He finally understood why this so-called Rank 5 inheritance had gone without a whisper for hundreds of years.
Because this Black Bone King had never once regarded the successors who came to receive his inheritance as human beings.
The Letter Gu that had crumbled to ash contained no complex or cryptic formation-breaking methods. It demanded no impossibly rare heaven-and-earth treasures.
It didn't even require the massive reserves of Primeval Essence that the first layer had.
The condition for opening the second layer was simple, direct, and brutal to the point of obscenity — five words that made the eyes go dark:
Capture a Thousand-Beast King. Alive.
"Capture... go to hell with your capturing."
Lin Mu stood motionless, his expression sourer than if he'd bitten into a bitter melon. He had a nearly overwhelming urge to smash the Black Bone King's statue to rubble.
In the world of Gu Masters, the hierarchy of demonic beasts was rigidly defined and closely tied to the combat power system of Gu Masters themselves.
A Hundred-Beast King commanded over a hundred beasts and typically possessed strength ranging from Rank 1 peak to Rank 2 initial stage.
Within Black Blood Stockade, an ordinary five-man Rank 2 elite squad with decent coordination could handle one without much trouble.
A Ten-Thousand-Beast King was a catastrophic force of nature — the kind that triggered small-scale beast tides.
Should one appear, it would require every elder of Black Blood Stockade to mobilize, with Patriarch Lin Cang himself leading the charge at Rank 4, and the full combined strength of the entire clan just to barely hold the line in a direct confrontation.
And between those two extremes — the Thousand-Beast King.
A terrifying overlord commanding over a thousand savage beasts, with personal combat strength of at minimum Rank 2 peak, more likely Rank 3.
To hunt and kill a Thousand-Beast King in the wild required no fewer than three full Rank 2 Gu Master squads working in concert, paying an enormous and bloody price for the privilege.
Lin Mu couldn't help but think back to the clan's recent trial tournament.
That Blood Jade Python — tormented by Lin Cang, stripped of its reverse scales, its horn shattered, reduced to less than a tenth of its full strength — had been at most a gravely wounded, near-death Thousand-Beast King.
And even that half-dead creature had wiped out the grand alliance of seed squads, leaving them annihilated with devastating casualties.
And now, the Black Bone King's requirement was not to kill one.
It was to take one alive.
"Killing a Thousand-Beast King at full strength requires Rank 3 peak combat power and a desperate, all-out fight."
Lin Mu drew a slow breath, feeling a creeping numbness spread across his scalp.
"To capture a creature of that size and ferocity alive — and then transport it down into this deep underground chamber as a sacrificial offering — that would require the overwhelming, absolute combat power of at least Rank 4."
Faced with that brutal reality, Lin Mu's anger drained away entirely.
Within a hundred li of Black Blood Stockade, the only person currently at Rank 4 was Patriarch Lin Cang, who had just emerged from closed-door cultivation after his breakthrough.
And Lin Mu — a Rank 2 initial-stage Gu Master — was supposed to capture a Thousand-Beast King alive?
It was more absurd than a fairy tale.
Huu...
Lin Mu let out a long exhale and forced his gaze away from the sealed passage leading to the second layer, redirecting it inward — toward the White Silver Relic Gu resting in the deepest recess of his Aperture.
Whatever the case, today's initial foray into the underground chamber had been an extraordinary harvest. A life-altering beginning, even.
That Rank 3 White Silver Relic Gu — across the entire Southern Border, it was a priceless treasure, the kind that could ignite rivers of blood and mountains of corpses.
But reason told Lin Mu the truth: this inheritance was nothing more than an enormous, sweet, impossibly enticing promise the Black Bone King had painted for his future.
He could see it. He could smell it. But with the teeth he had right now, he couldn't take a single bite.
If he even tried to open his mouth too wide, he'd dislocate his own jaw.
"Eat one mouthful at a time. Walk one step at a time."
The deep, cold clarity returned to Lin Mu's eyes. "The real problem right now has nothing to do with opening that accursed second layer."
