Supreme-grade Spirit Insect

So while his clones were working feverishly in the Medicine Garden, Long Xuan began his great undertaking of the Spirit Grinding Art.

His clone toiled in the fields, sweating profusely, while he worked on the Spirit Grinding Art. The Spirit Bee busied themselves in the Medicine Garden, while he worked on the Spirit Grinding Art, undeterred by wind and rain.

And just like that, half a year passed in the blink of an eye.

Long Xuan slammed the book shut, its cover bearing the three large characters "Five-Element Palm." In the lower right corner of the cover, a line of smaller characters was visible:

--Written by Long Xuan

This book, titled "Five-Element Palm," is a spiritual technique he created after half a year of painstaking effort.

Long Xuan was excited and proud, full of a sense of accomplishment, with a faint smile on his lips.

With such an amazing spiritual technique born in his hands, he became arrogant and complacent, feeling truly triumphant and inflated with pride.

What kind of spiritual technique could make him so proud?

The Five-Element Palm is a palm technique he created using the principle of the Five-Element Mutual Generation Cycle. It consists of five forms.

First Form: Blazing Flame Palm

The cycle of spiritual energy is Earth → Metal → Water → Wood → Fire.

Second move: Life-Urging Palm

The spiritual energy cycle is Fire → Earth → Metal → Water → Wood.

Third Form: Raging Tide Palm

The spiritual energy cycle is Wood → Fire → Earth → Metal → Water.

Fourth move: Vajra Palm

The spiritual energy cycle is Water → Wood → Fire → Earth → Metal.

Fifth Form: Tathagata Palm

The cycle of spiritual energy is Metal → Water → Wood → Fire → Earth.

This first move, the Blazing Flame Palm, was the kind of palm technique he had planned that could unleash flames.

Starting with earth and progressing layer by layer, this Blazing Flame Palm was simply terrifying beyond measure.

If other people's fire-attribute spiritual techniques unleash flames, then his Blazing Flame Palm unleashes a sea of fire—a sea of fire of immense power with an extremely wide attack range.

Use a wide-area fire attack to leave the enemy with no way to escape.

You could say that his basic attack is like someone else's ultimate move.

The strong are unreasonable.

Although both are fire-based spiritual arts, his Blazing Flame Palm is more than enough to defeat the vast majority of fire-based spiritual arts in this world.

Since the Blazing Flame Palm can be created by using fire as the final element in the spiritual energy cycle, then by the same logic, spiritual arts of the other four elements can naturally be created by using the other attributes as the final element.

This requires him to come up with four more ideas to create the remaining four moves of the Five-Element Palm.

This time it didn't require much brainpower. Since it was a matching spiritual technique, the attack method just needed to match the characteristics of the Mutated Spiritual Power.

Unlike ordinary spiritual power, Mutated Spiritual Power naturally has its own special characteristics. Each type of Mutated Spiritual Power is unique and has its own characteristics.

The characteristics of the Mutated Spiritual Power in the "Ten Absolutes Scripture" can be summarized in one word for each.

Fire burns, wood grows, water is dense, metal is hard, and earth is heavy.

Therefore, the design of the other four styles can be based on the four words "life," "density," "firmness," and "weight," ensuring a 100% fit.

For example, the characteristic of wood is life, which is the power of growth. The first thing Long Xuan thought of was the ripening technique in cultivation novels, a spiritual technique that can accelerate the ripening of spirit medicine. Unexpectedly, he actually succeeded in researching it.

The Life-Urging Palm has the effect of accelerating the growth of spirit medicine, but when it is used on a person, it will have the opposite effect, destroying the person's vitality and causing irreversible damage.

Therefore, Long Xuan named this move "Life-Urging Palm" instead of "Life-Inducing Palm".

Moreover, although the Life-Urging Palm's ability to accelerate the ripening of spirit medicine is extraordinary, it is limited by one's cultivation level.

The higher the cultivation level, the more spiritual energy one possesses, and the longer the product can mature.

If the cultivation level is too low and the spiritual energy is too little, then the time required for the product to mature will naturally be limited.

At this time, he was only in the Spirit Gathering Stage, and his Mutated Spiritual Power was only in the initial stage of the fusion of two attributes. The effect of accelerating growth was naturally negligible. At most, one palm strike could last for ten days, which was really useless. It was definitely not useful in the short term and was far less practical than the other side of the Life-Urging Palm.

