AN:This chapter is a continuation from where the last one began, if you're bad with gore and mass murder skip to the first '---'.
This village has a total population of about ten thousand, killing everyone in it on my lonesome in a single night without leaving any survivors is practically impossible, which means that I need to outsource the killing and collecting.
The blood storage gu is now almost full, so I can now proceed to phase two of the plan. Finding a shovel in this house is not difficult, since most peasants store their farming equipment in their houses. Smashing the floorboards allows me to dig a hole ten meters deep with a diameter of half a meter in the middle of the modest house. The earth goes into multiple rank 2 yellow tusita flower gu.
I pull another rank 2 yellow tusita flower gu from my aperture. This is a storage type gu, capable of storing practically anything so long as it has free space to do so. I will for the flower to open, releasing a thousand meter pythons into the newly dug hole.
The blood storage gu then vomits half of the blood that it has stored up until now, filling up the hole two thirds of the way through with blood. Some of the pythons drown in the blood, some of them get eaten by the other pythons, some of them survive, and float to the top as rank 1 blood python gu.
From the initial thousand pythons only fifty are successfully refined. Their size has grown, from one meter in length to three. They are ferocious, willful and at this moment still wild.
I take out my rank 5 third watch gu, the aura of the rank 5 gu is more than sufficient to suppress the will of these rank 1 blood python gu, even with their innate willfulness and aggressiveness.
Gu of lower ranks can be suppressed by gu of higher ranks. A good general rule is that a gu that is two ranks higher than another will immediately suppress the other with its mere aura. Refining the fifty rank 1 blood python gu is extremely simple now, a mere push of my primeval essence into them instantly refines them.
Now that they are all under my will, the next step of their refinement can begin. I take out another yellow tusita flower, this time dropping a torrent of primeval stone dust into the pool of blood. I use the shovel to mix the primeval stone dust with the blood, allowing the dust to infuse the blood. The pythons begin drinking the primeval stone dust infused blood, slowly growing in both size and strength.
All of the pythons are successfully refined into rank 2 blood python gu. Their length has increased from three meters to seven meters. At this point the hole is completely filled by the fifty blood python gu inside of it.
With their new enormous size the blood python gu are easily able to leave the hole, those that are further to the bottom coil themselves and leap out of the hole. With all the snakes out I refill the hole back with earth.
The snakes can sneak into houses, kill the inhabitants and leave their blood to be collected by blood storage gu. I release five rank 2 blood storage gu from my aperture, this many should suffice to speed things up.
The blood python and blood storage gu leave the house through the unlocked back door, allowing them to slip into the village undetected. All that's left for me to do for now is take care of the gu master in charge of this village.
Most gu masters are proud, with a dismissive attitude towards mortals in general, where they see them more like objects and toys than people. There's a single place where a person of high status with such an attitude would live inside of this village.
I leave the house through the front door, there will be no survivors to remember my face by the end of the night, and begin walking towards the gu masters residence, a three story tall miniature palace clearly visible from anywhere in the village.
Once I arrive there I pull the chainsawpede from my aperture and send it inside of the house to cause chaos. I give the solid oak door a good kick, sending it flying off its hinges into a wooden wall, breaking both the wall, revealing the kitchen, and the door.
I begin to hear the sounds of chainsaws, of flesh being ripped and the desperate screams of the mansion's inhabitants. That ought to wake the gu master up. The sounds of people hastily running in fear come from the floors above. I turn towards the set of stairs to my left.
A stream of servants comes crashing down the stairs, the chainsawpede gu lunges at them through the wooden stairs beneath them, cutting a merciless and gory path through them to the floor above, leaving no survivors in its path of slaughter.
Most of the servants have been taken care of by no- I hear a loud thud from outside the house, as if someone fell from the floors above onto the ground. Turning around reveals a nude woman laying on the floor. Another equally nude woman lands right next to the first one. The chainsawpede falls onto the second woman, turning her into mincemeat before lunging and doing the same to the second before rushing back into the house.
I beeline for the third floor, which is where the gu master is most likely to be at this point and open the door to what I presume is their bedroom. Inside of the bedroom I find the gu master and three more nude women, who are currently cowering in a corner of the room. The gu master is calmly dressing themselves in robes. They are a thirty something year old man with long brown hair. The gu master turns towards me as the door creaks. "So you are the ra-"
Dream travel gu takes me to the dream world, dream wings gu allows me to appear behind him. "-sca-" I forcefully thrust a single finger into his upper spine hard enough to break it, instantly turning him into a quadriplegic. "-aAAAAAAA".
This guy is my relative, so he makes for good blood path refinement material. I stuff some nearby bras and panties into his mouth, preventing him from biting his tongue and killing himself. The three women look in horror at me. I wave them off. "I've got no business with you, just go and leave the house."
They both rush downstairs, the following sounds of screams and chainsaws informs me of their fate. I look through a nearby window into the village below. It seems that some of the villagers have awakened and are currently trying to figure out what is going on.
