The Path of Immortality: Starts With Creating Water Bear Gu - Chapter 130: Feeding the Fish

“Alright! We have a deal! Now, give me the Spirit Soil,” Long Panpan said with a smile as she tossed a storage bag towards Long Xuan. However, Long Xuan failed to notice the cunning glint in her eyes.

Long Xuan happened to have the middle-grade Spirit Soil with him. After placing all the Spirit Soil into the storage bag that Long Panpan had thrown to him, he looked up only to find that she had already swiftly packed up her stall, even faster than he could.

After throwing a fish-keeping bag filled with water towards Long Xuan, Long Panpan quickly snatched the storage bag filled with Spirit Soil from his hand.

“The deal is done. Let’s not bother each other afterward.”

With that, she quickly left.

Long Xuan was momentarily stunned, sensing something amiss. He immediately opened the fish-keeping bag and found that the Golden Dragon Fish inside were merely finger-sized baby fish. His nose twitched in anger.

Long Panpan had just mentioned having Golden Dragon Fish for lunch, so he instinctively assumed that the fish were large, or at least big enough for a plate. But it turned out she wanted to eat these tiny finger-sized fish. They were so small that they wouldn’t even be enough to make a sauce, let alone fill a gap in her teeth. Was she really planning to eat this for lunch? Even if she was on a diet, this was too extreme!

He had been hunting geese all day, only to have one peck out his eye—he had been careless.

Fortunately, she hadn’t gone too far; there were five Golden Dragon Fish in the bag, not just two. With five fish, their breeding rate would be faster.

After buying the fish fry, Long Xuan went on to purchase lambs and calves, of course, focusing on the best-tasting breeds. He needed a large quantity, so he purchased an unknown number of Beast-Taming Bags to carry them all.

Soon, however, he assigned this arduous task to his clone, while he quickly rushed back to the mountain. Golden Dragon Fish are difficult to raise, and he feared that if he delayed too long, they might die. He urgently needed to return and put them into the Spirit Spring.

Upon returning to the Spirit Spring, Long Xuan immediately opened the fish-keeping bag and poured all the finger-sized Golden Dragon Fish into the spring, splashing water everywhere.

The moment the Golden Dragon Fish entered the Spirit Spring, their previously sluggish appearance vanished, and they instantly became lively, swimming happily in the spring, full of vitality.

It seemed they were quite satisfied with their new home, perhaps even more so than their original habitat.

Long Xuan paused, realizing that they might not need his care anymore. Putting the Golden Dragon Fish into the Spirit Spring seemed to be enough; there was no need for him to study how to raise them further.

The only thing he needed to do was to quickly research the fastest-growing fish feed to help them gain weight as quickly as possible, so that by next year, he could enjoy the meaty, succulent Golden Dragon Fish.

The flesh of the Golden Dragon Fish was said to be as delicious as the legendary dragon meat, and he couldn’t wait to taste it.

Long Xuan quickly walked to his insect breeding room, grabbed a bag of Spirit Insects, and returned to the Spirit Spring.

His herb garden was vast and produced countless Spirit Insects, all kept in the insect breeding room. He selected some that weren’t too valuable to feed the fish.

For now, he couldn’t figure out the perfect fish feed, but fish certainly eat insects, so he decided to start with some less valuable Spirit Insects to tide them over.

He squatted by the Spirit Spring, tossing insect after insect into the water. The sharp-eyed Golden Dragon Fish immediately swam over excitedly, frantically competing for the fallen Spirit Insects.

The water splashed wildly, with constant plopping sounds, and chaos erupted in the spring.

Long Xuan watched with great interest. Although he could have simply dumped all the Spirit Insects from the breeding bag into the water at once, he preferred tossing them in one by one, enjoying the sight of the fish competing for each insect. The joy of feeding the fish was something only he could understand.

Just as he was thoroughly enjoying feeding the fish, the insect breeding bag suddenly moved. He took out a letter from the bag, glanced at it, and revealed a slightly surprised expression. It turned out that the house Elder Long’s Sou Gu built could connect with the Pyramid Small House?

Although the materials used for the Pyramid Small House built by his Sou Gu weren’t the most expensive, they were far superior to a simple straw hut.

He put away the letter and finally emptied the remaining Spirit Insects from the breeding bag into the water.

This time, there was no need for the fish to fight over food. The five Golden Dragon Fish looked excited as they frantically chased the fallen insects, as if they were enjoying a buffet, each eating to their heart’s content.

Given their appetite, it seemed they wouldn’t die living in the Spirit Spring, so Long Xuan felt at ease and left the spring to head towards Elder Long’s Red Jade Peak.

Upon reaching the conspicuous straw hut on Red Jade Peak, he walked straight in—there was no need to knock, as there wasn’t even a door.

Long Xuan couldn’t imagine how much debt Long Ao must have been in. Even with the earnings of a third-grade alchemist, he still hadn’t paid it off, and his Sou Gu had to suffer along with him.

Thinking of Sou Gu, Long Xuan hurriedly looked towards it in the straw hut. He saw a house made of third-grade waste pills had appeared inside at some point, with the Sou Gu staying inside, poking its head out to look around.

Unexpectedly, even Elder Long had a moment of inspiration, using third-grade waste pills to build a house for the Sou Gu. It was a clever way to recycle waste.

While waste pills might be useless to humans, they were still full of energy and made for excellent building materials for insects.

