Scripture of Longevity

For the next while, Long Xuan stayed in the Medicine Garden, studying the optimal dosage and interval for using Ripening Liquid on each type of spirit herb, then recording the resulting data on paper.

There were over a hundred kinds of spirit herbs in the Medicine Garden. This was destined to be a long process. Fortunately, a large white hen kept him company there, so it was not boring.

The big hen was used to get rid of insects. Crops needed pesticides when they got bugs, and spirit herbs could get bugs too, requiring insect-killing powder from the merchants' association.

Because Old Long had left the original owner to fend for himself, the original owner had completely let himself go, messing around blindly in the Medicine Garden. He had actually saved the Spirit Stones meant for insect-killing powder and bought a big hen instead.

It could be called a lucky mistake. Chickens raised in the countryside could remove insects from crops; every villager knew that. But that only applied to ordinary crops.

How could the insects born from spirit herbs be simple? Logically speaking, after eating a Spirit Insect, the hen should not only fail to digest it, but be parasitized by it instead.

Yet after being listless for a time, this hen had not only pulled through, but evolved into a spirit chicken and become a little expert at eliminating insects. The original owner had truly been lucky.

At this moment, Long Xuan looked at the large white chicken pacing through the Medicine Garden and secretly marveled.

The white chicken held its head high and puffed out its chest, majestic and spirited. It bobbed as it walked, its head jerking forward and back. Intelligence gleamed in its eyes; after evolving into a spirit chicken, its intellect seemed to have risen as well.

It scratched incessantly at the ground. Before long, it dug a large fat worm out of the soil and swallowed it in a single gulp.

The progress above the white chicken's head instantly changed from 99.3% to 99.4%. It was clearly about to reach adulthood.

Seeing this, Long Xuan gently stroked his chin, his gaze thoughtful.

The white chicken had eaten many things, yet only a handful of fat worms changed its maturity level.

If he used this change to feed the spirit chicken different foods, he could fully determine which food benefited it the most, then formulate chicken feed that could drastically shorten its growth cycle.

Long Xuan naturally did not intend to make chicken feed. At this moment, he thought of another use for his golden finger. By the same reasoning, he thought of raising Gu Insects and Spirit Insects.

The speed at which raising Spirit Insects brought in money was no slower than growing spirit herbs.

Spirit Insects were used to refine Gu, and the higher a Spirit Insect's maturity level, the greater the success rate of refining Gu.

Rare Spirit Insects were even harder to come by than phoenix feathers and qilin horns. Each could sell for an astronomical price, yet few people understood how to raise them.

The same type of Spirit Insect could have completely different growth periods when raised by different Gu cultivator Lineages.

Some Gu cultivator Lineages had superior feed, allowing them to raise Spirit Insects several times faster than other Gu cultivator Lineages.

Naturally, that Gu cultivator Lineage would earn more money and enjoy greater profit margins. By lowering prices, it could completely crush its peers and monopolize the market for that insect species.

As long as one developed excellent feed for a certain insect species, the profits would be staggering.

At that moment, Long Xuan immediately developed the intention of raising a type of Spirit Insect.

Raising insects was already like this; raising Gu needed even less explanation.

The more powerful a Gu species was, the longer its maturation period. Many heaven-defying Gu species required a thousand years, even ten thousand years, to mature. How could Gu cultivators, with their short lifespans, wait that long?

Yet the combat strength of a mature Gu Insect and a juvenile one was as different as heaven and earth. Gu cultivators had no choice but to rack their brains for ways to shorten Gu Insects' maturation periods.

Often, the method of raising a powerful Gu species was far more precious than the Gu Recipe itself.

Refining Gu was difficult for Gu cultivators, but raising Gu was even harder. The resources consumed for feeding could even exceed the cost of refining the Gu.

Many Gu cultivators worried themselves gray-haired while researching methods to shorten Gu Insects' maturation periods, exhausting all their resources in the process.

But Long Xuan no longer had any such worries. No matter what Gu species he formed a blood contract with in the future, he could formulate the feed best suited to it.

Reducing the maturation period of a Gu species that took ten thousand years to mature to a hundred years, or even less, was no longer a dream. This was simply cheating. Long Xuan's heart surged with excitement.

"I've almost finished researching the limit for using Ripening Liquid on every type of spirit herb. As long as I use it according to the methods I recorded, this Medicine Garden's output can generate another half again as much profit."

"With such a high share, the money to refine my first Gu Insect is completely secured."

Long Xuan excitedly clenched his fist, his eyes shining.

Carried away by excitement, he reached into the chicken coop, intending to fish out a few spirit chicken eggs to celebrate.

Come to think of it, he was truly curious what eggs laid by a spirit chicken tasted like. The spirit chicken eggs were round and smooth, large and white, brimming with spiritual power and nutrients. They looked delicious enough to make his mouth water.

