Chapter 64

So, while the clones were working feverishly in the medicine garden, Long Xuan began his great undertaking of grinding spirit techniques.

The clones were sweating in the fields, he was grinding spirit techniques; the spirit bees were busy in the medicine garden, he was grinding spirit techniques, regardless of wind or rain.

Just like that, half a year passed in a flash.

Long Xuan heavily closed a book with the three large characters "Five Elements Palm" written on the cover, and one could see a line of small text written on the bottom right corner of the cover:

——Long Xuan Zhe

This book, titled "Five Elements Palm," was the spirit technique he had created through half a year of bitter grinding.

Long Xuan was excited and self-satisfied, full of a sense of achievement, with a faint smile on the corner of his mouth.

A spirit technique so awesome was born in his hands; he was proud and complacent, arrogant, and at this moment he truly had a feeling of being in high spirits; he was about to inflate.

What kind of spirit technique was it that actually made him so proud?

"Five Elements Palm" was a palm technique he created using the principle of the five elements mutual generation cycle, divided into five forms in total.

First form: Blazing Flame Palm

The spiritual power cycle route is Earth → Metal → Water → Wood → Fire.

Second form: Life-Destroying Palm

The spiritual power cycle route is Fire → Earth → Metal → Water → Wood.

Third form: Surging Waves Palm

The spiritual power cycle route is Wood → Fire → Earth → Metal → Water.

Fourth form: Vajra Palm

The spiritual power cycle route is Water → Wood → Fire → Earth → Metal.

Fifth form: Tathagata Palm

The spiritual power cycle route is Metal → Water → Wood → Fire → Earth.

This first form, Blazing Flame Palm, was the palm technique he planned that could strike out fire.

After starting with Earth and progressing layer by layer, this Blazing Flame Palm was simply terrifyingly boundless.

If others' fire-attribute spirit techniques struck out fire, then his Blazing Flame Palm struck out a sea of fire, a sea of fire with extreme power, with an extremely wide attack range.

Using a sea of fire for large-scale attacks, leaving the enemy with nowhere to hide.

It could be said that his basic attack was others' ultimate move.

It was unreasonably strong.

Being a fire-type spirit technique, his Blazing Flame Palm was enough to beat the vast majority of fire-releasing spirit techniques in this world.

Since the spiritual power cycle ending in fire could create the Blazing Flame Palm, then by the same token, ending with the other attributes could naturally create spirit techniques of the other four attributes.

This required him to think of four other brain holes to make up the remaining four forms of "Five Elements Palm."

This time it didn't take much brainpower; since they were supporting spirit techniques, the attack methods conceived just needed to match the characteristics of the mutated spiritual power.

Different from ordinary spiritual power, mutated spiritual power naturally had special aspects; each type of mutated spiritual power was unique, each with its own characteristics.

The characteristics of the "Ten Extremes Scripture" mutated spiritual power could be summarized in one word each.

Fire burns, wood grows, water is dense, metal is firm, earth is heavy.

So designing the other four forms just needed to lean on these four words: grow, dense, firm, and heavy, ensuring 100% compatibility.

For example, the characteristic of wood is growth; growth is the power of growth. What Long Xuan first thought of was the ripening technique in cultivation novels, a spirit technique that could ripen spirit herbs. He didn't expect that he would actually succeed in researching it.

The Life-Destroying Palm had the effect of ripening spirit herbs, but striking it on a person would instead have the opposite effect, destroying a person's vitality and causing irreversible damage.

So this move was named Life-Destroying Palm by Long Xuan, not Ripening Palm.

And although the Life-Destroying Palm's ability to ripen spirit herbs was heaven-defying, it would be limited by the cultivation realm.

The higher the realm, the more spiritual power, and the more years it could ripen.

If the realm was too low and spiritual power too little, the ripened years would naturally not be many.

At this time, he was only at the Spirit Gathering Stage, and his mutated spiritual power was only at the primary stage of two-attribute fusion, so the ripening effect was naturally negligible; at most, ten days per palm would be good. It was truly tasteless, and definitely couldn't be used in the short term; it was far less practical than the other side of the Life-Destroying Palm.

