The Attack of the Wastrel

The fact that Gu Lingzhi had successfully became a Level One Martial Student on her first day of training created a huge wave within the Gu Family.

Despite Gu Lingzhi's outstanding performance, only very few was able to get the gist of cultivation within the first day and become a Level One Martial Student. It turned out Gu Linglong was part of the minority.

Gu Linglong felt as if she was being suppressed, as though Gu Lingzhi's actions today were meant for her, in order to hide her outstanding abilities. Immediately upon leaving the Demonstration Grounds, she went to go complain to Lin Yue-er.

"Mother, you have to think of a solution for me. You can't let that bitch step all over me like this."

Lin Yue-er's heart bled as she smoothed her hands over her daughter's face. "Be good, Linglong, I know you have suffered. Just bear with it for a few days, I have a plan to teach her a lesson!" she consoled.

"Mmhm, mother is the best." Gu Linglong happily buried herself in her mother's arms.

Meanwhile, rather than resting immediately after returning to her quarters, Gu Lingzhi went to hide in her room. She instructed Cui Lian to watch the door, then focused her energy on connecting with the Inheritance space.

In the next second, her body vanished from the room and appeared in the Inheritance space.

Gu Lingzhi appeared nicely positioned in front of the wooden hut in the space. Laughing lightly, Gu Lingzhi went around the wooden hut, heading towards the back garden.

Previously, she had found this when she visited the Inheritance space. Behind the wooden hut, there lay a Spiritual Pills Cultivation room. 

In the corner of the room, there was a book cabinet containing a lot of information on pill formulas and Spiritual plants. 

The objective was to make Spiritual Essence Liquid suitable for a Martial Student to take a dip in.

Before she came back, she had specially made the trip to the Gu Family's Medicinal shop and bought medicinal ingredients suitable to make a Spiritual Essence Liquid for all five of her Spiritual Roots.

She would’ve bought more, but with her current finances, it was all she could afford.

Now, it was time for her to put into practice what she had learned.

Gu Lingzhi grabbed a book from the cabinet containing details on the method to create the Spiritual Essence Liquid and studied it attentively, slowly committing it to memory. She considered the possible changes that could happen to her during the process.

After analyzing this method for many days, she was finally certain that she could make it today.

Once she confirmed that she had all the medicinal ingredients needed for the Spiritual Essence Liquid, Gu Lingzhi slowly placed the book back down and picked up the ingredients that she had prepared and walked towards the pill furnace.

Although Gu Lingzhi could not differentiate whether the pill furnace was of good quality, she was  certain it was no ordinary pill furnace.

An ancient bronze pill furnace stood at about a person's height. On it, were engravings of various rare and bizarre beasts, precious and mystifying.

When a hand was placed lightly on the top front of the furnace, it was as if one could hear the various roars of the beasts. All she had to do was guide the Fire Magic energy into the furnace in order for strands of fire to rise up from below the furnace.

A level Three Martial Student is the minimum level needed to activate the pill furnace.

"Since I don't know your original name, I shall call you 'Thousand Beast Furnace'."

The flames beneath the mysterious and heavy furnace seemed to dance a little, as if delighted with the name.

"Seems like you really like this name." Gu Lingzhi chuckled softly, deciding to call the furnace by that name from now on.

Following that, Gu Lingzhi became serious as she sat upright in front of the Thousand Beast Furnace. She split the prepared ingredients into five sets and started adding each set into the furnace in the proper order. With the addition of each medicine into the furnace, a medicinal smell started to permeate the air.

The yellow grade Spiritual Essence Liquid was used by Martial Artists below the Martial Practitioner level, hence, it was not too difficult to make. Yet, to a newbie like Gu Lingzhi, this was pushing it.

As the medicinal ingredients were added to the furnace, Gu Lingzhi's focus was entirely concentrated on it, taking note of the changes of the liquid in the furnace.

Suddenly, a drop of black appeared amongst the emerald green color. By the time Gu Lingzhi had noticed, it was already too late and the half-complete medicine had turned into black smoke in a split second.

"……I guess it isn’t easy to make Spiritual pills."

Gu Lingzhi could only laugh at herself as she reflected back on the steps she took while making the medicine. She compared it to the pill formula to see where she had gone wrong.

"I see what I did wrong! I had added the Ice Spirit Grass too quickly. I should have waited a bit longer and allowed the medicine fluid to stabilize first!"

Gu Lingzhi clapped her hands in realization and ran through the steps a few more times in her head before attempting to make the Spiritual Fluid again.

...

Time passed slowly but by the time Gu Lingzhi finally made her first successful batch of Spiritual Essence Liquid, it was nearly midnight.

The greenish-black Spiritual fluid swirled gently in the Thousand Beast Furnace as Gu Lingzhi suppressed her excitement and using a medicine retrieval technique on the furnace. In a second, the Body Dipping Spiritual Fluid flowed out from the bottom of the furnace and into the jade bottle in her hands.

"I wasted three sets of medicinal ingredients just to successfully make one batch. Medicinal Pill cultivation is certainly a profession that burns money. No wonder the clan only has a few Spiritual Pill Cultivators, so many resources are used up every month…"

This was her fourth try in making the Body Dipping Spiritual Fluid. If outsiders knew a complete newbie at Medicinal Pill cultivation only took four tries to make the Body Dipping Spiritual Fluid, they would be mind blown.

However, Gu Lingzhi was not pleased with her performance. After her success, she did not rush to try again. Instead, similar to when she failed on her third attempt, she began carefully reflecting on the entire cultivation process. She needed to be sure that she got every step precisely correct.

After an hour, Gu Lingzhi started to cultivate again. This time, the way she added the ingredients were significantly smoother and she had a much greater control of the fire. Every raise of her hand and every addition looked as if she had done this multiple times before.

This was the fruit of her labours from repeating and analysing the process in her head countless times.

Once the last ingredient was added into the furnace, Gu Lingzhi let out a long breath as she watched the greenish-black fluid slowly stabilize. She knew that her last batch of Spiritual Fluid was a success.

"Two successes in five tries, I can still earn some money with this!"

Gu Lingzhi happily started calculating the possible uses for these two bottles of Spiritual Fluid.

Initially, she had thought that as long as she had one successful batch, she would be satisfied. But now that she has successfully made two, she decided that she would go to the shop outside the Gu Family to sell the additional bottle.

She had devoted her entire fortune to the five batches of medicinal ingredients she used for this Body Dipping Spiritual Fluid. If she did not sell them, then in the future she would be in a predicament. 

This extra bottle would help solve her financial problems.

Although she had made up her mind, Gu Lingzhi was still slightly troubled.

"How should I sell this Body Dipping Spiritual Fluid so as not to arouse suspicion…"