The Path of Immortality: Starts With Creating Water Bear Gu-Chapter 476: Writing a Novel

An hour later, Long Xuan looked at Qin Mingyue sitting across from him, a flicker of surprise flashing through his eyes. He secretly sighed in relief — good thing he hadn’t underestimated this girl. She was clearly playing the pig to eat the tiger. Repeatedly claiming she excelled in zither but was weak in Go, yet her skill in Go was terrifyingly high. Had he been even slightly overconfident just now, he would’ve lost that game.

Long Xuan still felt a lingering sense of dread. That game had been extremely difficult, but in the end, he relied on his superior experience to win. If Qin Mingyue were given just a few more years of playing experience, he couldn't even guarantee a win against her.

“Thanks for letting me win! Winning that game against you was no easy feat. Didn’t you say you weren’t good at Go? This is what you call not being good at Go?” Long Xuan raised his eyebrows and questioned her.

Fortunately, he had always been cautious by nature. No matter the advantage, he never underestimated his opponent — otherwise, this girl would’ve completely outwitted him. As expected, the prettier a woman is, the less you can trust her words.

“I meant that, compared to Go, I’m better at zither. In the Holy Gu Academy, I’ve mastered all four arts — zither, Go, calligraphy, and painting — to a refined degree. Go just happens to be my weakest among them.”

“But among my peers, you’re the first person who has beaten me at Go. I’ll definitely challenge you again. Next time, you’ll be the one who loses!”

Qin Mingyue rose, hugging her guqin as she walked toward the door. Just as she reached the threshold, she suddenly stopped, turned around, and reminded him:

“The bookworm I gave you likes reading novels. It's also called the Novel Gu. Just by reading books, it can transform into a Gu insect. Don’t be fooled by how easy it seems to refine a book Gu — it may be cheap and nearly fail-proof.”

“But Heaven is fair. For such an easily refined Gu insect to exist, there must be a drawback. The balance lies in how incredibly weak these Gu are — even the peak-grade book Gu are pitifully fragile, far inferior in strength to other types of Gu.”

“That’s why, in this world, only the poor refine Bookworm Gu. Talented cultivators with any resources rarely bother.”

“You’ve probably guessed the reason, most people in this world dedicate all their time to cultivation. Who would waste time reading novels? The population that enjoys reading is far too small, making it nearly impossible for a Bookworm Gu to grow strong in this world.”

“If you can’t ensure your novel will be read by people across the world, I advise you not to waste your time refining a Bookworm Gu. That’s all I have to say.”

With that, Qin Mingyue no longer spoke and stepped out the door.

As she passed by, her graceful figure attracted the eyes of many men, but their gazes all held a hint of dread, none dared approach.

Watching her fading silhouette, Long Xuan sighed to himself. This girl sure had a strong competitive streak. she actually wanted to win next time.

But he wasn’t a masochist. Next time, he simply wouldn’t play with her, that would drive her crazy. A smirk curled at the corner of Long Xuan’s lips as he picked up a white Go piece from the game they had just played.

The Go piece radiated a dazzling white light — so bright it was almost blinding.

This was the piece that had established a fate-link with Qin Mingyue. From this moment on, a portion of her luck, fate, and destiny would be shared with him. The greater her future accomplishments, the stronger this Go-piece Gu would become.

From now on, this Go-piece Gu’s destiny would rise and fall together with Qin Mingyue.

Long Xuan lovingly caressed the chess piece. This was the first time he had established a connection with a genius — and now he had an urge to light up all 361 chess pieces on the board. He had officially developed a collector's obsession.

But his expression soon darkened slightly. He wasn’t fully satisfied with this piece that had already begun to shine. While Qin Mingyue was indeed talented, she was far from the strongest genius in the world.

A person’s future isn’t fixed — it can be influenced. Qi Luoyou, for instance, had shaped the futures of many geniuses by acting as their mentor, helping them grow while forging unshakable personalities that were difficult to derail.

Now, Long Xuan was considering whether he should cultivate Qin Mingyue. In his previous life, there were countless classic zither compositions that could significantly help talented cultivators walking the zither path, some might even be used to create stronger zither-type Gu.

He believed that, under his guidance, Qin Mingyue could achieve even greater things.

But for now, he still didn’t fully understand her temperament. Better to wait, he didn’t want to end up raising a rebellious disciple.

Long Xuan’s eyes gleamed as he finally took out the Gu container he’d received from Qin Mingyue and poured the bookworm into his palm.

