The big man blinked and then laughed loudly, “Haha, I see! Well, then allow me to introduce you.”
A ghostly apparition suddenly appeared behind Xiong Xiong Xiong, floating up out of his back and hovering in the air behind him. This apparition was at first an appalling sight, wrinkled flesh, long thick hairs like a forest of thorns, but after a moment of examination Sage finally realized what it was and no longer saw it as a shriveled alien horror. Its flesh was similar to that of a grub or caterpillar, with a sort of stretched flesh or clay-like texture. The terrifying part was that this grub had the body shape of a bear. With four limbs, a wide torso, an even wider waist area, and a snout with large snapping jaws. The most disconcerting thing was that it was not covered in fur like a bear might be, instead it had many long thick hairs, like the quills of a porcupine yet with far less density so it didn’t block the view of the odd skin.
“This is my Soul Gu. I call it the Bear Strength Gu. It started as a Strength Gu, then evolved into an Extreme Strength Gu and Ultimate Strength Gu before reaching this point.”
Seeing the still blank look on Sage’s face, Bear Three remembered his audience. It seemed it was easy for the man to get caught up in bragging. Sage waited patiently as Bear Three didn’t get the recognition he thought he deserved.
“Ahh, you really are uninformed. You really know nothing of our Cultivation system?”
He held out his hand and a purple earthworm appeared upon his palm. Then, Sage felt the small worm suddenly start to gather energy with his Spiritual Sense. The fluctuation was small enough that he might not notice it from far away, but since Bear Three was holding it up as a demonstration he paid close attention.
“This is a Gu. A very basic Purple Earth Gu. It gathers energy and shares it with the Cultivator who has contracted it.”
“Did you say contracted? So an agreement lets them take energy?”
“It isn’t just taking, it's sharing. They can circulate the energy through their bodies and then back into the Gu, or into another Gu. Each Gu has its own special ability and there are many thousands of different types of Gu with new ones being created every day.”
“So they have nothing to do with poison or curses?”
“There are many poison and curse based Gu, but it’s far from all there is to them.”
Sage was confused by this point because he’d thought they had something to do with the legend from Earth. Many poisonous bugs, insects, and other small creatures would be placed into a jar. They would battle and consume each other, absorbing the other poisons until only the strongest remained carrying the combination of all their venoms. Some stories then say the Gu was used to cast a curse upon others, an ingredient in other magic, or simply the most terrifying tool of assassination. It seems things were completely different from what he expected.
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With more clarification questions from Bear Three, Sage was astounded to learn that they weren’t just weapons for use in battle, but the foundation for their Cultivation. Instead of Qi Cultivation Techniques, they used Gu Cultivation Techniques. They didn’t filter Qi from the energy of the heavens and earth with their own bodies and breathing exercises, they took Qi directly from their Gu. The Gu gathered the energy and refined it, then fed it to the Cultivator. Instead of spending their time meditating and cultivating Qi, the people here used that time and effort to raise Gu who then did the tedious work of gathering and refining Qi for them. As they gained ranks, they could control more Gu, until the fifth rank when they would have to make a decision and one of their Gu would become their Core Gu, entering their Dantian and living inside their bodies. More astoundingly, at the sixth rank they formed a Soul Gu, fusing their mind and soul into the Core Gu that was already the source of their energy.
Not only did the Gu take the place of their Inner Core, they also became their Nascent Soul. This system of Cultivation was similar to what he was used to, but also very different. They were useless without their Gu, but there were also advantages to this system that Bear Three explained to him.
“If the Gu can be evolved far enough, it can awaken its own understanding of Laws, which will then become yours as soon as it fuses with your mind.”
Loophole! It was just like Demonic Beasts with extravagant bloodlines. Once they matured to a certain level they could awaken ancestral memories that could include understanding of laws. Instead of worrying about understanding laws themselves, these people here just had to focus on evolving their Gu. With a little more questioning, Sage realized it wasn’t as much of an advantage as he expected as the path to evolving a Gu so many times was nearly as difficult as learning laws. Instead of having to grasp the profundity of a mysterious concept, they instead had to spend a fortune on special resources to try and evolve their Gu. Instead of a game of luck and comprehension it was a game of luck and resources. There was still no guaranteed path, but it required a pile of money instead of blind comprehension. Both paths required luck to succeed but here the rich could just keep spending and getting more chances to roll the dice.
This small difference caused a huge change in society as the rich and powerful could somewhat remain rich and powerful from generation to generation. They could invest more into their chosen heirs and continue to raise high level Cultivators generation after generation. Back in the Tianxia Empire sixth rank Cultivators were never guaranteed and powers would rise and fall based upon their ability to constantly recruit them. The great powers here in the Xuanyuan Empire were far more stable. This was both good and bad. Good because there were less power struggles and the bloodshed that came along with them. Bad because those groups in power were unlikely to change. A bad ruler had little chance of being deposed and the people in their territory were helpless against their whims. In Tianxia, a random genius might appear and destroy all the organizations that had abused and harmed them in their early years. Here, that random genius could be drowned by an ocean of resources.
“Don’t worry, like I said before you need only mention my name around here and nobody will trouble you. Not that I’m questioning your ability, but you can use my name so you don’t have to answer any questions or show off your lack of Gu.”
The way he said the phrase made Sage feel like Bear Three thought of him as disabled. Especially when he mentioned using alchemical pills as his contribution. Since their cultivation system was completely different, the most valuable pills of Alchemy were rendered useless. Only support pills would be of any value and there were Gu that could already achieve most of their effects. Healing, Concealment, Protection, Cosmetics, there were Gu for all of these areas. The most sought after breakthrough pills were useless for a different cultivation system, and the heavily used energy gathering and accumulating pills would only be useful if they could be reformulated for Gu to consume. He would be starting from scratch and trying to compete with the most common and well studied profession in this system.
There was no way he’d give away the fact that he could grow large amounts of raw resources, but he could make use of the labor on the Inner World. Since Alchemy wasn’t useful here he instead offered to provide Magic Tools. This offer was accepted as it wasn’t obvious how such things were created. As long as they could run with energy that a Gu Cultivator used, nobody would know the difference. With this issue solved, Sage didn’t want to get any more indebted to Bear Three so he left to explore the town. Now he could search for the answers to his questions in town without being completely clueless and gathering too much attention.