A few days later, Lin Yu had become thoroughly familiar with the habits of the Gu worms and how to feed them.
Nourished by the vessel, the Crimson Flame Centipede completely shed its ferocious nature as an ordinary insect. Its crimson scales gleamed with a lustrous sheen. Every time Lin Yu raised his hand, it would crawl up his fingertips to his palm and curl up obediently.
It has clearly completed the initial transformation and become a true Gu worm that recognizes its master.
That day, Lin Yu handed the ceramic jar containing the Crimson Flame Centipede to Ayi: "Ayi, the centipede has been transformed. How do we refine the Gu now? How can we make it even stronger?"
Ayi's gaze fell on the pottery jar, but her fingers unconsciously twisted the hem of her clothes, her eyes darting away. "This... this isn't urgent..."
She reached for the herb basket beside her. "Let's go pick some red-striped grass first. Your centipede is of the fire element; feeding it medicine made from red-striped grass will enhance its potential."
Seeing that she was clearly changing the subject, Lin Yu felt a sense of doubt.
"This is the umpteenth time Ayi has changed the subject. Every time my Gu worm is mentioned, Ayi just brushes it off."
"Either I should practice with simple Gu worms first, or I should first improve the potential of the Crimson-Patterned Centipede."
Lin Yu didn't take the herb basket, but stared intently at Ayi: "Ayi, is there something you're having trouble telling me? If there are risks involved in refining Gu, just tell me directly, I can handle it."
Ayi felt uncomfortable under his gaze, lowered her head, and her voice grew softer and softer. Finally, as if she had made up her mind, she suddenly raised her head, her face flushed. "Lin Yu, I... I actually don't know what materials to use to help you refine the gu for your centipede. I'm sorry."
Lin Yu was stunned; he hadn't expected this answer.
"I haven't joined the Nine Palaces yet. The little bit of Gu Arts I know now is all the basic stuff that Grandpa Village Chief taught me." Ayi clutched the hem of her clothes, her face full of guilt.
"Grandpa only taught me how to transform ordinary insects into Gu insects. It involves boiling a soup with a few specific herbs and letting the insects absorb the medicinal properties. Whether it works or not depends on luck."
"I have no idea what materials are needed to refine Gu or how to fuse them... I'm afraid that telling you the wrong thing will ruin your centipede, so I've never dared to tell you."
She paused, her voice lowering further. "Gu masters in the Southern Border must have a lineage. They will organize what materials to use with which Gu worms, and what kind of Gu can be refined, and pass it down from generation to generation."
"Someone like me who hasn't joined a sect can only figure out the most basic methods; I'm completely oblivious to the intricacies of Gu refining. I lied to you when I told you I'd teach you Gu refining..."
Looking at Ayi's reddened eyes and guilty expression, Lin Yu's doubts instantly vanished, replaced by amusement.
He stood on tiptoe, reached out and ruffled Ayi's hair, and said with a smile, "Sister Ayi, what's there to apologize for? You've already helped me a lot by teaching me how to transform Gu worms."
He could never have practiced Gu cultivation step by step in the first place. As the saying goes, "The master leads you through the door, but the cultivation depends on yourself."
Following the established procedures has never been his style, so he never expected that this would make Ayi feel so guilty.
"Sister Ayi, tell me, after transforming the poisonous insects into Gu worms, what's the next step?"
When Ayi saw that Lin Yu not only didn't blame her, but also took the initiative to ask about the next steps, she suddenly felt that she was a terrible person.
So he quickly pulled Lin Yu to sit on the stone bench in front of the bamboo house, and explained in detail, counting on his fingers. "After an ordinary insect transforms into a Gu insect, it can only be barely considered a Gu insect; it doesn't even qualify as a first-stage Gu insect."
"To make it stronger, you need to find the corresponding materials to fuse with. For example, fire-attribute Gu worms are often fused with fire-attribute herbs such as Crimson-Veined Grass and Flame Flower. If you can find Fire Marrow Crystal, it can directly improve the Gu worm's grade or even fuse with a completely new Gu worm."
"Of course, different Gu worms can be used to fuse them, but the Central Plains are too profound, and I don't know how to do it yet."
At this point, Ayi frowned, her tone tinged with helplessness. "Most of us Gu Masters without a lineage can only rely on gambling, trying out common materials with non-conflicting attributes."
"With good luck, it can become a first-stage Gu worm; with bad luck, you have to start raising it all over again. Only those Gu masters in the Nine Palaces with inherited skills know which worms to pair with which materials to produce high-level Gu, and can even calculate the success rate of fusion in advance."
Lin Yu listened attentively, his fingers lightly tapping the stone bench. He had originally intended to rely on his own comprehension to find some materials to try and fuse them, but upon hearing about the risks of the residual Gu, he instantly suppressed the rash idea.
He didn't want all the Gu worms he had painstakingly cultivated and the materials he had gathered to go to waste.
However, his Heaven-Defying Comprehension was already quietly at work, and the information about attribute matching and material characteristics in Ayi's words was automatically organized into a coherent structure in his mind.
However, he still knows too little information. For example, he doesn't know what materials are used to combine different types of Gu worms, or the specific procedures involved. If he had more information, Lin Yu might be able to deduce the success rate.
Everything in the universe follows certain patterns; nothing can be completely random.
"I understand." Lin Yu nodded.
Looking at the docile, curled-up Crimson Flame Centipede in his palm, he smiled and said, "Then I won't rush into fusion. I'll find some safe fire-attribute materials to feed it first, and then slowly try again after figuring out the properties of more materials."
Seeing that he understood the key point, Ayi breathed a sigh of relief. She was afraid that Lin Yu would insist on trying it, and in the end, the Crimson Flame Centipede would fail to fuse and become a remnant Gu.
Smiling, she took out a handful of dried red-striped grass from herb basket. "I've already prepared this for you! This red-striped grass has been dried for three days, so its fire element is at its purest. Just take a little each day, boil it into a soup, and feed it to the centipede. It will help stabilize its potential, and even if you need to find other materials later, it won't be easy to run into problems."
"Once I enter the Nine Palaces and learn advanced Gu Arts, I will definitely teach you." Ayi ruffled Lin Yu's hair, responding to the earlier ruffled hair Lin Yu had just touched.
Lin Yu took the red-striped grass from Ayi, stroking the dry leaves with his fingertips, and nodded with a smile, "Thank you very much, Sister Ayi."
Seeing Ayi's confident demeanor, Lin Yu didn't try to discourage her.
He didn't have the time to wait, so he had to try it himself slowly.
For the next few days, Lin Yu fed the Crimson Flame Centipede with Crimson-Striped Grass every day.
As he watched the centipede's scales grow increasingly crimson and a faint flame emanate from its body as it crawled, his knowledge of which Gu insects were paired with which materials gradually deepened.
But he didn't wait long before he quietly took the pottery jar to the Yin-Gathering Cave he had discovered earlier, intending to explore the rules of Gu refining in his own way.
The cave was filled with an eerie atmosphere. Lin Yu placed the pottery jar containing the Crimson Flame Centipede on the stone platform and then took out several items from his storage space.
The venom of the Mystic Serpent brought back from the Zhu Xian World, the drop of blood obtained from refining the Ten Thousand Bats, and the Flame Flower that Ayi mentioned he picked himself.