8 Limitations and Progress

When Gu Guangzhi finally formed a water wall around his aperture, he felt immensely happy and his understanding of the aperture increased a lot. With his D grade aptitude, he only had 39% primeval essence in his aperture. It takes concentration to cultivate and condense one's primeval essence to the next small realm. As the aptitude of a gu master increases, the percentage of primeval essence also increases. This must mean that the amount of primeval essence one has to condense must also increase. Then why doesn't a gu master with a D grade aptitude advance faster than a gu master with an A grade aptitude? After all, the gu master with an A grade has to do more work in terms of quantity, condensing his primeval essence to next small realm.

The answer consists of two parts. First, the advantage that a gu master with better aptitude has, is their rate of recovery. When a gu master cultivates and condenses their primeval essence, new primeval essence is generated in the aperture and this pressure further condenses the primeval essence. Thus, with a better aptitude, one can make faster progress. However, this limitation can be tackled in a way with primeval stones. Gu Guangzhi couldn't generate enough pressure to quickly condense the primeval essence with his D grade recovery rate. So, he spent primeval stones to build up the pressure to quickly condense his primeval essence to the next realm.

In order to make a breakthrough to the next small realm, a gu master had to attack the aperture walls using the condensed primeval essence. Once the walls are broken down, new walls would be formed around the aperture, signifying the breakthrough. The second advantage lies in this aspect. A gu master with a higher aptitude has a larger amount of primeval essence so they have a larger arsenal to attack the aperture walls. This may not be a major problem in the minor realms of Rank 1 and one can even force through up to Rank 2 peak stage but starting from breakthrough to major realm of Rank 3, it might require a tremendous amount of effort. This was also the reason there were no Rank 3 gu masters with D grade aptitude. Wealth couldn't solve all problems.

Of course, Fang Yuan used a liquor worm to directly condense his primeval essence to the next small realm and used Man-Beast Life Burial Gu, Bone Flesh Unity Gu and Bai Ning Bing to help with his breakthroughs in Reverend Insanity but Gu Guangzhi had no idea about such methods.

Thus, after his breakthrough to middle stage of First Rank, Gu Guangzhi began to look deeper into the insights and teachings about gu cultivation that he received as part of his inheritance. He realized that he couldn't stay holed up near this water spring his entire life. In order to make progress, he had to step out in the world of gu masters again.

His water wolf was also growing up quickly. In fact, it was growing up at a faster rate than him. It could now be comparable to an upper stage Rank 1 gu master. The Stream Gu it had was now completely healed and it even gained another Rank 1 gu called Wolf hearing Gu that improved its investigative abilities.

One day, when they were out hunting, the water wolf detected the presence of a strong enemy. It was a mountain bear with strength comparable to Rank 1 gu master. Gu Guangzhi could sense a gu insect on the bear. It had a Rank 1 Mountain bear Innate strength Gu. Beasts in the Reverend Insanity world were inherently powerful and dangerous but if they had gu insects on them, they would become much more powerful. He made the judgement that this beast wouldn't pose much danger to him and his water wolf. He started to fight as usual with his hit and run tactics while his water wolf was stalling the bear with its Stream Gu.

However, due to the use of Mountain bear Innate strength Gu, the attacks from the weak Bamboo cane Gu weren't harming the mountain bear enough and the mountain bear was able to break free from the stalling of water wolf's use of Stream Gu. Gu Guangzhi was athletic enough to escape from the mountain bear's attacks but it made him realize, he needs to refine other types of gu insects as well. His Bamboo sprout Gu was suitable for him with his low primeval essence capacity but he could not rely on this gu forever. He needed to use several type of gu to increase his battle capacity. Thus he decided to defeat this mountain bear and obtain it's Mountain bear Innate strength Gu.

Gu Guangzhi put away his Bamboo cane Gu and took out a regular machete. It clearly had a better attack power than his Bamboo cane Gu but Gu Guangzhi usually used his Bamboo cane Gu to attack. This was because the usage of gu insects improves the understanding of the gu insects and improves gu mastery over time. But now Gu Guangzhi only wanted to kill the mountain bear. He pulled out some poison and coated the machete.

He directed his water wolf to use stream gu to impair the vision of the mountain bear. As the water wolf did as it was told, Gu Guangzhi dashed towards the mountain bear with the poisoned machete in his hand. He made several shallow cuts to let the poison sink in. The mountain bear used it's gu to strike madly into the air but Gu Guangzhi evaded the attacks swiftly. Then he used started to use the Bamboo twine Gu that have had piled up until now in his aperture to restrict the movements of the mountain bear. They were not very effective but quantity made up for quality.

Gu Guangzhi didn't want to use his machete to kill the mountain bear because, he didn't know where the gu insect resided in the mountain bear's body. If he damaged the gu insect while killing the mountain bear, all his efforts would be gone to waste. So he prolonged the battle for as long as possible till the poison started to affect the movements of the bear. It soon collapsed and the Rank 1 Mountain bear Innate strength Gu flew out of the bear's body. Gu Guangzhi swiftly caught it and returned home.

This was his first gu that he had to refine on his own. Until now, the remnant will left behind by his parents in his inherited gu insects helped him refine them easily. In order to refine this Mountain bear Innate strength gu, he had to spend a significant amount of time. Once he refined it, he felt very happy that his strength would begin to increase after using this Gu. He continued with his cultivation and began to hunt for other wild Gu that he could use in the future.

Six months had passed and Gu Guangzhi obtained two other wild Rank 1 gu insects from wild beasts such as Beast skin Gu to raise defense temporarily and Pronghorn beetle Gu to raise movement speed greatly for as long as 45 minutes. With his newly found gu insects, his battle prowess improved but his feeding expenditures increased as well. He had to feed the flesh of wild animals to the Mountain bear Innate strength gu and Beast skin Gu and bitter honey berries to the Pronghorn beetle Gu. As the food he needed to feed his gu was thinning down, he made up his mind to explore farther away from his water spring.

With his efficiency of extracting primeval essence from stones having increased, he was now at the upper stage of Rank 1 after just spending 500 primeval stones. His water wolf also grew and could be said to be comparable to a peak Rank 1 gu master. Gu Guangzhi was confident that they could handle the dangers from other gu masters in the area.