The Path of Immortality: Starts With Creating Water Bear Gu

The third young master gazed intently at the Integrity Gu in Long Xuan’s arms, excitedly walked over, took a closer look, and then burst into laughter: "I, Qian Gao, am the most handsome man in the world!"

As soon as the words left the mouth of this nearly spherical fat man, the Integrity Gu in Long Xuan’s arms emitted a golden light from its eyes, blindingly bright. Only an outrageous lie could make its eyes shine so intensely.

Seeing how dishonest this person was, the Integrity Gu immediately became furious, glaring angrily at the fat man, ready to pounce and devour him.

Long Xuan was shocked and hurriedly held it down, gently stroking its head to calm it.

This little guy had quite a temper.

However, the third young master was not frightened; instead, he was delighted. The stronger the temper of the Integrity Gu, the more binding its power.

With a smile, the third young master said, "I’m very satisfied with this Integrity Gu. Now swear in front of it, and we can complete our transaction quickly."

Long Xuan nodded. He did not switch the Integrity Gu to the state where it loves hearing lies because he truly had no intention of refining the Three-Legged Golden Toad. Switching its state would only backfire.

He raised three fingers and spoke directly to the Integrity Gu: "Today, in front of this Integrity Gu, I swear that in this lifetime, I will never refine the Three-Legged Golden Toad, nor will I pass on its Gu technique in any form."

As soon as Long Xuan finished speaking, the third young master immediately laughed, warmly embracing him and saying, "Good! With that vow, I’m completely at ease."

"I will now give you the technique for the Three-Legged Golden Toad!"

With that, the third young master transferred the technique for the Three-Legged Golden Toad directly into Long Xuan’s mind using his soul power.

At the same time, he took out the Integrity Gu he had just refined to prove that the technique he handed over was genuine, with no tampering.

The technique involved a staggering twenty thousand materials, and the soul communication took quite a long time to complete.

Long Xuan was utterly shocked. The Three-Legged Golden Toad’s technique required over 200,000 materials—an unbelievable amount.

But then he recalled the overwhelming battle power of the mountain-sized Three-Legged Golden Toad he had seen earlier, and it no longer seemed surprising.

The Three-Legged Golden Toad’s power was indeed worthy of so many materials, perhaps even more.

As long as the Three-Legged Golden Toad’s stomach could hold enough treasures, it could truly become an invincible Gu insect. Its strength varied depending on the quantity and quality of the treasures stored within, meaning its power had no upper limit.

Such an extraordinary Gu insect, costing 200,000 materials to refine, was not expensive at all. In fact, it was quite cheap.

But there was a major downside: collecting so many materials would be an enormous challenge.

Gathering 200,000 materials would be a nightmare, and obtaining the prime Gu insects required would take a long time. The resources he would need to spend were astronomical.

These materials couldn’t be collected from the third son; otherwise, it would clearly signal his intent to refine the Three-Legged Golden Toad.

Thus, the task of gathering materials for the Gu technique became a headache for Long Xuan.

But at this point, all he could do was take things as they came, one step at a time.

After tossing a bottle containing the Heaven-Mending Pill to the third young master, the latter immediately beamed with excitement. He hurriedly caught it, pouring the pill into his hand and using his Golden Eyes to verify its authenticity. ȓ

Seeing no issues with the pill, the third son smiled and carefully placed it back into the bottle, storing it away safely. He then turned to Long Xuan and said:

"You’ve saved my life. I, Qian Gao, always repay my debts. From now on, you’re my brother."

"When I get through this crisis, come to my house as a guest. I’ll introduce you to my sister!"

"That’s an offer I can’t refuse. If the third young master invites me, I will certainly accept," Long Xuan said with a smile, lowering his guard slightly.

Qian Clan merchants rarely lied, so when the third young master said this, he genuinely considered Long Xuan his brother, without any malice.

Wait, the Qian Clan merchants rarely lied. Could it be that he was serious about introducing his sister to him? Long Xuan’s expression turned strange.

After their transaction was complete, both parties were pleased.

The third son had to return to Tianyue City to deal with many matters and also needed time to go into seclusion to refine the Heaven-Mending Pill’s medicinal power.

Long Xuan also needed to find a quiet place to refine the pill and restore his aptitude as soon as possible.

So, they quickly parted ways.

Long Xuan didn’t meticulously choose a secluded location. He simply found a hilltop, used an Earth Master technique to dig out a cave, and prepared to use it as a temporary retreat.

Inside the cave, Long Xuan took out a blue jade stone and a letter, falling into deep thought.

These two items had been dropped by the junior members of the Gu Spirit Sect.

Coincidentally, the primary material for the Three-Legged Golden Toad was the Golden Toad, a rare treasure-hoarding spiritual insect that only appears once every century and is extremely difficult to find.

There was no way such an extraordinary Gu insect as the Three-Legged Golden Toad could be easy to locate. Even if someone spent ten lifetimes, they might never see a trace of a Golden Toad.

Even the Qian Clan merchants struggled to collect the materials for the Three-Legged Golden Toad, making it exceedingly rare for anyone to successfully refine one.

At this moment, Long Xuan was wondering how to find this elusive Golden Toad when, as if by fate, he discovered that the letter recorded the hidden location of the Golden Toad.

How convenient was that? Long Xuan couldn’t help but feel as if this was all part of some script, giving him a sense of unreality.

Wait, his clone had just killed those five Gu Spirit Sect disciples, and a few steps later, he had seen the third young master being ambushed.

The two groups were so close to each other. Could it be that the five Gu Spirit Sect disciples had been planning to trade information about the Golden Toad with the third young master?

