Lo Jik observed his two blessed lands. He had great experience and several inheritances describing several management techniques and the most common errors committed in the earlier years of nurturing the blessed land. Despite all that, only first-hand experience drove its time-consuming nature into Lo Jik after all this time. It was due to his own experience with handling two blessed lands that Lo Jik decided against aiming for a third blessed land. The time and effort spent on nurturing a third blessed land was better spent improving his skills and the trump cards in his arsenal.
That said, Lo Jik still planned on refining rank 6 Second Aperture Immortal Gu Worm. Unlike his earlier suspicions, it was not a human path gu worm. This gu worm belonged to a whole different path and fell under the same umbrella of mystery covering Lifespan Gu Worms.
He first focused on his first blessed land, his prized super-sized strength path blessed land.
The landmass sprawled for 12800 square kilometers and was slightly twice the size of Lo Jik's second blessed land. Such a massive region could hold millions of humans!
Earlier, Lo Jik planted a forest of Meat Root Trees up north. The small forest, under the constant nourishment of beast blood, occupied nearly a hundred square kilometers of land. The forest was no longer desolate. A variety of insects had made this forest their home. These insects fed on traces of blood on the top soil, each other, and even the tree's sap. Some ate the luscious and meaty leaves. But just placing the insects within the forest was not enough. Without natural predators, Lo Jik risked an insect tide within the forest capable of ruining all his hard work.
Ordinary bird beasts made their nests in the forest, preying on insects and additional rodents alike. Lo Jik did not add too many beast groups in name of developing ecology because he wanted the strength path dao marks on his body to influence the insects and naturally refine strength path mortal gu worms.
The foundation of the blessed land was one's dao marks. Lo Jik's strength path foundation had grown by a shocking pace and there were already several beneficial results. His blessed land had already started producing rank 1 strength path gu worms.
The forest of Meat Root Trees also had another avenue of development.
Lo Jik had set a gu formation near the central region of the forest, converging the soil's impurities and putridness in one location to give rise to Self-Reliance Immortal Gu Worm's food.
Self-Reliance Immortal Gu could still feed on red meat leaves, but it was no longer efficient. In the small patch of land with five kilometers of radius grew strange Meat Root Trees. The red meat leaves actually grew out stranger appendages. They were dark-yellow in color and not as fleshy as the red meat leaves. These were Ulcer Rotten Leaves.
The introduction of insects, birds, and rodents within the forest also introduced a wave of unchecked diseases in the forest.
Ulcer Rotten Leaves grew upon Meat Root Trees' red meat leaves in regions of extreme diseases and infections. The trunk of the tree would begin oozing poisonous saps while these rotten leaves would drain the tree's vitality. The remaining forest would soon face its end due to this infection and required a strength or poison path expert to make a full recovery.
Lo Jik did not want the forest to recover.
He was a strength and poison path great expert!
The formation around the forest was surprisingly an immortal formation. However, Lo Jik did not use any immortal gu worms. Ordinary gu immortals without a foundation in formation path relied on immortal gu worms to set immortal formations. However, at the realm of a grandmaster, a formation path great expert could set formations using mortal gu worms and immortal materials. They would use the dao marks present in the immortal-level materials to replace immortal gu worms. The dao marks in these materials would be spent with time and would require the formation to be replenished with immortal materials, but that was no issue for Lo Jik.
And due to his great attainment, he tailored a formation for this forest. It would not only poison and infect this patch of land to the extent that all the leaves on Meat Root Trees would grow Ulcer Rotten Leaves, but the effects of strength path materials in the formation would ensure the trees' survival. They will continue providing Ulcer Rotten Leaves for Self-Reliance Immortal Gu Worm.
Ulcer Rotten Leaves only grew after decades of poisoning. But the effects of poison path immortal materials in the formation allowed Lo Jik to hasten its production by a significant margin.
Ordinary strength path experts would have remained unable to provide for their immortal gu worm's feeding requirements so quickly and would instead rely on Treasure Yellow Heaven for their needs. Lo Jik was quite pleased with how seamless the entire process was. His blessed land's production of Ulcer Rotten Leaves would further increase due to the influence of his growing strength path dao marks. Eventually, he would be storing a surplus of these leaves or selling them in Treasure Yellow Heaven in huge batches. Of course, the better and easier option was to deepen his network by conducting such trades with Black Moon and other elders.
Being a strength path gu immortal, these Ulcer Rotten Leaves were also beneficial for Black Moon.
With a thought, Lo Jik inspected the whole of his blessed land.
Before Lo Jik's gaze appeared a massive formation, its effects influencing the entire blessed land!
This formation was not only extraordinarily massive, but it required hundreds of thousands of mortal gu worms and nearly forty varieties of earth path immortal materials, 27 among them being rank 7 materials!
