Insane scholar toad
"...So as you can see, in my world, I heard about the gu world in this set of tales about an otherworldly demon... the stories aren't the most detailed and explanatory; in fact, they even resemble the legends of Ren Zu in their writing," Chen Wei finishes telling a story he had prepared some time ago to justify his knowledge as he leads the way prepared to be the first line of defense if any danger arises, of course, this is mainly to defend Wang Mei, who has cultivation at rank 2 initial stage but now that she's pregnant, she can't fight with all her strength.
In fact, despite not showing it much, he is extremely worried about Wang Mei's health, especially for their child in her belly who could easily end up getting hurt or even dying in the worst case since babies in gestation are extremely fragile and also pose risks to the mother, even with cases of low-rank gu masters dying in childbirth.
"Hmm, it seems that your theory of some immortal gu master from this world ending up in your world isn't so unfounded if this story is true," Feng Hua speaks while walking behind Chen Wei, paying total attention to the surroundings, prepared to defend against any danger.
"Well, it would really be more useful if the story were written like a biography, but I think just information about immortal ranks and tribulations... as well as the capability of paths like the Wisdom path, are an immeasurable treasure," Yu Lian speaks, prompting Chen Wei to nod in agreement since he revealed certain true information with the objective of gaining some of their trust since they might be necessary for this possible immortal inheritance; otherwise, they wouldn't be here with him and Wang Mei.
Furthermore, at this point, with four otherworldly demons at the same time in a small mountain like Longhua Shan, he is completely certain that this has the hand of some Venerable who probably plans something with them, so Chen Wei knows it will be practically impossible for him to kill them even if he tenses with all his might.
"Hmm, alright..." Wang Mei speaks while nodding her head, not wanting to say much since she knows the story he told is false because he used the Blood Love gu to communicate with her before and warn her about it, since their engagement pact could cause a negative reaction due to him lying openly to her.
"Well, putting that aside, the most important thing about the story is that it reveals the special status of otherworldly demons like us, so it's likely that whoever brought us here has a plan in mind," Chen Wei is clear, having a main suspect for this, which would be the Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable who, like him, is an otherworldly demon and not only that but is also one of the legendary Venerables.
Furthermore, something has repeatedly crossed Chen Wei's mind since he woke up in this place; those are the words of the old man with a crazy appearance that he didn't know how but who managed to sneak under his watch to touch Chen Wei's body directly, which probably has something to do with how he ended up here.
That phrase is of course: 'Hahah... ahahahh... ahahahahahah, incredible, as expected of the future Venerable with the greatest killing strength!' This greatly confuses Chen Wei because he knows exactly that an existence like a Venerable is fated from birth, just as he knows that the fated Venerable of this era should be Giant Sun, who was born in one of the tribes of the northern plains.
Of course, it is simply possible that the old man was just a madman who luckily managed to sneak up on him without being noticed, but every time this thought arises in Chen Wei's mind, his instinct quickly denies it as if it were utter nonsense.
It is also possible that the knowledge from the novel about who the future Venerable after Thieving Heaven is wrong, and if that's the case, this is very important for Chen Wei, who now, taking this into account, rethinks a great number of his plans and ideas for the future.
"By the way what's in those books that you want to bring so many of them?" Wang Mei asks curiously to Yu Lian, who is carrying several books with difficulty.
"Huh? Well... most of them are just some romances or mortal stories that I like to read, so I brought them with me," Yu Lian responds with a bit of embarrassment while handing over one or two books for Wang Mei to see for herself.
"This romance is called ...Ho Mei Wu and Chu Li Ye... hmm, it's a romance type, right?" Wang Mei speaks to Yu Lian as she wants to ease the tension between them, but suddenly she sees that Chen Wei has stopped and looks at the book with a complicated expression.
"Mei'er, can I see this book?" Chen Wei speaks as he turns around and takes the book from Wang Mei's hands.
"You're interested in romances now? What's different about this one that makes you want to see it?" Feng Hua speaks with doubt as she approaches to see the content of the book that Chen Wei is reading.
"Ah, the name is similar to a book from my world, and now that I read the content, it's the same..." Chen Wei clearly refers to the globally famous Romeo and Juliet, which is one of the most well-known novels from Earth and somehow ended up in this world.
