Chapter 1: Starting with a Self-Created Gu Recipe

In the endless darkness, Long Xuan woke up from his dream.

"Where is this?"

He looked around in confusion, frowning.

What appeared in his sight was a messy bedroom, and the air was still smelling moldy.

When his eyes swept to a bronze mirror on the table, a handsome boy of fifteen or sixteen years old appeared in his sight.

He soon realized that he had traveled through time, and then a large number of unfamiliar memories flooded into his mind, which further confirmed his guess.

This is a strange world similar to the world of cultivating immortals, with elixirs, instruments, formations, talismans, beast control, insect control, sword control, puppets...

And the boy is a Gu cultivator who practices insect control and lives in an area full of Gu cultivators. People in this area raise Gu and refine Gu to gain powerful power.

The so-called Gu is to put different kinds of spiritual insects in a container and let them kill each other.

Over time, there is a probability that a more powerful new insect species will be born.

The new insect species born in this way are called Gu insects. Gu insects cannot reproduce and can only be obtained by refining Gu.

There are countless combinations of spirit insects, depending on the type and number of spirit insects in the vessel.

Different combinations will give birth to different Gu insects, with different shapes, strengths and weaknesses, and strange abilities.

But they can be roughly divided into two categories. One is larger and used for external combat, called external Gu.

The other is smaller and can parasitize in the body of Gu cultivators, grow with the nutrients of the Gu cultivator's body, and feed back to the Gu cultivators with various magical abilities, so that the Gu cultivators have the ability to spit fire and call thunder. This type of Gu insect is called internal Gu.

Some internal Gu are harmful to Gu cultivators and can be thrown into the enemy's food. Because of their small size, they are difficult to detect and cannot be prevented at all. Those who are poisoned by Gu often have their internal organs eaten and die.

It is worth mentioning that many combinations cannot produce Gu, and there are even fewer combinations that can produce powerful Gu species.

Gu cultivators record the combination that can produce Gu on paper, and it becomes a Gu recipe that is passed down forever.

Gu recipes are the cornerstone of a family's prosperity and the most important thing for a family.

Every family regards it as a treasure and keeps it secret.

Therefore, it is very difficult for ordinary people to learn the Gu recipe.

The original owner is just an ordinary person from a poor family. He works as a handyman in a medicine garden to earn a meager income and has no chance to learn the Gu recipe.

The original owner is also named Long Xuan. He is of humble status. His parents died when he was young. He was born with a golden finger, which is a standard configuration for the protagonist.

However, in the eyes of the original owner, this golden finger is useless and has no use. Therefore, this protagonist has been poor and has not become stronger because of the golden finger.

Seeing this part of the memory, Long Xuan couldn't help frowning.

Can the golden finger be useless? It's unheard of. He has read countless novels and this is the first time he has heard of it.

The protagonist's golden finger is not a system, but simply can see the growth of all things.

This is the only function. It can only be seen, but cannot be changed. Except for visually seeing a number, it has no use.

At first glance, it's really useless. Spiritual beasts and insects can judge their growth by their volume, and there are many ways to identify the age of human spiritual medicines. He really doesn't need to distinguish them.

Long Xuan showed a thoughtful look. According to the description in his memory, this is a pair of eyes that can see the growth of all things. This "all things" refers to all things in the world, not limited to living things.

It seems that all living and dead things that can be named can see the growth.

However, the growth rate is not vivid when used on dead things. Long Xuan prefers to use a modern term, which is more vivid as progress.

An ability to see the progress of all things seems useless to the original owner, but Long Xuan doesn't think so. In his opinion, this ability still has a lot of room for development.

There is no useless golden finger, only useless hosts. It all depends on how strong the host's imagination is.

As a traverser, the most lacking thing is imagination. Soon many magical ideas appeared in his mind.

He hurriedly got out of bed and walked to the table. He took out a pen and paper from the drawer, quickly wrote the two big words "Gu Fang" on the paper, and then wrote a material called ghost spider below.

As expected, the progress was immediately shown on the paper, but the progress changed from the original 10% to 20% to the previous life. Obviously, the expression of the golden finger is based on the host's cognition.

At this time, a string of 1.5% numbers appeared in his sight.

Long Xuan was thoughtful. According to his guess, the residual recipe is also a kind of thing, so naturally the progress can be seen.

The progress of the Gu recipe obviously represents the degree of incompleteness of the Gu recipe.

The more complete the Gu recipe, the higher the progress, and the more incomplete the Gu recipe, the lower the progress.

However, the Gu recipe with only 1% of the incompleteness is also called a residual recipe, and the Gu recipe with only one material left is also called a residual recipe in theory.

So it was simple. How difficult is it to forge a residual recipe with only one material left?

He only needs to guess a residual recipe with progress, and then continue to write down the materials he thinks are correct.

If the progress disappears, it means that he guessed wrong, so he can erase it and change another material.

If the progress increases, it means that the guess is correct and you can continue to guess.

When he guesses 100%, it means that he has successfully guessed a Gu recipe.

He just deliberately wrote down the insect species of his previous life on paper, but he can still see the progress, which shows that the criteria for the golden finger to judge the residual recipe include theoretical existence.

In other words, he can use this golden finger to create his own Gu recipe and create new Gu species that have not yet appeared in this world.

There is no trial and error cost. Researching Gu recipes only relies on paper and pen. For him, creating his own Gu recipe is just a matter of how long he will work.

Having a strong soul and strong understanding in two lives, plus the identity of an entomologist in his previous life, he is conceited that he can use the knowledge and imagination of his previous life to research an incredible Gu recipe, which is enough to shine in this world.

