Gu Feeding and Cultivation
Swish! A small bamboo dart whizzes through the air at impressive speed, colliding instantly with the chest of a small wooden puppet, which had been moving back and forth. Upon impact, the puppet immediately falls to the ground, but its arms and legs still struggle to move, attempting to get up helplessly.
"I scored eighteen points!" a young girl shouts excitedly, doing little jumps as she can't contain her joy, with no sympathy for the poor wooden puppet still struggling to get up.
Before the academy elder even announces her score, she has already rushed over to her friends, who celebrate with her.
"Shu Min Shu, with eighteen points, is now in tenth place," the academy elder announces calmly.
This makes the girl cheer even more, while Hei Tu, watching silently, just shakes his head. He suspects that this tenth place won't hold, as only eighteen out of the eighty students that will participate in the competition have taken their turn so far.
Moreover, most of those who have shown skill in using the Bamboo Shot Gu haven't had their turn yet, with the current exception being the first-place student, Bi Xia, who scored a total of thirty-nine points.
And how does he know who the most skilled Bamboo Shot Gu users are? Like everyone else, he has spent the last three days learning from the academy elder about using their Gu, while those who chose Bamboo Shot Gu as their vital Gu practiced extensively during the classes.
Since he didn't have to participate in these exercises, he simply observed from a distance, taking note of those who hit targets more consistently and those who could hit more vital areas, like the head and chest. Unsurprisingly, he noticed that Su Ah, followed by Bi Xia, were by far the most skilled in this group of students.
Of course, for now, this information isn't of much importance to him; he's merely collecting it for possible future needs.
However, something that affected him directly was the three primeval stones distributed by the clan academy to all students two days ago at the beginning of the week, intended to help them practice and feed their Bamboo Shot Gu. The students' joy increased further upon hearing from the academy elder that this distribution of primeval stones would continue each week until the academy year ended.
While he had these thoughts, a few more students completed their bamboo shooting tests against the poor wooden dummies, achieving an average of around twenty points each.
This was hardly interesting to watch, especially since he himself didn't use the Bamboo Shot Gu and didn't need to compare his skills with those of the other youths. However, he still watched because he anticipated that the academy might organize some kind of combat test between students in the future, and when that moment arrived, he didn't want to regret not having paid attention to the capabilities of his future opponents.
So, he forced himself to stay alert as time passed slowly, with students taking their turns and scoring points based on their accuracy in hitting vital areas of the dummies, such as the head for five points, the chest for three, or less important areas for one.
Finally, after several hours, the test ended with Su Ah scoring forty-two points, securing first place to the surprise of almost none of the students with their heads on straight—the ones he'd spoken with, at least.
Those with their "heads not on straight," however, included Zi Heng, who seemed genuinely disappointed not to have come in first place while simultaneously complimenting Su Ah on being cute and talented.
Hei Tu might have had a few mocking words for him if not for the surprise that Zi Heng actually managed to place tenth among the best students in the use of the Bamboo Shot Gu, prompting Hei Tu to rethink his assumptions about his wine-loving, procrastinating friend.
Anyway, after the test concluded, Hei Tu had a brief conversation with Zi Heng before heading off. However, he didn't plan to go straight home; for now, he had another priority—feeding his Gu.
---
Hei Tu halts his steps when he finally spots the medium-sized shop, with a sign depicting a black and a white boar eating together—making it nearly impossible to miss if you're looking for it, as he was.
"Strong Eater: Gu Food Shop," he reads aloud from the sign beneath the two boars, nodding to himself before opening the door and stepping inside without hesitation.
This is a Gu feeding shop primarily focused on providing for the needs of strength and transformation path Gu. His father had mentioned that shops like this do well financially due to the large number of Gu Masters with these types of Gu—even though the clan's main Gu belongs to the Wood path.
"Hm? Ah! Young Master Hei, it's good to see you here again!" a cheerful girl with a cute appearance and her hair styled in pigtails greets him with a warm smile as he enters.
Without needing to ask if he wants a catalog, she gets straight to the point. "Here to buy more food for the Hound Strength Gu?"
"Yes, the same amount as last time," he replies simply, taking out a primeval stone from his pocket and placing it on the shop counter.
He remembers thinking the initial supply would last a month, but by the end of the second week, he finds himself nearly out of it. And since he estimates that he'll finish using the Hound Strength Gu by the end of this month, he'll need enough food to last until then.
The shop assistant smiles again, picking up the primeval stone from the counter and heading to the back to retrieve the food for the Hound Strength Gu.
Hei Tu is already used to the fact that the shop doesn't display its products on shelves but stores them in a cooled section at the back. To see what the shop offers, one either needs to check the catalog or ask the assistant directly.
This setup makes sense, as most foods for strength or transformation Gu are parts of animals—meat, hides, claws, fur, and so on—which reflect the creatures a Gu Master can transform into or draw power from. It's clear why displaying rows upon rows of such items wouldn't be the most pleasant layout.
