42 Middle of nowhere

Gu Guangzhi and Yu Wen Zi were now far away from Qing Mao mountain. Yu Wen Zi forcible use of a Rank 5 gu insect without Rank 5 cultivation gave Yu Wen Zi a severe backlash. Neither Gu Guangzhi's Rank 3 Bamboo stalk Gu nor Yu Wen Zi's own healing gu worms were unable to heal him completely. He looked very frail and weak, drained of all the vitality.

"Fire escape Gu is a Rank 5 gu insect. I was able to activate it with a portion of my primeval stones reserve but it drained me of my vitality due to lack of sufficient cultivation. Let us find a quiet place to rest for a while.", said Yu Wen Zi.

"Teacher, why did you have to risk yourself like this for me? You must've just left me there. I still have score to settle.", said Gu Guangzhi. He had hatred for the Xiong clan leader who gave the order. He had hatred for Jiao faction to call for such actions. He had hatred for the Yuan faction for having a guy like Yuan Shuren who killed Wang Mei. He had hatred for everyone.

"Stupid kid! Do you think you are the only one who had lost someone dear to them? Even I lost someone I held dear to me. Then I lived only for the sake of revenge for several years. That is not a healthy way to live. That is not the kind of life I want for you." Yu Wen Zi coughed up blood as he scolded Gu Guangzhi.

Gu Guangzhi was concerned for his teacher. He needed a high level healing gu master but they were in the middle of nowhere. Technically, there were three major cities closest to them, Fei city, Yao city and Tie city, that were run by three super forces of the Southern border. Gu Guangzhi could find a high Rank healing gu master who could treat his teacher but the journey alone would take several weeks and was fraught with danger. So he decided to hole up where he was. He was used to living in the mountains and he surveyed and found a suitable cave.

Two months had passed and several things had come to pass. He didn't have the support of a clan, finding food and refinement materials for his gu insects was increasingly difficult. He had already stored his Hellrise bamboo bird Gu and Bamboo wings Gu in Bamboo culm Gu and rarely used them because he couldn't find the food for these gu insects. They were attacked by wild beasts many times and Gu Guangzhi got a lot more experience with his Rank 3 killer move, Spartan soldiers. He had a hundred man soul foundation that he had built up over the years.

As he fought with the wild beasts, he noticed that the innate ability of wild beasts to enslave and command hordes. Inspired by this, he tried to refine the Rank 2 Grass Puppet Gu he had. Yu Wen Zi praised Gu Guangzhi repeatedly when he was able to refine a new gu insect after very few failures. Gu Guangzhi shrugged it off, saying that he already had experience refining the Hellrise bamboo bird Gu and he only tweaked the recipe a bit to create Rank 3 Grass wolf Gu.

Later, using Spartan soldiers as the base, he created a new Rank 3 killer move, Alphas among wolves. Gu Guangzhi's idea was to let his water wolf to command these grass wolf puppets. As a wild beast, it had better sense for controlling a pack of wolves. This removed a major burden for Gu Guangzhi because every time he used the killer move Spartan soldiers, he had to spend a lot of his mental energy controlling the grass puppets. If he didn't focus his attention, the grass soldiers' movements would become monotonous and predictable. But now, due to the effect of soul bonding with the water wolf, he could easily direct his water wolf on the tactics and the water wolf would take care of controlling the wolf puppets. Thus, as the water wolf grew stronger, he could indirectly control many more wolf puppets without putting a burden on his soul foundation.

The only caveat was that he still had to create all these grass wolf puppets with his own primeval essence. The water wolf couldn't use the natural primeval energy on Grass wolf Gu like it did with it's own wild gu insects on its body. Whenever a gu insect was refined by a gu master, it would be filled with the gu master's will and it would lose the ability to use natural primeval energy present in the surroundings.

Conflicting dao marks was a common problem that all gu masters faced. Gu masters would usually choose a specific path and try to use only gu insects related to their path from Rank 3 as they would start accumulating dao marks of that path. Gu Guangzhi wanted to cultivate earth path. Enslavement path gu masters were very powerful but the dao marks generated weren't so compatible with earth path. However Grass wolf Gu was a wood path gu insect. Wood path was compatible with earth path. Thus, he would gain the advantage of enslavement path using the wood path while avoiding enslavement path dao marks.

However, all these experiments with refinements soon brought some bad news to Gu Guangzhi. A myriad beast king was attracted to the disturbances and it made it's way to the mountain with it's horde. As Gu Guangzhi saw the the huge horde, he grew nervous.

"No wonder! I thought the refinement was going too easy. Damn! Why do I always face some kind of danger after refinement? Either some critical step in refinement becomes dangerous or I face danger in some other way after refinement?", Gu Guangzhi cursed his luck. Yu Wen Zi simply smiled it off.

As the Earth overlord bear made its way to the mountain with its horde. Gu Guangzhi had to try his best to hide Yu Wen Zi. Yu Wen Zi was a lot better than he was two months ago but he wasn't in a position to fight a myriad beast king which had Rank 4 strength. Yu Wen Zi's Fire illusion Gu which he usually used for concealment wasn't enough in this situation. They were still found out by the bear horde which was very sensitive to smell. As they were surrounded by the bear horde, they steeled themselves and prepared for the fight.