Chapter 1

In the endless darkness, Long Xuan woke up in shock from a dream.

"Where is this?"

He looked around in confusion, his brows furrowed.

What he saw was a cluttered bedroom with a musty smell lingering in the air.

When his eyes landed on a bronze mirror on the table, the reflection of a handsome fifteen or sixteen-year-old boy appeared in his vision.

He quickly realized that he had transmigrated. Soon, a flood of unfamiliar memories surged into his mind, further confirming his suspicion.

This was a strange world similar to one of cultivation, with pills, artifacts, formations, talismans, beast taming, insect control, sword control, puppetry...

The boy practiced Gu insect cultivation and lived in a region inhabited by other Gu cultivators. People in this area gained powerful strength by raising and refining Gu insects.

A Gu, as it was called, involved placing different types of spiritual insects in a container and letting them kill each other.

Over time, there was a chance that a more powerful new insect species would emerge.

These new insect species, born from this method, were called Gu insects. Gu insects could not reproduce and could only be obtained through refining.

Depending on the types and quantities of spiritual insects in the container, there were countless combinations.

Different combinations produced different Gu insects, varying in shape, strength, and abilities, some bizarre and unpredictable.

Broadly, they could be categorized into two types: external Gu, which were larger and used for external combat, and internal Gu, which were smaller and could parasitize the Gu cultivator's body, providing the cultivator with various miraculous abilities like breathing fire and summoning lightning. Internal Gu offered numerous abilities by growing within the cultivator's body and feeding off its nutrients.

Some internal Gu were harmful rather than beneficial to the cultivator and could be secretly placed in an enemy's food, making them hard to detect and almost impossible to guard against. Those affected would often die as the Gu ate their internal organs.

It was noteworthy that many combinations failed to produce Gu insects, and those that did produce powerful Gu were extremely rare.

Gu cultivators recorded successful combinations on paper, turning them into Gu recipes that could be passed down through generations.

A Gu recipe was the foundation of a family's enduring prosperity and their most important asset.

Each family guarded their Gu recipes as treasures, never sharing them.

Therefore, for ordinary people, learning Gu recipes was extremely difficult.

The original owner of Long Xuan's body was a poor, ordinary person working as a laborer in a medicinal garden to earn a meager income, with no opportunity to learn Gu recipes.

The original owner, also named Long Xuan, was of low status, orphaned since childhood, and was born with a "golden finger," a typical protagonist trait.

However, to the original owner, this golden finger seemed useless, leading to a life of poverty and struggle despite having it.

Upon seeing these memories, Long Xuan couldn't help but frown.

A useless golden finger? Unheard of! After reading countless novels, it was the first time he'd encountered such a situation.

This protagonist's golden finger was not a system but merely the ability to see the growth of all things.

This was its only function—just seeing, without the ability to alter anything. Apart from visualizing a number, it had no practical use.

At first glance, it indeed seemed useless, as spiritual beasts and insects could have their growth assessed by their size, and there were many ways to determine the age of medicinal herbs. It didn't really need his ability to identify them.

Long Xuan fell into deep thought. According to the memories, this ability allowed him to see the growth progress of all things in the world, not just living things.

It seemed that any named entity, living or non-living, could have its growth progress seen.

However, using the term "growth" for non-living things seemed inaccurate. Long Xuan preferred a modern term, calling it "progress" instead.

While the original owner thought this ability was useless, Long Xuan disagreed. He believed this ability had great potential for development.

There are no useless golden fingers, only useless hosts—it all depended on the host's creativity.

Despite its size, Elder Long's garden only grew the lowest grade, first-grade spiritual herbs, and all of them were flowers, filling the garden with a rich floral fragrance.

Following the instructions in his memories, Long Xuan carried a bucket of green liquid into the garden. The green liquid was fertilizer.

Unlike stinky manure, this fertilizer had to be bought from a guild and was called ripening liquid by Long Xuan.

Using ripening liquid on spiritual herbs could halve their growth period.

Long Xuan was very interested in this ripening liquid, sniffing it closely as if trying to figure out its components.

If ordinary ripening liquid could have such an effect, then advanced ripening liquid could possibly reduce the millennia-long growth period of spiritual herbs to mere centuries.

He firmly believed that once he knew the formula of this ripening liquid, he could apply his golden finger to develop an advanced ripening liquid.

"Too bad I don't have a microscope," Long Xuan sighed, shaking his head.

Unable to make a microscope, he could only use his golden finger to achieve a similar capability. In this world where everyone used Gu, he felt it necessary to develop a Gu insect with this ability.

After some more study, finding that the progress rate might represent the shelf life of the ripening liquid but nothing more, he gave up and planned to revisit the research once he had created a microscope-Gu.

Long Xuan composed himself, scooping a ladle of ripening liquid onto a spiritual medicine called Moonlight Flower, increasing its growth from 17.1% to 17.2%.

After a glance, he continued pouring a second ladle, seeing the progress rise from 17.2% to 17.3%.

When he poured a third ladle, the progress remained unchanged.

Long Xuan pondered and thought of the second function of the golden finger. To verify his suspicion, he continued to pour three consecutive scoops of the ripening liquid on another type of spiritual herb, and this time, there were three changes in progress.

He tried pouring the fourth scoop, and only then did the progress stop increasing.

"indeed, is that so?"

Long Xuan showed an excited expression.

According to Elder Long's instructions, he needed to water each spiritual herb with three scoops once every seven days.

But now it seemed that the amount used was not precise, and perhaps the watering intervals were also not accurate.

The types of spiritual herbs were different, so the amount of ripening liquid naturally varied.

Some spiritual herbs absorbed well and might need three scoops, while others might need just one scoop, and more than that could be counterproductive.

There would also be significant differences in watering times; some needed watering every seven days, while others might need it every five days.

The merchants could only estimate an approximate amount, and wastage was inevitable. To make more money, they might even exaggerate the required amount.

However, Long Xuan could tailor the approach perfectly, using the precise amount for each type of spiritual herb and ensuring seamless timing in fertilizing.

What does this mean? It means that without affecting the yield, he could embezzle a portion of the ripening liquid.

It also means that under his extreme cultivation, the spiritual herbs would mature much faster than expected, naturally surpassing the previous yields within a certain period.

According to the original owner's memory, Elder Long used the spiritual herbs in the medicine garden to pay salaries. As long as the stipulated amount was delivered on time, the extra yield would be his salary.

The harder the original owner worked, the more he earned. If he was lazy and the yield couldn't meet the required amount, he would have to pay out of his own pocket.

And Elder Long only cared about the results, not the process. He didn't care how the original owner managed the medicine garden, and he had never inspected it, being in seclusion for many years.

So, isn't this the first bucket of gold?

A smile appeared on Long Xuan's face. The golden finger was indeed useful; not only was it not useless, but it was also somewhat extraordinary.

The golden finger Is not a system but an bug.