I release the rank 3 golden talon eagle gu from my aperture into the outside world, it can catch any potential escapees. I go back to the still screaming gu master, sit down cross legged and patiently wait for the massacre to be complete. The chainsawpede comes back to me after it finishes killing everyone else in the building, allowing me to put it back into my aperture.
Slowly but surely the village stirs into activity, by the time that the mortals realize what is happening it is already too late, most of them having already been killed by the blood pythons. The few remaining stragglers attempt to escape, most are caught by the pythons, the insignificant amount that escape the village are then easily caught by the golden talon eagle.
All in all, I would call this a success. All that's left is to continue refining gu. I take the man with me to the town square. Here I dig another hole, this time less deep, but much wider than the previous one. Ten meters across and two meters deep. I fill it a quarter of the way through with primeval stone dust, before filling the rest of it with blood and mixing the two together using a shovel.
I take out yet another yellow tusita flower, from this one I take Fang Zheng's severed head from its storage and put it down right next to me.
Bathing ten sets of eyes in the blood pool and fusing each of them with a primeval stone gives me twenty rank 1 blood eye gu. I take a set of eyes and push them together, creating a ball of light. Throwing five primeval stones into said ball of light refines the eyes into a single rank 2 blood eye gu. I repeat this for each set of eyes. Five rank 2 blood eye gu, a hundred primeval stones and two liters of the blood mixture are refined into the rank 3 blood eye gu, repeating this refinement again nets me with a total of two rank 3 blood eye gu.
I place the rank 3 blood eye gu into the eye sockets of Fang Zheng's severed head, before giving it a dunk into the blood mixture. When I pull it out the decaying flesh still remaining on the head begins to melt away, revealing the blood red bones beneath. The rank 3 blood eye gu's stare erratically around. The rank 4 blood skull gu is completely refined once all of the flesh has decayed, leaving me with a rank 4 blood skull gu, the solution to my aptitude problem.
Since this gu can be considered a top rank 4 gu, turning it into a rank 5 blood skull gu does not require many resources, only a living blood relative and the pool of blood that I created.
I lightly throw the blood skull gu at the paralyzed gu master, whom the gu immediately begins eating alive. His screams resound loudly through the massacred village, the blood skull gu begins with his feet, slowly chewing and refining every bit of meat, every shard of bone and every drop of blood.
The blood skull gu continues unabated once it reaches the man's intestines, before finally beginning to eat the man's, finally giving him the sweet release of death after the second bite from his heart. The rest of the body is slowly consumed, leaving nothing behind.
Another dunk into the blood mixture allows it to drink the entire pool, turning it into a rank 5 blood skull gu.
This entire night is a good summary of why blood path is suppressed. All it took was the massacre of a mortal village and some primeval stones to refine a rank 5 gu capable of increasing aptitude with no downsides. Other rank 5 gu have similarly easy recipes, allowing a blood path gu master to easily refine high level gu.
Even for blood path, refinement is supposed to be difficult, with even the most experienced master still having a chance to fail even at a simple rank 2 refinement. My luck has completely bypassed this issue, allowing me to refine everything that I needed tonight successfully. The golden talon eagle lands next to me, allowing me to pull it back into my aperture.
No survivors have been left and I haven't used any gu that would link me to this massacre. All that's left is to sneak back into the village, something that I've grown somewhat accustomed to doing by this point.
—
I yawn as I wake up from my sleep, having forgone exploring the dreamworld with the dream wings gu for this night. I hear the door open and smell the chicken pie that Shen Cui has brought me for breakfast. I motion for her to sit down next to me as I eat.
I take a slice of pie and begin eating using my hands. "Anything new?"
Shen Cui shakes her head. "No young master, there has been no new news in the village yet."
Gu masters tend to ignore mortals, meaning that it's much more discreet to have Shen Cui and Wang Luli probe for news than it is for me to do so. I take another slice of pie. "If anything comes up make sure to tell me."
Shen Cui nods, before giving me a deep bow. "This one obeys, young master."
We sit in a relaxed silence as I continue eating the pie.
Once I finish the pie I grab Shen Cui and pull her into my lap, a deep kiss silences her short 'yeep'. Once we're done having our fun she leaves the bed and begins to clothe herself. I don't bother doing so just yet. Before she leaves I say. "Tell Wang Luli to come too."
Shen Cui smiles, before giving me another bow. "As you wish, young master!"
—
The nude Wang Luli is staying in the bed, still panting from our activities. I motion for her to remain here for now before crossing my legs and beginning cultivation. Reaching the peak of rank 2 will take me around a year and a half at my current cultivation rate. A single rank 2 red steel relic gu can cut that time by half.
Five hours into my cultivation I hear the door open. I stop cultivating and open my eyes, revealing a thoughtful Shen Cui. "Young master, the traders from Ko village are late by four hours, the mortals are growing nervous."