As for the last three forms of "Five-Element Palm" —Raging Tide Palm, Vajra Palm, Tathagata Palm —what kind of wild idea is behind these three palms?

Since he had already thought of a name, it was clear that he already had an idea in mind and had already prepared a draft.

If the Blazing Flame Palm is a group attack, then the Tathagata Palm is a single-target attack, the Raging Tide Palm is a ranged attack, and the Vajra Palm is a close-range attack.

The Five-Element Palm technique has very comprehensive abilities across its five forms.

However, time is limited, and he's a bit tired, so the last three chapters will have to be postponed for a while...

Long Xuan took out a Message Transmission Talisman from his Storage Bag. This was Message Transmission Talisman given to him by Old Daoist Li. The talisman roughly meant that he was going to the Hundred Thousand Mountains to hunt spirit beasts and wanted to invite him to join him on the trip.

In the past, he would have refused without even thinking. Going to the wilderness was too dangerous; he wouldn't go anywhere else and would stay in his comfortable little nest.

But this time it might not work. Recently, there have been signs of spirit beasts gathering in the Hundred Thousand Mountains, indicating that Beast Tide may be about to occur.

Therefore, the powerful figures in the vicinity united and issued a statement requiring all Rogue Cultivator to go to the Hundred Thousand Mountains to clear out the spirit beasts, so as to prevent Beast Tide from impacting the village.

This is a mandatory order; everyone has a responsibility when the Beast Tide arrives, and no one can stand aside.

He couldn't very well not go, so he had to interrupt his research on spiritual arts and prepare to make a trip to the Hundred Thousand Mountains.

Just then, Old Daoist Li extended an invitation to him to form a team, which he readily accepted.

Speaking of which, he also had a considerable interest in hunting spirit beasts. In his previous life, animals had parasites inside their bodies, so it made sense that spirit beasts in this world would also have parasites, right?

The spirit beasts in this world can also breed insects, even Supreme-grade Spirit Insect, making them one of the sources of Supreme-grade Spirit Insect.

In this world, killing spirit beasts is equivalent to obtaining equipment, and they will drop Spirit Insect of various qualities, which attracts countless Rogue Cultivator and gradually forms the profession of hunter, who make a living by hunting spirit beasts.

Just like in my previous life, when I played games and fought monsters to get equipment, the Spirit Insect that drop are all random. Whether you can get Supreme-grade Spirit Insect depends entirely on luck.

Some people are unlucky and keep getting Low-grade Spirit Insect, while others are born with good fortune and get Supreme-grade Spirit Insect from their very first kill.

As for which spirit beast contains a good worm, you can't tell at all; you can only increase the drop rate by hunting high-grade spirit beasts.

Because spirit beasts and humans have a different growth system, the various abilities of spirit beasts are not learned through acquired skills, but are inherited through bloodlines.

The ancestors of spirit beasts copied all their abilities into their bloodline and passed them down from generation to generation, so that spirit beasts could master various powerful forces without having to spend time learning.

Of course, the next generation of spirit beasts cannot master all the abilities of the ancestral beasts; otherwise, wouldn't the ancestral beasts be everywhere?

For example, if a powerful ancestral beast has ten thousand abilities, then which ability its offspring will inherit is completely random. If they are unlucky, they will awaken a useless ability and be at the bottom of the food chain. If they are lucky, they will awaken an incredible ability and become the king of beasts.

Furthermore, as the bloodline of the ancestral beasts gradually thins with each generation, the number of abilities awakened by spirit beasts will decrease, until today most spirit beasts only have one or a few abilities.

Those unawakened abilities are called latent abilities by humans, but they have always been hidden in the bloodline of spirit beasts and have not disappeared.

If a spirit beast possesses extraordinary talent and exhibits ancestral traits, then its latent abilities may awaken.

But the strange thing is that the parasites born inside the spirit beasts may carry the spirit beasts' hidden abilities.

Unfortunately, spirit beasts are not Gu cultivators, so they cannot utilize this power at all.

Therefore, it is impossible to determine what kind of Spirit Insect a spirit beast possesses based solely on its abilities.

