5 **Chapter 5: First Refinement**

Shoutout to FangYuan1234 and his Fic Reverend Insanity – Perpetual Motion

as well as, CreedFollower with his Fic Reverend Insanity-Blood Venerable Ascension.

Comment on this to get you RI Fanfiction shouted out.

I have a lot of ideas for cool and interesting Poison Path Gu, I would appreciate if you would leave a comment for a few ideas for the refinement path.

Regarding my progress, I have finished writing 9 chapters and have a draft with ideas for 3 chapters. I plan to write chapter 10 today.

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As I stumbled up the stairs to my room, I couldn't help but think that I had definitely overdone it with the celebrations this time. However, my father wasn't having any of my arguments about taking things slowly and not getting absolutly wasted.

"He just had to go and directly gift two primeval stones to every servant. And then, they were so enthusiastic, all of a sudden, that this was the end result," I muttered to myself.

Ah, all this thinking isn't doing my head any favors right now.

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That was the last thing I remembered from last night. We really overdid it; I had never seen my father this ecstatic.

Sitting up in bed, I checked my Aperture. It was still there, confirming that yesterday hadn't been a dream.

70%—I can work with that. Very comfortable as well. With my dedication and my cheat, I shouldn't have any problems advancing to rank 3 upper stage and maybe even rank 4. And from there, we will see.

"It's already afternoon… huh. Well, I guess it doesn't matter; the Academy only starts next week."

Making my way down the stairs, I saw my father seated at his usual spot at the living room table.

"You have exceeded my expectations. Hahaha, a son being more talented than his father, just the way it should be," he chuckled.

"Thank you, Father. What's that you have there?"

"Oh, this? That's your invitation to the academy. You are assigned to class 1.3 A."

I knew exactly what this meant—class 1 because it's the first year after I awakened my Aperture. The .3 is there because my awakening was in the third quarter of the year, and most importantly, the A, because this is the class with the highest talent.

Usually, class A would have 20 students—every A-Grade and B-Grade would be assigned to class A. They would fill the class with the higher C-Grades, whose Aperture is close to 60%, as well as some children of powerful elders who have less-than-satisfying talent.

This is important because class A will always be taught by a rank 3 Gu master, and students will have a far better experience due to there only being 20 people in each class.

This is not comparable to class B, which will only have a rank two peak stage teacher, and will be filled with all the rest of the C-Grade talents.

The worst of all is class C all of them again taught by a rank 2 peak stage Gu Master but filled to the brim with only D-Grade Talents.

These classes obviously have a very different teaching pace, as well as different resources that get handed out.

If I were to compare the teaching of the Fei Yu Clan to the Gu Yue Clan from the novel, there are two main differences. One is the different classes, just because the Fei Yu clan is much bigger. And the second is that in the Fei Yu clan, the young Gu Masters go to the academy for three years, from 15 to 18.

This was a rule a clan leader three generations ago introduced to reduce the casualties of the new Gu Masters. This method is effective as all students of class A and a lot of students of class B graduate as rank 2 Gu Masters. And every once in a while, there will even be someone who graduates as a rank 3, especially if they use relic Gu while they are rank 2 or have A-Grade talent.

 It only works because we have no urgent external threats to deal with.

Reading the letter, I noticed that I would have lessons on Mondays and Thursdays, which is actually three days less than the class B and C students. That's because we are being groomed as the future leadership of the clan. We are expected to be independent and make a lot of progress on our own.

This works well for me, as I have a lot of plans I will be working on simultaneously. And these three years will be crucial, as I will not have any responsibilities besides attending the Academy.

Now, on to more useful things.

"So, Father, do you have the materials I asked you for?"

"Yes, I had a servant deliver them to the basement."

Ah… the basement, my little laboratory, that I have used to store, study, and experiment on poisons. I have fond memories of it, and I only nearly died a few times in my experiments.

"Good, I will go down. Please do not let anyone disturb me. I will start some experiments that should not be interrupted."

"Sure, but do remember that you need to attend the Academy next Monday."

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In the basement, the dry air greeted me with its familiar scent. It had to be this way to preserve my samples.

The basement consisted of four rooms. At the entrance, one room remained completely empty.

To the left of the entrance, you would find a room with walls lined with glass containers containing a myriad of things—ranging from powders and plants to the body parts of animals.

Turning right from the entrance, you'd enter a room furnished with only a bed, desk, and cabinet, with a small fireplace for refinement situated in the middle.