It was an unnamed formation Lo Jik and his clones deduced before several batches of Craftsmen, Rockmen, Martial Artists, and Monks groups constructed different parts of this formation. The entire process took four months to finish with the clones. Alone, Lo Jik would not even have the time to peacefully set up this formation for months.
This formation was still simple. Although massive, its procedures were not complex and because it did not involve any immortal gu worm, Lo Jik's clones proved quite helpful. Ever since he obtained Long Hair true inheritance, Lo Jik gained several immortal gu recipes, formation charts, and even recipes for immortal gu houses! Some of the formations were too complex even for the current him. These super formations would take years of concentration to establish and activate properly!
'The fertility of the soil has improved greatly.'
Lo Jik used Divine Sense Gu to confirm things. This unnamed formation had two functions. It used up the earth path immortal materials to improve the fertility of top soil in the first blessed land.
His strength path foundation was deepening quickly, but he did not have many earth path dao marks save for the ones he was blessed with during his ascension. As such, the fertility of the soil of his first blessed land was quite restricted. Meat Root Trees did not need much fertility in the first place, but he wasn't always going to grow one type of forest alone.
Currently, the fertility of the topsoil had surpassed ordinary soil. It was similar to cloud soil, jade root soil, worry soil, and others. With his blessed land still in its earlier stages and not completely occupied, Lo Jik could sell this soil as his blessed land's unique product. The formation improved its fertility and it was an outstanding product for a strength path blessed land's development.
But he won't.
'I'm using many precious materials to improve the fertility of my blessed land's soil. How can I dig into my own foundation and sell it to others? Furthermore, this soil has another effect.'
The formation had two functions. The first one was improving soil fertility. The second one was to promote the production of rare minerals underground!
Currently, a vast group of rockmen, under the leadership of one of his rockmen clones, dug and developed the underground region. Rockmen's reproduction was unique and asexual in nature. Their bodies naturally contained earth path dao marks and attracted earth path gu worms. Even though working to this extent exhausted them greatly, the influence of the massive earth path formation brought a comforting effect to them. Lo Jik was in the process of discovering the rare mineral veins hidden underground. Once he discovered them, he would start setting up more formations to increase their natural production. Until this moment, he already uncovered five veins of elemental stones filled with abundant brown-colored elemental stones.
The formations will promote their growth and also establish a resource point for Elemental Qi Stones—the most optimal food for Borrow Strength Immortal Gu. Like Ulcer Rotten Leaves, Elemental Qi Stones were strength path immortal materials found in places with overwhelming number of Elemental Stones fusing their essence due to the pressure from the land around them.
Similar to his second blessed land, Lo Jik placed almost all his gu worms in the eastern region of the blessed land before securing it and preventing bandit giants from accidentally destroying his wealth.
In the south was a magnificent green forest. It was lush and exuded great vitality, unlike the distant and bloody-looking Meat Root Tree forest.
This forest spanned for over a thousand square kilometers and several pillar-like mountains. One couldn't see through the dense canopy from a bird's point of view. Observing closely, this was a forest of strange trees. Each tree appeared ancient and strong, towering over a hundred meters. The effects of the large formation covering the blessed land showed here. This forest did not require additional nutrition for the soil. They were thick and sturdy. From the massive branches hung dozens of vines. These vines were dark-green and packed closely, forming tall and dense curtains of greenery throughout the forest.
These vines were called Strong Vines. Even the smallest of the vines weight fifteen kilograms and tens of it were used to feed All-Out Effort Gu Worm. Like the other immortal gu worms, the vines could still feed the immortal gu worm but it was not as efficient.
*Boom*
A massive creature pushed a hand past the curtain of vines and walked past. It looked like a bandit monkey at a glance due to its black-striped, yellow fur. But it walked more like a humanoid creature.
A bandit giant!
This bandit giant glared at the other bandit giant sitting across a thick rock bench. Such rock benches could be seen all across the forest.
The forest shook as hundreds of bandit giants ran over to the region or hung from the ancient vines. Some vines tore due to the weight of the bandit giants but most of them withstood the force of the giants, revealing extraordinary durability.
Lo Jik ignored the competing group of bandit giants. They were still young and liked goofing around. His attention remained on the vines.
'Good.' He nodded after a while. The formation around the forest was a pure strength path formation. It targeted the trees and the strong vines, increasing their durability and keeping them from being torn apart by the giants. With enough pressure and external force, Strong Vines would transition into Fortitude Vines. These vines were perfect for All-Out Effort Immortal Gu Worm's consumption.
'The Bandit Giants are also prospering.'
Lo Jik initially obtained five Desolate Bandit Monkeys. Unlike refining gu worms, however, Lo Jik could not ensure a 100% success in modifying living beings. He had also used one Desolate Bandit Giant to scheme against Yin Yun, leaving him with four Desolate Bandit Giants and hundreds of thousands of ordinary ones with hundred-beast kings, thousand-beast kings, myriad-beast kings, and beast emperors present in the rank.
