I flip the coin, heads. I am right where the entrance to the inheritance is supposed to be. In front of me lies desolate, barren rock. Behind me lies the same rock, as it does to my left and right. Below me is still the same rock, above me lies the sky.
An immortal inheritance would differ greatly from a mortal one in access. Once a gu immortal dies their immortal aperture doesn't necessarily have to get immediately assimilated into the world. If the gu immortal had a sufficiently strong obsession and left behind a part of their soul or will when dying then a land spirit can form as the new master of the blessed land or grotto heaven.
Said land spirit would then follow the master's obsession, whether it be researching refinement or, in the case that I am in, search for someone to inherit the blessed land of the now dead gu immortal. A blessed land placed onto the outside world would be invisible to the naked eye, one would need either special methods to enter it or to be brought in by the land spirit.
I don't have the former, so what I need is the latter. The land spirit has to be observing me at this moment. I take in a deep breath. "I know that there's an immortal inheritance here, if the honored land spirit would allow me to be tested for inheriting, I would be honored!"
There's no way in hell that I was hiding that I knew there's an inheritance here. I destroyed the volcano, went away, then came back a few days later and started flipping coins around like an absolute lunatic. The land spirit knows that I'm doing something odd, but that's not too much of a concern.
Land spirits are, to a certain degree, sentient. Some have more of a personality than others. From what I understood from the Vampire Immortal's inheritance and from the Blood Sea Ancestor's inheritance they are somewhat like computer programs in a way.
I feel a brief, short tug, before I find myself on a small island in the middle of an ocean. A small, hand sized fish is floating right in front of me. "I didn't expect one of Giant Sun's luck path inheritors to show themselves this far away from the Northern Plains, are you part of his bloodline too?"
Its voice is somewhat feminine, and thankfully doesn't seem to carry much hostility. I prepare an explanation for the coin flips, but before I can respond the fish continues. "What am I talking about, that guy wouldn't let anyone whose lineage can't be traced back to his dick close to luck path. You being this far from home is surprising, but that guy did fuck anything and everything everwhere. Alright, here's how Imma test ya girlie."
As the fish continues talking I turn all of my focus to it. "There's a beast emperor Gold Fin Shark in this ocean that has a key in its stomach, get that key and-"
A beast shark bearing the aura of a beast emperor, likely the Gold Fin Shark the land spirit mentioned, tries to launch itself at me.
It misses, instead it beaches itself a few meters away. It violently flops around like a fish out of water, but only manages to get itself closer to the center of the island than to the water. The land spirit and I stare dumbly at the shark, before the land spirit sighs. "That's fucking bullshit. What kind of inheritance did you even get from him?"
The land spirit continues. "You know what, fuck it. If your luck path foundation is that ridiculous I might as well just give you the final test straight away. I wanted to complete the recipe of an immortal gu and refine it when I was still a gu master, that fucking thing has stumped me for the past hundred years. If you manage to complete it and refine the gu worm, you get everything in this blessed land."
Land spirits cannot lie, that does not mean that they cannot hide information, but they are inherently unable to say lies. If this land spirit is telling me that refining an immortal gu will get me the inheritance, then it is telling the truth. "Where is this recipe?"
The land spirit nods its head towards the still flopping shark, which appears to be running out of… breath and suffocating. "Get the key, the chest that the recipe and materials are in is buried in the center of the island."
I give the land spirit a nod, before heading over towards the still flopping shark. A flick of my wrist sends a moonblade towards it, the moonblade lands on its neck and decapitates it. The body of the shark lays still.
Using that killer move on the body risks damaging the key. I take out my rank 2 Red Steel Longsword Gu from my aperture, before giving the body of the shark a good slash. Guts, shit and blood flow out from its guts, among which is also the key. I pick it up with the sword, before giving it a good wash in the ocean water and taking it into my hand.
It looks like a regular key, but it's not made of anything that I can actually recognize. Probably a refinement material that doesn't rust. Digging out the chest proves pretty simple, in that I have Wiggles dig it out for me.
I take the Rank 4 Chainsawpede Gu back into my aperture before unlocking and opening the chest. Inside of it I find multiple refinement materials, as well as the recipe. I leave the materials there for now, before skimming through the recipe.
The recipe is about 40% complete, getting the remaining 60% shouldn't take me more than a few days. Compared to the monkey immortal gu recipe this one is actually simpler, most of the difficult parts have already been deduced.
Land spirits are usually of lower intelligence than the gu master they were born from, so the land spirit being unable to complete the recipe on its own isn't surprising. Deducing the recipe and refining the gu worm will take multiple days, so I start making camp for the time being. "Say land spirit, what should I call you?"
The land spirit floats towards me. "Call me Yu Land Spirit, what's your name girl?"
Land spirits can't lie, so telling it my actual name right now would be pretty unwise. "I am Ying Yue."
I can tell it my actual name once it's recognized me as its master, at that point it won't give out any of my secrets either. The land spirit laughs out loud as it processes my name. "Full Moon?! Your parents must have fucking hated you! Who the fuck even names their kid asshole like that?"
