That faint, barely perceptible scent of blood — the one that sent an instinctive tremor through Lin Mu's very core — held his feet like an invisible thread.
But he did not let the sudden windfall go to his head.
In the Gu world, opportunity and deadly trap walked hand in hand.
Lin Mu stood at the edge of the crowd like a patient, seasoned hunter, slipping into the shadow of a tall tent nearby.
From beneath his bamboo hat, his cold, deep eyes studied the obscure stall in silence.
In the Southern Border, Blood Path Gu Masters had always been synonymous with danger, madness, and slaughter.
To advance their cultivation and refine their Gu worms, they routinely massacred ordinary people and fellow cultivators alike. To Righteous Path clans, they were mortal enemies to be killed on sight.
Lin Mu knew well that anyone capable of producing Gu worms carrying a genuine blood aura was no ordinary figure.
Yet after only half an incense stick's worth of quiet observation, the tension in his nerves gradually eased — and a look of bewildered disbelief crept into his eyes.
The figure wrapped head to toe in that grey robe was no cunning, seasoned Blood Path poison cultivator.
When the occasional wandering cultivator, drawn by the blood scent, approached to ask about prices, the grey-robed figure did not respond with the cold menace of a Demonic Path powerhouse.
Instead, he shrank back, stammering and fumbling over their words. and barely understood the specific functions of the Gu worms laid out on their own cloth.
All he could manage was a vague claim that these were "ancestral medicinal Gu," delivered with visible discomfort and a nervous glance at every passerby — clearly terrified that someone might try to take the goods by force.
Watching this person's comically flustered, stumbling-into-danger demeanor, Lin Mu felt a long-sealed door in his memory swing open.
A passage from the original story surfaced in his mind like water rising through stone.
The Blood Sea Ancestor.
This Rank 7 Demonic Path titan who had once shaken the Southern Border to its foundations had started as an ordinary mortal.
By sheer chance, he had stepped onto the Demonic Path, and through over eight hundred years of brutal struggle, had carved himself into legend.
When the Righteous Path forces had united against him, leaving him gravely wounded and on the edge of death, he had escaped through a blood escape technique — and then committed one final, utterly insane act of defiance.
In the last moments of his life, he had scattered hundreds of thousands of inheritances, large and small, across the vast lands of the five regions — the Central Continent, the Southern Border, and beyond.
His defining declaration had echoed through the Demonic Path ever since:
"The Blood Path is never alone. Its poison shall endure for ten thousand generations."
The Blood Sea Ancestor was extraordinarily cunning.
Lin Mu sorted through the original story's details with rapid precision.
Of those hundreds of thousands of inheritances he scattered, there were in truth two kinds.
The first were a rare few "true transmissions" — containing his most prized core Gu worms or secret refinement formulas, genuine treasures capable of launching a person to the heavens.
The second kind made up the overwhelming majority: "ordinary inheritances."
These so-called ordinary inheritances were stripped down to almost nothing — typically just two or three common low-rank Blood Path Gu worms.
But that was precisely the Ancestor's sinister design. A single spark can set the prairie ablaze.
The Righteous Path clans controlled the vast majority of the world's cultivation resources.
But the Blood Path's defining characteristic was that its materials were easy to gather and demanded little in the way of Primeval Essence.
For the downtrodden — the talentless, the desperate, the mortals and wandering cultivators crushed beneath the Righteous Path's heel — these inheritances offered a glimpse of sudden power and overnight transformation.
This was precisely why Righteous Path cultivators despised Blood Path Gu Masters with a hatred that ran bone-deep, calling them "damned blood Gu Masters."
They were like weeds that no fire could fully burn away. Kill one generation, and as long as the inheritances remained, countless more oppressed souls would follow them into the Demonic Path, bringing chaos to the world without end.
"The essence of the Blood Path inheritance is 'trading blood for power.'"
Lin Mu recalled Fang Yuan's assessment of the Blood Path from the original story.
"To grow stronger, one must kill and harvest blood. This method of cultivation — drinking poison to quench thirst — means that anyone who touches the Blood Path is inevitably walking toward destruction and endless slaughter."
"Power itself carries no sin. Used for good, it becomes good; used for evil, it becomes evil."
"But how many people in this world could resist the temptation of strength that surges from nothing — power that grows simply by killing?"
Fang Yuan's previous life had also begun with a Blood Path true transmission, built from nothing. He understood better than anyone that the Blood Path's cost-to-power ratio in the lower ranks was unmatched under heaven.
But Lin Mu held an intelligence advantage that ran even deeper than Fang Yuan's.
"How amusing. The world believes this was the Blood Sea Ancestor's own creation. Even Fang Yuan, reborn after five hundred years, treats it as nothing more than a highly efficient Demonic Path method."
A smile formed in Lin Mu's mind — one only he could understand.
"But who could have imagined that this Blood Path, whose poison endures for ten thousand generations, traces its true origin to that supreme Rank 9 existence — the Blood Sea avatar created by Giant Sun Immortal Venerable himself?"
A Rank 9 Venerable's grand design.
Secrets of that magnitude were beyond even the current Fang Yuan on Qing Mao Mountain. To say nothing of the clueless mortal wandering cultivator running a street stall in this outer market.
With all of this in mind, Lin Mu arrived at a swift, entirely rational conclusion.
The grey-robed figure before him was nothing more than a lucky fool who had no idea what they had stumbled into.
