Breaking through to rank 3 will be trivial now that I have 84% aptitude, the only question is whether or not to go for 99% first.
Breaking through right now would put me in the spotlight, whilst that's not a big problem it's still enough to create some headaches. Charging the blood skull gu enough for another use would be a little bit slower because of this.
It's not like it would take long to charge it anyway, a few days is more than enough time to kill some more Gu Yue clan gu masters. The alliance is on the edge of breaking apart anyway, each clan hates the others and blames them for their own losses.
There is one thing that I want to try before that however. "Ning Bing, can you refine this gu and use it a couple of times?"
We're both currently taking a moment to recover our primeval essence. I'm using primeval stones for this, Ning Bing just lets hers recover naturally. Ning Bing is sitting down next to our campfire, I'm sitting right across from her.
Ning Bing stares at the rank 2 dogshit luck gu that I'm handing to her. The rank 2 dogshit luck gu looks like a small, golden beetle. Ning Bing pauses, before shrugging and taking the gu from my hand. "Sure."
This is one of the gu from my 'Superior Gu Set' perk. It's not too difficult to find the materials to refine it and feeding it isn't too difficult, so even if Ning Bing betrayed me and stole it that wouldn't affect me.
Ning Bing swiftly refines the gu, before injecting her primeval essence into it and activating the gu. I say. "Do you feel any different?"
Ning Bing shrugs. "Not really? What's this thing do anyway?"
It makes you luckier. "It should increase your luck by a bit, it works kind of like the strength gu series. You continue to use it until you gain all the luck that it can actually give you."
Ning Bing stares at the gu. "Huh, that's a pretty interesting gu worm."
It is. "You can keep it for now, just continue using it until it stops working."
I didn't feel anything happen when I used it, it didn't absorb any primeval essence or do anything particularly interesting. Luck is something formless and intangible, it's almost impossible to feel and sense without some special methods. Ning Bing injects primeval essence into the dog shit luck gu again. "Do you want it back after I'm done?"
I nod. "I'll need it in a couple of days so I can advance it, feel free to keep it until then. Just don't destroy it."
Ning Bing uses it again. "Alright."
I rise up from the ground, my primeval essence is at 56%, more than enough to kill a group or two. "Let's go."
Ning Bing pulls the rank 2 dogshit luck gu into her aperture. "Sure, but I'm calling dibs on any elders."
—
Ning Bing and I stare from the tree tops at the Xiong clan group underneath us. This is one of the largest groups that we've seen until now, consisting of over forty gu masters!
The rank 2 gu masters will not be an issue, the main problem is that this group is led not by an elder, but by the clan leader himself. Ning Bing leans as close to me as possible before whispering. "the clan leader, two elders and forty one rank 2 gu masters, think we can take them?"
Their clan leader is at the back of the group, capable of protecting everyone in case of an attack. The two elders are a few meters away from him and the rank 2 gu masters are clumped together in front of the elders.
I whisper back. "I can take on the leader and elders, I don't have any killer moves to kill the rank 2 gu masters quickly however."
My innate strength combined with the physical cultivation and strength path gu has given me the strength equivalent to a weakish rank 4 gu master. The teleportation and moonglow gu killer moves will help me cross the gap to killing the clan leader.
The biggest risk in this fight is not death, in the worst case scenario I can just fuck off and teleport away. The biggest risk is failing to kill their clan leader.
Even if some of them happen to survive, their clan would be toast. The Gu Yue clan would penalize me for the sake of appearance, behind closed doors I'm more likely to be rewarded for eliminating a rival clan.
Ning Bing stares at the group, trying to decipher whether our location has been compromised or not. "I do. I can kill all of the rank 2 gu masters. You ready?"
I nod slowly. "yeah. I'll teleport once I get an opportunity for a good sneak attack. You follow me afterwards."
We wait patiently as the group comes closer to us. Once they are right underneath us I use the rank 2 self accel gu and immediately teleport behind their clan leader, prepare to unleash a moonblade with my right fist and punch him in the back, right where his heart is.
The Xiong clan leader manages to lean to the left and avoid the worst of the attack, only getting a hole punched through his left lung instead of his heart. The force of the punch hitting him rings out like steel hitting steel, the moonblade screeching like nails on a chalkboard as it cuts through him.
He turns around, throwing a backhanded fist towards me as he does so. I teleport behind him again in response.
Since he has committed to the attack I am now free to counter. I spin kick him in the back head, using the bloodstep gu and amplify effect gu to boost the force of my kick. That's not enough to turn his head into gore, but it is enough to break both his skull and my ankle.
