The Path of Immortality: Starts With Creating Water Bear Gu

After everyone returned to the Long Clan mansion, they were greeted by the cheers of all the family members. Everyone already knew about the family’s overwhelming victory over the Bai family, so naturally, every face showed a look of excitement, and the entire Long family was lively and bustling.

As the main contributors to the family's victory, a dozen geniuses were surrounded by the crowd, being asked about their well-being, and praised continuously.

“Silence!”

Long Yuanshan’s stern voice rang out, immediately quieting the restless crowd. Intimidated by the authority of the patriarch, the scene finally calmed down.

Glancing at Long Yun, who looked disheartened, Long Yuanshan sighed heavily and said, “Take her away. The family will take care of her for the rest of her life. From now on, she doesn’t need to do anything.”

“Today, our Clan has achieved a great victory. Although we didn’t win all the Spirit Metal veins, we obtained most of them, which is worth celebrating. Starting tomorrow, we will hold a grand feast to celebrate. Everyone, you may leave now.”

“Long Xuan, follow me.”

Long Yuanshan, somewhat lacking in enthusiasm, dispersed the crowd and left with Long Xuan.

Long Xuan thought for a moment and guessed that the patriarch was probably summoning him regarding the research on the Dragon Blood Battle Gu Recipe.

Now that the arena competition with the Bai family was over and there was nothing to distract him, it was time to officially prioritize this matter.

Once this project began, his Blade Gu would also move forward.

Long Xuan smiled and quickly followed the patriarch.

...

After Long Yuanshan led Long Xuan to a hidden secret chamber, he got straight to the point: “I believe you’ve already guessed why I called you here. The family has convened a meeting of the elders and decided to officially launch the project to restore the Dragon Blood Battle Gu recipe.”

“The family will put its full resources behind your research on the Dragon Blood Battle Gu recipe. Whatever materials you need, the family will spare no effort to provide them.”

“However, during your research, you’ll need to leave all your storage equipment outside. I hope you understand—this is not something I can decide alone.”

“Of course, I understand,” Long Xuan nodded. “It’s only natural. After all, researching a Gu recipe consumes an enormous amount of resources. Anyone would need precautions. Should we start now?”

Long Yuanshan replied, “We can begin right now. If you need any materials, just use the Suo Gu to send a message. Suo Gu is the most discreet communication channel.”

“Whatever you need, just use the Suo Gu to communicate. You don’t need to leave this place. Your daily needs, including three meals a day, will be delivered on time, so you won’t have to worry about anything else.”

With that, Long Yuanshan took off his storage bag and dumped a pile of stones on the ground—there were at least hundreds.

“The primary material for the Dragon Blood Battle Gu recipe is the Peak-grade Spirit Insect, the Divine Dragon Insect. This insect is a parasite born from the family’s sacred tree, the Divine Dragon Tree, and is incredibly hard to obtain.”

“You must use your intelligence to research the formula. Don’t blindly try everything; the materials are limited,” Long Yuanshan reminded him again.

Looking at the pile of stones on the ground, each containing a part of the Peak-grade Spirit Insect, Long Xuan’s face twitched uncontrollably.

“Is this what you call ‘incredibly hard to obtain’? It seems pretty plentiful to me. Does the patriarch have a misunderstanding about the meaning of ‘incredibly hard’?”

Seeing his expression, Long Yuanshan smiled wryly and said, “The Divine Dragon Insect is indeed difficult to obtain, but after collecting them for so many years, we’ve accumulated a significant amount.”

“Ever since the Dragon Blood Battle Gu recipe was discarded due to the lack of materials, the Divine Dragon Insect has had no use.”

“As a result, the number of Divine Dragon Insects has only increased over the countless years, amassing a vast quantity.”

“And this is just a small portion. There are many more.”

“The Divine Dragon Insects kept multiplying, and these creatures consume a lot of food. They almost drained the family’s resources. Even though they’re useless, they’re still Peak-grade Spirit Insects, so we couldn’t bear to throw them away. Out of necessity, we had to freeze them into fossils in extremely cold conditions.”

“Once they became fossils, they finally quieted down and stopped consuming the family’s food.”

Upon hearing this, Long Xuan’s mouth twitched again. Disliking the Divine Dragon Insects for their excessive eating, and freezing them into fossils—wasn’t that a bit extreme? But it was indeed a clever solution.

“So, for each experiment, just cut a piece of fossil. Don’t awaken all of them at once—it would waste too much food.”

“If you run out of fossils, just send me a message. Even if the family’s entire stock is depleted, I can borrow more from other relatives.”

“You can start your research here. I’ll go discuss matters concerning Black Moon City with the other elders. If you need anything, send a message using Suo Gu.”

With that, Long Yuanshan finally left, leaving Long Xuan alone in the secret chamber, surrounded by stones that held a bunch of unfortunate creatures.

Long Xuan walked over and patted the top fossil, reflecting on how unexpected it was that the main material for the Dragon Blood Battle Gu would come from the Peak-grade Spirit Insect born from the Divine Dragon Tree.

And over countless millennia, the Western Long clan had accumulated a vast number of Divine Dragon Insects.