—
Yu Land Spirit stares at me, keeping a watchful eye over its refinement materials and gu worms. "Keep in mind that I have gathered enough resources to attempt refining Water Collapse Immortal Gu three times, if you fail all three attempts I'm actually going to fucking kill you."
Land spirits are formed from an obsession left behind by a gu master, because of this they are even more obsessed when it comes to it than the gu master that left them behind was in life. I give Yu Land Spirit a wink. "But then you'll have no one to refine the gu worm for you, I did complete the recipe, haven't I?"
I'm confident in refining the gu worm. It might be an immortal gu, but the recipe is not something overly complicated. The land spirit stares at me with its fishy eyes. "If you waste the materials and gu then I won't be able to get them again, those aren't cheap, you know?"
Immortal gu refinement materials are, indeed, not cheap. Anything that is mildly useful to a gu immortal is a priceless treasure for a mortal. I don't give Yu Land Spirit an answer, instead opting to begin refining Water Collapse Immortal Gu.
The refinement recipe for this gu worm has six steps. The first of them is merging one Rank 5 Water Drinker Gu and one Rank 5 Water Spitter Gu. The two gu worms merge together, forming a fist sized ball of light.
I keep all of my focus on refining the immortal gu. Any failure will result in backlash, my soul foundation is deep enough to ignore it completely, and my body is strong enough to not be immediately obliterated. But that doesn't mean that the backlash would be pleasant.
The second step in refining Water Collapse Immortal Gu is adding in two refinement materials into the ball of light at specific timings. One of them is Water Drinking Grass, a type of grass that is very rarely found in Eastern Sea. The other refinement material is Water Repelling Mushrooms from Western Desert.
I add in a handful of the Water Drinking Grass, then immediately add in a single Water Repelling Mushroom, then another handful of Water Drinking Grass and then another handful of Water Repelling Mushrooms.
For the third step I add in another pair of Rank 5 Water Drinker Gu and Rank 5 Water Spitter Gu. The fourth step in the recipe is adding in fifty Rank 4 Watery Explosion Gu, one after the other. Each Watery Explosion Gu makes the sphere of light grow brighter and larger, until it finally settles on being the same size as my head.
The fifth and most difficult step is repeating the previous two steps, but doing both at the same time. I add in Water Drinking Grass and Water Repelling Mushrooms, while also putting in Watery Explosion Gu.
The ball of light grows larger and larger with each gu worm and refinement material added into it, at the end of the fifth step it grows as large as my torso. Time for the final, and simplest, step. I take a single Rank 5 Water Storage Gu and empty all of the water it has into the ball of light.
Rank 5 Water Storage Gu is a tiny shard, it opens its mouth and lets out a stream of water into the ball of light. As more and more water is absorbed into the ball it becomes smaller and smaller. It takes ten minutes for all of the water in Rank 5 Water Storage Gu to be expelled, at the end of which the ball of light becomes the size of a fingernail.
It begins to dim, before revealing the newly refined gu worm. I smile as Rank 6 Water Collapse Immortal Gu falls down onto my hand.
Rank 6 Water Collapse Immortal Gu has a simple effect. It creates a gigantic implosion of water at any given location. The end result of using it would be anything in the area of effect being destroyed, with everything outside the area of effect being destroyed by the resulting water explosion.
Yu Land Spirit stares at the immortal gu with fascination. "It's real. Water Collapse Immortal Gu is finally refined!"
The fish turns its head towards me. "You are now my new master, this blessed land and all that is inside of it now belongs to you."
I give the Land Spirit a smile. "That's good to hear. I'm going to go away for a few days and return with my followers, how long until you get your next tribulation?"
Yu Land Spirit opens its fishy mouth, then closes it, stays still for a few seconds before finally replying. "Never. I absorbed a fragment of the immemorial heavens when I was a gu immortal to avoid tribulations."
That's… actually extremely good. No tribulations means that the blessed land can't grow any further, but it also means that there's no need to worry about tribulations destroying it.
There used to be nine heavens in the gu world, now there are just two. The children of Ren Zu, the first human, waged war against heaven and destroyed seven of them, whose fragments are now scattered throughout the gu world. Absorbing a fragment will make a gu immortal no longer face tribulations for the rest of their life, at the cost of not being able to leave their immortal aperture ever again.
This state persists even after the gu immortal dies and turns into a land spirit, although the resulting land spirit will differ from a normal one. They will turn increasingly… robotic, for a lack of a better word, as time passes.
Yu Land Spirit is the first actual land spirit that I've encountered, so I don't have any others to compare him to. The fact that there's not going to be any tribulations in this blessed land also means that I don't really have any use for that immortal gu right now. "Put Water Collapse Immortal Gu on sale in Yellow Treasure Heaven."
The Land Spirit immediately gives me a pained shout. "You bastard! I give you everything that I have, and you immediately have me sell the most precious treasure I gifted to you?!"
I'd rather have the Immortal essence stones, at least with those I can buy things that I can actually use.
AN:
Hope yall enjoyed the read.
If you find any mistakes please let me know :).