Chapter 65: Little Medicine Boy

Upon hearing this, everyone in the room immediately pricked up their ears.

They were well aware of the dangers one would encounter when hunting spirit beasts in the Ten Thousand Mountains; that was absolutely a mission that could cost one their life.

Spirit beasts were not so easily hunted. If hunting them were truly that easy, all the loose cultivators would have become wealthy long ago, rather than being poorer than a clean face, one by one.

Spirit beasts generally possessed formidable physical bodies and running speeds far faster than humans.

Once a spirit beast ignored the Gu worms and charged straight at a Gu cultivator with a frail body, it would be an absolutely fatal situation.

The loose cultivators who went to hunt spirit beasts basically all died this way.

Furthermore, they were all Gu cultivators at the Spirit Gathering stage, the lowest realm, placing them at the very bottom of the natural food chain.

In the world of spirit beasts, where the strong preyed on the weak, there was no such thing as it being shameful to bully the small. If one were unlucky enough to encounter a Fourth-Rank spirit beast, they would become food in its mouth.

The world of spirit beasts had always been about the strong bullying the weak; battles rarely occurred between those of equal strength.

Therefore, the degree of danger in the Ten Thousand Mountains could be imagined. In truth, none of them felt confident about this hunting mission, and they were filled with worry about the road ahead.

Now, hearing that Li Laodao had found a strong reinforcement who could guarantee everyone's safety, they immediately became interested and all pricked up their ears to listen.

Seeing everyone looking at him, Li Laodao immediately revealed a look of pride and continued, "To tell you the truth! I've found a Gu cultivator from a great clan, and he's a genius Gu cultivator at the early stage of Essence Refining, possessing a top-grade Gu worm with boundless combat power."

"With him leading the way, our safety is guaranteed. Besides, we are only wandering on the edge of the Ten Thousand Mountains and will absolutely not go deep. With an expert protecting us, how could we possibly encounter danger?"

"This trip will be one hundred percent safe, I said so!" Li Laodao said with great confidence.

Upon hearing this, the crowd was not happy; instead, their worry deepened.

Han Mei furrowed her wrinkled brows and was the first to ask, "No way, how could a genius Gu cultivator from a great clan bother to lead a group of dragging loose cultivators?"

"What benefit is there for him in doing this! Could there be a trap!"

Long Xuan nodded; no matter how he thought about it, he felt this matter was unreliable. Would this great clan Gu cultivator really be that kind-hearted?

"No!" Li Laodao said with chest-thumping certainty, "You have all heard of the person I mentioned; he is none other than Long Qilin, the son of the Long Clan Head."

"Long Qilin is different from his treacherous father; he is famously honest and thick-headed, a total pushover."

"I went to sell him a sob story and begged him a little, and he agreed without much effort. Of course, it's just to take us along for the ride; once we reach the depths of the Ten Thousand Mountains, he will continue forward, and we will return the way we came."

Upon hearing this, Zhang Ling's worry suddenly vanished, and she smiled, "So that's how it is. If it's just taking us along for the ride, then there's no problem."

"By then, the road back will have already been cleared by him, so naturally, we won't encounter any danger returning the same way."

Little Medicine Boy also said, "I trust this person's character. With him leading the team, there will absolutely be no problems. We can ensure this trip is worry-free."

The others also nodded in deep agreement. Not only did their worry disappear, but they even revealed looks of joy.

Long Xuan was greatly surprised. Who exactly was this Long Qilin, to make people trust his character so much?

Just by saying the guide was him, everyone immediately let down their guard without the slightest suspicion.

One had to know that this was the Gu World; in the Gu World, completely trusting someone was a rather difficult thing.

Just how high must Long Qilin's character be to make people produce such terrifying conviction?

Long Xuan looked at Li Laodao. Although his suspicion had not lessened, he still said, "Fine! Then I will believe you one more time!"

After all, this person's surname was Long. When the time came, he could say he was Long Lao's medicine boy, and even if something really happened, he could sell Long Lao a favor.

Harboring such thoughts, Long Xuan stopped doubting.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear; they were just discussing Long Qilin when the man himself arrived.

