Gu Refining in Progress

The steps of refining Gu were simple. One only needed to gather all the spirit insects required by the Gu recipe, put them into a Gu vessel, and starve them for a time, forcing them to devour one another. Given enough time, a Gu would be formed.

If they were insect species that did not enjoy fighting, other methods were needed to stir up the ferocity within them. Those methods, however, were beyond his understanding for now.

Spirit insects needed time to digest one another after devouring them. Some required seven times seven, forty-nine days; some required nine times nine, eighty-one days. Some powerful Gu breeds even required three years. There was no fixed rule.

The long duration of Gu refining was nothing. The difficult part was its failure rate. Some Gu recipes had a one-in-ten success rate, while others had a one-in-a-thousand success rate. If one's luck was dark, one might fail to produce a Gu even after ten thousand attempts.

Once Gu refinement failed, all the materials would be lost, and every resource invested would go down the drain.

Long Xuan had no idea what the success rate of this Gu recipe was. He merely prepared ten sets of materials and purchased ten Gu vessels, intending to refine them simultaneously.

Many Gu cultivators refined Gu this way, casting a wide net to catch big fish while saving time.

Even if he refined duplicates, it did not matter. He could sell the excess Gu insects. Not only would he avoid losses, he could even earn a profit.

It was worth mentioning that Gu insects ate their own kind. Therefore, every Gu cultivator could only raise one of each kind of Gu insect. If they refined too many, they could only trade them away as quickly as possible.

However, Long Xuan soon discovered that his preparations seemed unnecessary. He had found another use for his golden finger.

While refining Gu, he could see a progress bar on the Gu vessel. Once the progress reached 100%, it would be the day the Gu was formed.

Then the question arose: if the spirit insects inside a Gu vessel were destined not to form a Gu, would a progress bar still appear?

Did a Gu vessel that displayed progress mean it would definitely succeed, while one without progress was destined to fail?

Could he immediately open any Gu vessel that showed no progress, then refine it again at a time blessed by heaven, favored by earth, and harmonious among men, until the vessel displayed progress?

Long Xuan felt his scalp about to explode.

In other words, his Gu refinement success rate might be 100%. He would not need to gamble on that damned success rate like other Gu cultivators, nor would he have to worry about wasting materials.

He felt that he could challenge those heaven-defying Gu recipes with a one-in-ten-thousand success rate.

Long Xuan's breathing quickened. This golden finger's ability was a little too heaven-defying.

In the blink of an eye, seven times seven, forty-nine days had passed. At last, movement came from Long Xuan's ten Gu vessels.

Just as he had expected, once numbers appeared on a Gu vessel, its success rate was inevitably one hundred percent. The moment the number became 100%, the Gu would be formed.

It was precisely because of the numerical reminder that Long Xuan had waited early that day and personally witnessed the scene of the Gu insects breaking out of their vessels.

Long Xuan's eyes widened, unable to suppress his excitement.

The ten Gu vessels changed almost simultaneously. Ten tiny red Little Strong insects crawled out of the vessels one after another.

Sure enough, all ten Gu vessels had successfully produced Gu. Not a single material had been wasted, and the success rate was one hundred percent.

To others, this was utterly unimaginable.

Long Xuan ran over excitedly, took out Gu jars, and covered the insects with them, storing them separately in ten jars.

He had not forgotten the taboo of Gu insects: they ate their own kind.

To prevent them from devouring one another, he had to separate them immediately.

Only after finishing all this did Long Xuan have the time to bring one close and study it carefully.

He had already named this new Gu breed, making its first appearance in this world, the Little Strong Gu.

Long Xuan pricked his finger with a needle and dripped a drop of blood onto the Little Strong Gu's head, simply completing the blood contract ritual.

The moment he established a soul connection with it, although Long Xuan could not communicate with it through language, he quickly learned of its ability through the power of their souls.

Just as he had expected, the Gu insect refined from one hundred cockroaches possessed Little Strong's undying ability.

Of course, it was not absolute immortality. Because his research funds had been too scarce and he had used only the most ordinary materials, there were still countless forces capable of killing Little Strong. Still, it could be summarized as being immune to ordinary attacks from those of the same rank.

To truly achieve an immortal body, he would likely need to use top-grade cockroach spirit insects to refine Gu.

The Little Strong Gu refined from low-grade cockroaches could be killed by far too many methods. It was nowhere near an immortal body; calling it tougher to beat to death would be more fitting.

Its ability to take a beating might not amount to much in the eyes of great clans, but in the world of Rogue Cultivators, it absolutely counted as quite a fine ability.

Long Xuan was already very satisfied. He had never imagined that a pile of the cheapest materials could create a truly immortal body. That was simply impossible.

He happily placed the Little Strong Gu in the center of his palm, liking this maiden work beyond measure.

According to this world's classification of Gu insect quality, his Little Strong Gu should belong to the low-grade category.

In this world, Gu insect quality was divided into low-grade, middle-grade, high-grade, and top-grade.