Using a vitality leaf and the amplify effect gu heals my broken ankle.
The two elders have now turned around, the sound of our fight alerting them to my presence. I can see Ning Bing land in the middle of the group of rank 2 gu masters from my peripheral vision.
The kick didn't kill him, but it was enough to daze him momentarily. Going by the way that his wounds are rapidly regenerating, this daze won't last for long. I take a quick step back, prepare to lunge at him, use an amplified blood step gu and then dash towards him, throwing a moonblade punch at his head as I do so.
This time his head is turned into gore, spraying his brain and blood everywhere. The elders had begun to charge towards me, only to stop dead in their tracks now that their leader is dead.
A whirlwind of ice blades explodes from where Ning Bing landed, chopping up almost all of the rank 2 gu masters into tiny pieces.
There's too many to capture them all alive, so we have to settle for the two elders. I throw a spinning back kick and teleport right behind the elder to my right, allowing said kick to strike right at the back of his spine, crushing it into tiny pieces. A teleport and punch to his head knocks him unconscious.
Ning Bing, having just finished killing the last rank 2 gu master, rushes towards the remaining elder and begins to duel the man. I teleport to the body of the clan leader, remove his hand and dig in.
Ning Bing arms herself with an ice blade in each hand, before swinging her arms inwards and throwing both of them at the elder. The blades begin to spin and break, forming an icy whirlwind that freezes everything in its path. Ning Bing follows the whirlwind closely.
The elder is too close to dodge, so he is left tanking the whirlwind.
The second the whirlwind strikes the elder Ning Bing throws another, which is enough to leave deep, freezing wounds on the now shivering elder. After a few martial exchanges of Ning Bing giving the elder shallow wounds on purpose the man freezes to death, much to the disappointment of Ning Bing.
Ning Bing kicks the dead, frozen body of the elder. "Common! I expected him to last longer!"
This time the gains are much higher, 20% of the man's strength path dao marks get absorbed, 'Dao Carver' boosts this to 40%. "You were supposed to leave him alive, you know?"
One elder dying is not a big loss, rank 2 gu masters have already started to be nonoptimal. After I finish with the clan leader it's likely that rank 3 gu masters will suffer from diminishing returns as well.
Ning Bing gives the head a hard kick, shattering it. "If you'd told me why you want them alive then I would've kept him. At this point I'm just assuming you're eating them just for the fun of it."
In hindsight, I should've informed her beforehand. Keeping your allies in the dark turns out to be bad for cooperating, who'd have thought? "I'm using a method to assimilate their strength path dao marks."
Ning Bing blinks. "That makes a lot of sense. Can you teach it to me?"
She has an extreme physique, locking her to cultivating either ice path or soul path. I shrug. "Sure, but it'll cause the effects of your ice path gu worms to become much weaker."
Ning Bing narrows her eyes at me. "How do your gu worms don't have any conflict then?"
I smirk. "I'm just built different."
She takes a deep breath, I interrupt her before she can respond. "I wasn't really joking. I literally am built different, dao mark conflict isn't a thing for me."
She pauses. "That's… that actually makes some things clearer for me. Thanks for sharing this secret."
—
Just as I had expected, eating the elder's body became much less efficient after the clan leader. With my strength cultivation momentarily paused Ning Bing and I focus on hunting solely Gu Yue clansmen for the rest of the day, afterall, once the news of the Xiong clan leader's death spreads the alliance is sure to fall apart.
I didn't manage to charge the blood skull gu during the first day, it's only today that I finally manage to find the last group of Gu Yue clansmen needed. Ning Bing and I stare at said group from the treetops.
The group is composed of Gu Yue clan eleven gu masters, killing them won't require much effort. I turn to Ning Bing. "You wanna do the honors?"
She smiles wickedly. "With pleasure."
Ning Bing jumps down, beginning her slaughter. She takes her time to torture the gu masters, making sure that their deaths are slow and painful. I jump down as she stabs an ice blade into the spine of the last remaining gu master, paralyzing the woman before letting her slowly die of frostbite.
I pull out the rank 5 blood skull gu and allow it to absorb the blood of the Gu Yue clansmen. Ning Bing stares curiously at the blood skull gu. "Are you going to tell me now what that thing is supposed to do?"
The blood skull gu is fully charged now. "It increases one's aptitude. Charging it requires the blood of a hundred of one's blood relatives."
Ning Bing whistles. "Most clans would wage war without hesitation for a gu like that. What did you get your aptitude to?"
The blood skulls gu maw opens, allowing blood to gush forth onto me. I smile in joy as my aptitude increases. Going from 84% all the way to 99%, where it then freezes even as the blood from the blood skull gu continues to fall onto me.