Long Qilin suddenly pushed open the door and walked in with a face full of smiles.

Long Xuan immediately looked at the newcomer. He was indeed kind-faced, with an honest and thick-headed look. Appearance stems from the heart; just looking at his face made one feel he was a great philanthropist.

This person completely lacked the arrogant aura of a great clan disciple. He was very kind, and his muscular build made him look more like a farm laborer, relatively approachable.

Looking at his muscles, Long Xuan knew he followed the close-combat route, focusing on blood-contracted internal Gu, with a style of charging forward to fight in person during battle.

However, this person did not come alone; behind him followed a youth in tattered clothes, who appeared to be a loose cultivator as well.

Seeing this person, Li Laodao immediately frowned. He trusted Long Qilin completely, but he not only didn't trust this person, he knew nothing about him; he had never seen this person before.

No one was willing to team up with someone they weren't familiar with. Not only could they not trust them, they had to be on guard at all times, and it was easy for arguments to break out due to uneven distribution, or even escalate into infighting; these were all factors unfavorable to the team.

No matter what one did, variables were the biggest taboo. The person Long Qilin brought made Li Laodao feel dissatisfied, but he dared not say anything.

"I wonder who this is..."

Li Laodao looked at the youth behind Long Qilin and asked tentatively.

"Oh! Forgot to introduce."

Long Qilin pointed at the youth and said, "Just like you, this youth named Ma Wu requested that I take him along for a ride. Anyway, taking one is taking one, taking two is taking two, and it's on the way, so I just took them both along. A small favor, no need to thank me."

He spoke lightly, but the moods of the others were not very beautiful.

However, things had reached this point, and they were the ones begging for help, so naturally, they dared not demand more. They could only suppress the displeasure in their hearts and squeeze out a smile.

After Li Laodao gave the youth a suspicious look, he began to smile and introduce the people in the room to Long Qilin.

When it came to Long Xuan, Long Xuan immediately preempted him and introduced himself, "Hello, my name is Long Xuan, I am Long Lao's medicine boy, please take care of me."

The purpose of him saying this was, of course, to climb the social ladder. If this person really had any evil intentions, perhaps he would give Long Lao some face and not make things difficult for him.

In reality, he was no medicine boy for Long Lao; he was just a tiny outer disciple, completely unrelated. He didn't even get to see Long Lao once in a while, and basically had no connection at all.

However, it would have been fine if Long Xuan hadn't mentioned Long Lao, but as soon as he mentioned Long Lao's name, Long Qilin's expression changed instantly. He immediately turned his head to look at Long Xuan and said viciously, "Good! So you are Long Lao's disciple! And you even have the surname Long!"

"Your master owes me ten million spirit stones. The master's debt is paid by the disciple; tell me, how should we handle this!"

"Uh?" Long Xuan was completely dumbfounded. Why did this script seem a bit wrong?

Good fellow, this even automatically upgraded him, from medicine boy directly to disciple level.

And this scene seemed somewhat familiar.

It seemed that last time, he had also mentioned Long Lao in front of Long Lie, and the result was that it would have been better not to mention him; mentioning him made the situation even worse.

Only at this moment did he realize that he seemed to have done a stupid thing. Long Lao's face didn't seem to be worth much outside. Once something happened while out and about, one must never mention his name. If one didn't mention him, one would at most get beaten up; mentioning him made the beating even harder.

"Hahaha... Alright! Not teasing you anymore. Every debt has its debtor, how could I want money from a junior! It's getting late, let's set off now!"

Long Qilin laughed loudly, turned around, and walked outside, the youth behind him following closely.

The six people in the room looked at each other, followed them out, caught up with Long Qilin's pace, and slowly walked out of the inn.

At this time, outside the inn, it was already a sea of people. There were far more than just their group preparing to team up for hunting. The market was already overflowing with people, and every shop was packed.

The impending beast tide filled the entire market with a tense atmosphere. All Gu cultivators were scrambling to buy supplies, striving to increase their strength as quickly as possible, arming themselves as much as they could so they could protect themselves in the upcoming beast tide.

Therefore, the major shops were overcrowded, and the entire market was a sea of people, with traffic many times higher than usual. Every shop was making a fortune, raking in wealth.