However, the moment his thieving hand touched one of those smooth, round eggs, the white chicken immediately noticed. It lowered its head and viciously pecked at his hand.

"Shoo, shoo! How dare you..."

Spring went and spring came; flowers fell and flowers bloomed.

In the blink of an eye, a year had passed. Multicolored spirit flowers bloomed throughout the Medicine Garden, weaving together into a dazzling sea of color. Whenever the wind blew, intoxicating floral fragrance filled the air, making one feel as though one had entered a dream.

Beside the sea of flowers, Long Xuan lay in a rocking chair. On the table beside him were papers covered in Chinese characters and a pot of tea. He held a book in his hand, reading leisurely as a soft breeze blew over him. He was utterly content.

His once-thin body had filled out considerably over the past year, likely because he had eaten too many spirit chicken eggs.

That large white chicken had also grown plump and sturdy. It was currently patrolling back and forth through the Medicine Garden, searching for Spirit Insects born on the spirit herbs. The moment one showed its head, it would be swallowed in a single bite by the sharp-eyed chicken.

Long Xuan had given her a resounding name. Influenced by his habit in his previous life of always calling chickens in games Chicken Bro, he named her Chicken Bro out of nostalgia for his past life, even though Chicken Bro was female.

With Chicken Bro around, Long Xuan had saved himself quite a bit of work. He no longer needed to remove insects himself, and he had even saved the money for pesticides.

This place was practically an all-you-can-eat buffet for her. She had ample nutrition every day and ate until she was stuffed. She could lay at least one egg a day, and naturally, every single one ended up in Long Xuan's stomach.

The book in his hands was a health-preserving cultivation manual with the three words "Scripture of Longevity" written on its cover.

Health-preserving cultivation manuals were everywhere in this world, so common that every mortal could easily learn one and nearly everyone had a copy.

This was also deliberately spread by Gu cultivator Lineages. Their purpose was to let mortals live a few more decades, so they could work more and grow more food for them.

The Scripture of Longevity had ten levels. Each level cultivated increased one's lifespan by ten years.

The original owner's cultivation aptitude was poor, and his cultivation speed was slow. Yet when it came to cultivating the common Scripture of Longevity, he was a genius seen only once in a century.

From low to high, the realms of Gu cultivators could be divided into the Spirit Gathering Stage, Marrow Cleansing Stage, Spiritual Sea Stage, Spirit Severing Stage...

Each major realm was further divided into four minor stages: early, middle, late, and peak. Since the Spirit Severing Stage was the strongest realm in this region, it was also called the Gu King.

The original owner was already fifteen or sixteen years old, yet he had only reached the insignificant Early Spirit-Gathering Stage. His aptitude was obvious from this alone.

Like traditional immortal cultivation worlds, this world valued purity. The purer one's attributes, the faster one cultivated.

A single attribute meant Heavenly-Grade Aptitude and the fastest cultivation speed. Two attributes meant Earth-Grade Aptitude and the second-fastest cultivation speed.

The original owner possessed all five attributes of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. His aptitude was not the worst; it could only be called ordinary. Coupled with being a Rogue Cultivator without cultivation resources, his slow cultivation speed was understandable.

But where there was a shortcoming, there was bound to be a strength. When Heaven closed a door, it also opened a window.

The original owner was poor at cultivation, yet possessed extraordinary talent in cultivating health-preserving cultivation manuals.

Other mortals found it difficult to break through even the fifth level of the Scripture of Longevity in their entire lives. Yet while still young and underage, he had already cultivated it to the tenth level, gaining a hundred years of lifespan out of thin air.

Long Xuan had accidentally discovered that the progress displayed on the Scripture of Longevity was not 100%, but a mere 10%.

Driven by curiosity, he tried continuing the text according to the pattern from before. Naturally, he did not possess the ability to continue a cultivation manual, but he had an error-correcting tool.

If the progress disappeared, it meant he had guessed wrong, so he would delete it and rewrite it. Conversely, if it remained, it meant he had guessed right and could continue guessing.

He had worked himself to the bone for an entire year, and he had truly managed to continue it to the twentieth level. Beginning from the eleventh level, each level added a hundred years to one's lifespan.

If he continued deducing it further, he had no idea how much lifespan each level would add. It might still be a hundred years, it might be two hundred years, or it might be even more.

Yet such a rare twenty-level cultivation manual showed only 20% progress, like a severely incomplete remnant manual. It was truly enough to make one see ghosts.

He knew full well that the Scripture of Longevity had only ten levels in this world. There was not even a cultivation manual exceeding ten levels anywhere in this region.

Long Xuan felt pain in his liver. He had spent a whole year deducing just 10% of its contents. The later contents were more complicated and profound, already so abstruse that his current knowledge could no longer continue the deduction. It was obvious he would need to invest even more time.

He truly did not dare imagine how long it would take to deduce the Scripture of Longevity to 100%—a hundred years, a thousand years, or even ten thousand years?