Chapter 62

Students line up before the academy’s Gu storage room to choose their second Gu worm, and Fang Yuan, the first among them to reach middle stage, stands at the head of the queue with Gu Yue Mo Bei, Gu Yue Fang Zheng, and Gu Yue Chi Cheng behind him. Guards open the door and Fang Yuan steps in first, finding walls lined with rock pots, jade pots, woven-grass cages, and porcelain ware holding rank one Gu worms that the academy probably spends more than a thousand primeval stones a day to feed, many containers already empty because most students had taken the Moonlight Gu as their first Gu. ^{ch. 62}

Moving along the first wall, he passes a Bronze Skin Gu favored by close-combat fighters, six Stone Skin Gu, and an Iron Skin Gu, hoping for a Jade Skin Gu but finding none, which he puts down to Gu Yue village’s storage room being only middle tier. On the second wall he examines the Longhorn Beetle Gu series, passing over the Brute Force Longhorn Beetle Gu, which grants the strength of one bull for five breaths at the cost of ten percent of a middle stage Gu Master’s primeval essence but risks muscle injury for a weak constitution, and considers the wall’s lone Yellow Camel Longhorn Beetle Gu, which grants durability and reduced stamina expenditure for fifteen minutes with no side effects, before deciding it does not suit him. ^{ch. 62}

The third wall is dominated by Boar Gu: two or three Pink Boar Gu that only make their bearer fat, and at least a dozen Flower Boar Gu that grant a boar’s temporary strength for ten breaths, twice the Brute Force Longhorn Beetle Gu’s duration for the same essence cost. He reflects that a Black Boar Gu or White Boar Gu, each worth six hundred primeval stones in the market for permanently and cumulatively raising a Gu Master’s strength, would outvalue even the Liquor worm, but the storage room holds neither, so after a full circuit he settles on one of five Little Light Gu, an assistance-type Gu that pairs with the Moonlight Gu and is, by his own judgment, only an average choice that still fits his path. ^{ch. 62}

Fang Yuan leaves the storage room to the waiting students’ murmuring, and behind him Gu Yue Mo Bei claims the room’s sole remaining Yellow Camel Longhorn Beetle Gu with delight, Gu Yue Fang Zheng chooses a Bronze Skin Gu to pair defense with his Moonlight Gu, and Gu Yue Chi Cheng, the fourth to enter, picks a Dragonpill cricket Gu for evasion. ^{ch. 62}