章 5: Chapter 5: Food Path
In the dead of night, I only heard the churning of primeval essence, twisting, crashing, and melting into the walls of my stage one aperture. My hands were covered in white dust, what remained of the few primeval essence stones I still had. I was tired, but the sea was never still, constantly moving to the force of my will. Slowly but surely, the walls began to form cracks, the sea level lowered, and the pale green waters evaporated. I repeated the process, purifying the emerging jade water into a lighter shade, and eventually, that voice spoke to me once again.
[You have used a food path Gu worm 100 times. You have discovered a new path through your actions.]
[Food Path (1/?)]
[Mission 1: Use a food path Gu worm 10,000 times.]
[Reward: Quasi-Master: Food Path]
The sea stopped moving, and I opened my eyes to see a floating icon: a stirring pot of soup, the symbol for food path.
Path attainment. I never thought I would reach the threshold so quickly.
Beyond anything, this was what worried me the most, attainment levels. If there was one significant disadvantage I had over the original Fang Yuan, it was this. I was just a normal person, someone who had never cultivated before, I had no idea what it meant to comprehend a "Dao". Fang Yuan understood how the rules of the Gu world worked on a deep level, he had mastery over several paths of cultivation, even before becoming a strength path Gu immortal. No matter how much effort I put in, I could never reach his level of understanding before becoming a Gu immortal myself. But I couldn't wait until then, certain events in the story required me to have a deep mastery over multiple paths. If I couldn't improve my attainment levels I would be stuck in the novel's early chapters, never breaking through the barrier and reaching the Central Continent.
But food path was not what I needed.
I had no food path Gu, the clan I resided in didn't have any food path Gu, and I didn't know where to buy or find food path Gu. What would be the point of raising my food path attainment if I couldn't use it? I needed to focus on the most important path and raise it to at least quasi-master. In terms of importance, there were two paths I needed to raise above all others, strength path and refinement path. Strength path was necessary for All-Out-Effort Gu, refinement path was required to refine Fixed Immortal Travel Gu.
The inheritance left by the Flower Wine Monk had multiple Gu worms, but only one was a strength path Gu, and none were refinement path Gu. The academy only had a small collection of Gu, none were likely to be strength or refinement path Gu. Strength path was extremely rare, it first appeared in the Olden Antiquity Era, back when Reckless Savage walked the earth. Almost all of the materials used to refine and advance strength path Gu had gone extinct. How could a mid-sized clan like the Gu clan have strength path Gu? Refinement path had always flourished, existing since the dawn of man, but refinement path Gu were crucial to the success of a clan, they wouldn't be left in storage for inexperienced academy students to use.
Now that I found a way to increase my path attainment, I had to find the right Gu to grind mastery over the paths I wanted. Yes, I had access to the Flower Wine Monk's inheritance, but that wasn't what I needed. Using the Gu he left behind would raise the attainment for paths I didn't need attainment in. Only the White Boar Gu was a strength path Gu, but that Gu couldn't be used continuously. After a month or two of using it, I would have to get the other variant if I wanted to grind strength path further. I didn't have the Gu I needed.
What was worse was the time I would have to put in to reach quasi-master attainment. It had taken me an entire week of using the Liquor Worm to get 1/100 of the way there. That meant it would take me nearly two years to reach quasi-master in food path, and that was only if I didn't use any other Gu worms and spent the entire time cultivating.
It was obvious that grinding path attainment this early on was a mistake. The mission didn't specify using Gu of a certain rank, just a certain path. That meant I could grind much faster using Gu worms of a lower rank than myself. Once I reached rank two, rank one Gu worms would still have the same effect on path attainment, but the primeval essence spent using the Gu worms would decrease. This disparity would increase drastically with every minor and major stage of cultivation I completed. Eventually, it would take me less than a month to reach quasi-master in any path. If I was rank five, it might be achievable in less than a week.
Of course, this was only applicable to the first mission. Who knew how much more time it would take to get master-level attainment or grandmaster-level attainment?
Still, this was a good discovery. Tomorrow would be the start of a new week, and the day the academy students get to choose their first Gu worms. With the Moonlight Gu, I would have a ranged method to attack enemies and with the White Boar Gu, my strength would increase to that of a wild boar. I could finally head into the wilderness and earn experience. It was still somewhat safe to roam outside the village. The wolf tide would not appear for another three years.
With the addition of the White Boar and the Moonlight Gu, my collection of Gu worms would grow to four, and feeding them would start to become a problem. The White Boar Gu fed off of boar meat, so I had to hunt boar every week. The Moonlight Gu fed off of Moon Orchid petals. Those were relatively inexpensive, and as long as I won the academy competitions I would have enough money to feed the Moonlight Gu. I already had a stockpile of green bamboo wine, so I didn't have to worry about the Liquor Worm. Spring Autumn Cicada fed off the river of time, so that did not need to be taken care of.
In the meantime, I could spend most of my primeval essence stones on cultivating. With a surplus of primeval essence stones, my progress towards stage two would increase drastically. Even grade-A talents had to stop when they ran out of primeval essence, but as long as the system kept feeding me primeval essence stones, my cultivation would get faster and faster. Tomorrow, the academy elder would give a challenge to the students, whoever could refine their rank one Gu first would get thirty primeval essence stones. The mission reward for beating Fang Zheng in this competition was fifty primeval essence stones. Just those eighty primeval essence stones could support me for two months.
Cultivation. Path attainment. Strength path Gu. Refinement path Gu.
"It's time to go to sleep."
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