The third young master had taken such a risk to come out, likely for this transaction. The allure of the Golden Toad would have been irresistible to a Qian Clan merchant.

But the deal had gone awry. The third young master had narrowly avoided an assassination, and the five Gu Spirit Sect geniuses had unexpectedly died. The letter and the mysterious jade had fallen into Long Xuan’s hands.

Long Xuan took a deep breath. The more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed.

However, instead of feeling pleased about his fortune, Long Xuan frowned, his expression conflicted.

He wasn’t stupid. The hidden location of the Golden Toad was bound to be extremely dangerous. Otherwise, the Gu Spirit Sect disciples would have captured the Golden Toad themselves rather than trading its location with the third son.

After all, the value of the Golden Toad itself far exceeded the information about its location by a hundredfold.

This made it clear that the hidden location of the Golden Toad was incredibly perilous, far beyond the reach of the Gu Spirit Sect.

Long Xuan could easily imagine that the Gu Spirit Sect was a major power in the region. If even they didn’t dare approach the area, the level of danger there must be unimaginable.

So, Long Xuan hesitated.

If it were any other treasure, he would have given up by now, no matter how valuable. He would never risk his life for it.

However, the Golden Toad was precisely what he needed most, and it was extremely difficult to obtain. If his luck wasn’t good, he might never see a Golden Toad in his entire life.

If he missed this Golden Toad today, he couldn’t guarantee he would ever see a second one in the future.

Even if a second Golden Toad did appear, it would surely be taken away by the Qian Clan Chamber Of Commerce, who would rush to the scene upon hearing about it.

Whether it was in terms of financial power or the speed of gathering information, he had no chance of competing with the Qian Clan Chamber of Commerce.

Moreover, the world knew how important the Golden Toad was to the Qian Clan Chamber of Commerce Once someone found the Golden Toad, they would certainly run to the Qian Clan to drive up the price. In such a case, he would have no chance at all.

Considering all of this, Long Xuan's thoughts slowly began to lean toward taking a risk.

After a long while, Long Xuan let out a heavy sigh, picked up the letter, and carefully read it over.

According to the letter, the location of the Golden Toad was on Sky Island in the Endless Sea.

Sky Island surfaced every five hundred years and remained submerged under the sea at other times. There was a ruin on the island that only those in the Marrow Cleansing stage could enter, and it was filled with countless treasures, one of which was the Golden Toad. The letter also detailed the hidden location of the Golden Toad on the island.

Whenever Sky Island reappeared, it attracted countless Gu cultivators in the Marrow Cleansing stage who would ascend the island in search of treasure. And now, only two years remained before Sky Island would next surface.

As for how dangerous the Sky Island ruin was, the letter didn’t go into much detail. Third Young Master must have already known about it, so there was no need for further explanation in the letter.

However, just the Endless Sea alone was enough to give Long Xuan a headache.

The Endless Sea was far from the mainland, and it would take a year’s journey by ship to reach it.

Small boats lacked defense, were slow, and had poor endurance, making them incapable of handling the many dangers of the ocean.

To safely reach the distant sea, he would need to build a large ship. Only if the ship’s surface area was large enough could he engrave a formation strong enough to resist the attacks of Sea Dragon beasts.

In the face of a Sea Dragon, sailing in a small boat was certain death.

This meant he would have to research shipbuilding techniques to construct a large vessel.

However, large ships were costly to build, and the hull had to be made of materials hard enough to withstand the attacks of sea beasts, which made building a large ship extremely expensive.

The cost of constructing a ship capable of resisting a Sea Dragon was astronomical, far beyond what a single faction could easily bear, let alone an individual.

Long Xuan tapped his fingers lightly on the table, pondering the feasibility of this plan.

He didn’t have enough space on him, having left most of his treasures at home before setting out, and the wealth he currently had with him was certainly insufficient to fund the construction of a large ship.

Although he had many heaven-defying items on him, selling even one would provide enough money to build the ship.

For instance, the Heaven Mending Fruit, Soul Nourishing Tree leaves, Longevity Gu, as well as various heaven-defying techniques he had developed.

But how could he dare sell these? He would rather starve to death than sell these treasures.

After much contemplation, Long Xuan finally gritted his teeth and decided to build the large ship.

Because he suddenly realized that he had an ability no other shipbuilder possessed — the ability to engrave small formations with the help of the Eye of Heavenly Secret.

Other shipbuilders needed to engrave a massive number of formations to defend against the Sea Dragon’s attacks, which required building a large ship.

But he didn’t need to build such a large vessel. A medium-sized ship would be enough to resist the Sea Dragon’s attacks.

This would save him a great deal of material.

So, if he built the ship, it wouldn’t cost as much as he initially imagined.

If he worked his subordinates like the laboring rabbits and had his clones work overtime, and if he sold large quantities of Spiritual Pills along with some other resources, he should be able to gather enough money to build a medium-sized ship.

Long Xuan's eyes brightened, but he realized that once the ship was built, he would need to recruit a crew with experience in the distant seas.

After all, he knew nothing about the dangers of the ocean, and he was completely unfamiliar with navigating the seas.

Sailing required extensive professional knowledge, and in this area, he was an outsider. He couldn't just blindly charge forward on his own.

Furthermore, the sailors he recruited couldn’t be too weak, nor could their numbers be too small. Whenever Sky Island surfaced, it drew countless ships, each captain having a large number of helpers.

Each captain came from different regions, and those from larger regions would be incredibly powerful and not easy to deal with.

Thus, he would need to form an alliance with some people to counter against captains from different regions.

This treasure hunt required a team. Otherwise, if he was the only person on the ship, it would be easy for other crews to attack him, putting him in danger.