9 Western Desert and Thunder Pure Land

"Absolute Beginning?"

Hearing Chen Qing's words, the two of them were slightly stunned and vigilant.

Chen Qing began to speak nonsense seriously. "As this is the first time I've met you since I woke up from a deep sleep, I can give you a gift."

Chen Qing looked at the female cultivator. "You were asking about the cultivation of Strength Gu, right?"

The female cultivator nodded. "My Strength Gu is about to turn into a butterfly, I am discussing with Scholar what materials are needed to advance Strength Gu."

Chen Qing leaned back slightly. 'I might not know anything if you ask me anything else, but if you ask me this, I won't be sleepy anymore.'

"Can I see it?"

The female cultivator did not mind revealing her Gu insect here. After all, they did not know each other.

She opened her hand, and a strongly red Gu insect slowly raised its head in her palm.

Chen Qing looked at the Gu insect.

[Mortal-grade Strength Gu]

Quality: Rank nine

Lifespan: 24/81

Effect: Strength of nine bulls

Growth Requirement: None

Growth Progress: 100/100 (To be promoted)

Advancement Requirement: Three drops of flood dragon blood

"You can try the flood dragon's blood. Three drops will do."

The female cultivator looked at Chen Qing in surprise. "So precisely?"

Chen Qing smiled and did not say anything.

He turned to look at the extremely strong Scholar. "What about you?"

Although Scholar did not understand Chen Qing's background, the words "Absolute Beginning" made him find Chen Qing exceptionally mysterious.

He had never heard of this term before. It sounded inexplicably majestic.

In any case, he only heard it once. He opened his hand, and a light blue spirit butterfly appeared. It was no longer the size of a soybean, but the size of a cherry.

[Mortal-grade Thunder Butterfly]

Quality: Rank three

Lifespan: 56/130

Effect: Summons lightning and transforms spiritual qi into lightning.

Specialty: Lightning control. To a certain extent, it is immune to lightning, and can control lightning to a certain extent.

Growth Requirement: Water spirit

Growth Progress: 0/100

Promotion Requirement: Cannot be promoted again

Chen Qing touched his chin. "Water spirit."

After saying that, he leaned back in his chair and did not say anything else.

Seeing that he was silent, the two of them began to talk.

The female cultivator replied, "The leader said last time that he might not return for two months, I wonder if there will be any other members here."

Scholar said, "Red Lotus, can you help me get a Sword Gu? I can offer a high price."

The female cultivator was a little puzzled. "You all there don't have Sword Gu?"

Scholar nodded. "There's no harm in telling you this. Anyway, we're too far away. It's very likely that we won't be able to meet for the rest of our lives.

"We have many five-element Gu insects, but we don't have Sword Gu."

Chen Qing thought to himself that it seemed like the people from this ghost face gathering really had no way of knowing who the others were. After all, from what they said, they seemed to be very far away.

It was very likely that this Scholar was not on the same continent as them.

He called this woman Red Lotus.

Red Lotus said, "As for Sword Gu, it is not easy for us to obtain it."

When she said this, she glanced at Chen Qing, and realized that he was still sitting there. He had no intention of interrupting their conversation.

"Sword Gu is usually monopolized by large sects. Those with better quality might cost 160 spirit stones each."

Chen Qing sat on the spot without any change, but he was shocked.

Sword Gu of better quality cost 160 spirit stones each?

What a joke!

Where did this Red Lotus come from? Were their prices so ridiculous?

Scholar was silent for a moment; he acutely noticed that Red Lotus was looking at Chen Qing, as if she was afraid that Chen Qing would expose her.

This meant that the Sword Gu was definitely not worth this price. Unfortunately, that Absolute Beginning had not spoken since he had first mentioned the materials needed for their Gu insect, as if he was not interested in anything.

Scholar picked up his folding fan and gently slapped his hand. The price that Red Lotus mentioned was definitely a rip-off, but it was really difficult to obtain Sword Gu on his continent.

Compared to braving unknown dangers in the outside world, he was more willing to spend more spirit stones.

"Help me get one."

Red Lotus saw that the deal was settled. "Alright, I will keep an eye out for you. I still need to rely on the connections of those sects, it might take some time."

Scholar cupped his hands and stood up. "Then, should we meet again on the first day of the new year?"

Seeing that their conversation was over, Chen Qing did not hesitate and left.

'It's the 15th. They were having a gathering when I got here.

'Looks like it's two meetings a month.

'Judging from their conversation, that space seems to let you trade Gu insects and spirit stones.

'I hope that the Daoist Wild Dog they mentioned dies. That way, no one will know that I obtained this mask. It will also allow me to participate in the next gathering and see how they react.

'Anyway, it was dark at that time, and no one saw who I was. The senior brother of Carefree Mountain and Daoist Wild Dog only knew that I was a disciple of Carefree Mountain.

'If it works, I might be able to start earning money next time.

'It's not too much for me to collect spirit stones for Gu insect cultivation consultation, right?

'The price they discussed is very worrying, though.'

Suppressing his other thoughts, Chen Qing hid the bronze ghost mask in the depths of the cave abode before falling asleep on the bed.

In the Flying Cloud Stream of the Azure Lotus Sword Sect in the Western Desert.