"It's surviving the crisis that's already bearing down on me."
White Bone Stockade's Patriarch Li Mang was the sharpest blade hanging over his head.
Only by evading Li Mang's search — by surviving this storm and emerging from it transformed — would he have any right to reach for that magnificent promise in the future.
"Time to go."
The clue had been obtained, and opening the next layer was impossible in the foreseeable future. Lin Mu would not waste a single extra second here.
After withdrawing through the heavy blue-black stone door, he began his cleanup work with meticulous care.
He channeled the dense Red Iron Primeval Essence from his Aperture and used the Red Mud Gu to produce a large volume of mud, sealing and refilling the long underground tunnel he had excavated — burying it completely.
It took considerable time, but when Lin Mu was finished, the scene was flawless.
Even an earth-path Gu Master skilled in detection would find no trace that this ground had ever been disturbed.
Back at the bottom of the abandoned dry well behind the clan school's rear mountain, Lin Mu repeated the process — burying the well floor under thick layers of dead leaves and scattered stones, erasing every mark of his descent.
Taking advantage of the deepest darkness before dawn, Lin Mu moved like a ghost through the shadows, slipping past the patrolling guards without a sound and returning to his residence in the Silent Stone District.
He collapsed onto his bed, exhausted — but his mind was in a state of fierce, electric alertness.
He checked the White Silver Relic Gu one final time, confirmed it was safely concealed in the deepest recess of his Aperture, and then fell into a heavy sleep.
For the next two full days, Lin Mu did not step outside his courtyard.
He devoted himself entirely to rest and cultivation, and waited for the half-jar of "bitter wine" that Jia Fu had promised.
Seated cross-legged in his meditation chamber, Lin Mu turned his full attention inward, sensing the differences in his Aperture since breaking through to Rank 2.
The Red Iron Primeval Essence was heavier and more condensed than before, the power contained within it far more substantial.
Every time he activated a Gu worm, there was a smooth, effortless quality to it — like commanding his own arm, lifting great weight as though it were nothing.
But at the same time, Lin Mu clearly felt the trade-off that came with his advancement.
"Without the Liquor Worm to refine my Primeval Essence, my cultivation speed has visibly dropped."
He turned his gaze inward toward his Aperture, a faint frown creasing his brow. Before, the Liquor Worm had doubled his cultivation efficiency.
Now, even with his freakish pseudo-Grade A aptitude — his rate of absorbing natural primeval energy still far exceeding that of ordinary cultivators — that sensation of moving at a cheat-enabled pace was simply gone.
"At least money is the one thing I'm not short of."
Lin Mu reached for a handful of Primeval Stones without hesitation, crushed them, and used the flood of pure energy to forcibly compensate for the efficiency gap.
Under a strategy of utterly shameless financial expenditure, his Rank 2 initial-stage cultivation continued to consolidate at a steady and rapid pace.
"The first layer's reward is already in hand."
Two days later, Lin Mu slowly opened his eyes. He looked at the Red Iron Primeval Essence gradually filling his Aperture, and a fiercely ambitious light flickered in his gaze.
"From here on, every last Primeval Stone I have left serves one single ultimate objective —"
"Obtain the Rank 2 Red Iron Relic Gu."
With the Red Iron Relic Gu, he could leap directly to Rank 2 middle stage, dramatically cutting the time cost of his cultivation.
With the Four-Flavor Liquor Worm, he would once again gain the Primeval Essence refinement that gave him above-rank combat power.
He had to reach Rank 3 as fast as possible.
Only at Rank 3 would he have any real right to consume the priceless White Silver Relic Gu already resting against his chest — completing a three-stage leap in cultivation in one sweep.
Only.
Lin Mu pressed a hand to his chest.
This precious treasure obtained ahead of its time, and the enormous vortex concealed within the depths of the bone plate — would they prove to be heaven-defying fortune that rewired his fate?
Or the ruinous curse of a man carrying jade in a den of thieves?