It's possible that a trashy spirit beast that can only blow bubbles might have Spirit Insect inside it that possesses the heaven-defying power to cause floods, just like opening a blind box—completely random and without any way to predict its fate.

Long Xuan was a complete exception. He could see the progress of the Spirit Insect inside the spirit beasts. He could tell at a glance which spirit beast had Supreme-grade Spirit Insect inside it. Unlike others who opened blind boxes and gambled on luck, he could enter the spirit beast world as easily as using a navigation system.

Therefore, while this large-scale hunt for spirit beasts was somewhat dangerous for him, wasn't it also an opportunity?

Since his clone doesn't have the ability to see the progress, he doesn't plan to let the clone go in his place. He believes that finding the Supreme-grade Spirit Insect, like using a navigation system, requires his main body.

For someone like him, the Hundred Thousand Mountains are a treasure trove. Finding Supreme-grade Spirit Insect here is not a possibility, it's a certainty. His only concern is whether he has the strength to do so.

Therefore, Long Xuan didn't show much resistance to this mandatory mission. On the contrary, he even had a faint sense of anticipation, as if a large swarm of top- Supreme-grade Spirit Insect was beckoning to him...

In fact, there is another type of parasite that can be found inside a spirit beast. In addition to being born naturally, the Spirit Insect inside a spirit beast may also come from the outside world.

When a spirit beast drinks water or passes by a patch of grass, it is very likely that Spirit Insect born in nature will jump onto its body and then hide in its fur and become a parasite.

It will inevitably include fleas, lice, ticks... and other such Spirit Insect.

There are also many insects unique to this world that even Long Xuan, an entomologist, has never seen before.

However, parasites that live on the surface of spirit beasts are easily spotted by sharp-eyed Gu cultivators. Once he teams up with other Gu cultivators, these kinds of Spirit Insect are no longer something he can easily target.

His target is still the Spirit Insect that is naturally born inside the spirit beast. His teammates can't see it, so he has a lot of room to maneuver.

Long Xuan was very interested in this trip. After replying with a message on the Message Transmission Talisman, he immediately packed his things and headed to the place agreed upon by Old Daoist Li.

There was a reason for this; before leaving, he asked Old Long for leave and suspended his work at the Medicine Garden for a period of time.

The Medicine Garden wouldn't die even if it was left unattended for a month, so Old Long agreed without hesitation. He also knew that Beast Tide might be coming, so he didn't ask any more questions and continued to study the Pill Formula for the Hundred Flower Pill. Long Xuan was getting increasingly anxious watching him.

It's been so long! He's almost tired of taking the Hundred Flower Pill, and Old Long still hasn't figured it out.

It's worth mentioning that the major clans' Gu cultivators will not be sending out all their forces for this Beast Tide cleanup mission; a considerable number of them will remain behind.

After all, large clans are not like Rogue Cultivator. They have large families and businesses, and they must leave a certain amount of strength to protect their homes. Old Long is one of the people who does not need to participate in this mission.

Don't complain about unfairness. This world has never been fair. Everything is like that. Fairness always lies with the strong. The weak, Rogue Cultivator can only be manipulated by others.

The meeting place arranged by Old Daoist Li was the Qian Clan Inn in the market. Following the guidance of the Message Transmission Talisman, Long Xuan entered one of the private rooms in the inn.

Upon entering the private room, he discovered that it was already quite full of people. Clearly, Old Daoist Li had invited far more than just him, and these people were undoubtedly his teammates for the upcoming trip.

There were three men and two women in the room. Old Daoist Li was a familiar face, and there was also a Little Apothecary whose name he didn't know. He often sold him junk and was considered a semi-acquaintance.

The other was an old man he recognized. Long Xuan for a long time before he remembered that this was the little old man who sold him the beehive many years ago. He just had bad eyesight and sold him High-grade Spirit Bee instead of a mid-grade Spirit Bee.

I never expected to see him again today after so many years, and coincidentally, we even became teammates. Life is truly unpredictable.

As for the other two women, Long Xuan knew them because his clones frequently visited markets and participated in various trade fairs.

One was an old woman named Han Mei, and the other was a middle-aged woman of average appearance named Zhang Ling.

These five individuals were all at the Peak Spirit-Gathering Stage, and were only one step away from the Marrow Cleansing Stage. They were considered to be among the strongest group of rogue Rogue Cultivator in the Spirit Gathering Stage in the market.

