Chapter 181: Advancing the Avatar's Cultivation
Shennong Valley.
After the avatar departed from Grand yan Sword Sect, Gu Mo's main body also left Shennong Valley alone. He made no excuses about some external mission—he simply left.
After all, as a Golden Core cultivator, Gu Mo's main body was already beyond the sect's tight supervision. Only disciples at the Qi Refining or Foundation Establishment stages were restricted, since their strength was too weak and traveling alone was highly dangerous.
As such, Gu Mo was free to come and go without needing to report. Naturally, his departure would still be detected by the sect's protective grand formation.
The only time Shennong Valley would investigate would be in abnormal cases—such as if the formation failed to record someone's exit or reentry, or someone had left but their presence was still detected inside the sect. That would indicate a malfunction in the formation, a serious matter.
As long as entry and exit were both registered normally, the sect wouldn't interfere. Golden Core cultivators often had their own secrets—as long as they didn't betray the sect or engage in demonic practices, that was acceptable.
Once he had exited the range of the fifth-rank ancient tree's protective domain, Gu Mo's form dissipated like a wisp of wind.
Several hundred miles from Grand yan Sword Sect, at a manor belonging to a small Qi Refining-level cultivation clan, his avatar arrived. Recently, a beast had destroyed their painstakingly cultivated spirit fields. The beast's strength was not trivial, so the clan had submitted a mission request to Grand yan Sword Sect for its extermination.
Such small cultivation clans were common within the Sword Sect's sphere of influence, and many of the sect's basic resources came from them. Protecting these clans was part of Grand yan Sword Sect's responsibility.
"Greetings, emissary from the Upper Sect!"
The clan head, a cultivator at Qi Refining Stage 6, greeted Gu Mo's avatar with barely concealed excitement. The damage that beast caused had been catastrophic—recovering from the loss would take them years.
"Tell me about the beast in detail."
Gu Mo's avatar waved his hand, getting straight to the point—though this was mostly for show. In truth, Gu Mo's main body was already waiting on a nearby mountain, having captured the late-stage first-rank boar-type demon beast.
He hadn't killed it. His avatar would need to "search" for the beast for some time and then kill it at the right moment. That "search time" was the window Gu Mo used to improve his avatar's cultivation.
"Don't worry. I'll go eliminate that boar demon beast right away."
After hearing the report, the avatar nodded and left. Soon, he vanished from sight.
When the avatar reappeared, he had arrived at a cave dozens of miles away, where he reunited with the main body. Gu Mo had opened this cave temporarily.
Outside the cave lay the bound boar demon beast, trussed up like a dumpling.
"Let's begin."
With the avatar in position, Gu Mo didn't waste time. There were two methods to improve the avatar's cultivation: one was letting him refine Sun Essence; the other was to infuse him directly with the main body's power.
Since avatar and main body shared the same origin, the Golden Core power could be diluted and passed to the avatar.
To conserve Sun Essence, Gu Mo chose the second method—in a sense, an indirect use of the first, since his own cultivation had come from Sun Essence.
He placed his hand on the avatar, infusing him with a stream of Golden Core energy. Under precise control, that energy broke down into liquid spiritual power, then further dissolved into a mist-like form.
This was as far as Gu Mo would break it down—forcefully opening meridians required finesse, not brute strength. Overpowering spiritual energy would only damage them.
The avatar cultivated the Grand yan Sect's introductory technique, the Lesser Grand yan Celestial Art, which, like Shennong Valley's Greenwood Scripture, was a simplified version of the sect's highest inheritance: the Great Grand yan Cosmic Technique.
Though an entry-level method, it was anything but weak.
Following the technique's internal circulation diagram, Gu Mo began using his Golden Core power to open the avatar's meridians. Since the main body also understood the technique, this was done flawlessly.
With Gu Mo's help, the avatar's meridians were rapidly opened and his Qi Refining cultivation reached its peak, ready for Foundation Establishment.
But Gu Mo didn't allow a breakthrough yet. Advancing now would only result in an ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator—and that wasn't acceptable.
He wanted a Foundation-stage avatar with a solid and powerful foundation.
There were two ways to boost a Qi Refining cultivator's foundation: the supreme Vein-Expanding Pill and a perfected-level Purification Technique. Gu Mo had both.
So he gave the avatar a Vein-Expanding Pill, paired it with the perfected purification method, and then used fourth-rank Flood Dragon blood to forge a monstrous foundation.
"Wooo!"
As Gu Mo brought out the Flood Dragon blood obtained from slaying a sea-dwelling fourth-rank Flood Dragon, the boar demon beast nearby whimpered in terror and even urinated in fright.
Gu Mo casually knocked it out.
Compared to the rapid cultivation growth, the foundation-forging process took a full three days. Were the avatar conscious, he would've been driven mad by the pain.
Most cultivators would need years and massive resources to achieve a comparable foundation. Gu Mo did it in three days—a testament to how extreme the process was.
The pain was indescribable. When Gu Mo briefly entered the avatar's consciousness, he immediately retreated—it was too intense.
Fortunately, he knew the avatar's situation intimately and didn't need to personally guide it. The main body could handle everything.
"Not bad."
Looking at the newly reforged avatar, Gu Mo nodded in satisfaction. With the Flood Dragon blood tempering, the avatar's body now had the strength of a late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator.