Mortals would be the first to notice something wrong, the gu masters would only be made aware of this issue by their own servants once the matter is already clear to the mortal population. I give her a nod. "Keep your ears on the ground, bring me any significant updates."
Shen Cui bows. "This one obeys, young master."
I motion for her to come on the bed with Wang Luli and I, before pulling Wang Luli into my lap. There's nothing I can really do regularly other than sex and cultivation at this point.
—
I look at the prospective D-Rank gu master wishing to be employed. "What's your cultivation rank and aptitude?"
The muscled young man takes a deep breath. "31% middle stage."
That's only two daily uses of the nine leaves vitality grass gu. I shake my head. "The job poster clearly mentioned peak stage rank 1, there's nothing I can do with you. Please leave."
The man leaves with a sigh of disappointment, having already expected my answer. "It was worth a try at least."
That's the third person who came in without meeting the one and only requirement. A short middle aged man comes next. I look him in the eyes, he calmly looks back. "What's your aptitude and cultivation rank?"
The man calmly replies. "24% peak stage."
That's about seven uses of the nine leaves vitality grass per day. I give my hand for the man to shake, which he does firmly. "You're hired. What's your name?"
The man gives me a nod. "Gu Yue Xu Ji."
I pull the nine leaves vitality grass out of my aperture and hand it to the man, who begins to look between it and me. "Use this gu as many times as you can each day. Bring the vitality leaf gu's that it creates to this tavern, my servants will take them from you. Your weekly payment will be twenty primevals tones, is that agreeable?"
Xu Ji's eyes slightly widen, before he gulps and gives me a firm nod. "Yes, that is agreeable."
Before reaching rank 2 I personally used the nine leaves vitality grass, now that I've begun cultivating again I had to hire someone to use it for me, since my own primeval essence must now be dedicated to furthering my cultivation.
I'm not worried about him stealing it, gu are recorded in the clan records in the same way property is, so him stealing it would be instantly revealed.
Xu Ji takes the nine leaves vitality grass from my open palm, pushes a small amount of primeval essence and, since I want him to actually refine it, refines it with ease. I give him a nod. "Come back tomorrow with the vitality leaves, I'll expect a minimum of seven per day."
Not even a full day has passed since the night that I massacred Ko village, by tomorrow the clan leader and elders will almost surely hold a meeting about it. From their perspective an unknown blood path demonic gu master massacred a village. This assumption of theirs along with the incoming beast tide will generate a lot of tension.
I spend the next day cultivating and relaxing. Just as I had expected, the elders and the clan leader proceed to significantly increase the number of gu masters stationed in Gu Yue clan's villages. Patrol missions also start to become much more common, as do beast extermination missions. My breakthrough to rank 2 middle stage happens without much fanfare, since I am still not wasting my time going on any missions.
It's three weeks before the arrival of the Jia clan caravan that I am visited by an envoy. The gu Yue clan leader has invited me to have tea.
—
Gu Yue Bo pours me a cup of green tea. I give him a slight bow before taking a sip. It's actually pretty good. I wait patiently as he also pours himself a cup of tea, he takes a sip of tea before saying. "I have a mission for you. You will be well compensated."
I was starting to get worried that I was somehow found out. "What is the mission and the compensation?"
I'd haven't gone on any of the obligatory missions, I already make enough primeval stones not to care about going on missions and the clan's assessment means nothing to me. Gu Yue Bo takes a sip of tea. "The Xiong clan has a student with A-grade aptitude. I wish for you to go on an assassination mission."
That's interesting. I take a sip of tea. "What is the compensation for this mission?"
Gu Yue Bo places his empty tea cup down, a maid leaves a plate of biscuits on the table. "I will allow you ten minutes in a secret area of the clan. Recipes of gu from ranks 3 to 5 are recorded there. Once the ten minutes are up you will have to leave. This is usually a benefit only granted to our clan elders."
He's pretty desperate for that assassination if he is giving up something like that. "But why are you offering this mission to me? Surely one of the clan's own elders would be more than happy to take on this mission."
Gu Yue Bo shakes his head. "They are too conspicuous, too well known by the Xiong clan. You have barely graduated from the academy three months ago. You are an unknown quality to them."
I take a final sip of tea, finishing the cup of tea. "And how am I supposed to kill them? I doubt I can sneak into their village, kill their prodigy and then escape with my life intact."
Gu Yue Bo nods. "Indeed. Their students will go on a trip in the wilderness to enslave bear beasts. It is their custom that each prospective enslavement path gu master enslave their own beasts. The excursion will take place in a week, you will arrive in time to prepare if you leave tomorrow."
With the golden talon eagle I could get there in less than a day, telling him that might give them a link between me and the massacre however. I nod. "Very well, I will leave tomorrow to complete the mission. Do you need any proof?"
Gu Yue Bo fills my cup of tea. "For the confirmation of the mission? No. However, I will give you another visit into the secret area if you bring their dead body with you. It will give us an opportunity to humiliate them."