Forbidden Art

Brewing the bitter wine would still take some time. All he needed was patience. With nothing better to do, Long Xuan inspected the cultivation results of his various clones over the years.

Long Xuan had assigned his clones many tasks, such as reading books for him, tempering their bodies for him, improving their proficiency in spirit arts...

Their schedules were packed to the brim, without a single day off.

Now that he had some free time, it was naturally time to check their homework.

All their cultivation results had already returned to his body, so inspecting them was convenient enough.

There was nothing much to say about their achievements in other areas—everything was steady and proper. However, his clones had perfectly inherited his talent for cultivating life-nourishing techniques, and their progress in the Scripture of Longevity was particularly gratifying.

When he discovered that his clones had already cultivated the Scripture of Longevity to the fifteenth layer for him, his smile widened. Didn't that mean he now had six hundred more years of lifespan than others his age?

At that moment, another wild idea sprang into his mind. He liked to prepare for a rainy day. His future opponents would not necessarily all be at the same realm as him. What if he encountered a Gu cultivator one major realm above him who wanted to kill him and seize his treasures?

This was not some baseless fantasy. It was something that could absolutely happen in theory. In Gu World, it was commonplace for the strong to kill the weak.

Then, should he develop an enormously powerful forbidden art, one capable of threatening Gu cultivators a major realm above him?

Long Xuan felt this idea was very necessary.

Nor would it be difficult to realize. Sacrificing lifespan in exchange for unimaginable power was entirely possible.

Moreover, he was perfectly suited to learn such a forbidden art. For others, using this forbidden art with their limited lifespan would be courting death. But he was different. Cultivating the Scripture of Longevity was equivalent to possessing endless life. Using it a few times would have no impact at all.

This forbidden art and the Scripture of Longevity were simply a match made in heaven.

Long Xuan's heart burned with excitement. Without thinking for long, he immediately decided to do it. He would design a matching forbidden art for the Scripture of Longevity.

The forbidden art's effect would be to gather lifespan in the palm, then create devastating destructive force by detonating it. The more lifespan detonated, the greater its destructive power. As long as enough lifespan was available, the attack produced by this move would have no upper limit.

This move was absolutely powerful, practically tailored for the Scripture of Longevity.

Anyone who cultivated this forbidden art would die—except those who cultivated the Scripture of Longevity. It was an absolutely matching spirit art.

It happened to perfectly fit the defining trait of a matching spirit art: its creator could use it, while others would face immense restrictions.

Long Xuan's eyes grew brighter and brighter. This move was simply too powerful. It could absolutely become a trump card for fighting across realms.

He was extremely satisfied with this wild idea!

He had always treated everything equally. Since the Ten Absolutes Scripture already had a matching spirit art, how could the Scripture of Longevity have none?

He had to keep the scales even and could not favor one over the other. This was settled!

Creating matching spirit arts for life-nourishing techniques—could he be called the first person in all of history to do such a thing?

He had opened a new chapter in history.

Once he decided, he acted. Taking out paper and brush, he immediately began creating a terrifying forbidden art that used up lifespan as its price.

This move did not consume spiritual power, so it should not be called a spirit art. Forbidden art was a more fitting name. What else could an art that killed whoever cultivated it be called, if not a forbidden art?

While he was creating the forbidden art, Flame Clone lived up to his expectations and quickly bought the wormwood fruits. Then, following the bitter wine recipe in the courtyard, Flame Clone began brewing bitter wine.

Long Xuan had created the entire brewing process himself. He had long memorized every step by heart, so he did not go watch out of curiosity, instead continuing to hole up in his room to study the forbidden art.

Several months later, Flame Clone finally finished brewing the bitter wine and began distilling it with the distillation equipment Long Xuan had made.

Long Xuan had no leisure to watch. He continued crouching in his room, studying the forbidden art.

Only when Flame Clone finished distilling the bitter wine, and its rich aroma drifted into the room and made Long Xuan's nose twitch, did he finally leave the chair that was nearly glued to his backside. He ran outside to prepare to refine the wine Gu with Flame Clone.