Continuing straight ahead led to a dungeon, which, for now, contained only a few pigs and fish that my father had acquired for me to test some of these poisons.

Standing in the first room, I noticed seven boxes on the right side that I did not put there. Figuring out that these are the materials my father's servant must have put here.

As I picked them up and went to the refinement room, I felt the excitement running through my veins. I was about to refine my first and vital Gu over the next few hours.

Carefully putting the seven boxes down, I closed the door and took a few minutes to calm down. Then, I started a fire under the cauldron. While I waited for the cauldron to heat up, I opened the boxes one by one.

In each box, there were living creatures, ten of each to be precise. They all had one thing in common—they were extremely poisonous for a mortal creature. I am sure they were not cheap either, as each one of them is able to kill a Gu Master if they are not prepared.

I looked at my new notebook and went over the Gu recipe I had created one last time before I put on my gloves to protect me from the poison.

"Time to start," I murmured to myself.

I gathered the Venomspine Beetle, Grimscar Scorpion, Bloodfire Ant, Dreadclaw Spider, Fangcrawler Centipede, Venomroot Tickworm, and Slimecoil Leechworm. Each one landed in the cauldron in no particular order.

Obtaining these creatures hadn't been easy, particularly since none of them could fly to facilitate the refinement process.

There was a practice in China in which people would do something like this and expected only the most poisonous insect to survive. But I had something slightly different planned for these particular ones.

Every time one of these agitated insects was killed, I wrote it down in my notebook. The order in which their lives ended was of the utmost importance.

Venomroot Tickworm, Dreadclaw Spider, Slimecoil Leechworm, Fangcrawler Centipede, Venomspine Beetle, and lastly, the Bloodfire Ant. With that, it was decided that the Grimscar Scorpion was the ultimate survivor.

I picked up the dead insects and laid them out before me in their order of death. Lastly, I took my precious little Grimscar Scorpion.

Crunch.

And squished it in my hand.

And of course, it took its rightful place, laid out neatly before me. I went to the fireplace, put some more coal in, then hastily made my way to the room filled with materials. I took a bucket full of water and mixed some poisons in it.

First, for each liter of water, I added 10 ml of Shadowbane extract. Then, I added 1 leaf of Emberglow as well as 50 ml of Frostbite Venom in total. All of these were rather cheap rank 1 poisons that you could get at a lot of stores in the Fei Yu village.

Mixing all that up, I went back to the refining cauldron and poured the unholy liquid in there.

In the fifteen minutes it took for this liquid to start boiling, I just watched and revised the next steps in my head. The first insect to go into the cauldron was the first to die, the Venomroot Tickworm. Immediately after, I threw in 1 primeval stone and poured in 10% of my primeval essence. At this point, the liquid was boiling more and more violently. I waited about 3 minutes and threw in the Dreadclaw Spider, 2 primeval stones, and poured in 10% of my primeval essence again.

I repeated this pattern, and with each Gu, the liquid got less and less but more violent. Until after the seventh insect, the Grimscar Scorpion, followed by the 7 primeval stones and my last 10% of primeval essence. There was no liquid left; it had all evaporated.

"This refinement would have been so much more annoying if I had even 1% less primeval essence."

"Please be successful..."

After the smoke lifted, all I saw was a small worm, which was enough for me to break out laughing.

"Hahahaha, success! I seem to have some talent for making up recipes and refining Gu. That is good, very good."

The smile left my face as fast as it entered.

"No, it might just be beginners luck, i should not become arrogant."

"Now come here, my Poison Refinement Gu..."

As I said, I grabbed the Gu and took a good long look at it. Even though I was absolutely spent after using all of my primeval essence, I will always remember the first time I looked at it. My first Gu.

It was a beautiful worm, with a sleek light green body and a beautiful pattern that looked a little like scales.

After spending a few minutes in awe at my creation, I grabbed a primeval stone and began recovering my primeval essence. After 20 minutes, it had recovered to 20%. So, I began to overpower the will of my new Gu. It was easier than I expected, perhaps because it had just been created and had not developed a consciousness yet.

After spending barely any of my essence, I had succeeded, finally.

"Good, I can rest now," Zhen Wei said and moved his tired body over to the bed. Upon touching it, the exhaustion finally caught up to him and he fell asleep instantly, with his vital Gu in his Aperture.

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