These beasts were just modified and created. Lo Jik planned on letting them stabilize before using Estrus Gu Worm and few other methods to promote the appearance of mutated beasts. Everything related to Bandit Giants was new and exciting. Lo Jik's stall was teeming with customers wanting to research the materials taken from Bandit Giants while also questioning him about the higher-ranked recipes for Human Champion series. Needless to say, Lo Jik also added several beasts and insect groups in the forest to support the Bandit Giants. Several species of these animals had strange and fragrant blood, allowing the Bandit Giants to practice one of their inherited traditions from Bandit Monkeys—wine brewing. When the group of Bandit Giants were not brewing wine, they spent their time cheering and competing against each other in arm-wrestling.
This was the extent of development of his first blessed land. The central and western regions were desolate. Even if Lo Jik covered the other three regions, his blessed land was quite sizable. Only the southern region was somewhat filled. It would still take years to fully develop his blessed land—including the sky and the underground regions.
<<<>>>
His second blessed land was comparatively smaller and more developed.
The southern region of the blessed land boasted quickly developing villages. There were eleven villages in total, each growing at their pace. Lo Jik occasionally imparted them a few gu refinement recipes. The criteria of acquiring these recipes were the state of their villages, how much of the land they had cultivated, how great their wealth grew, and such. The ten villages surrounding the mixed-race village gained a few gu refinement recipes. Lo Jik wanted to develop human path, so most of the recipes were also human path gu recipes. However, he did give the fishmen race the recipe for rank 1 Water Bubble Gu. It would allow the fishmen to hover above the ground instead of staying in tubs of water all the time.
Some human path recipes were extremely crucial for certain races. The recipe for rank 1 False Guts Gu was useless on its own, but the rockmen village was thrilled about it and started eyeing the human village and mixed-race village to plunder humans and enhance their souls.
Similarly, the rockmen of mixed-race village also acquired the recipe for False Guts after the village reached the determined milestone. However, the rockmen in this village did not recklessly start killing humans. Instead, they shared this recipe with the hairy men in the village and even included the few human gu masters to find ways to modify False Guts Gu recipe.
But how can they achieve success so quickly?
They were just starting their cultivation journey. It would be a long time before they modified this gu recipe or made a killer move to use it one other creatures and beasts.
The most interesting thing about these eleven villages was their academies. Lo Jik was quite impressed with how quickly the mixed-race village gathered information and imparted it to others. The mixed-race village developed the smoothest and quickest.
'After a while, I will start releasing those gu worms meant to increase the rate of conception. Other variant humans will grow quickly but the rockmen of the mixed-race village and rockmen village will start to feel inferior and suppressed. Their need to advance or modify False Guts will reach its highest.'
Just because the mixed-race village grew the quickest did not prompt Lo Jik to ignore other villages. In fact, the quicker this village grew, the greater the backlash it shall suffer due to their jealous neighbors.
He had also released groups of ordinary beasts and insects into these eleven mountains. The beasts were growing at a quick pace, but they also preyed on each other to maintain their numbers. They would soon represent the external threats for the eleven villages aside from their own forces.
The true ambition in developing these villages, introducing external threats, and waiting for internal threats to appear naturally was all to observe human relationships. Earlier, Lo Jik felt he could stand to gain some results by taking Ju Lin as his disciple. That feeling did not vanish and instead turned even stronger ever since he became a human path great grandmaster. However, he was missing out on several things.
Lo Jin intuitively believed that studying the relationships of these groups of people turn richer and more complex would eventually lead him to his answer.
He wouldn't have invested so much in this project if he didn't perceive an even greater reward waiting for him.
Of course, by imparting others with human path gu worms save for the clone series, Lo Jik encouraged the growth of human path itself. He also planned on sending some of his human path research results to kick things off for the eleven villages. Armed with the more fundamental aspects of the human path, and forced to innovate on it due to the external threats, each of the eleven villages would soon display newer and more interesting recipes and ideas.
He also looked forward to how the future generation in each village would interact with each other.
These eleven mountains did not cover the entirety of the southern region. The mountains in Lo Jik's second blessed land were slightly smaller and stood erect with gentler slopes. It was a convenient location for other beasts and creatures, too.
He had successfully created a cave fortified with a formation for his Diamond Bear. It was a ruler of one of the southern mountains instead of staying at the northern region. The formation in the cave stored and transferred most of the excess diamond soil to the storage units Lo Jik built in the eastern regions.