As for the last three forms of "Five Elements Palm"—Surging Waves Palm, Vajra Palm, and Tathagata Palm—what kind of brain holes were these?

Since he had even thought of the names, he naturally already had ideas in his heart and had long since prepared drafts.

If Blazing Flame Palm was a group attack, then Tathagata Palm was a single attack, Surging Waves Palm was a long-range attack, and Vajra Palm was a close-range attack.

The abilities of these five forms of "Five Elements Palm" were very comprehensive.

However, time was limited, and he was a bit tired, so these last three forms would have to stop updating for a while...

Long Xuan took out a communication talisman from his storage bag; this was the communication talisman given to him by Li Laodao, and the general meaning on it was that he was preparing to go to the Ten Thousand Mountains to hunt spirit beasts and wanted to invite him to form a team to go together.

If it were in the past, he would have refused without a second thought; going to the wilderness was simply too dangerous. He wouldn't go anywhere; he would just stay in his comfortable little nest.

But this time, it probably wouldn't work. Recently, there were signs of spirit beasts gathering in the Ten Thousand Mountains, indicating the possibility of a beast tide.

Therefore, the strong in the vicinity united to issue a statement requiring all loose cultivators to go to the Ten Thousand Mountains to clear out spirit beasts, so as not to cause an impact on the villages after a beast tide formed.

This was a mandatory order; when a beast tide comes, everyone is responsible, and no one can stay out of it.

It wasn't easy for him not to go, so he had to interrupt his research on spirit techniques and prepare to take a trip to the Ten Thousand Mountains.

It just so happened that Li Laodao issued an invitation to form a team at this time, so he went along with the trend and agreed.

Speaking of which, he also had quite an interest in hunting spirit beasts. In his past life, parasites would grow in animals' bodies, so it was reasonable for spirit beasts in this world to also have insects, right?

Spirit beasts in this world also have insects, and even top-grade spirit insects; it was one of the sources for obtaining top-grade spirit insects.

Killing spirit beasts in this world was equivalent to dropping equipment, which would drop spirit insects of various grades, making countless loose cultivators flock to it, slowly forming the profession of hunter; they made a living by hunting spirit beasts.

Just like playing games and killing monsters to drop equipment in his past life, the dropped spirit insects were all random, and whether one could brush a top-grade spirit insect depended entirely on luck.

Some people had bad luck and would always drop low-grade spirit insects, while some people were children of fortune and could drop a top-grade spirit insect just by killing the first spirit beast.

As for which spirit beast had good insects in its body, you couldn't tell at all; you could only hunt high-grade spirit beasts to increase the drop rate.

Because spirit beasts and humans were another growth system, spirit beasts' various abilities were not learned through acquired learning, but inherited through bloodline.

The ancestors of spirit beasts copied all their abilities onto their bloodline, inheriting them from generation to generation, so that spirit beasts didn't have to spend time learning and could naturally master various powerful forces.

Of course, the next generation of spirit beasts couldn't master all the abilities of the ancestor beasts, otherwise wouldn't there be ancestor beasts everywhere?

For example, if a certain powerful ancestor beast had ten thousand abilities, then which ability its descendants would inherit was completely random; if the luck was bad, they would awaken garbage abilities and be at the bottom of the food chain, and if the luck was good, they would awaken heaven-defying abilities and could become a beast king.

And as the bloodline of ancestor beasts became thinner generation by generation, the number of abilities awakened by spirit beasts would become fewer and fewer, until now most spirit beasts only had one or a few abilities.

Those abilities that failed to awaken were called recessive abilities by humans; they actually had always been hidden in the spirit beasts' bloodline and had not disappeared.

If a certain spirit beast was gifted and an atavism phenomenon occurred, then those recessive abilities would still have the possibility of awakening.

But the strange thing was that the parasites born in the spirit beasts' bodies might carry the spirit beasts' recessive abilities.

It just so happened that spirit beasts were not Gu cultivators and simply couldn't borrow this power.

Therefore, what kind of spirit insects a spirit beast would have in its body could not be judged at all through the spirit beast's abilities.

Perhaps a garbage spirit beast that could only spit bubbles might have a spirit insect in its body that possessed the heaven-defying power to trigger a flood; it was just like opening a blind box, with no rules and no method of judgment.