Long Xuan is the only one here at the Late Spirit-Gathering Stage, which is basically dragging the team down.

"Old Daoist Li, why did you bring along a Late Spirit-Gathering Stage? Isn't that just deliberately holding us back? I don't want to bring along a burden."

The old man with poor eyesight lived up to his reputation, failing to recognize Long Xuan even now. Seeing that the newcomer's cultivation level was relatively low, he showed a slight expression of dissatisfaction.

Old Daoist Li immediately stepped in to smooth things over, saying, "Old Ma, you haven't been to the market for so many years, so you might not know. This young friend is named Long Xuan. Don't let his lower cultivation level fool you; his combat strength is by no means weak."

"I can't reveal the specifics, but he definitely has the strength of the Peak Spirit-Gathering Stage. Otherwise, why would I invite him? What good would it do me to bring a burden like this?"

"You can rest assured. Even if he's not strong enough, he has the Cockroach Gu with him, so he won't die easily. How could he hold us back?"

Upon hearing that the newcomer possessed the strength of Peak Spirit-Gathering Stage despite being only in the Late Spirit-Gathering Stage, Old Ma showed a look of surprise and doubt. He couldn't help but scrutinize the face more closely. Upon closer inspection, he suddenly felt that the face looked somewhat familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere before.

After a long while, he finally realized that this person was the same boy who had bought his beehive many years ago.

His eyes widened in surprise; he soon realized he had been fooled shortly after returning home.

After all, no matter how high-quality honey changes, it can never become mid-quality honey. Since the high-quality honey is still in his hands, it will be exposed sooner or later.

The thought that he had sold a hive of High-grade Spirit Bee made him so angry that he slapped his thigh repeatedly, filled with deep regret.

Upon seeing the person in question, his eyes widened, and he exclaimed in a panic, "So it's you, kid! You cunning bastard, you've really tricked me! Give me back my High-grade Spirit Bee!"

Upon hearing this, Long Xuan looked puzzled and asked, confused, "Who are you? I don't know you. What Spirit Bee? I don't know what you're talking about..."

"Hahaha..." Old Daoist Li patted him on the shoulder and laughed loudly, "Old friend, this has been the rule in the market for so many years. If you make a mistake, you can't hold it against them. Have you forgotten the rules after all these years away?"

With that, Old Daoist Li ignored him and walked up to Long Xuan, saying, "Don't worry about him. The market has its own rules. You're really lucky, kid, to be able to find High-grade Spirit Bee at such a low price."

"Top-quality honey can fetch a high price. If your Medicine Garden is full of flowers, selling honey could be a substantial source of income."

Old Daoist Li looked on with envy, wondering if he should trade some top-grade honey with him when he returned. Top-grade honey was a valuable commodity, but he wondered what kind of High-grade Spirit Bee could have caused Old Ma to lose his composure like that. His eyes darted around.

Long Xuan glanced at Old Ma, who was glaring at him fiercely, then chose to ignore him and began chatting with Old Daoist Li.

"Enough with the small talk. I've never hunted in the Hundred Thousand Mountains before, so I know absolutely nothing about the conditions there. Just how dangerous will this hunt be?" Long Xuan asked seriously.

"Haha, don't worry about that. I guarantee you'll be 100% safe on this trip to the Hundred Thousand Mountains. There won't be any accidents. You can rest assured!" Old Daoist Li immediately patted his chest and assured him, his tone full of confidence.

"100% safe?" Long Xuan's voice trailed off, his eyebrows raised. He felt a strange sense of familiarity with those words. Hadn't Old Daoist Li also promised 100% safety when he invited him to the ancient tomb last time? But what happened?

Driven away by powerful clans to serve as cannon fodder, a large number of Rogue Cultivator died there; he was fortunate not to have gone with them.

Is it certain that what this Old Daoist Li said is reliable?

"Are you sure it's reliable? You told me the same thing last time," Long Xuan couldn't help but ask, a look of doubt on his face.

Old Daoist Li immediately understood which time Long Xuan was referring to as "last time," and his old face flushed slightly with embarrassment as he said, "Last time was an accident. Don't worry, this time it's absolutely reliable because I've hired a big shot to carry me..."