"Fang Yuan, what kind of recipe should we be refining?" Bai Ning Bing asked.
Fang Yuan contemplated the matter. A naturally easy-to-refine recipe which the land spirit wouldn't have seen before would be for the best. Fang Yuan had his own creations, Blood Path recipes, as well as many recipes from the future. Naturally, though, he couldn't use these in public. Sure, the land spirit was the only one who would be able to see them, but whoever happened to win this tournament might see them as well.
At the same time, though, he absolutely wanted to win, and after some contemplation, he decided upon a recipe which he passed over to Bai Ning Bing.
"This?" she asked. "All right then. I haven't seen anything like this either. We might do good with this."
The recipe in question was for a gu worm called the Delight in Family Ties Gu. Fang Yuan had managed to deduce the recipe using the Emotion Path inheritance left behind by the Thought-Ruler Demon Lord, his own Emotion Path Great Grandmaster attainment, as well as Human Path attainment.
When activated, the gu worm would send a fountain of delightful, cheery emotions into the mind of whoever used it. However, this gu worm's use had a particular, atypical effect: its effect would be improved if the user had strong family ties with those around them. Its expenditure of primeval essence would also be lower.
For example, someone like Gu Yue Qing Shu who had very strong family ties could even use this Rank 5 gu worm despite being only Rank 3, so long as he was within Gu Yue village.
Its effect would also be slightly higher than rank five as well, but you would need to be a Rank 5 Gu Master in order to bring that out fully. It might even be able to show something akin to pseudo-Rank 6 strength in the right hands!
However, if antisocial people were to use it, its effect would conversely be reduced. For that matter, for people as antisocial as Fang Yuan and Bai Ning Bing, if they tried to use this gu worm, its effect would only be around that of a Rank 3 gu worm!
The gu worm in question was rather simple to refine, requiring emotion path as well as human path materials that Fang Yuan had an abundance of. It could also easily just disguise itself as a pure emotion path Gu Worm, meaning that he wouldn't be revealing the full extent of his human path prowess here.
Bai Ning Bing tried the refinement under Fang Yuan's instructions twice; however, she failed. The third time that she ended up with a failure, it resulted in some major backlash.
"Here, take this, drink this, and be rejuvenated before trying again," Fang Yuan said, passing her a cup of Soul Soothing Tea.
Bai Ning Bing's hands trembled slightly as she drank it, finding her spirit restored after that. "Fang Yuan, this is a rank five Gu worm. It's not as easy for me to refine it as it would be with others."
"Don't worry, Bai Ning Bing," Fang Yuan said. "I'm sure in the end it will succeed. Take some rest and then we should continue."
Bai Ning Bing sighed, resting for a while before going back towards refining the gu worm in question. On the fifth attempt, she succeeded, and the Delight in Family Ties Gu was refined. It emitted a strong Rank 5 aura, taking the appearance of a small beetle carrying several small mountains on its back.
"Oh ho! I see that you're done," the land spirit said, clapping and appearing before them. "Hmm, let me see the gu worm in question." He glanced at it. "Oh ho! So this is somewhat of a new recipe. Actually, it's a bit similar to the Delight in Spring Waters Gu, but its effect is quite unique. I'll give you half of full bonus points for an original recipe because of that. Here, you are also the fourth in line to have succeeded in its refinement, though you did have four failures. I'm still waiting for the others to finish. However, for this round, I am giving out a consolation prize to everyone, regardless of how well they did. You may ask for any gu worm recipe from rank one up until rank five."
An information path gu worm was given to them, and Bai Ning Bing scrolled through it, being shocked by the number of mortal gu recipes there.
There is a paradox in which the more choices a person has, the harder it is for them to determine one of them, simply because they're overwhelmed by it. The same thing was happening to Bai Ning Bing.
Tian Ji, without a doubt, had hundreds of Immortal Gu recipes, but when it came to mortal Gu recipes, one did not even need to bother mentioning them.
Over ten million mortal gu worm recipes! Bai Ning Bing's mind could scarcely comprehend that number.
As expected as the nephew of one of the greatest Refinement Path specialists in all of history!
She glanced at Fang Yuan for a moment before saying, "Fang Yuan, which one do you think we should choose?"
"Is there any luck path gu worm here?" Fang Yuan asked. He had suffered a lot recently and had determined that it was probably due to not understanding the full intricacies of the Luck Path; furthermore knowing that understanding it would give him a leg up in the future made him want to delve down this route.
He wasn't sure whether or not Tian Ji would have a Luck Path inheritance or gu worm with him. The Long Hair Ancestor was said to have worked with Giant Sun Immortal Venerable, with the Luck Path aiding in his gu worm refinement. The luck path was quite useful when it came to Gu refinement, Fang Yuan had to note, so that was why he was wondering whether or not Tian Ji might have some kind of information here accumulated after millennia of searching.
"Well, I do happen to have something like that," the land spirit said. "However, it's not rank five; it is only rank four. I do happen to have the recipe for Rank 4 Dog Shit Luck Gu, if you would like that."
Fang Yuan considered it for a moment. He would be giving up a rank five recipe for a rank four one. However, if he happened to have the recipe for the Rank 4 Dog Shit Luck Gu, he could probably end up deducing the recipe for the rank five one using his Master Path attainment in refinement, as well as his current attainment in the luck path. It could also deepen his field of study when it came to the same.
"I think we'll take it," Fang Yuan said.
"Fang Yuan, are you sure?" Bai Ning Bing asked. She actually would have wanted a Water or Ice Path recipe.
"Don't worry about it, Bai Ning Bing," Fang Yuan said. "This is merely the first round of many. We will have far more chances to get the kinds of gu worms that you happen to want. I think that this Luck Path recipe is far more valuable than anything of the Water or Ice path. The luck path is quite mysterious, but its effects are quite profound. I think that we would benefit quite a lot by having it."
"Well then, if you've made your decision," the land spirit said, handing them an information path gu worm. Since it was only a mortal recipe, the land spirit was simply handing it out rather than keeping it in storage for the end. The recipe for the Rank 4 Dog Shit Luck Gu was now deeply imprinted within both Bai Ning Bing's as well as Fang Yuan's minds.
"So it happens to require the feces of four different species of Dog Myriad Beast Kings," Fang Yuan said to himself. The Three King's Inheritance was coming up soon. It not only had dog Myriad Beast Kings but also Beast Emperors. If he could get his hands upon them, he could use them to try and synthesize it.
The Rank 4 Dog Shit Luck Gu had a very simple effect: when activated, it increased the Gu Master's luck. It was only a mortal Dog Shit Luck Gu, so it was consumable, increasing one's luck before fizzling out. Fang Yuan understood that in order to make a meaningful difference in his luck at his level, he would probably need tens of thousands of it and that might still not be enough. Some of the materials were a bit hard to find, but he was sure that he could get them within Treasure Yellow Heaven after trading for a while.