Long Xuan was completely an exception; he could see the progress of the spirit insects in the spirit beasts' bodies. He could see at a glance which spirit beast had a top-grade spirit insect in its body, and he didn't need to open blind boxes and gamble on luck like others. Entering the spirit beast world was just like turning on navigation for him.

So this large-scale spirit beast hunting mission, although it had a certain danger for him, wasn't it also a kind of opportunity?

Based on the fact that the clones didn't have the golden finger to see the progress, he wasn't prepared to let the clones go in his place. To find top-grade spirit insects like turning on navigation, it had to be him, the original body.

The Ten Thousand Mountains were full of treasures for someone like him. It wasn't that it was possible for him to find top-grade spirit insects here; it was certain. The only concern was the issue of whether his strength was enough.

Therefore, Long Xuan didn't show much rejection toward this mandatory mission; on the contrary, he was even faintly looking forward to it, as if a large area of top-grade spirit insects was beckoning to him ahead...

Actually, there was another type of parasite in spirit beasts. Besides being born naturally, the spirit insects in spirit beasts' bodies could also come from the outside world.

When a spirit beast drinks water or passes through a certain grass, it is very likely that a spirit insect born in the natural world will jump onto its body, and then hide in the hair to parasitize there.

Necessarily fleas, lice, ticks... this type of spirit insect.

There were also many insects unique to this world that even Long Xuan, an entomologist, had never seen.

However, parasites living on the surface of spirit beasts' bodies were easily discovered by sharp-eyed Gu cultivators. Once teamed up with other Gu cultivators, this type of spirit insect was not something he could easily target.

His target was still the spirit insects born naturally in the spirit beasts' bodies; his teammates couldn't see them, and he could have a lot of room for operation.

Long Xuan had great interest in this trip. After replying to the communication talisman, he immediately packed his things and headed to the location agreed upon with Li Laodao.

There was a reason for everything; before leaving, he also asked for leave from Long Lao to pause the work in the medicine garden for a period of time.

The medicine garden wouldn't die if it wasn't looked after for a month. Long Lao agreed without thinking; he also knew about the possibility of a beast tide, so he didn't ask much and continued to study the pill formula for the Hundred Flowers Pill there, which made Long Xuan anxious.

How long had it been? He was almost tired of eating the Hundred Flowers Pill, and Long Lao still hadn't researched it.

It is worth mentioning that this time, the beast tide clearing mission would not involve all the Gu cultivators of the great clans; a considerable number of people would be left behind.

After all, the great clans were not like loose cultivators; with large families and big businesses, they had to leave a certain amount of strength to guard the home, and Long Lao was one of the personnel who didn't need to participate in this mission.

Don't talk about unfairness; this world was never fair, and everything was like this. Fairness was always only in the hands of the strong; the loose cultivator group was weak and could only be manipulated by others.

The location Li Laodao agreed upon was the Qian Family Inn in the market. Long Xuan followed the guidance of the communication talisman and walked into one of the private rooms in the inn.

As soon as he entered the private room, he discovered that there were already quite a few people in the room. Clearly, the people Li Laodao invited were far more than just him, and these people were, as expected, his teammates for this trip.

In the room were three men and two women. There was no need to mention Li Laodao; he was very familiar with him. There was also a little medicine boy whose name he didn't know, who often sold him junk, so he could be considered half an acquaintance.

Another was an old man whose face he recognized. Long Xuan thought for a long time before remembering: wasn't this the little old man who sold him the hive many years ago? He just had poor eyesight and sold him superior-grade spirit bees as medium-grade spirit bees.

He didn't expect that after not seeing him for so many years, he would see him again today, and coincidentally become his teammate. Truly, things are unpredictable.

As for the other two women, because Long Xuan's clones often visited the market to participate in various trading conferences, he also knew these two women.

One was an old woman named Han Mei, and the other was a middle-aged woman with ordinary looks named Zhang Ling.

These five were all at the peak of the Spirit Gathering Stage, and were only one step away from the Essence Refining Stage, which could be considered the batch of loose cultivators with the strongest combat power among those at the Spirit Gathering Stage in the market.