Long Xuan was very excited at this time and full of expectations for the future. After studying his golden finger for a while, he finally opened the door and walked towards the medicine garden that the original owner was responsible for.

It takes a lot of start-up capital to refine Gu, and this medicine garden may become his first pot of gold.

The medicine garden is owned by a Gu cultivator named Long, and outsiders call him Old Long.

Old Long comes from a Gu cultivator family called the Long family. He was ordered to garrison in a village called Dashi Village to defend the village from the invasion of spirit beasts and the looting of demon cultivators and bandits.

And what Dashi Village needs to pay is more than half of the food, including meat and eggs.

I don’t know how many villages are similarly controlled by the Long family.

In this world, Gu cultivators cannot farm. This group will only practice constantly, not engage in production, and are particularly greedy. The only source of food can come from large and small mortal villages.

Gu cultivator families provide shelter for mortal villages, and mortals provide food for Gu cultivator families.

The more powerful Gu cultivator families control more mortal villages, and the wars between Gu cultivator families also include the looting of mortal villages.

Dashi Village is a large village with a population of up to 3,000. It has formed its current size because there is a only market in the far west nearby.

Because it is closest to the Long family, it has become one of the sheltered villages.

The Long family is one of the seven most powerful Gu Cultivation families in the Far West. No one dares to provoke them, so there has never been a robbery in Dashi Village.

Such a safe environment is exactly what Long Xuan is satisfied with.

The area of ​​​​Long Lao's medicine garden is very large, and more than a hundred kinds of spiritual medicines are planted.

The grades of spiritual medicines can be divided from one to ten from low to high, and then there are earth-grade and heaven-grade spiritual medicines that only exist in legends.

Although Long Lao's medicine garden is large, he grows the lowest grade of spiritual medicines, and all the species are flower spiritual medicines. The medicine garden is filled with various rich flower fragrances, which are refreshing.

Long Xuan followed the instructions in his memory and walked into the medicine garden with a bucket of green liquid. The green liquid is fertilizer.

The fertilizer of spiritual medicine is not stinky feces, but this kind of green liquid that can only be bought at the Chamber of Commerce. Long Xuan prefers to call it ripening liquid.

Using ripening liquid on spiritual medicine is enough to shorten the growth period of spiritual medicine by half.

Long Xuan was very interested in this ripening liquid. He sniffed it again and again, as if he wanted to find out what it was.

Ordinary ripening liquid can produce such a miraculous effect. Wouldn't the advanced ripening liquid be able to shorten the ripening period of a thousand-year-old spiritual medicine to a hundred years?

He firmly believed that as long as he knew the formula of this barrel of ripening liquid, he could definitely use the golden finger to study the formula of the advanced ripening liquid.

"It's a pity, if there was a microscope." Long Xuan shook his head and sighed.

He didn't know how to make a microscope. If he wanted to obtain similar abilities, he could only obtain them by creating his own Gu recipe. In this world where everyone can cast Gu, he also felt it necessary to study the Gu insect with this ability.

Long Xuan studied for a while, and except for the fact that the progress shown on the ripening liquid might mean that there would be no more gains after the shelf life, he gave up the research and prepared to wait until the microscopic Gu was made.

Long Xuan gathered his mind, scooped out a spoonful of ripening liquid and poured it on a spiritual medicine called Moonlight Flower, and the growth rate immediately increased from the original 17.1% to 17.2%.

After taking a look, Long Xuan continued to pour the second spoonful, and the progress quickly increased from the original 17.2% to 17.3%.

When he continued to pour the third spoonful, the progress did not change.

Long Xuan was thoughtful, and thought of the second function of the golden finger in his mind. In order to verify his guess, he continued to pour three spoonfuls of ripening liquid on another type of spiritual medicine, and this time the progress changed three times.

He tried to pour the fourth spoonful and the progress stopped rising.

"Is it true?"

Long Xuan showed excitement.

According to the instructions of Elder Long, he needs to irrigate once every seven days, and pour three spoonfuls for each spiritual medicine.

But now it seems that the amount is not accurate, and perhaps the time interval between irrigation is not accurate enough.

The types of spiritual medicine are different, and the amount of ripening liquid will naturally be different.

Some spiritual herbs may need three spoons for good absorption, while others may only need one spoon. More than that will make the body weaker.

There will naturally be large differences in watering time. Some need to be watered every seven days, while others may need to be watered every five days.

Merchants can only estimate the approximate amount, and waste is inevitable. In order to make more money, they may even exaggerate the amount.

However, Long Xuan can teach students according to their aptitude, and he can be extremely precise in the amount of each spiritual medicine, and he can also achieve seamless connection in the time of fertilization.

What does this mean? This means that he can embezzle some ripening liquid without affecting the yield.

It also means that the spiritual medicine will mature much faster than expected under his extreme cultivation, and the yield will naturally exceed the past within a certain period of time.

According to the original owner's memory, Mr. Long used the spiritual medicine in the medicine garden to pay his salary. He only needed to deliver the specified number of spiritual medicines on time each time, and the extra output would be regarded as his salary.

The harder the original owner worked, the more he earned. If he was lazy and the output could not reach the specified amount, he would have to pay out of his own pocket.

However, Mr. Long only looked at the results and not the process. No matter how the original owner tossed around in the medicine garden, he never came to inspect the medicine garden once and kept in seclusion all year round.

In this way, wouldn't the first pot of gold be there?

Long Xuan smiled. The golden finger was indeed not useless. This golden finger was not useless but a bit amazing.

The golden finger was not a system, but a bug's ability.