They had accidentally triggered one of the most basic, most bare-bones of the Blood Sea's "ordinary inheritances" somewhere out in the wilderness.
And rather than being consumed by the Demonic Path and going on a killing spree, they had blundered their way here, carrying Blood Path Gu worms that could bring death down on their head, and laid them out openly at a market stall to try their luck for a bit of coin.
An absolute waste. And a death wish they didn't even know they were making.
Satisfied that the figure posed no threat whatsoever, Lin Mu pressed down the ripple in his eyes, and stepped out of the shadow with an unhurried, faintly casual stride.
He walked directly to the obscure stall.
The grey-robed vendor flinched instinctively at the approach, stammering: "Have a look, have a look — all fine ancestral medicinal Gu..."
Lin Mu paid no attention to the man's fear. His gaze swept the worn black cloth like a blade.
The next instant, his heart skipped a beat.
Among the scattered, low-grade Gu materials and two faint-aura common Blood Path Gu worms, his sharp eyes caught two Gu worms — deep crimson throughout, like two patches of dried, congealed blood — lying perfectly still.
They rested quietly in the folds of the black cloth, radiating a subtle, distinctive pull.
Rank 1 — Blood Trace Gu.
Lin Mu's breath hitched.
These were the core primary material for refining the Blood Attraction Gu — the key to unlocking the Black Bone King's inheritance.
The rare Blood Path material he had searched for at length, was sitting here like two worthless pebbles on an ignored street stall.
Fierce, surging elation rolled through him. But on the surface, Lin Mu held it completely in check.
His composed face showed not a trace of urgency or hunger.
He looked every bit the experienced senior cultivator who occasionally descended to the outer markets to browse for curiosities.
With an air of total indifference, he crouched down, picked up one of the Blood Trace Gu between two fingers, and examined it for a moment, one brow lifting slightly.
"Not bad quality. Where did you find these?" His tone was entirely offhand.
Faced with the question, the stall owner scratched at his tangled hair. He was clearly an uncomplicated, guileless man.
Seeing that Lin Mu had not immediately grabbed the goods or barked at him the way most clan disciples would, the vendor's nerves eased a fraction, and he fumbled out the truth:
"A few days back, I was running from a Wind Wolf in the ten thousand mountains and fell into a natural pit trap in a blind panic."
"While I was desperately digging my way back up, I accidentally broke through into a small hidden cave behind the stone wall. Inside there was nothing but a pile of old bones and these few worms, just sitting there dormant."
"I don't really know what they are. They looked a bit unsettling, but I figured the caravan market would be lively, so I thought I'd bring them along and see if I could get something for them..."
Just as expected — a stumbling, accidental discovery of one of the Blood Sea Ancestor's ordinary inheritances.
"A lucky wretch, all things considered."
Lin Mu made his quiet assessment. He tossed the Blood Trace Gu back onto the cloth and stood.
For someone of his current means, any problem that could be solved with Primeval Stones was the simplest kind of problem — the kind that required the least cost.
He could easily use his current standing to commandeer these items at a forced low price, or even pin the label of "Demonic Path spy" on the man and take them outright.
But he did not bully the weak. And he did not lowball out of spite.
He had more money than he needed right now.
"No need to keep it spread out. I'll take all of it."
Lin Mu's voice was flat. His wrist turned, and a bulging coin pouch dropped onto the black cloth.
"One thousand Primeval Stones. Everything on this cloth — I'm buying it all."
"O-one... one thousand?!"
The grey-robed wandering cultivator's eyes went wide.
He stared at the pure, crystalline gleam of Primeval Stones spilling from the pouch's mouth, and went completely still — as though struck by lightning.
For a bottom-rung wandering cultivator who scraped by fighting beasts in the wilderness, one thousand Primeval Stones was a sum beyond imagining — wealth he would not see in several lifetimes.
"L-Lord... did you... did you mean that?"
The wandering cultivator's hands were trembling. He did not even dare touch the pouch, afraid this was a dream.
"Transaction complete. Take the money, and leave Black Blood Stockade before dark."
Lin Mu moved efficiently, absorbing the two Blood Trace Gu and the remaining Blood Path Gu worms into his Aperture, and offered the quiet instruction without looking back.
It was both a transaction and a word of genuine warning. Walking around with that much money and staying here — this wandering cultivator would not survive the night.
"Thank you, my Lord! Thank you for your generosity! You are a living Bodhisattva, my Lord, a living Bodhisattva!"
Overwhelmed by the fortune that had fallen from the sky, the wandering cultivator was beside himself.
He clutched the coin pouch to his chest, bowing again and again toward Lin Mu, eyes glistening with tears on the verge of falling.
He hastily rolled up the worn black cloth, cast a wary glance in every direction, tucked the pouch against his innermost layer of clothing, and shuffled away with a hunched back and hurried steps toward the Outer Ring's exit — intent on putting this place far behind him.
Lin Mu stood where he was and watched the figure grow smaller in the crowd — that hunched, wary, flinching silhouette gradually swallowed by the press of people.
Then his steps paused, almost imperceptibly.
In his mind, it was as though a blinding bolt of lightning had split the night sky open. A plan — bold, and nothing short of inspired — took shape in that single instant.
Wait.
Lin Mu watched the retreating wandering cultivator, and the corner of his mouth curved into a slow, cold, unhurried smile.
"This nameless wandering cultivator with no background, no connections, no one who would miss him..."
"...might still be of some use."