Mudskin Toad

Fang Yuan’s rock-picking notes treat its skin as rough and uneven. ^{ch. 40} Its entire body is yellow from head to foot. The belly is light yellow, and its back is brownish yellow, covered with pimply boils, nodules, and warts. It is palm-sized, about as large as two or three eggs in the hand. When Fang Yuan wakes it, it opens its eyes slowly and its belly vibrates. ^{ch. 42}

Gu from fossils are normally extremely weak, with little strength left and a lazy consciousness that cannot resist refinement. When Fang Yuan wakes this one, it opens its eyes slowly, its belly vibrates, and it soft-croaks once, proving it is alive before the crowd. ^{ch. 42}

Fang Yuan’s rock-picking notes also treat its skin as rough and uneven. ^{ch. 40} The opened Gu is palm-sized, about as large as two or three eggs in the hand. Its body is yellow from head to foot, with a light yellow belly and a brownish yellow back covered in pimply boils, nodules, and warts. Jia Jin Sheng and the watching Gu Masters call it a rare rank two Gu worm worth five hundred primeval stones on the market. ^{ch. 42} No cited English chapter prints a Chinese full name for it.

Fang Yuan states that it needs five hundred grams of yellow soil every meal, and that more fertile soil is better. He has no plan to keep it: he is still rank one initial stage, Qing Mao Mountain is full of green soil rather than yellow soil, and feeding a third Gu would stretch his stones. ^{ch. 42}

In the same sale speech he names Mudskin Toad as a scarce species and the necessary main Gu in refining the Treasure Brass Toad. ^{ch. 42} The cited chapters do not say whether Jia Jin Sheng later refined this specimen into a Treasure Brass Toad, and they give no other refinement materials. They also never show Mudskin Toad used in a fight.

Fang Yuan treats the find as convenience. In his memories the Mudskin Toad and the Flower Wine Traveler’s legacy are the only two local treasures on Qing Mao Mountain, and by night’s end he has both. ^{ch. 43} The next day the village already talks about a young man opening a Mudskin Toad for five hundred primeval stones. ^{ch. 44} When Fang Yuan returns to the gambling den, Jia Jin Sheng recognises him at once as the lucky lad who took that toad. ^{ch. 45}

During the Jia Jin Sheng inquiry, the gambling-den Gu Master points Fang Yuan out by the fifth purple gold rock and the Mudskin Toad sale for five hundred stones, saying other Gu Masters there saw it too. ^{ch. 55} Clan elders then question that same report of six rocks yielding a mudskin toad and a Liquor worm, and she confirms the toad on the fifth rock. ^{ch. 56}

Jiang He later greets Fang Yuan by repeating the consecutive Liquor worm and Mudskin Toad gambling luck he heard from Jiang Ya. ^{ch. 69}

Tie Ruo Nan lists Fang Yuan’s first-time rock gamble of six purple gold stones that yielded two live Gu, a mudskin toad and a Liquor worm, as a suspicious point of excessive luck. ^{ch. 176}

Fang Yuan later recalls that this specimen had a strong life force when he cracked its purple gold rock by brute force. ^{ch. 276} He also expects Shang Yan Fei’s investigation to already know he won a mudskin toad in the Jia clan caravan gamble, and he treats a second legendary win as a risk that would invite suspicion of a rock-checking method. ^{ch. 277}