In a cliff cave, a woman in red took off the ghost mask on her face, and opened her mouth to swallow the bronze ghost mask.

It was raining heavily outside. A black eagle with a wingspan of three meters was shuttling through the rain. It heard the woman's call and flew down.

'Is it flood dragon blood?

'There seems to be something like this in the Demon Mansion too.

'I'll give it a try. I don't know what I need anyway.'

She leaped onto the back of the black eagle, and flew into the distance through the rainstorm. After flying for four hours, dense demonic qi gathered in the sky in front of her, covering the sky and the earth.

On the ground, there were piles of bones. Among the piles of bones, there was a huge dragon skeleton lying on the peak of the mountain.

A crude and wild palace stood on the huge dragon bones, and demons with flapping bone wings flew in the sky.

The woman in red rode the black eagle to the foot of the mountain and walked towards a pavilion.

There was only a door in the attic. There was no door. It was white, and only had two floors. Behind the attic, there was a white fox tail that was around 10 meters long, swaying slowly.

Seeing the red-robed woman arrive, two huge teeth gradually grew out of the door of the pavilion, and the table inside shook.

An empty voice came from the door. "I was wondering why the magpies were chirping. So it's Hu Yao.

"It hasn't been peaceful at the foot of the mountain recently. Your little tigers are getting more and more dissatisfied with you."

The woman in red didn't say much. "Do you have flood dragon blood here?"

The door opened and closed. "That thing isn't cheap. What are you going to exchange for it?"

Hu Yao pointed at the black eagle beside her. "How is it?"

Hearing Hu Yao's words, the black eagle was clearly starting to feel afraid. However, before it could react and fly up to escape, the huge house jumped up, opened the door, and instantly swallowed it.

"Oh, this taste, very good, very good."

The door opened again, but the black eagle was no longer in sight.

Three tear-shaped red crystals were squeezed out of the door. When the red crystals landed on the ground, the surrounding withered grass began to smoke. It was obvious that the temperature of red crystals was not low.

Hu Yao picked up three drops of flood dragon blood, swallowed them, and went back down the mountain.

On the skeleton of the flood dragon's tail, there was a huge yellow and black palace with lanterns that looked like two eyes.

In the open space outside the palace, three tigers three meters long each were crying out, "Father, Sister is an outsider after all. We can't let her enjoy your treasures anymore!"

"That's right, make Older Sister get married!"

"Ox Demon's son likes Sister very much, and is willing to pay a lot of money to buy her!"

The huge palace came to life. "Shut up and go back!"

Upon hearing this, the three tigers crawled into the palace aggrievedly.

"How was your trip?"

Hu Yao said, "I caught a black eagle, and exchanged it for three drops of flood dragon blood."

The father and daughter were silent for a moment. In the end, it was the father who spoke first. "Don't worry, I'll at least raise you until you're an adult.

"No one can force you to marry before you come of age."

Hu Yao asked, "But what happens after I become an adult?"

The palace fell silent. After a while, the voice said, "Here, without butterfly Gu insects, you cannot walk freely in the sky."

Hu Yao walked into the door and returned to her room. This was her father's stomach. In the land of demons in the Western Desert, only the stomach of an elder was safe.

Transforming into a butterfly was not that easy.

She did not have much savings left. Fortunately, she could earn a sum through her transaction with Scholar.

She spat out three drops of flood dragon blood, and told the Strength Gu to swallow them.

As the Strength Gu ate all three drops of flood dragon blood, she suddenly found that her Gu insect was no longer moving.

'This is…

'Could it be true?'

Six hours slowly passed, and the bright red Strength Gu suddenly moved. It began to spit out threads from its mouth, wrapping itself tightly and forming a red cocoon.

Was it going to turn into a butterfly?

'It was really three drops of flood dragon blood!'

Although she had fed her Gu a lot of ingredients previously, she could not deduce what remaining ingredients it needed!

Furthermore, that mysterious Absolute Beginning had no idea what she had fed her Gu before!

There were hundreds of possible ingredients; how could he tell at a glance what her Strength Gu needed?

'Who the hell is he?'

Not only did he understand Strength Gu very well, he also knew very well about Scholar's Thunder Butterfly, a Gu insect that she had never seen before.

The next day, when she displayed Strength Butterfly, which had already transformed into a butterfly, in front of her father and three younger brothers, the three younger brothers did not say anything about letting her marry. They only surrounded her and called her sister affectionately.

The door of the huge palace opened and closed. "You're different now."

Hu Yao stood near her younger brother, and thought of the silent and mysterious Absolute Beginning. "Yes, from now on, it's different."

Spirit Treasure Land, Thunder Pure Land.

Black clouds filled the sky. There was no sunlight here all year round. Only lightning fell from the sky uninterruptedly, creating black pits in the ground.

The ground was scorched by the lightning, looking like black glass. In the middle of these mountains covered in black glass, there was a pavilion made of bronze.

In the pavilion, there were countless rows of bookshelves. On them were books with metal pages.

A person who looked like a scholar put down an ancient book in his hand. "I really can't find any description of the name Absolute Beginning.

"This seems to be a Daoist name that has never appeared before.

"In any case, water spirit is not expensive. It's also within the range of possible materials. I'll apply for more in the name of studying ancient techniques."