After Long Xuan had excavated most of the Mithril Essence, he retreated into a small wooden house. Sitting at the table, he finally resumed his previous plan—contemplating the creation of an extensive Gu recipe, aiming to test the capabilities of the Soul Library.
The power that the Soul Library could exert was entirely dependent on soul strength. Currently, his soul was relatively weak, only allowing him to slow time by a factor of three.
This meant that reading three days' worth of books in the Soul Library would be equivalent to just one day in the outside world.
This was akin to saving three times the time cost. With that in mind, Long Xuan decided to aim high and attempt to create a Gu recipe that would require over ten thousand materials.
He had to put his creativity to good use. What kind of idea would require over ten thousand materials? This wasn’t an easy concept to come up with and required careful thought.
But Long Xuan enjoyed this kind of brainstorming. It was his specialty, and he had no shortage of wild ideas.
With excitement, he began to design a Gu recipe with an enormous number of materials.
Actually, it wasn’t that difficult. All he needed to do was attribute an exaggerated ability to the fictional Gu insect, and the material count would naturally surpass ten thousand.
The real limitation was the availability of materials. If the ability was too exaggerated, the materials required would certainly be beyond his reach.
It would be ideal if he could use materials that he already possessed, focusing the Gu recipe around them to avoid the tragedy of spending decades searching for the primary materials and still not finding them.
What did he have on hand that could serve as the core material for a heaven-defying Gu recipe? Long Xuan fell into silence.
After a long contemplation, he finally pulled out the Ten Thousand Poison Bead he had recently acquired, with a thoughtful expression on his face.
This thing was potent. If he used it as a material to create something, it would definitely be heaven-defying.
But the primary material for a Gu recipe was usually a living insect. Could he push the boundaries and use an inanimate object instead? This would be a bold experiment.
A glimmer of excitement flashed in Long Xuan’s eyes. Once this bold idea surfaced, he couldn’t hold back. He was eager to give it a try.
After all, he didn’t need to consume any actual materials to research a Gu recipe. So why not give it a shot? If it failed, he’d lose nothing but a tiny bit of time.
With that thought, he sprang into action, grabbing a pen and paper. He quickly wrote:
Gu Recipe
Primary Material: "Ten Thousand Poison Bead"
As soon as he finished writing these words, a long string of progress indicators appeared on the paper.
Long Xuan’s eyes lit up immediately. It worked! Inanimate objects could indeed be used as the primary material in a Gu recipe. He was shocked.
Could the innate spiritual treasures of this world really be used to refine Gu and become the core materials of a recipe? If word got out, no one would believe it!
His breathing became slightly erratic, and the inspiration for the next Gu insect began to form in his mind. He was sure that the Gu insect refined from the Ten Thousand Poison Bead would definitely be heaven-defying, perhaps even more terrifying than the bead itself.
The Ten Thousand Poison Bead had easily killed a genius from the Great Yin Dynasty. How powerful would the Gu insect refined from it be?
Long Xuan’s heart surged with excitement. He couldn’t wait to give this Gu recipe a name and unleash his creativity.
Naming the Gu recipe didn’t advance the progress, no matter how many words he wrote. Even writing a million words wouldn’t change the progress.
However, if the content of the name couldn’t be realized by the Ten Thousand Poison Bead, the progress would vanish.
Therefore, Long Xuan could judge the feasibility of his idea based on the progress indicators.
Even textbooks from his previous life, like physics and chemistry, could be found here, with every word clearly legible.
This ability essentially allowed him to have a photographic memory. Once a soul book was formed, any knowledge he had almost forgotten would become crystal clear again, and he could recite the text word for word, even backward.
This was a skill he had discovered unintentionally.
Using this ability, he could skim through books quickly and store a massive amount of knowledge in his soul library, all of which he could recite without error.
This ability was terrifying—who on earth had designed such an extraordinary skill?
Of course, if he wanted to read new books here, he would need to borrow the power of the Origin Realm.
When the time came, this space would expand, with many new bookshelves and new books appearing.
But using this power would greatly increase the energy consumption, and for now, he didn’t need to rely on that.
His purpose for coming here wasn’t to read—it was to grind through the Gu recipe.
He wanted to see just how long it would take to complete a Gu recipe with over 100,000 materials in his soul library.
Long Xuan’s eyes gleamed with excitement. Full of motivation, he immediately found the table in the center of the library and sat down...
...
Time passed slowly, and in a blink, half a year had gone by.
During this half-year, without any surprises, the incident of Long Xuan defeating Ye Xiu had spread, making him even more famous. His ranking had risen by two more places, placing him fifth on the Western lands’ list of prodigies.
The first place was still Long Dan, and Long Ziyan wasn’t even ranked. She had long since become a Gu cultivator at the Spiritual Sea level and had entered the ranks of seniors. Her battlefield was now entirely composed of Spiritual Sea-level Gu cultivators.
She had comprehended an unknown number of sword intents, and by fusing all of them together, the power she unleashed was beyond imagination.
Whenever she appeared on the battlefield, she slaughtered everyone in her path, whether gods or Buddhas, defeating the Gu cultivators of the Great Yin Dynasty at the Spiritual Sea level with ease. No one could stop her. The number of Spiritual Sea-level Gu cultivators who had fallen by her hand had already exceeded double digits.
Faced with this killing star, the Spiritual Sea-level Gu cultivators of the Great Yin Dynasty were utterly terrified. Her mere presence would send them fleeing in fear; just one glance at her, and they would run.
Her fame was now unmatched, and being both beautiful and powerful, she was even more admired.
This was the true definition of a monster. Long Xuan hadn’t expected that he would inadvertently create such a terrifying existence, causing such chaos.
He knew the "Immortal-Slaying Formation" could aid Long Ziyan in comprehending sword intent, but he had never imagined she could comprehend so much.
Comprehending sword intent wasn’t something easily achieved. His clone had been going into the formation every day to comprehend blade intent, yet hadn’t grasped a single thing.
He had always thought his perception was high enough, but it seemed that perception alone wasn’t enough to comprehend sword or blade intent.
If even a genius like him found it so difficult to comprehend blade intent, there was no need to mention others.
In other words, for anyone else entering the Immortal-Slaying Formation, it would be impossible to comprehend hundreds of sword intents like Long Ziyan did. Such an outrageous feat wasn’t something a normal person could achieve.
Sword intent that didn’t match one’s own attributes and willpower couldn’t be comprehended, no matter how many times you died from it.
Only someone like Long Ziyan could create such miracles.
Who knew how she managed to comprehend any sword intent she encountered?