Chapter 1474

Deep beneath Western Desert’s myriad ore desert, controlled by the super force Shi clan, lies a huge gold fragment river current, the remnant of a fragment of the immemorial yellow heaven that fell there long ago. A hundred thousand rockmen dig out the mortal ores above it, while immortal ores such as subterranean adamantite, the hardest rank six immortal material, need Gu Immortals to excavate them. Dark inkstone ranks with it for hardness, unmarked even by an ancient sword dragon’s claws. An immortal Gu formation stands in the current, monitoring the desert without pause and controlling its rockman miners. A huge explosion tears the formation open, and a Gu Immortal disguised as a rockman walks out coughing. His rock skin falls away, revealing a purebred human beneath it. He has just failed his eighty-ninth attempt to refine wealth Gu, and the blood he coughs up turns, on landing, into pearls, jade, gold, and other jewels. ^{ch. 1474}

Wealth Gu is a legendary Gu from The Legends of Ren Zu, traditionally made from blue sea water, Ren Zu’s own hands, and worry, difficulty, sadness, wisdom, and stupidity Gu. Those materials are extinct now, which makes the written recipe basically impossible to follow. This Gu Immortal instead works from an incomplete recipe he found by chance: a predecessor’s deduction shows the finished Gu can convert into gold, silver, or any immortal material up to rank nine, though never into a living being. He treats the recipe as his treasure. Converting the refined Gu into extinct Gu material, he believes, would gain him immense wealth and let him surpass the entire Shi clan in foundation. ^{ch. 1474}

This Gu Immortal is Shi Zhong, rank seven in the righteous path Shi clan but ostracized because his father betrayed the clan and caused huge losses of resources and Gu Immortals’ lives. Shi clan’s first supreme elder sent him to guard this dangerous desert border. Believing deep assets matter more than raw battle strength, Shi Zhong has put every resource but his tribulation preparations into refining wealth Gu, tough and unrewarded as the work has been. He even renamed himself once to show loyalty to the clan, without effect. ^{ch. 1474}

After the eighty-ninth failure, Shi Zhong finds he lacks enough human material and needs to gather more. Using humans as Gu material is a demonic act for a righteous path Gu Immortal, and Shi Zhong tells nobody. He substitutes humans for blue sea water and for Ren Zu’s hands in the recipe, and for wisdom Gu he uses other wisdom path Gu worms in its place. He already holds worry, difficulty, and sadness Gu, not hard to come by, and can refine stupidity Gu himself. He considers adding lifespan Gu as well but will not spend his own, and buys his human slaves carefully, exclusively from treasure yellow heaven, to leave no evidence. He judges the recipe is getting more complete. ^{ch. 1474}