When the group walked out of the market, they tacitly began to speed up, flying toward the direction of the Ten Thousand Mountains.

The Ten Thousand Mountains were not close to the market; how could they walk slowly? They could only pour spiritual power into their legs to increase their movement speed.

But this was, after all, a primitive method, and the movement speed was still limited. Outrunning spirit beasts was even more impossible.

Long Xuan liked to take precautions, timely finding his own shortcomings and supplementing them in time.

After running like this today, he realized that speed was his weakness. Once he encountered a speed-type opponent, it would be very troublesome.

It wasn't just spirit beasts with strange speeds; the speed of Gu worms was also far faster than humans.

If one day he encountered an opponent with a Gu worm of strange speed that bypassed Little White to attack him directly, he would be in big trouble.

Thinking of this, Long Xuan immediately included the matter of creating his own movement technique into his plan.

Amidst everyone's running, half a day passed quickly.

At this time, except for Long Qilin, the group of loose cultivators were all sweating on their foreheads and panting.

Little Medicine Boy's situation looked much better; he was only slightly panting. Looking at Li Laodao, who was already drenched in sweat beside him, he curled his lips, his expression revealing a mocking meaning, his look disdainful.

He secretly mocked that this Li Laodao's wild imagination was still not deep enough. Body refining hurts the body; others dared not over-refine their bodies for fear of leaving hidden injuries, or even damaging their foundation.

But why didn't he develop his Cockroach Gu? Cockroach Gu could exempt all conventional damage; was body refining damage even a thing in front of Cockroach Gu?

A Gu cultivator possessing Cockroach Gu could completely increase their training volume tenfold without causing any damage to their body. They could completely over-train, crazily ravaging their own bodies, allowing their body refining effects to progress rapidly.

This was a shortcut, a shortcut that could leave their peers far behind.

A matter he could think of so easily, this Li Laodao hadn't thought of it even now. Living to such an old age in vain, this IQ...

Little Medicine Boy gave his head a sympathetic look.

This group of loose cultivators were, after all, Gu cultivators at the Spirit Gathering stage; how could they keep up with Long Qilin's speed? Long Qilin was not only a Gu cultivator at the early stage of Essence Refining, but clearly one who specialized in body refining, so naturally, he was good at long-distance running.

This was still the result of Long Qilin deliberately slowing down to take care of everyone; otherwise, this group of loose cultivators would have been left behind long ago, not even seeing the smoke from his butt.

No one wanted to drag their feet, so they all gritted their teeth and held on, but spiritual power was limited. What was the use of having more perseverance?

But here, besides Little Medicine Boy, whose body refining was astonishing and whose situation was slightly better, there existed another alternative. This alternative was naturally Long Xuan; his situation was even better than Little Medicine Boy's.

When everyone was exhausted, sweating all over their faces, and drained of energy, he was expressionless, not a single drop of sweat leaking.

Like a person who was perfectly fine, he even had the leisure to look at the scenery around him. Those who didn't know would think he was here for a tour.

Everyone was greatly surprised. All the loose cultivators here were at the peak of Spirit Gathering, only he was at the late stage of Spirit Gathering, with the least spiritual power.

Logically speaking, he should have been the first to be unable to hold on, he should have been the one dragging his feet.

How could he be so persistent?

This was simply unreasonable.

Everyone was puzzled, and the looks they cast at Long Xuan all revealed looks of astonishment.

Where would they know that Long Xuan usually had five clones constantly feeding back body refining results to him, equivalent to five times the body refining results, so his physical strength was not only not bad, but far superior to ordinary people.

And as for spiritual power, there was no need to mention it. The Ten Extremes Body was strong precisely because of its abundant spiritual power, good at persistence, far superior to those of the same rank.

Don't look at him as just a small cultivator at the late stage of Spirit Gathering; his spiritual power was actually even more terrifying than those at the peak of Spirit Gathering.

Plus, the quality of his mutated spiritual power was high, and there were five types. How could these loose cultivators possibly outlast him? Don't even think about it.

He might even be able to arm-wrestle with Long Qilin.