Although the avatar's cultivation was still at the Qi Refining peak, its meridian capacity and toughness were now over ten times that of others at the same stage—thanks to the Vein-Expanding Pill and perfected purification.
That meant his spiritual power reserve was also ten times greater. And this was with Gu Mo holding back—he hadn't converted the avatar's mist-like energy into the denser liquid form.
When Gu Mo himself was at Qi Refining Stage 7, he'd refined Sun Essence to condense liquid spiritual energy, which caused major issues when he tried to break through Foundation Establishment. He nearly failed the breakthrough due to a "bug" in the system.
He wasn't going to let his avatar repeat that ordeal. The current strength was already excessive.
Unless the avatar could gain a heavenly boon during his breakthrough and condense Primordial Liquid Essence, Gu Mo had no reason to push harder. If he could harvest even just two drops of such essence, sacrificing the avatar would be worthwhile—because Gu Mo could create new ones.
Unfortunately, such heavenly boons only occurred during the main body's first breakthrough—avatars got nothing.
Without benefit, there was no point risking it.
"Break through now."
Time was dragging, and Gu Mo wanted the avatar to wrap up this minor mission quickly, lest it attract suspicion.
For the breakthrough, Gu Mo didn't intervene directly. He entered the avatar's consciousness and activated the Lesser Grand yan Celestial Art's breakthrough method.
With a body at Foundation Peak level, a Golden Core-level soul, and tenfold energy reserves, the breakthrough was smooth and effortless.
"Eighteen drops of liquid spiritual energy… this foundation's even better than mine."
Gu Mo was impressed. His main body had only produced twelve drops back then—and that was without a Golden Core helping hand.
Unfortunately, these eighteen drops didn't contain Primordial Force.
After the breakthrough, Gu Mo stopped actively boosting the avatar's cultivation. This was just a minor mission—the avatar couldn't spend too long out in the field.
But that wasn't the end.
Gu Mo then infused a reserve of Golden Core power into the avatar's core and sealed it. The avatar could slowly refine this over time to continue progressing through the Foundation stage.
In case of emergency, the avatar could instantly unleash this power to fight at Golden Core level. Since it was Gu Mo's own soul controlling the avatar, there'd be no issue wielding such strength.
After some thought, Gu Mo even extracted a wisp of Immortal Golden Core Force from his core and sealed it alongside the Golden Core power.
If pushed into a desperate situation, the avatar could unleash this wisp and strike with Nascent Soul-level power.
But the avatar, being only Foundation stage, wouldn't survive it. This was a mutual destruction move.
At this point, Gu Mo's avatar might appear to be early Foundation stage, but it possessed the body of a peak Foundation cultivator, could unleash Golden Core strength, and had a final strike at Nascent Soul level.
Even so, it would still outwardly display only Qi Refining-level cultivation.
After all, if a low-stage cultivator left for a few days and returned with a Foundation-level breakthrough, it would raise eyebrows.
So Gu Mo used a breath-concealing technique to hide the cultivation, revealing it gradually over time, as though the avatar had experienced a lucky encounter.
Given that the avatar had inferior spiritual roots, the only plausible explanation was a stroke of fortune. As long as he controlled the timing, higher-level cultivators wouldn't probe too deeply.
As for same-level opponents—Gu Mo's avatar could utterly crush them.
"Time to return."
The avatar accepted a storage bracelet from the main body. It contained spirit stones and pills—resources Gu Mo currently didn't need, but that would help the avatar immensely.
Grand yan Sword Sect's sword formations were notoriously expensive, requiring multiple flying swords.
Crafting a personal sword was even costlier.
Speaking of which, Gu Mo had a top-grade ice-element flying sword. After enduring extended tempering with icy flames, it had grown quite powerful—though still far from gaining sentience.
If the avatar couldn't acquire a better sword at the sect, Gu Mo planned to give him this one. Cultivating it as a high quality sword might even accelerate its evolution.
As for things like potato mines and cherry bombs, Gu Mo withheld them from the avatar—such unique signature plants would immediately expose the connection between the two.
In the future, Gu Mo intended to minimize any interaction between his main body and avatar.
"Take care, young friend."
Gu Mo gave a casual farewell. Addressing the avatar this way emphasized their separation—a Gold Core calling a Foundation cultivator "young friend" implied respect and recognition.
"Thank you for the gift, senior!"
The avatar gave a respectful bow before vanishing. The boar demon beast outside also disappeared.
Once the avatar left, Gu Mo's main body dissolved into wind and scattered.
Back at the manor.
The Qi Refining Stage 6 clan head was growing anxious. The emissary had left days ago without a trace. What if something had gone wrong?
Thankfully, that worry vanished when Gu Mo's avatar returned.
"That beast was hiding deep in a remote corner—truly hard to track."
Gu Mo casually tossed down the boar's corpse with a short explanation.
The clan head didn't question it—beasts often hid from powerful foes. Now that it was dead, their crisis was resolved.
He signed off on the mission completion form, and Gu Mo declined any banquet or reward, heading straight back to Grand yan Sword Sect.
With the avatar's cultivation now elevated, Gu Mo planned to fully display its strength and secure the sect's core inheritance—the Grand yan Sword Codex.
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