20 chapter 20 enhancing oneself

In my courtyard I was trying out new experiments with my variant selfs. I've tried many things as well as using certain gu on them, but not all gu worked on them.

Gu like bone scales, hair spike gu, and most transformation path gu had no effect on them. Which makes sense to a certain extent, they are technically my will given form by relying on the strength dao marks. They don't have real bones, hair, or a true body to transform. However i learned that i can improve my variant selfs with certain gu to overcome their issues.

If I give them gu like hair growth gu they can then use hair spike gu, by that logic if i can find gu that creates blood, bones, muscles, nerves, and exactra. I'll be able to create a true human doppel capable of using most gu. The only difference would be that it lacked a true soul, but getting the gu necessary to do that was the problem.

Hair growth gu was created to assist certain gu, but all the other gu most likely don't even exist. I asked Initel's will but she told me that most don't exist. Think about it why would someone need a gu to create a brain or tendons. When all they would need is a good defensive gu or a strong healing gu.

Well it's not that bad that i can't make a perfect variant self. One of it's greatest strengths was that any injuries it gets heals so long as it has enough will in it. If I were to give it a real body it'd would then be limited by its flesh.

My greatest gain in experimenting with my variant selfs was that a very common gu works well with it. Handing over beggar moth to my featherman self and a black and blue butterfly. I then instructed him to activate the gu and soon my featherman self grew to up to 15 feet tall.

15 feet tall is the limit anymore and the variant self fades away. Thanks to variant humans like minimen and eggmen, gu to increase size have been made common. Not just the gu itself but food for those gu have also been widely grown everywhere.

The gu my variant self used just now was one of the gu used in the story rule path gu big. I've used its rank 1 and 2 versions to see if there was any difference between the two but there was none. Apparently the gu has to be ranked up to match the rank of the gu master, but my variant selfs aren't gu masters. They have no cultivation at all so a rank 1 big gu can do the same job for less primeval sea essence than the others.

With the help of big gu I can now have my featherman self carry me as he flys. Hell, I could could also use their big bodies as a shield. Lately I've been trying to find a gu to increase their defense for that purpose, but again since they lack true bodies i can't use most gu to increase their defense.

I've been trying different gu to see what would be best, but so far nothing has been satisfying enough for me to use. As I was thinking about what gu to use next a voice called out to me.

Initel[ you still haven't found a way to increase your variant selfs defense.]

I turned and sitting down enjoying my tea was the real Initel.

Shu[ no i haven't found a good gu to increase their defense.]

Initel[ though it is a good idea to increase their size and defense to get yourself a big human shield.]

Human shield... I like that I'm going to use that as the name for when I use my variant selfs to protect me.

Initel[ now here are the gu that'll improve your body. My will has all their food and once you're done using them give them back to my will.]

She gave me all the gu and explained what they improved. However, one of the gu's name caught my attention. Imperial bones gu

Shu[ does this imperial bones gu have a connection with imperial white emperor physique?]

This world had different extreme physiques from the story. Imperial white emperor physique was an extreme physique for bone path.

Initel[ it does indeed, whenever immortals find an extreme physique gu master with little to no background... they're often taken by immortals who want to research their physique. This imperial bones gu was one of the gains of that research.]

I suppose if you were born in a weak clan and you had a extreme physique. Unless they wanted you to marry into their clan, you'd only be seen as a material. There are no sects in this world only blood ties keep gu masters close and even then there's a limit to that.

Though that does make me want to create a strength gu for each extreme physique. Maybe one day I could create the great strength true martial physique, but I doubt I'd be able to create that any time soon.

I began using the gu Initel gave me, but as i was using them Initel said something that really got me thinking.

Initel[ you know the gu you've been trying to use for your variant selfs are mainly for living beings, but your current variant selfs are more like objects. If you were to use gu made for things instead of living beings maybe you'd get actual results.]

Objects not living beings.... hmmmm that could work. I've been so caught up that it was a human path killer move that I didn't think of ways that could be considered outside the norm.

After she left I went to the gu shop and got three new gu. The first gu was called solidify object gu, the second was harden terrain gu, and the last was double durability gu. All of them were gu that hardened objects, they were normally used to modify the terrain or increase the damage of certain gu.

After testing each one of them on my variant selfs Initel was right as each gu worked on them. Though to different degrees, the best gu was harden terrain. I could use this gu myself and increase the defense of the variant selfs around me. Solidify objects gu only affected one being at a time if i wanted to effect multiple variant selfs I'd have to activate it multiple times. While double durability gu could only double the original durability.

Harden terrain gu could continuously harden my variant selfs defense so long as I paid the price for it. Even rank 2 harden terrain gu worked better than its lower rank version. It allowed me to increase their defense much quicker than its rank 1 version. It was the best gu to increase my variant selfs defense.

........

After a couple of weeks of using the gu Initel gave me. My body could now unleash the full strength of all 6 of my variant human phantoms. I could do a bit more than twenty attacks at full power before my body started to feel the strain. I was now confident of adding more variant human strength to myself.

From my aperture I brought out two gu, one that was a tick with only four limbs and its back end was cream colored. It looked almost exactly like human strength gu the only difference was a small purple oval on it's back end. This was eggman strength gu

The second was a tick with only four limbs but this one had two small blue horns on its head. That could almost be considered antennas if it wasn't for the fact that they didn't move and were hard most people would think they were antennas. This gu was called dragonman strength, I'll use these two gu first before any others, then I'll move on to the others.

My hairyman self had always been refining human strength gu and its variant versions. I had been constantly refilling its will and taking in pieces of it to gain its memories of the refinement process. It helped me get a better understanding of refining but not alot. What it has done is help me in a gu recipe I've been working on since the day my clan increased my attainment and gave me temporary inspiration, but I don't plan on attempting refining it.

This gu would be a game changer for myself, but I don't want to show it off. As much as Initel has been useful to me, I don't trust her fully. My instincts tell me that I'm being used and I don't like that but there is not much I can do about it. If I were to successfully refine this gu. Initel would get the recipe and use it herself. Even though there's a prerequisite to using it, an immortal like her especially an information path gu immortal could find a way to use it.

Human strength gu its variants and self-reliance gu have heavy strength path ties so i wasn't worried about her learning those gu recipes. They'd be useless to her but the gu recipe I've been working on would be useful even to her. If one day i do become an immortal only then would i refine this gu. It's always best to keep your gu set secret to avoid people countering it, and for an information gu immortal like her the less she knows about me the better. Otherwise she'd soul search me like i was the most entertaining book in the world if she knew what I knew.