out more than three thousand materials. Would he be stumped by these mere three?

He did not need to spend time and effort conducting experiments to complete the incomplete formula, and it cost him nothing. He could use all manner of expensive materials without the slightest pressure.

To him, three ingredients were completely trivial. Besides, since the pill formula was called the Hundred Flower Pill, its ingredients were certainly related to flowers. Once the rank of the spirit herbs was further restricted, the scope had already been greatly narrowed.