Soon, a strange spiritual insect appeared in his sight, it had a single, enormous eye.

This pudgy, snow-white spirit insect looked quite bizarre. Its most distinctive feature was its singular eye — incredibly large, occupying at least a third of its body. At this moment, the bookworm was staring right at him with that massive eye.

Gazing into that eye, Long Xuan felt amazed. So this is the bookworm that gains abilities by reading books? One that can bring fictional powers into the real world?

Truly, the world was full of wonders — such a bizarre insect could actually be born.

“According to Qin Mingyue, this bookworm loves novels! But what should I show it? This is actually a pretty hard choice.”

Long Xuan sighed as he began thinking about which novel from his previous life would be best to transpose into this world.

There were just too many options, so many that he found himself overwhelmed, caught in a spiral of indecision. After thinking for a long time, he gritted his teeth and finally chose to transcribe Journey to the West from memory.

He hadn’t read this world’s novels, so he wasn’t sure how Journey to the West would compare. But as one of the Four Great Classical Novels of his past life, it was bound to be at least decent here.

He decided to show the bookworm Journey to the West.

That book featured too many powerful abilities — the Somersault Cloud that could travel 108,000 li in one leap, the Buddha’s Palm of Enlightenment, or the Yellow Wind Monster’s Yellow Sandstorm.

No matter which ability the bookworm understood, it would be a huge gain.

Thinking about these powers made Long Xuan’s breathing grow rapid. He couldn’t wait any longer. He immediately took out pen and paper, determined to finish transcribing this literary masterpiece as fast as possible.

But before he began, there was one more crucial issue to address — he hadn’t forgotten that novels were like a barren desert in this world. Few people wasted time reading them. Holy Gu City was perhaps the only exception.

Holy Gu City had a rich heritage in book-related cultivation. Its people were deeply influenced by this legacy, so most residents enjoyed reading novels.

Journey to the West could easily spread within Holy Gu City. but spreading it across the entire Gu World would be far harder.

Since novels were rarely read, even the most spectacular story would be ignored. As Qin Mingyue warned, if his novel couldn’t gain worldwide popularity, refining a Bookworm Gu would be meaningless.

This challenge truly stumped Long Xuan. It meant that no matter how extraordinary his novel was, if no one read it, it would still be worthless. For someone who never read novels, even a literary miracle wouldn’t catch their eye.

Long Xuan felt a massive headache coming on. Getting a novel to break into the mainstream was a world-class challenge. Every book Gu cultivator had tried to solve it — but none had succeeded. How could he possibly achieve what no one else ever had?

But then again, breaking the limits of those who came before him was what Long Xuan did best. What no one else could do… might not be so impossible for him after all.

Not long after, he suddenly slammed the table hard and cursed loudly:

“Damn it! Didn’t all of you say you don’t like reading novels?”

“Then I’ll personally create the cultivation technique that Patriarch Bodhi passed on to the Monkey, and write it into a novel!”

“In the original story, this technique combined the philosophies of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism—limitless freedom, supreme infinitude.”

“If you want to comprehend the essence of these three schools of thought, then you must read the full novel from beginning to end! Don’t think you can master the technique without reading the novel!”

“I refuse to believe I can’t tame you all!”

A sinister grin appeared on Long Xuan’s face. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Picking up a pen, he wrote down five bold characters on the paper: 《Great Celestial Immortal Art》.

This was precisely the technique that Patriarch Bodhi had taught the Monkey King. It was an extraordinary method, capable of seizing the fortune of heaven and earth and unraveling the mysteries of the sun and moon. Upon completion, not even gods or spirits could tolerate its power. Every five hundred years, it would trigger a tribulation—thunder, fire, and wind in turn.

Its most unique feature was the power to unlock the root of understanding; once a single aperture was opened, all others would follow. Simply put, anyone cultivating this technique could instantly comprehend anything upon hearing it once, and master it with minimal effort.

It also granted longevity equal to the heavens, immunity to all illnesses, transcendence beyond reincarnation, and eternal youth through ten thousand tribulations...

However, the part about eternal life was excluded—he knew he couldn’t possibly create something of that level right now.

With such a powerful cultivation technique, he didn’t believe anyone could resist the temptation.

Now that he had a method to spread his novel across the entire world, Long Xuan no longer hesitated and immediately entered the Soul Library.