However, using third-grade waste pills for building could only be considered middle-grade materials, placing the house at the middle level among the Sou Gu family’s dwellings. This species had become incredibly competitive.

Noticing Long Xuan’s arrival, Elder Long turned to him and said, “The letter explains why I called you. The clan has entrusted me to refine the third-grade Black Dragon Pill.”

“The difficulty of refining the Black Dragon Pill is extremely high, and you have a keen sense when it comes to controlling the heat, so I need your assistance.”

Long Xuan showed no surprise, as he had long known that the family intended to cultivate a second Gu King. It was highly likely that they would have Elder Long refine the Breakthrough Pill.

To be honest, Elder Long was a genius in alchemy, though not an unparalleled one. He had the ability to take on the challenge of refining the Black Dragon Pill, but since it would be his first attempt, he would inevitably consume a vast amount of materials.

However, the family must have already prepared themselves mentally to waste a large quantity of materials. At this moment, the room was likely piled high with third-grade spiritual herbs.

“How confident are you?” Long Xuan asked.

“It’s hard to say. Alchemy depends entirely on the amount of materials available. As long as there are enough materials, you will eventually succeed. It just depends on how many resources the family is willing to invest,” Elder Long replied after a moment of contemplation.

“Time is tight, so let’s start refining the pill. The first attempt will definitely fail, so there’s no need to worry. Focus on gaining experience.”

With that, Elder Long took out a massive alchemy furnace and placed it on the ground, then tossed a pill formula to Long Xuan.

Long Xuan quickly caught it and glanced over the formula at lightning speed.

The Black Dragon Pill required a total of 1,200 ingredients. Needless to say, refining the Black Dragon Pill would undoubtedly be extremely time-consuming.

But this was to be expected. This was a rare third-grade pill formula, belonging to high-grade spiritual pills. How could it possibly be refined in a short period of time?

The higher the grade of the spiritual pill, the longer the refining time required—this is the law of nature.

However, the pill yield seemed to defy logic. With so many ingredients going into the furnace, only one pill would emerge. Isn’t that far too little?

It’s important to note that failed pills are common in alchemy, which is why the pill yield rate is discussed.

With only one pill expected to come out, there was a high likelihood it would be a failed pill, which wouldn’t be much different from a complete failure, indirectly increasing the chances of failure in refining the Black Dragon Pill.

Long Xuan couldn’t help but frown and asked, “So many spiritual herbs go into the furnace, yet only one spiritual pill comes out? Doesn’t that violate the law of conservation of mass?”

Elder Long glanced at him and replied, “Where did you hear such a thing, the law of conservation of mass? In all my years, I’ve never heard of it. By that logic, the Giantification Technique wouldn’t exist either, would it?”

“You must understand that alchemy is the process of removing impurities and extracting the essence. The essence is already minimal, and refining high-grade spiritual pills requires extracting the essence from the essence. Most of the essence will be burned away, leaving very little of the refined essence.”

“If it can be condensed into a single spiritual pill, that’s already quite good. How many do you expect? Hundreds from one Cauldron, to create hundreds of Gu Kings for the family?”

Upon hearing this, Long Xuan seemed to grasp the concept and finally understood the reasoning. In other words, future tenth-grade spiritual pills might require tens of thousands of materials, yet only a few pills would be produced. This was reasonable, absolutely reasonable.

He then looked at the pill formula’s description of the Black Dragon Pill and found that it only had a 10% breakthrough rate. If a Gu cultivator with the Long family’s bloodline consumed it, there would be a 20% breakthrough rate.

However, even a 20% breakthrough rate was still far too low, wasn’t it?

He still remembered that raw consumption of the Spirit Surge Grass had the same 20% breakthrough rate, but in Elder Long’s opinion, it wasn’t sufficient for the Ten Absolute Physique to break through.

Now, the breakthrough rate of the Black Dragon Pill was also 20%, which meant that in the future, when he became a peak-stage Spiritual Sea Gu cultivator, the Black Dragon Pill would likely be useless to him.

When Elder Long had sent a message asking for his assistance in refining the Black Dragon Pill, Long Xuan had been excited, thinking he could score an awesome pill formula for free.

But now it seemed that he had gotten nothing but disappointment. The Black Dragon Pill was useless to him. Once he became a peak-stage Spiritual Sea Gu cultivator, he would most likely have to create a Breakthrough Pill formula with a higher success rate on his own. It seemed that he would have to continue down the path of self-creation.

After briefly reviewing the Black Dragon Pill formula, Long Xuan began assisting Elder Long with the refinement process.

He was still very interested in participating in the refinement of a third-grade spiritual pill. Understanding the process of refining high-grade spiritual pills in advance would be a valuable experience and would greatly benefit him when he eventually stepped into the realm of a third-grade alchemist.

Before long, a loud bang echoed from within the alchemy furnace, and the sound of an explosion was deafening. A large amount of black smoke billowed out, causing the elder and the youth to cough incessantly in the thick smoke.

The Sou Gu hurriedly shut the doors and windows to keep the black smoke out.

“What happened? Where did it go wrong?”

Cough, cough! “I don’t know! Maybe your hand shook! Didn’t you say the first attempt would definitely fail, so there was no need to be nervous?”

…

Clearly, Elder Long had no experience in refining the Xuanlong Pill and was fumbling through the process. The things that Long Xuan could learn from him were limited.