Thinking about this, he wondered if the four Divine Dragon Trees he planted would also give birth to a group of ravenous creatures in the future.

Now, he no longer found these Divine Dragon Insects cute. If they ever naturally appeared in his Divine Dragon Trees, he would have to use the Divine ice Flame to freeze them into fossils as well.

With his clan's weak foundation, how could he afford to support a group of freeloaders?

Moreover, those high-quality spirit insects collected from the medicinal herb garden were now being raised in his insect chamber, consuming a significant amount of food. Once he returned, he would use the Divine ice Flame to freeze them all into fossils.

Speaking of which, the portal between the Western Land Long Clan and the Far West Long Clan had long been established, and people from both sides had begun visiting each other. He could return anytime and instantly.

Just now, during their conversation on the road, Long Qilin, Long Panpan, Long Yan, and Long Bao planned to teleport back today.

As for the Western Land Long Clan’s promised reward of Spirit Metal, there was no rush for now.

After all, the Spirit Metal vein was not yet in their possession, and it would take time to mobilize a large number of mortals to mine it. The journey alone would take a while.

They were too lazy to wait and were feeling homesick, so they were preparing to return today.

At this moment, only Long Xuan and Long Ziyan remained.

Long Xuan needed to study the recipe for the Dragon Blood Battle Gu, so he couldn’t leave in the short term. The Silver Moon Mantis also needed to learn blade techniques here, and it could only improve by sparring with its kin.

Although this secret room was a bit far from the Tower of Books, it didn’t matter. He had already used the Origin Realm to copy the Tower of Books and stored the copied illusionary world in the Eye of Heaven’s Will. Even if the distance was far, he could still enter it offline.

The only downside was that it couldn't be updated in real-time. If there were any new changes in the Tower of Books, or a new book was added, it wouldn’t be synchronized with his illusionary space. He would have to make time to go near the Tower of Books to download the updates.

As for Long Ziyan’s reason for staying, it was naturally to learn swordsmanship here as well. The Silver Moon Mantis she had freeloaded also needed to learn blade techniques here, which made it hard for her to leave.

She also needed a massive amount of time to refine the Blade Gu, so she wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon.

It was just unclear how many materials she planned to use to refine the Blade Gu. Long Xuan couldn't help but wonder.

However, thinking about how she insisted on perfecting even her Gu house, she probably wouldn’t just refine a Blade Gu with five hundred materials. That wouldn’t fit her personality.

Long Xuan took out the Dragon Blood Battle Gu recipe that Long Qian had given him and finally began to study it seriously.

Creating a new Gu recipe was difficult, but replacing a small portion of the materials in the recipe? That was not hard at all for him.

For such matters, he only needed to find similar materials. The workload was a hundred times less than creating a new Gu recipe from scratch.

This business was simply too easy, effortless even. He didn’t need to put in much effort to easily obtain the massive amount of materials needed to refine the Blade Gu. He had truly struck it rich this time, and even now, there was still a faint smile on his face.

A month later, Long Xuan put down the Gu recipe with a slight smile on his lips. The task had gone as expected, and in just one month, he had replaced all the extinct materials in the Dragon Blood Battle Gu recipe with ones that were still available.

However, there were now a hundred more materials than in the original recipe. He wasn’t sure if the new recipe was stronger or weaker.

But one should never assume that a recipe with more materials was necessarily stronger than one with fewer materials. That was definitely not a sure thing.

Up to now, all of his peak-grade Gu worms had fewer materials than the Dragon Blood Battle Gu, but he didn’t believe that his peak-grade Gu insect were any weaker than the Dragon Blood Battle Gu.

The strength of a Gu didn’t just come from its innate quality but also from how a Gu cultivator developed and used it. A powerful evolution path could even defy fate.

Moreover, each Gu recipe had different failure rates, and the cost of a recipe with more materials wasn’t necessarily higher than one with fewer materials.

After organizing and storing the Gu recipe, Long Xuan found himself with nothing to do for the moment.

The Dragon Blood Battle Gu recipe had been successfully improved, but he didn’t dare submit it just yet.

The time frame was simply too short. A Gu recipe with over ten thousand materials was an enormous undertaking. Who would believe he completed the task in just a month? There was no guarantee that others wouldn’t become suspicious.

He had to drag it out for a few years, completing the task only with difficulty. That would be more believable.

No normal person could replace the lost materials in the Dragon Blood Battle Gu recipe in just a month.

The most important reason to delay was that the longer he dragged it out, the more materials he could embezzle. That was the key point.

If he submitted it now, how could he continue embezzling? How could he gather enough materials to refine the Blade Gu? He hadn’t stayed here long enough yet.

Every day, a large amount of materials was being sent into this enormous secret chamber. Now that the recipe was complete, all the materials were essentially going into his pocket.

There were already countless insect-rearing bags on the ground, each containing a type of spirit insect.

To prevent one spirit insect from devouring another, each insect-rearing bag only contained one type of insect, resulting in bags scattered all over the place.

However, taking so many spirit insects out of here would definitely be difficult. After much thought, Long Xuan decided not to risk smuggling the insect resources out. He would simply refine the Blade Gu right here.

Once the Blade Gu was successfully refined, he would leave.