Here, only Long Xuan was at the late Spirit Gathering Stage, which could be considered dragging the team's legs.

"Li Laodao, why did you find someone at the late Spirit Gathering Stage to come over? Isn't this intentionally dragging our legs? I don't want to bring a drag-along."

That old man with poor eyesight lived up to his poor eyesight; he still hadn't recognized Long Xuan until now. Seeing that the newcomer's realm was on the low side, he showed a slight look of dissatisfaction.

Li Laodao immediately walked over to smooth things over and said: "Old Ma, you haven't been in the market for so many years, so you don't know. This little friend is named Long Xuan. Don't look at his low realm, but his combat power is not low at all."

"It's not convenient to disclose the specifics, but he definitely has the strength of the peak Spirit Gathering Stage, otherwise why would I invite him over? What good would it do me to bring a drag-along?"

"You can just put your heart at ease. Even if his strength is insufficient, he has a Cockroach Gu to protect him, so he won't die easily. How could he drag our legs?"

Hearing that the newcomer, although at the late Spirit Gathering Stage, had the strength of the peak Spirit Gathering Stage, Old Ma showed a look of surprise and suspicion, and couldn't help but look at this face carefully again. After looking carefully, he suddenly felt that this face was somewhat familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere before.

After a long time, he finally came to his senses: wasn't this person the young man who bought his hive many years ago?

He suddenly widened his eyes; he discovered that he had misjudged shortly after he went back at that time.

After all, superior-grade honey couldn't turn into medium-grade honey no matter how it changed. Since the superior-grade honey was still in his hands, it would sooner or later be exposed.

As soon as he thought that what he sold was actually a hive of superior-grade spirit bees, he slapped his thighs in anger, and his intestines turned green with regret.

Now that he saw the person in question, he suddenly widened his eyes and shouted out of composure: "So it was you, brat! You treacherous brat actually deceived me so miserably. Hurry up and return the superior-grade spirit bee hive to me?"

Hearing this, Long Xuan showed a confused expression and asked blankly: "Who are you? I don't know you. What spirit bee hive? I don't know what you're talking about..."

"Hahaha..." Li Laodao patted his shoulder at this time and laughed loudly: "Old friend, how many years have the rules of the market been? You can't settle old accounts after misjudging. Have you forgotten the rules after being away for so many years?"

Saying this, Li Laodao stopped paying attention to him, walked to Long Xuan's front and said: "Don't worry about him. The market has the market's rules. You brat really have good luck to be able to pick up a superior-grade spirit bee hive at a low price."

"The market price of superior-grade honey is not low. If your medicine garden is full of flowers, relying on selling honey will be another not-small source of wealth."

Li Laodao showed a look of envy, thinking at this time whether he should also trade some superior-grade honey with him after returning. Superior-grade honey is a good thing, but he didn't know what kind of superior-grade spirit bee could make Old Ma so out of composure. His eyes turned.

Long Xuan glanced at Old Ma, who was looking at him fiercely, chose to ignore him, and started chatting with Li Laodao.

"Without further ado, I have never hunted in the Ten Thousand Mountains and know nothing about the situation there. How dangerous is this hunt?" Long Xuan showed a serious look.

"Haha, you can just put your heart at ease. I guarantee that this trip to the Ten Thousand Mountains will be 100% safe and no accidents will happen. You can just put your heart at ease!" Li Laodao immediately patted his chest and guaranteed, his tone very confident.

"100% safe?" Long Xuan's voice lengthened, his eyebrows raised. He always felt that this sentence was familiar. Li Laodao also said it was 100% safe when he invited him to the ancient tomb last time, right? But what was the result?

Driven by the great clans as cannon fodder, the loose cultivators who went died in large numbers. He was fortunate not to have followed.

Was what this Li Laodao said definitely reliable?

"Are you sure it's reliable? You told me the same thing last time." Long Xuan couldn't help but ask, showing a look of suspicion.

Li Laodao immediately understood which time Long Xuan was referring to, so his old face turned red, and he said with a slightly embarrassed look: "Last time was an accident. Don't worry, this time it's absolutely reliable, because I invited a big shot to lead the way..."

(End of chapter)