While he ponders this, an elderly woman with silver hair but a body so muscular it would put most bodybuilders in his world to shame, even with she missing an arm, comes from the back of the shop to speak with him.
She is known as Grandma Xi, she's the shop owner. And as her physique shows she was a Strength Path Gu Master, and even age hasn't stripped her of her power.
Their conversation is brief and straightforward, with her mostly asking him about his experience using the Hound Strength Gu and giving suggestions on which Gu she thinks might be suitable as his next or which refinement path would benefit the Hound Strength Gu.
As they chat, the cute assistant returns, followed by a small puppet carrying two heavy-looking boxes in its thin arms.
"Here you go! I hope you didn't wait too long!" she says with a smile.
Seeing the two boxes and knowing how heavy they must be due to the compacted dog meat inside, he feels a pang of pity, briefly imagining the cruel fate of the poor dogs used to obtain it. The sheer volume of meat transported as if it were nothing suggests that quite a few dogs may have met this end.
Clearing his mind, he nods politely and exchanges a few words with the girl and Grandma Xi. Then, accompanied by the small wooden puppet, he heads toward his home.
"I wonder why these puppets aren't used for combat?" he muses, glancing sidelong at the wooden puppet.
Such thoughts are common for him lately, as these puppets, often seen carrying things around for the convenience of Gu Masters, are now an everyday sight. And aside from the academy competition—where they served more as moving targets—his casual questions, as well as his own observations, have led him to believe that these puppets aren't used for combat.
He can somewhat understand why; their speed, balance, and durability are not high. However, he still wonders why there isn't a variant of the Gu used to create these puppets that compensates for these limitations. Such variants could allow these easily maintained, low-essence-consuming puppets to serve as useful reinforcements in battle, overwhelming foes with numbers.
But he simply shakes his head as he walks on, deciding that, for now, this isn't worth dwelling on for now.
---
"Primeval sea... a sea formed from the essence of heaven and earth, naturally created within a Gu Master's aperture," Hei Tu murmurs, staring at his nearly dry primeval sea, with barely a drop remaining.
A stark contrast to what he had seen just moments ago, when this sea was continuously crashing against the thin membrane of brightly flickering
light—the walls of his aperture—nourishing them to the point where the difference was already noticeable compared to the first time he had seen them.
"Should I use one?" he wonders, eyeing the eleven primeval stones he has left.
He knows from experience, after testing one a few days ago, that just a single stone is enough to completely replenish his primeval sea, easily filling the 50% that his aperture can hold.
Yet, he's hesitant to use them recklessly, as some other youths have done, only to find themselves without any stones left when they most needed them—during a critical clan test, for instance.
Of course, it all depends on what that test would be. If it were a combat test, he feels confident he could place highly due to his enhanced strength from the Hound Strength and Yang Gu.
But in the end, this is still a cultivation world, and given how his own progress has been going, he strongly suspects that the next academy test may be related to cultivation advancement.
If that's the case, then those with high talent like Su Ah and Bi Xia would hold a considerable advantage compared to him and other students, forcing him to use up his primeval stones indiscriminately if he wanted to keep up with them.
Even then, it might not be enough, as both of them have received multiple primeval stones as rewards from clan tests. Not to mention, one hails from the family of the clan leader, and the other from an elder's family.
Luckily, according to his father, their families won't provide them with hundreds or thousands of primeval stones just to guarantee their success. There's an unspoken agreement among those with children in the academy to keep things fairer, allowing the clan's younger generation to grow on their own instead of relying on their parents constant assistance.
This thought brought a sigh of relief to Hei Tu, grateful to be in a real cultivation world and not a generic novel where young masters are fed countless pills to skyrocket their cultivation and go around spending endless wealth just to flaunt it. And if the protagonist so much as looked at them the wrong way, there would be an elder of a much higher cultivation rank ready to strike them down.
Of course, this has a downside for him, as his own father isn't handing out primeval stones freely either, forcing him to manage his resources carefully.
"Ahh, if only I knew whether the next clan competition really would be a cultivation advancement test," he thinks helplessly. He did ask his father just a day ago, but received only this response:
'Figure it out yourself. I'm not here to hold your hand like a baby when you're already capable of cultivating on your own.'
So he's been forced to deduce it for himself, as his mother wouldn't tell him either, though she phrased it more kindly than his father did.
"Even if it isn't the next competition, this is a cultivation world…" he mutters, picking up a primeval stone from his bedside table. "...having higher cultivation is always an advantage, and it's only a matter of time until a test like that comes up."
As he says this, the primeval stone in his hand quickly disintegrates, leaving only dust in his palm. Simultaneously, the primeval essence in his aperture begins to rise at an impressive speed compared to his natural regeneration.
He lets out a soft sigh, looking toward the window and noticing that it's still afternoon. Then, he closes his eyes again, focusing his attention on his primeval sea. Under the careful command of his mind, it begins to crash once more against the walls of his aperture.