Artificially achieving one of the ten extreme physiques is not as simple as using a simple rank 5 gu, if it was then the world would be full of them.
I let out a sigh full of joy. "99%. They would indeed. I'm going to search for a cave and break through to rank 3 now. Can you guard me during my breakthrough?"
The consequences of getting interrupted during a major breakthrough can range anywhere from being a mere annoyance to needing to restart the breakthrough all over. Since it's not unusual for a breakthrough to take multiple days one can see how something like this can be an issue.
Ning Bing begins searching for a piece of flesh that's not completely frozen. "Sure. Do you need your dogshit luck gu now or later?"
I say. "Give it to me now, I'll give you the rank 3 version after my breakthrough."
—
My primeval essence crashes into my severely fractured aperture walls, breaking them and subsequently breaking through to rank 3. The previously crystalline membrane of my aperture turns back into a light membrane. Light silver primeval essence begins to be produced in my aperture, the primeval essence of a rank 3 initial stage gu master.
I quickly advance all of the gu worms from my 'Superior Gu Set' perk, turning them from rank 2 gu to rank 3 gu. The rank 3 seven fragrances liquor worm turns my primeval essence from light silver to blossom silver, adding in the amplify effect gu turns it from blossom silver into bright silver.
I pause. I'll need to pause on advancing the amplify effect gu for my next breakthrough, will a rank 4 amplify effect gu allow a rank 4 liquor worm series gu to condense initial stage primeval essence all the way to peak stage primeval essence?
Or will a rank 3 amplify effect gu fail to boost the rank 4 liquor worm into condensing primeval essence by an additional rank?
What about a rank 5 amplify effect gu boosting the effect of a rank 1 liquor worm on a rank 1 initial stage gu master? Will it condense their jade green primeval essence into light red primeval essence?
I have the recipes for these 2 gu, so testing further combinations should give some interesting results. There is one test that I can do right now.
Activating my 'Second Aperture' perk makes a second aperture appear right in the middle of my chest, just below my heart. This aperture is a rank 1 initial stage aperture!
Putting the rank 3 liquor worm into it, the rank 3 amplify effect gu and filling it with some primeval essence from my first aperture lets me test my hypothesis.
Light red primeval essence begins to be slowly appear in the second aperture! Boosting the effect of the liquor worm can lead to this happening!
There's a caveat to this however. This is me using a rank 3 seven fragrances liquor worm combined with a rank 3 amplify effect gu, using these two gu to boost primeval essence from jade green to light red is a waste of resources. Anyone with access to these two gu has no need to do this.
Even for me, it's much simpler to just use the primeval essence from my first aperture to quickly advance the second one. There's no reason to condense the second aperture's primeval essence when doing so to the first will have a much larger effect.
I yawn and stretch. The breakthrough took me a total of two days, much less time than the breakthrough to rank 2 had. I didn't even have to use any primeval stones too, using them would've made the breakthrough take less than a day!
Ning Bing yawns. "Finally! I was going to fall asleep from boredom watching you. Let's sleep before we leave, I'm dead tired."
She's had to stay alert and awake for the past two days to guard me. I continue stretching "Sure, lemme just go for a small walk and a piss first."
Staying locked in one place for two straight days still sucks, but the feeling of becoming stronger overshadows the inconvenience by far.
—
Ning Bing and I arrive at the alliance grounds just as everyone is preparing to leave. Tensions are at an all time high, both because of the Xiong clan leader's death and because of the incoming beast tide. I didn't pack many things when coming, having expected something like this to happen as I kept killing gu masters. I turn to Ning Bing. "What do you plan to do now?"
She pauses and thinks for a bit before giving a response. "I am going to go back to Bai village with my clan. I owe the Bai clan leader a great debt, he's adopted and taken care of me since my parents died. He's the only reason that I'm still a part of my clan, otherwise I'd have left this mountain by now."
I give her a nod. "Make sure to survive the beast tide. Keep the rank 3 dogshit luck gu with you, return it back to me after the beast tide, allright?"
Ning Bing nods, her expression unusually serious. "You too. Survive the beast tide, life would be pretty dull without you around."
I hold my fist towards her. "I'm planning to leave Qing Mao mountain next year, you want to join me?"
Ning Bing smiles, giving me a fistbump. "Yup, if you get turned into dog poop I'll make sure to step on you and carry you with me on my boots for the rest of my life!"
I give her a smile back. "Don't worry about me, I'll be safe."
---
AN: Last chapter got the most amount of powerstones yet, thanks guys :).