Top-grade Gu insects were kings among Gu, the things all Gu cultivators desired most.

Every Gu cultivator dreamed of refining a top-grade Gu insect within their lifetime. Every top-grade Gu insect held a fatal attraction for Gu cultivators.

Yet top-grade Gu insects were extraordinarily difficult to refine, and their owners were few and far between.

Long Xuan had vowed to create a top-grade Gu recipe of his own. Refining a top-grade Gu insect was also his dream.

Naturally, it was impossible for him to refine a top-grade Gu insect on his first attempt. A Gu insect's quality was determined by the main ingredient in the Gu recipe.

The so-called main ingredient was the spirit insect among all the insects in a Gu recipe that would certainly laugh last after they slaughtered one another.

The main ingredient had to possess the greatest combat power among all the materials in the Gu recipe and be certain to survive until the end. Otherwise, if the main ingredient died, it meant the Gu refinement had failed.

If the main ingredient was a top-grade spirit insect, then the refined Gu insect would be a top-grade Gu insect.

Likewise, the main ingredient of the Little Strong Gu was low-grade material, so no matter how peculiar its ability was, it still had to be classified as a low-grade Gu insect.

But in Long Xuan's eyes, although the Little Strong Gu was among the weakest low-grade Gu insects, its ability to take a beating might be even more useful than that of middle-grade Gu insects.

However, only one Gu insect of the same kind could be used. This Gu refinement had produced a small accident, resulting in nine extra ones.

How to deal with the remaining nine Little Strong Gu became a problem. He could not possibly waste such gifts of heaven by feeding them to Brother Chicken.

After thinking it over, Long Xuan decided to sell the extra Gu insects just as other Rogue Cultivators did.

There were quite a few Rogue Cultivators in the market selling unique Gu insects, and creating one's own Gu recipe was not rare in this world.

This was because low-grade Gu recipes might require only single-digit numbers of materials, or even just two materials outright. One might stumble upon a Gu recipe simply by blindly guessing with the art of leaving things to fate.

Many Rogue Cultivators without inheritances had stumbled upon their Gu insects through the art of leaving things to fate. Thus, unique Gu recipes were everywhere in this world, and everyone had the ability to create their own Gu recipes.

It was merely that Rogue Cultivators' unique Gu recipes often overlapped, and because they used so few materials, they were generally weak.

However, a top-grade Gu recipe was absolutely not something a normal person could create. Long Xuan could reveal his ability to create Gu recipes, but he absolutely could not reveal his ability to create top-grade Gu recipes.

Therefore, going to the market to sell unique Gu insects would not draw attention. He could do it openly and without worry.

He was far too poor now. He urgently needed a huge sum of money to buy that piece of mystic iron and that high-grade spirit stone.

He could even set up a stall like other Rogue Cultivators and sell his unique Gu insects over the long term.

The cost of producing Little Strong Gu was absurdly low, while its selling price could be very high. What was even more outrageous was that it had no failure rate at all. It was pure profiteering.

As for buyers using them against him, he did not care in the slightest. After all, they were low-grade Gu insects. He actually had a better choice. The Little Strong Gu was only a transitional option for him and would soon be eliminated, so others could use them however they pleased.

It was only that he had no way to find the materials now, so he could only use the Little Strong Gu as a temporary substitute.

The better choice he spoke of was the famous tardigrade from his previous life.

When it came to undying abilities, cockroaches were nothing more than little brothers before tardigrades.

Tardigrades could endure extreme temperatures of 151°C and lows of minus 272°C.

They could not be killed in the deepest Mariana Trench, could not be killed by atomic bomb radiation, and even scientists had failed to kill them after sending them into space. They could endure for thirty years without food or water.

Tardigrades could withstand oxygen deprivation and vacuum, high pressure and low pressure. They could regenerate severed limbs and even repair DNA damage.

The vitality of tardigrades was a miracle of the world. Earth had endured five mass extinction events that wiped out the vast majority of living things, yet they alone had not gone extinct.

However, tardigrades were simply too small. Most measured only three to five micrometers, so tiny that the naked eye could barely observe them. Only with a microscope could one clearly see their forms.

Therefore, to refine a Tardigrade Gu, one must first refine a Microscope Gu.

That would require him to create another Gu recipe. The Tardigrade Gu could not be completed anytime soon.

Once the Microscope Gu was created, he would see even more microscopic insect species.

One had to know that microscopic insect species had yet to be discovered by Gu cultivators in this world. Their varieties were vast, yet they had not been named, and no one had ever captured them. What an enormous treasure vault of resources that was.

All the world's microscopic spirit insects would belong to him alone.

Besides being divided into the two great categories of internal Gu and external Gu, Gu insects in this world could be further classified into natural type, enhancement type, animal type, plant type, eye type, dark type, demon type, special type, production type...

He might create a new school—the microscopic type—and become the founding patriarch of this school.

Long Xuan was filled with wild ambition for the future.