"Can I look at the others?" Chen Wei speaks, met with a nod from Yu Lian who hands the books to him, starting to flip through them.
"Oh, I know this one, it's 'The Tales of Cordoba' it's an adventure book that was a literary classic and quite famous in my world," Wang Mei speaks with an excited expression after recognizing something from her original world.
"It's possible that the person who created this cave was researching things related to other worlds that came to the gu world, right?" Feng Hua speaks as she thinks about the possibility of all these books having been written by otherworldly demons who lived in the past.
"It's possible since we weren't the first otherworldly demons to come to this world... and according to the Blood Prince, even the legendary Thieving Heaven was one of us otherworldly demons," Yu Lian speaks as she looks at the books that she now knows are from another world, and although the ones she picked up don't belong to her world, in the place where they appeared in this cave, there were hundreds of books scattered on the ground, so it's possible that she could find a book from her world.
While Yu Lian thinks about going back to search for a magic book from her world, Chen Wei's mind is distracted thinking about the possibility of just one book, "Reverend Insanity," that if brought to this world would be an immeasurable treasure.
But it doesn't even occur to Chen Wei to go back to search for the books hoping to find the "Reverend Insanity" book and maybe even a complete copy of the book since if someone from this world had obtained such a treasure, they wouldn't leave it lying around among other common books, and also, whoever brought them here must already have all the knowledge of the book that was in Chen Wei's mind.
"It's better if we continue instead of going back to search for books or standing here doing nothing," Chen Wei speaks as he continues the path, quickly followed by Wang Mei and then by Feng Hua, who hesitates a bit before following him, but that's nothing compared to Yu Lian, who has the eyes of a sad puppy as she looks sadly in the direction they came from before following the group since she didn't have the courage to go back alone.
"For now, I see three possibilities for us: either we'll have to face an immortal or a land spirit or a remaining will... of these, the best would be if we encounter a land spirit since that would indicate that we are in a blessed land and they also can't lie" Chen Wei doesn't mention his suspicion that this might be an illusion created by an immortal since if that were the case, he wouldn't be able to do anything about it, so it's redundant to try to prepare for that alternative.
"If it's an immortal... we'll probably die right?" Feng Hua asks as she fills her head with the different cruel deaths they could have.
"That's less likely since if an immortal existed here, we would already be facing them... but if that's the case, we'll probably become laboratory rats or something similar," Chen Wei speaks as he calmly walks when he begins to see the end of this path in the distance.
"Laboratory rats? What would that be?" Yu Lian asks as she had never heard that term before.
"Well, it's a term that peopl-... wait, look carefully, I think we got lucky with this path," Chen Wei changes his words before he can explain himself because he sees two two-meter wooden doors side by side at the end of this path made of oak wood on the wall, as if it were the entrance to a grand mansion.
"Do you think this could be an exit?" Feng Hua uses a wind path investigation gu to try to figure out what's behind the door but is left with a disappointed expression when her gu can't even identify the existence of the door.
"It's quite possible that all paths lead to this place, but only when we're together does the door show itself to our eyes," this is one of Chen Wei's main theories and also the reason why he asked if Feng Hua was sure they had reached a dead end in the cave, as well as why he tried to gain the trust of Feng Hua and Yu Lian so they would follow him.
"I think it's unlikely that we'll be attacked passing through this door, but have your gu prepared anyway..." After saying this, Chen Wei looks at Wang Mei, who is his biggest concern, so he keeps her close to him for when his quick reaction is necessary to save her, and then looks at Yu Lian, who is not a gu master, so she is the one in the greatest danger among them.
Chen Wei then slowly approaches the door before placing his hand gently on the wooden surface while his mind wanders in thought for a moment in this important moment.
'If what that crazy old man said is true and I am fated to be a Venerable, then this will be just another of the opportunities that present themselves on my path... just as this may be just the place of my cruel death... either way, I will advance without ever fearing or hesitating' Chen Wei puts his strength to push the door, which was too heavy for a common mortal to open, and even for Chen Wei with a rank 3 gu master status, it wasn't an easy task as he expected.
"Hmm, this is... quite unexpected," Wang Mei, who is next to Chen Wei, murmurs seeing the door now open, revealing a large luxurious hall full of bookshelves as well as places for experiments and some statues of people placed prominently.