He had to take part in this step personally. On one hand, he was very interested in the process of refining Gu. Refining Gu had to be done by his own hand for it to have any sense of ceremony.

On the other hand, though his clones replicated everything about his main body, they alone did not possess his golden finger. None of his clones could see the progress of all things.

Without his golden finger to indicate right and wrong, he truly could not rest easy leaving such an important matter to a clone. If it got botched, he would lose a great many Spirit Stones.

By then, the sky had already begun to darken. Long Xuan carried all the wine jars containing the four flavors of fine wine to the side of a massive wine vat in the courtyard.

Honestly, the longer wine was stored, the better. But he truly did not have the patience to wait, nor could he wait.

Wine aged ten thousand years would naturally be best, but was he supposed to wait ten thousand years?

Nothing in the world was perfect. Since refining wine Gu was destined to fall short of perfection, there was no need to force the issue. He did not have that kind of obsessive compulsion.

He poured jar after jar of distilled fine wine into the vat. In an instant, the fragrance of wine spread everywhere. Even the Spirit Bees and Brother Chicken hiding in the chicken coop poked their heads out in curiosity.

First came the sour wine. Long Xuan poured that in first. It had been brewed from all kinds of spirit fruits and was red in color.

Next came the sweet wine, which was yellow.

After that came the bitter wine, which was green.

Last came the spicy wine, which was off-white.

The wine he brewed not only used distillation techniques, but also a great deal of modern winemaking technology. Thus, every variety was crystal clear and free of impurities.

Long Xuan did not know how many jars of wine he poured into the vat, only stopping once it was full.

Yet for some unknown reason, the four colors of wine did not blend together in the vat. Instead, they resembled a multicolored drink mixed by a bartender.

From bottom to top, the first layer was red, the second yellow, the third green, and the final layer white.

Long Xuan found this remarkable. There did not seem to be bartenders in this world, did there? He wondered what kind of wine Gu could be refined from the multicolored drinks mixed by bartenders. A faint anticipation rose in his heart.

After filling the vat with wine, he yanked Little White, still asleep inside the Insect-Rearing Pouch, out in one swift motion and tossed it into the wine vat with a splash.

Little White jolted awake from its dream and thrashed frantically through the wine as though drowning. Only after quite a while did it realize that this was wine—wine of the highest quality, more delicious than any it had ever drunk in its life.

It became ecstatic, opening its mouth wide and greedily gulping down the fine wine in the vat. It swam joyfully back and forth, now swimming into the yellow layer of sweet wine, now into the green layer of bitter wine, and then into the white layer of spicy wine.

It showered every kind with equal favor, wanting to taste them all. To it, this place was simply heaven. Once it entered, it never wanted to come out again.

Seeing the wine insect so excited, Long Xuan nodded in satisfaction. This was the peerless fine wine he had brewed—so good that even insects praised it.

He slowly covered the wine vat, waiting only for the wine insect to drink all the fine wine and transform into a Gu insect.

No one in this world had ever brewed wine with distilled liquor before. This was his first creation. What changes would occur to a wine insect raised on distilled liquor? He eagerly anticipated it and was already unable to wait.

He also did not know how long it would take the wine insect to become a Gu insect. Thus, he sat beside the wine vat, continuing to study his nearly completed forbidden art while waiting for the wine Gu to burst out of the vat.

In the blink of an eye, another half year passed. Flowers fell and flowers bloomed, and Long Xuan had waited until the flowers were nearly withered. His forbidden art had reached 50%, yet the wine vat still showed no movement at all. Its progress had stalled completely at 50%.

Long Xuan began to panic. This had taken far too long. Even when refining the Eye of Heavenly Secrets, he had only waited eighty-one days.

Yet this wine Gu had already taken half a year without making the slightest movement. It had far surpassed the time spent refining the Eye of Heavenly Secrets.