A few hours later, Long Xuan stared at several sheets of paper on the table, lost in thought.
The ability of the Medicinal insect to mass-produce ten-thousand-year-old spiritual herbs is truly against the heavens. It is already so incredible, yet you still want to refine it into a Gu insect. The difficulty of such a task is unimaginable.
Such a heaven-defying ability must be limited by its materials.
After several days of research, Long Xuan discovered that the upper limit of the Medicinal Gu is terrifyingly high.
The upper limit of the Medicinal Gu could involve tens of millions of materials. Even if most of these materials overlap, studying such an extensive Gu recipe would consume an enormous amount of time.
Moreover, a considerable portion of these materials must already be extinct, without a doubt, making it almost impossible to research the full recipe of the Medicine Gu.
However, Long Xuan was not willing to give up. He knew that the same material could be applied to different Gu recipes. Why should he insist on studying the longest Gu recipe? He could completely choose the shortest one.
Although the Medicinal Gu refined by taking a step back wouldn't be perfect, it would be fine to reforge it once he reached the Spirit Realm. For now, it could be used as a temporary solution.
So, after noting down the Medicinal Gu on paper, Long Xuan started experimenting with a second set of materials.
You should know that when materials can be applied to multiple Gu recipes, the Golden Finger will show the longest recipe, but he could completely refine the Gu recipe by adding materials, gradually finding the recipe with the fewest materials.
Thus, as he tested the second set of materials one by one, the progress on the paper began to change in different ways.
Sometimes the progress would disappear, sometimes it would increase slightly, sometimes it would suddenly turn into four digits, and sometimes it would suddenly turn into five digits.
Long Xuan didn't dare to be greedy, as that wasn't something he could handle at his current level.
In the end, he chose a Gu recipe that required about ten thousand materials.
Actually, the number of materials could be reduced further, but the Gu recipe with ten thousand materials could still have some extinct materials.
But Long Xuan despised the Medicinal Gu that required too few materials, as it was too weak, and he didn't have the motivation to study it.
So he chose to aim a bit higher, and it wouldn't hurt to take a risk once in a while. If he failed, he could just switch to a Gu recipe with fewer materials. At most, it would cost him some time, which he could afford to lose.
With this in mind, Long Xuan discarded the other Gu recipes and chose the one with about ten thousand materials. He then began a retreat to focus on creating his own Medicinal Gu recipe.
...
Meanwhile, on Dragon Island in the West Sea.
The final battle between the Long Clan and the Zhu and Song Clans had arrived.
The Gu Masters of both sides stood in rows, facing each other on a flat terrain.
However, this time, the West Sea Long Clan had the support of the Far West Long Clan, and their numbers did not show any disadvantage. Both sides had about ten thousand Gu Masters.
Finally, with a sound like a dragon's roar, the Long Clan’s morale soared, and they launched the first attack.
Each Gu Master of the Far West Long Clan took out a giant Earth master Gu from their insect pouch and mounted its back.
Just when the Gu Masters of the Zhu and Song Clans thought they would charge on these massive creatures, the Long Clan's actions took them by surprise. They were soon bewildered. r
Each Earth master spat out a massive earth ball that didn't match its body size and then hurled it forcefully into the sky.
Under normal circumstances, this kind of attack would be scoffed at, as projectile attacks fall too slowly and can be easily dodged by anyone.
But have you ever seen five thousand Earth masters throwing earth balls simultaneously?
The earth balls were so huge, and with five thousand of them launched at once, they covered the entire sky. When they crashed to the ground, they could achieve a seamless attack with no gaps.
Given the tight formation in large-scale battles, how could the Zhu and Song Clans' Gu Masters dodge when the sky was covered by these falling earth balls? In an instant, the faces of the Zhu and Song Clans' Gu Masters turned pale.
The patriarch of the Zhu and Song clans shouted at the top of his lungs. However, before they could even speak, the Gu cultivators from both sides had already been defeated in a landslide and were desperately fleeing for their lives. There was no need for further instructions.
By this time, the allied forces of the two families had completely lost their fighting spirit and will to fight, collapsing at the mere touch of the Long Clan’s Gu cultivators.
The Long Clan won this war without shedding a single drop of blood. It was a miracle.
The Gu cultivators from the West Sea Long Clan were stunned, all of them wide-eyed, staring at the scene in disbelief, mouths agape.
Defeating the allied forces of the Zhu and Song families so effortlessly was simply unbelievable.
“It seems like there’s no more work for us, huh?”
The patriarch of the West Sea Long Clan gazed ahead in a daze, giving a bitter smile.
“We really were unnecessary here. Having just their clan was enough. What kind of Gu insect is that? A so-called low-grade Gu insect? You call that a low-grade Gu insect?”
The Grand Elder of the West Sea Long Clan stared blankly at the massive creatures, muttering in a daze.
“What a monstrous Gu insect! What kind of low-grade Gu insect is this? Has Heaven gone blind to classify such a ridiculous Gu insect as low-grade?”
The Third Elder of the West Sea Long Clan shouted in disbelief, completely shocked by the scene.
This battle overturned their understanding. The Earth Master’s combat strategy was simply unimaginable—summoning meteors from the sky and wielding the protective mountain formation to attack. He had never seen such a warfare method before. Who could withstand such a combo?
If the Zhu and Song families didn’t lose, it would be a miracle. Even if it were them in their place, they would have been defeated even more miserably.
All the senior members of the West Sea Long Clan displayed expressions of extreme seriousness, looking at the Far West Long Clan’s Gu cultivators with different eyes.
In this battle, the Earth Masters had slain everyone in sight. The Earth Master Cavalry had achieved remarkable results in their first battle, shocking even the Far West Long Clan’s Gu cultivators, let alone the onlookers. All the forces paying attention to this war were alarmed.
This battle marked the rise to fame of the Earth Masters, who became a terrifying presence that all forces feared.
The newly emerged powerful Earth Master Gu species began to be widely known, and its creator was increasingly sought after.
However, it was not until many years later that people learned that this famous Gu was created by a genius youth who was merely at the Spirit Gathering stage at the time. But that’s a story for another time.
At this moment, Long Xuan was still unaware that the Earth Masters would ignite the entire world like a blazing fire through this battle. The instigator, who almost exterminated the Zhu and Song families, was quietly refining Gu formulas in a small pavilion.
This time, the process of refining the Gu recipe went unexpectedly smoothly because the caterpillar was just too weak. Any low-grade spirit insect could easily devour it.
How could a Gu recipe allow the primary insect to be devoured? So, all insect species stronger than the caterpillar were essentially eliminated.
Yet, the caterpillar was at the bottom of the insect hierarchy. Almost every insect was stronger than it, so after such elimination, there weren’t many options left to include in the Gu recipe.
As a result, after going through the process of elimination, Long Xuan didn’t have many insect species left to choose from, naturally saving a lot of time.
Moreover, although the medicinal Gu recipe required ten thousand materials, there were so many repeated materials that the actual variety used could barely amount to a thousand.
Thus, Long Xuan took only half a year to develop the heaven-defying medicinal Gu formula.
He brushed off the non-existent dust on the Gu recipe, revealing an extremely proud smile.
“Heh, because the number of the Ten Supreme Spirit Insects is unique under Heaven, no one has ever been able to develop a Gu recipe using them as primary materials.”
“Only me! Only I, Long Xuan, have broken what no one before me could and created a Gu recipe using the Ten Supreme Spiritual Insects as the primary materials! Who else?”
Long Xuan was brimming with confidence, letting out an immensely proud laugh.
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