"This is in much better condition than the books outside... it must have been the main study room of the owner of this cave," Yu Lian speaks with an excited expression seeing the various books and research materials, but she doesn't dare to be the first to enter because if there were any kind of trap, she wouldn't even have time to blink before dying.
But before she could think more about the content of the books inside this place, she sees Chen Wei advancing slowly while surrounded by a blood armor, but instead of his gaze being on the books, it's on a gu material on one of the research tables.
"Heavenly spring water... a legendary rank 5 gu material according to my grandfather; the clan has 300 ml of this gu material, which is treated as one of the greatest treasures of the clan," Chen Wei speaks with an ecstatic face while holding in his hand a bottle of three liters of this Heavenly spring water, which has a golden-blue color and exudes a majestic and dominant aura.
"Rank 5 gu material? How is that possible? Look how many of those bottles there are," Yu Lian speaks pointing to one of the shelves that have dozens of three-liter bottles filled with Heavenly spring water. Yu Lian is the second to enter the room either out of great courage or lack of reason in her head.
"You worked with herbology, tell me if I'm wrong in saying that these are rank 5 materials," Chen Wei speaks as he hands Yu Lian an Immortal lotus leaf, a rank 5 wood path gu material that would make any wood path cultivator fight to the death to obtain, but just on this research table, Chen Wei saw dozens of these leaves.
"That's... how is this possible!" Yu Lian, who recognized the leaf instantly, has a shocked expression since unlike the other three, she is not a gu master so she can't feel the aura of the cultivation materials, being able to identify them only by her own knowledge.
"So this is the kind of wealth an immortal has?" Wang Mei speaks as she enters the hall along with Feng Hua.
Her surprise is genuine since despite hearing that this was the case from Chen Wei's mouth, seeing it for herself is a different experience; in fact, even Chen Wei himself, who knew that rank 5 materials were as cheap as grass for immortals, felt extremely impressed.
As Chen Wei continues to search for more rare materials, he sees a large barrel made of Gaia Wood, another rank 5 wood path material that could cause a bloodbath among various gu masters who would fight to the death to obtain it, but in this place, it's just used as wood to make a barrel that contains some liquid.
Chen Wei quickly removes a cork that was on the barrel's lid to see what liquid was inside but ends up with a shocked expression when a strong blood aura that is suffocating even for him surges in an instant. "This... don't tell me it's the blood of a desolate beast... this would be the most--"
"Kekekekekekek, it seems my visitors are really interested in these pitiful mortal materials..." A voice that permeates the entire hall suddenly emerges without any prior warning. "Kekekekeke, but it's to be expected since these insignificant crumbs would be like treasures to mortals kekekekke"
Chen Wei, as well as all three girls, instantly look in the direction from which the voice comes with their minds in total alert as well as great apprehension since they had looked around the room as well as used investigative methods that confirmed the room was empty.
"The insolent junior greets the legendary immortal!!" Chen Wei without hesitation kneels as he communicates with Wang Mei through the Blood Love gu for her to do the same without worrying about her honor or prestige since he knows it won't matter at all if this immortal gets angry and wants to kill them for the insolent attitude.
"Kekekekeke, there's no need for that since you are my guests, and I don't want to be a bad host..." The voice becomes clearer amidst the laughter and fast words. "Kekekekek, besides, I am not worthy to have a future Venerable and his legendary wives kneeling before me, a mere foolish toad..."
Hearing these words, Chen Wei lifts his head, as well as stops kneeling, and looks forward to where the voice is coming from, which he can now see is the one who speaks, which surprises Chen Wei quite a bit.
This is because instead of the appearance of an old and slightly crazy human as the voice indicates, he sees a small green toad sitting on a red armchair with gold decorations, but he knows that this toad is not a common animal since he exudes an incredible aura while he wears a red outfit under a green coat that along with his long white hair and beard give him the appearance of a wise fantastical animal like in one of the fantasy stories from Earth.
"Kekeke then tell me, junior, are you willing to take this foolish old toad called Kuang Luo Tuo as your master for a little while... kekekeke..." The toad, which is a little over thirty centimeters tall but has a magnificent and almost infinite aura, speaks with a big smile and an insane appearance on his face.