Wine Worm

With the Spirit Stones in hand, Long Xuan could not wait to leave, not even bothering to say goodbye.

The Rogue Cultivators watching the commotion behind him hurriedly made way. By now, they knew that the large number of Spirit-Gathering Pills had all come from this person. His background was surely extraordinary; they had not even had the chance to curry favor with him, so how would they dare offend him?

Once they realized that he was merely a clone, they became even less inclined to entertain any improper thoughts.

Thus, the Flame Clone Long Xuan had arranged left the marketplace without the slightest risk. Along the way, he occasionally looked back. With the Eye of Heavenly Secrets' farsight ability, tracking him was no easy matter; even releasing tiny insects to follow him would not escape his eyes.

After confirming that no one was following him, the Flame Clone reunited with the main body and immediately returned to Great Stone Village.

The various Household heads indeed had no intention of tracking him. After winning the mineral vein at auction, they were beside themselves with excitement. They gathered their Lineage's experts and set out in great force for that barren land. How could they have any mind to stir up further trouble?

More than a month had passed since the day he left. Long Xuan returned once more to his warm little home, seeing that sea of multicolored flowers and the Spirit Bees dancing above it.

He also saw that plump chicken strutting with its head held high. Everything felt so familiar that Long Xuan could not help reaching out to pet it, only for it to nimbly dodge away.

"Nothing unexpected happened while I was gone, right?"

When he saw the busy figure in the Medicine Garden, Long Xuan walked over with a smile, placed his hand on Wood Clone's body, and swiftly assimilated Wood Clone's memories.

After finding nothing noteworthy in those memories, Long Xuan finally began his real work.

That so-called real work was naturally refining a supreme-grade Gu worm. He had unexpectedly found a Supreme-grade Spirit Insect in the mine tunnel—if he did not grind out a Supreme-grade Gu Formula now, then when would he?

Long Xuan took a small white snake from the Insect-Rearing Pouch, a thrilled smile appearing on his face.

This was the Supreme-grade Spirit Insect that had been extracted from that fossil: a snake-type Spirit Insect. Its entire body was snow-white and exceptionally adorable. Most bizarre of all, it gave off a faint fragrance of wine.

Although Long Xuan was poorly informed and knew exceedingly few Supreme-grade Spirit Insects, he happened to recognize this one.

This little white snake was the famed Wine Worm. As its name implied, it was a species of insect that loved drinking wine.

Wine Worms came in all four grades—low-grade, middle-grade, high-grade, and supreme-grade. Unlike traditional Gu refinement methods, Wine Worms transformed into different Gu worms by tasting combinations of different fine wines.

It could be said that the quality of the wine represented the strength of the Wine Gu. Different fine wines would grant the Wine Worm different abilities and cause different transformations in its form.

It could be said that the rarer and more peerless the fine wine, the stronger the Wine Gu it brewed.

And so Long Xuan's wild idea emerged. The brewing techniques of this world differed from those of his previous life. If he used the distilled liquor techniques from his previous life to refine a Wine Gu, what sort of thing would he create?

At that thought, his heart felt as though cat claws were scratching at it, and he could not wait to try it at once.

Long Xuan immediately took out paper and brush, sat down at the table, and searched for inspiration while the breeze brushed past him and the scent of flowers filled the air.

Very soon, he wrote the two words "Wine Gu" on the white paper. Drawing inspiration from the novels of his previous life, he directly wrote beneath them: Four-Flavor Wine—sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy.

At that very moment, the progress on the incomplete formula shot straight to 100%.

Long Xuan was dumbfounded on the spot. He had created a Gu Recipe in a few seconds? No way, right?

There were only four ingredients. Was that not far too hasty? With so few ingredients, how strong could the Gu worm refined from it possibly be? He deeply doubted it.

But he quickly came to his senses. The few ingredients were likely only a surface appearance.

This Gu Recipe seemed to require only Four-Flavor Wine—sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy—but how many ingredients would each of those four Wine Recipes require?