Diamond Bear wasn't the only desolate beast in the southern region. Lo Jik relocated the strange dream path mountain to the southern region. It stood out compared to the gentler slopes of his blessed land. Any beast that entered the mountain ended up sleeping before being consumed by the group of three Nightmare Demonic Colts living on the mountain. It was the only creature that did not sleep on the mountain. There were even times where it appeared that the desolate beasts with dream path dao marks on their bodies were eating something in the air.
Only after utilizing a few of his dream path methods did Lo Jik realize that the entire mountain was a resource point for an elusive forest!
This forest had strange trees that could not be viewed without employing dream path inspection methods. Each tree was anchored to the fruit-bearing tree growing on the mountain. Cutting the real tree also destroyed these dream trees. Not only were the barks of these trees valuable material to refine dream path mortal gu worms, but Lo Jik soon found out that these trees grew fruits, something that was greatly enjoyed by the Nightmare Demonic Colts. The fruits were also a mortal material, but there was a positive connection with these trees and the other eleven villages.
An illusion and dream path formation hid the mountain from others, but this dream path resource point was exceptionally close to the eleven villages. Even though the dream path dao marks on the mountain maintained the growth of the trees and the fruit, the production of these fruits increased by a great margin once it was relocated near humans and variant humans.
'The tree must be a dream path material created from the dreams of living beings.' Lo Jik realized the truth after some research. 'But the dream path dao marks of the mountain itself were enough to support the growth of these trees. Tch. The foundation of this mountain is also quite damaged.'
This damage did not come from Lo Jik relocating it. He possessed Pulling Mountain Immortal Gu Worm. He could relocate mountains without truly damaging the mountain veins and causing its death.
The dream path resource point was damaged due to its previous conditions. Lo Jik's rewards did not appear out of thin air. This mountain existed somewhere and wasn't properly tended. It had dream path dao marks. But these dao marks cannot sustain by itself for long. Dao marks tend to dissipate and influence the surroundings. Ordinarily, relocation of a resource point was followed by a formation to ensure that the dao marks of the resource point did not dissipate.
There were also innumerable resource points in the gu world, but they were formed in nature after thousands of years of accumulation and influence. The dao marks on these resource points did not dissipate because they were already balanced with their surroundings.
But this was a blessed land.
Lo Jik's second blessed land was mainly influenced by his human path dao marks and secondarily by his strength path dao marks. Human path dao marks did not conflict with the dream path dao marks of this resource mountain and did not suppress it. But the influence of strength path dao mark conflicted with this mountain's dream path dao marks. Furthermore, Lo Jik did not have any foundation in dream path dao marks to sustain this mountain. Without his own foundation, these dream path dao marks would dissipate and eventually vanish. The formation around the mountain prevented such a pitiful outcome, and the relocation of the mountain near the eleven villages redirected a channel of support for the mountain!
'Originally, this mountain must have existed in nature and boasted quite a splendid foundation to develop dream path. Not only it grew these dream path trees, but it must have also birthed countless dream path gu worms.'
'Unfortunately, it must have been relocated to a blessed land. This blessed land's environment was most likely unsuitable for this dream path resource point. Without necessary nutrition, the dream path gu worms perished and the dao marks of the mountain started to dissipate and vanish. But it still has such a superb vitality. It still keeps growing these trees.'
Lo Jik smiled internally.
While damaged, the mountain was not beyond saving. Just moving it closer to the eleven villages left a positive impact. The dream and illusion path formation around the mountain also did not just prevent the dispersion of the dream path dao marks but providing for the mountain with enough foundation to refine dream path gu worms naturally.
This was the extent of the development of his southern region. He had also researched enough about his human path immortal gu worms to start developing the eastern region with resources to sufficiently feed the gu worms.
To the west remained his army of clones.
At the north remained the desolate and the pair of ancient desolate beasts Lo Jik was interested enough to nurture. Being the area with sparse mountains, Lo Jik started developing ambitiously. He planned on creating a balanced and self-sufficient ecology for all the desolate and ancient desolate beasts in this region. But this project was too big and too time-consuming. His clones were still setting up the formation surrounding the region while the desolate beasts and ancient desolate beasts hunted ordinary beast groups in the massive forest.
In total, Lo Jik raised eight desolate beasts in his second blessed land: Diamond Bear, Peach Wolf, Reverse Bite Shark, three Nightmare Demonic Colts, and two Dragonfish. There were also the two Ancient Mixed Heavenly Eagles.
Lastly, above the central region of his blessed land was a path of vast darkness. It cast a shadow on the ground and concealed the blessed land's natural light. This was the collection of black soil Lo Jik plundered from Yin Yun.
This much development of his blessed land had already increased the production of his immortal essence by a slight margin. In reality, Lo Jik might have surpassed the earlier stages of cultivation but he was far from truly incorporating all these gains into his blessed land.
Observing his developing blessed land was quite a satisfying feeling.
After a while, Lo Jik's thoughts stirred and he focused on other matters.
***
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