Suddenly seeing everyone looking at him with suspicious eyes, each one exhausted to the point of becoming a dead dog, Long Xuan finally realized something and hurriedly pretended to be panting, taking deep breaths.

However, he hadn't leaked a single drop of sweat at this time; who could believe his clumsy acting?

Who are you trying to fool? The crowd rolled their eyes together.

Long Qilin suddenly turned his head back. Seeing the appearance of the crowd, he already knew they were at their limit, so he immediately ordered them to rest on the spot.

The loose cultivators were instantly relieved, sitting slumped on the ground one after another, panting heavily, crazily pouring water into their mouths.

At this time, their legs were like they had been filled with lead; moving even a little was difficult.

"You guys aren't good either, actually not as persistent as the one with the worst realm!"

"Sure enough, it's still us people with the surname Long who are the most persistent."

Long Qilin gave the loose cultivators slumped on the ground a look of disdain, turned his head to look at Long Xuan, who was panting heavily, and revealed an interested look.

"Alright! Stop pretending! There isn't even sweat on your face, don't insult their IQ."

"What body refining technique are you practicing? It doesn't seem weak! I've never heard of Long Lao having such a formidable body refining technique." Long Qilin looked at Long Xuan and asked in confusion.

"I'm not practicing any body refining technique, just born with divine strength." Long Xuan prevaricated.

He was truly relying purely on physical strength, which was forcibly stacked by five clones.

He was not practicing any body refining technique right now. The reason he was so persistent was entirely due to the body's basic attributes and the result of the Ten Extremes Body.

He would definitely practice a body refining technique, and because of the special nature of the Ten Extremes Body, he would probably have to create it himself, but in his plan, it was not now.

Using five clones for basic training was fine, but if he used a technique to refine his body, it would be very dangerous. If he didn't understand body refining and practiced blindly, it was easy to refine problems.

He had already understood clearly; the Golden Finger would only tell him whether the things he researched were feasible, but would never tell him whether they were dangerous.

Even if he researched a technique that had a ninety percent probability of death once practiced, the progress would still show 100%, and it would never prompt you about the drawbacks of this technique.

So he had arranged the matter of creating his own body refining technique after refining the Water Bear Gu.

Once he had the Water Bear Gu, he would have an undying body and could completely ignore the various damages caused to the body by body refining.

That would be the time for him to research body refining techniques. At that time, no matter how dangerous the technique was, he could endure it.

"I don't know if you practice a body refining technique, but you definitely practice a spiritual power technique, and it's not weak, completely not inferior to my Long Clan's 'Xuanyuan Dragon Art', and the mutated spiritual power is also completely not inferior to my Long Clan's Dragon Power."

Long Qilin looked into Long Xuan's eyes, revealing a serious look.

"Brother Long really has good eyes, but my situation is special. Long Lao requested that I not reveal it to others, so I can only apologize."

Long Xuan said the excuse he had already prepared. Although Long Lao's name didn't work very well outside, at this time, he could only say so.

He really couldn't hide the fact that he had mutated spiritual power. Using any spiritual technique would be seen by others as mutated spiritual power. Even if he hid it now, how could he hide it when fighting later?

So Long Xuan had already prepared in his heart.

Long Qilin nodded, considering his explanation accepted, and added, "Sure enough, it was passed to you by Long Lao. Long Clan secret techniques are never passed on to outsiders; even if that person is a Heaven-grade genius, they won't be cultivated by the Long Clan."

"It looks like you really have Long Clan bloodline; otherwise, Long Lao would never do this."

Li Laodao, who was on the side, revealed a look of surprise. He knew Long Xuan's technique was very strong, but he didn't expect it to be strong to this extent, actually strong enough to rival the Long Clan's clan-securing technique.

One had to know that the Long Clan's "Xuanyuan Dragon Art" was already one of the strongest techniques in the Far West Region. Its divine ability was to increase Dragon Elephant Power, and those who mastered it could cultivate Dragon Power. Every Long Clan Gu cultivator was a close-combat monster.

Long Xuan's technique could actually rival the "Xuanyuan Dragon Art"; this evaluation was truly too high.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 66 =====