He decided to first "grind out" the Great Celestial Immortal Art, and then transcribe Journey to the West.

The real time sink was the creation of the Great Celestial Immortal Art. As for Journey to the West, he only needed to transcribe it from memory, which wouldn’t take much effort or time.

Creating a heaven-defying cultivation technique consumed a tremendous amount of time, so Long Xuan could only retreat into seclusion within the Soul Library. As for matters concerning the Coffee Gu Specialty Store, he left everything to his Clone.

Should any talented individual who met his requirements arrive to play chess, the Clone would handle them.

At this moment, Long Xuan still had no idea—the cultivation technique he had casually invented would soon stir up a storm across this world.

What he created would shake the very foundations of the world once again.

Time passed slowly. Unknowingly, six months slipped away.

However, the time consumed within the Soul Library far exceeded just six months. Considering the time and effort spent researching the technique, it was clear this technique was anything but simple.

That day, Long Xuan finally stretched deeply, a look of satisfaction spreading across his face. Looking at the three large characters “Journey to the West,” he shamelessly wrote beneath it—By Long Xuan◎.

After some thought, he changed it to a pen name: Xuan Long. At last, this world-renowned literary work was completed under his name.

Looking at the world-class novel, he felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment.

In the future, the more people who read Journey to the West, the stronger his Book Gu would become. He was filled with anticipation—just how many people around the world would end up loving this novel?

“Read it! Read it thoroughly!”

Long Xuan suddenly tossed the book in front of a Bookworm Gu. The bookworm’s eyes lit up immediately and it crawled excitedly toward the book, eagerly flipping open the cover and beginning to study it with great interest.

The story opened with the tale of a monkey, causing the bookworm to pause. Most novels used human protagonists, but this one broke convention by making a demonic beast the main character. It felt incredibly fresh and made the bookworm even more curious about what came next.

The content was riveting. After only a few pages, the bookworm was completely absorbed. Its eyes grew brighter the further it read, fully captivated by the story.

Seeing the bookworm’s increasingly excited expression and its addiction-like response, Long Xuan finally relaxed.

Bookworms were notoriously picky—their standards for novels far surpassed those of humans.

If even the bookworm was this addicted to reading Journey to the West, then he was confident the rest of humanity would be too.

The bookworm’s aesthetic taste represented the mainstream literary standard in this world.

Long Xuan was now full of confidence. He no longer paid attention to the already-addicted bookworm and began preparing to use printing techniques to mass-produce Journey to the West. The more copies, the better.

Another six months passed quickly.

At this time, inside the Coffee Gu Specialty Store, Long Xuan frowned deeply. He hadn't expected that after the bookworm finished reading Journey to the West, it would fall into such a long slumber.

There was no doubt that Journey to the West was a brilliant novel. After reading it to the end, the bookworm was still craving more, and soon fell into a deep sleep. It had just awakened today, and upon awakening, it had evolved into a true Gu insect, successfully gaining an ability from the novel.

But the ability it acquired greatly disappointed Long Xuan. It wasn't the Palm of the Tathagata, which he deeply desired, nor the Somersault Cloud, which he couldn’t forget.

This underachieving bookworm had merely learned the Earth Shrinking Technique.

This was a skill used by Sun Wukong that allowed him to tunnel through the ground—a powerful technique, but far below Long Xuan’s expectations.

As he had feared, bookworms found it hard to comprehend truly heaven-defying powers from novels. He realized he should lower his expectations—the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment.

Just as he was wallowing in disappointment, a message suddenly came through his mind via their Blood Contract, making him freeze in surprise.

It turned out that his Book Gu could comprehend not just one, but multiple abilities. As it grew further, it would gradually gain a second, third, and more powers…

Any ability from the book, no matter how heaven-defying, could be learned—as long as the Book Gu matured enough.

But the prerequisite was that enough people must read Journey to the West. Only with a massive readership could the Book Gu obtain sufficient spiritual nourishment to trigger its next ability awakening.

Upon realizing this, Long Xuan’s excitement surged. He clenched his fist and brimmed with motivation—he was ready to begin distributing the novel in the city that very day.

Over the past month, he had already printed countless copies of Journey to the West. But since the bookworm was asleep and had not yet fully evolved into a Gu, he hadn’t dared distribute the book recklessly.

Each original novel could only correspond to one Book Gu. If someone else used his Journey to the West to cultivate a Book Gu before him, he’d be devastated.