Strength solved one problem.
It created another.
Gu Hao understood this the moment Gu Rui returned from a routine patrol.
He looked… annoyed.
"Patriarch," Gu Rui said, "I had to stop twice."
Gu Hao raised an eyebrow. "Injured?"
"No," Gu Rui replied. "Hungry."
That made Gu Hao still.
Cultivators below Foundation Establishment lived in an awkward space.
Too strong to be treated like mortals.
Too weak to ignore the body.
They needed food.
Frequently.
Carrying sacks slowed patrols.
Stopping to eat disrupted circulation.
Digesting during cultivation muddied qi flow.
Everyone accepted this as normal.
Gu Hao did not.
That night, Gu Hao sat alone, sketching.
Not formations.
Recipes.
On Earth, he had seen soldiers and laborers solve the same problem differently.
Dense nutrition.
Minimal digestion.
Slow release.
Here, the answer was not pills.
Pills were expensive. Addictive. Unstable.
The answer was grain that knew its role.
He began experimenting quietly.
Reducing volume.
Increasing density.
Changing preparation methods.
Steam instead of boil.
Dry instead of soft.
Compress instead of fluff.
The early attempts were failures.
Too heavy.
Too dry.
Too disruptive to qi.
Gu Hao adjusted again.
And again.
He tested it on himself first.
One small portion.
Then training.
Qi remained steady.
No hunger spike.
No digestion drag.
He trained for six hours without stopping.
Gu Hao opened his eyes slowly.
This was dangerous.
Gu Jian was next.
He ate reluctantly.
"This looks like punishment," he muttered.
"Then it's honest," Gu Hao replied.
Gu Jian trained.
Sparred.
Circulated qi.
When he finally stopped, he frowned.
"I should be hungry," he said.
"You will be," Gu Hao replied. "Later."
That was the point.
Gu Hao restricted testing immediately.
Only Gu Clan cultivators.
Only under supervision.
No trade. No samples outside.
He named it nothing.
For now, it was just compressed grain.
The effects became clear within days.
Patrols extended without breaksCultivators trained longer without instabilityCirculation during duty improvedFewer forced pauses meant cleaner qi cycles
Most importantly…
Cultivators stopped planning their day around meals.
That changed behavior.
And behavior changed outcomes.
Gu Rui approached Gu Hao privately.
"This would sell," he said quietly.
Gu Hao nodded. "Eventually."
"And until then?"
"Until then," Gu Hao replied, "we make sure we deserve to sell it."
Gu Rui bowed.
That night, Gu Hao stood in the training yard.
He felt the familiar smoothness of qi moving through widened, cleared meridians.
The fasting grain did not increase power.
It protected momentum.
And momentum, once protected, became acceleration.
Gu Hao knew it clearly now.
With this…
Gu Jian would break through.
He himself would break through.
Not by forcing.
By removing every reason to stop.
He wrote a single line in his private notes:
Power fails most often at mealtimes.
The Gu Clan had just removed another invisible weakness.