Stepping into the masked blessed land, the masked spirit greeted me. "Welcome back, master. What should we do now?"
I tossed him food store gu. "Take out all the wisdom path materials and place them where you think is best. Also, how far have you refined Grip Gu?"
"I'm sorry, master. I've only been able to refine it to Rank 4. I've failed twice trying to refine it further." He turned into a frowning face. "That's fine. It's a strength path Gu, so I didn't expect you to refine it that far anyway. What about the other Gu? Have you prepared everything I've asked for, and what about my formation?"
The masked spirit's frown deepened. "I've prepared everything else, but the formation is at most 23% complete. It's simply too difficult to make without making mistakes."
"That's alright, at least you saved me some time. Making formations is a pain, and even once I take over, it'll take me perhaps weeks to finish it." With that, the masked spirit's frown eased a bit. "Now, bring your will over, along with all the Gu I asked for."
As I said that, a light pink mask with two green grape immortal essence beads for eyes floated up to me. It was the masked spirit's will, along with some of his immortal essence. "And all the Gu, including Masked Emotion?" I asked the masked spirit.
"They're inside a Gu that's in my will. As for Masked Emotion, it's sealed inside it too. My will would only unseal it if absolutely necessary or if ordered to."
"That's good. That way, its aura won't attract any unnecessary attention."
"Perfect. Now, open up the whole Earth Gu again." The masked spirit opened the portal where the formless spirit still stood. Stepping back into the formless blessed land, I tossed him a Gu. "This Gu's name is Drain Blood Gu. Its nurturing and refinement are one and the same. I want you to constantly feed it blood. If you have to awaken the beasts that are in stasis, do it."
Drain Blood Gu was on the verge of becoming a Rank 5 Gu, thanks to the masked spirit constantly feeding it while I was away. But unlike him, the formless spirit had several powerful large beasts that could continuously be harvested for their blood. At Rank 5, even desolate beasts could die instantly when Drain Blood was used on them. Even immortals could be killed if they weren't prepared or lacked proper healing or defensive methods.
This world still was not capable of defending itself from blood path methods, but even if it reached Rank 6, I still wouldn't use it. No, a Gu that can be refined by feeding it is simply too precious. I then ordered the formless spirit to prepare my ship for departure.
Stepping back onto my serpent-filled ship, I placed Small Appetite Gu into the Gu's might formation. My hunger immediately increased, but I ignored it. The gates opened, and the formless spirit picked up my whole ship and tossed it out of the blessed land.
My ship was airborne for about three minutes, only to crash back down into the sea. After the ship settled, I activated Aurora Scent Gu to look around. Good, I don't see anyone. I'd have to take care of them if they saw the blessed land's entrance.
With the aid of my marionettes, I set sail for an appropriate place to ascend. The sea itself has a good number of food path dao marks, but it's overshadowed by the abundance of water path dao marks. My blessed land would end up being more water than land.
I could go to an island to find a good area, but those places are usually occupied by mortal forces. If I were to ascend there, they would most likely all end up dying. I don't care for them, but my karma gu would end up losing most, if not all, of its good luck karma. Any top-tier place to ascend would be guarded by immortals.
I do know of one area that fits the food path dao marks and has no eyes to worry about. It's a bit close to an immortal super force's territory, but it should be far enough for me to ascend in peace. So, I set sail with the destination in mind.
The sea is an unforgiving environment for the weak. I was attacked by a flock of beautiful seagulls that appeared to be entirely yellow. The birds seemed to be in heat, constantly attacking anything they considered to be in their territory. The strongest of the bunch was a powerful myriad beast king.
However, with my rank 5 qi shape gu now strengthened by a rank 4 grip gu, I was able to grab the leader and crush it to death, causing the rest to fly away. At my current level, only emperor-level beasts or mutated myriad beast kings could contest with me, but most of those beasts lived in certain areas or were captured by immortals.
Beast kings weren't the most dangerous things at sea, though. The weather was. One night, as I sailed, a powerful hurricane approached. The sky turned black, and it began to pour rain and hail. I had to cover the entire ship with qi shape gu, not only to prevent it from being damaged but also to prevent my ship from capsizing into the sea.
The hurricane actually sped up my journey, thankfully. As for gu cultivators, I only saw one ship while out, but they kept their distance from me as they sailed away. The other dangers were whirlpools and downcurrents that could pull my ship down into the sea and underwater caverns.
I had to sail around them or use qi shape gu to carry my ship over them. It's a very unsettling feeling when you're over something you can't see or fathom what could be under you. About a month went by sailing, and then, in front of me, I saw the sea separate into a different body of water.
It shifted from dark blue to dirty grey. This sea was calm, with little to no movement. The surface had a gritty feeling, as if it were wet sand. The whole place stunk, as there were dead sea creatures floating on the surface. They looked like they had been there for months, which is unnatural at sea, where most carcasses get eaten or sink to the bottom.
I'm finally here. This sea doesn't have a proper name, but it's similar to a body of water in the real world: the Dead Sea. Though the name doesn't fit in the gu world, it's almost the same as the Dead Sea.
This sea area has an immense amount of saline, even more so than the one in the real world. That's why this sea is so calm, as nothing can truly live here. The beasts that can live here wouldn't be able to thrive, so they don't. I found this sea in my last life, as it was a natural food path resource. What many didn't know, including me for a while, was that the bacteria here were the cause of the high saline.
The bacteria can eat just about anything and exert the saline. I only noticed this once I placed them into my blessed land. Since these bacteria belong to the food path, my blessed land was the perfect place for them to grow—more so than the norm. They were eating away at the land near them and expanding the body of saltwater.
Only after investigating did I learn about them. I had to place the sea and some of the surrounding land into the air, or else they would have turned everything in my blessed land into salt. I named them the "salt plague" after discovering them. Had they been placed in other areas, including blessed lands, and not taken care of properly, they'd have spread like a plague, killing all and making the surrounding area uninhabitable.
Due to them, this entire sea is full of salt, making it undesired by any cultivator, so I don't have to worry about others. And this whole place is full of food path dao marks after all the time it's been developing here undisturbed. This place could be considered a very small resource point if it weren't for the fact that it's the bacteria themselves that create it, not the dao marks around it.
There is no better place for me to ascend in peace. I ordered all the serpents to go inside the ship, as Masked Spirit's will came beside me. "Is this dead place where you'll ascend, Master?" it asked. "That's right, so prepare to defend me and my ship."
I stood at the helm of the ship as I took out all my gu from my aperture. "I wonder what the rewards will be?" I said. I imploded my aperture, and a surge of heaven and earth qi started to rush to where my aperture once was.