Chapter 409 - 377: Bloodline Genealogy

Chapter 409: Chapter 377: Bloodline Genealogy

Time flies.

In the blink of an eye, nearly two years had passed.

The Hundred Treasures Pavilion had officially integrated into Chixia, and he had established the True Understanding Pavilion.

This undoubtedly meant that the leisurely freedom he had once enjoyed as a lone wolf was now constrained by vested interests.

Focusing on a single pursuit without any worldly distractions was clearly no longer possible.

For two years, he had been working almost nonstop.

His own Cultivation, his bloodline research, the trivial matters of the True Understanding Pavilion, teaching his three nominal disciples, and most importantly... the entanglements of profit.

Back in Jingmen, he had only been famous for his Artifact Refining. But now in Chixia, after several years, his skills in both Artifact Refining and Alchemy had become widely renowned.

His title, Pill and Artifact Dual Proficiency, was now a household name in Chixia City.

With such a reputation, a constant stream of Cultivators came seeking his services for Artifact Refining and Alchemy.

A virtuous cycle had already taken shape.

After all, those who could afford to hire him for refining Elixirs and Artifacts were at least Foundation Establishment Realm Cultivators. The items he was commissioned to create were all Tier Two, or even Tier Three Lower Grade, Artifacts and Elixirs.

Even on his own, he would have had few opportunities to refine so many Tier Two Artifacts and Elixirs.

Every successful refinement meant an accumulation of extremely precious experience. With each new success, his skills naturally grew more and more exquisite.

As his skills became more exquisite, his fame grew, and the number and variety of Cultivators seeking his services for Elixirs and Artifacts naturally expanded.

Over the years, following his rule of taking a hefty commission from every Artifact Refining and Alchemy job, he had truly made a fortune.

As dusk fell, Chu Mu arrived in his backyard, as was his custom.

The dozen or so Demon Beasts he once kept were all fed to Wangcai after the bloodline fusion experiments were complete.

Of the hundreds of "human livestock" brought back from Beast City, the consumption rate wasn’t high. In two years, fewer than ten percent had been lost to experimental errors.

However, the hundreds of mortals who once filled the backyard had all been given their freedom. After the experiments were done, he used the Illusion Dream Order to weave an Illusion Realm, infusing their minds with common knowledge of the Vast Sea before letting them go.

Whether they lived or died afterward was none of his concern.

The yard was now empty, though the stench of blood still lingered. Chu Mu sat on the ground, holding a Jade Scroll that recorded the entire course of his experiments. His brow was tightly furrowed, his mind heavy with thought.

The Spiritual Radiance Blessing had descended long ago. Inspirations, questions, hypotheses, and confirmed bloodline knowledge rapidly combined and collided in his mind. The patterns of bloodline fusion derived from his experiments were becoming clearer and clearer.

At some point, an Array Prohibition Gate materialized. Chang Er cautiously poked his head through to look into the yard. Seeing Chu Mu sitting cross-legged in thought, Chang Er clearly hesitated, but finally mustered his courage and called out, "Senior."

Chu Mu glanced at Chang Er outside the gate, then his gaze returned to the Jade Scroll in his hand.

"Senior, I’ve brought the Demon Beast you requested."

Chang Er bowed respectfully, then gestured outside the gate. Several Cultivators quickly entered, carrying a large iron cage covered in shimmering Array Prohibition Inscriptions.

"Fine."

Chu Mu nodded, seeming somewhat absent-minded.

Chang Er quickly waved his hands again, leading the other Cultivators away.

When the yard fell silent once more, Chu Mu seemed to come to his senses. His gaze fixed on the Demon Beast in the iron cage, his eyes flickering with uncertainty.

After a long moment, as if he had reached a decision, Chu Mu waved his hand. The iron cage swung open, and the Array Prohibitions surrounding it tightened, trapping the Demon Beast within.

The Demon Beast was quite ordinary, just a Tier One Early Stage Bone-Piercing Turtle. In the Endless Vast Sea, besides the common, non-demonic sea fish, the Bone-piercing Fish was the most common creature.

Its bloodline was even more mundane. Among the Heaven, Earth, Profound, and Yellow Four Tiers, the Bone-piercing Fish bloodline was ranked as Yellow Tier Lower Grade—as low as it could possibly be.

Observing the Bone-piercing Fish for a moment, Chu Mu slowly reached out. With a flick of his finger, a mass of the fish’s Bloodline Essence appeared at his fingertip. He extended his Divine Sense into the bloodline, and the fruits of his years of research seemed to manifest within this mass of Yellow Tier Lower Grade bloodline.

Chu Mu still clearly remembered the ambush he’d encountered in the Outer Sea years ago, the Cultivator who had fused bloodlines, and the fragmented bloodline text from the Immortal Dao Sect.

That Cultivator had taught him of the existence of bloodline fusion.

That fragmented text had opened the door to bloodline fusion for him.

The theories within it—regarding bloodline fusion experiments, using fusion to glimpse the source of a bloodline, and even achieving Ancestral Return—had always been the fundamental basis for his own bloodline experiments.

He researched bloodline fusion and explored bloodline lineages in pursuit of two things: the Bloodline Divine Techniques he needed, and the bloodline source that Wangcai needed.

Now, his years of research centered on the bloodline fusion theory from that fragmented text had yielded clear results.

The Ancestral Return through bloodline fusion recorded in the fragmented text was not just a fantasy, it seemed, but a genuine possibility.

As Chu Mu perceived the mass of Bone-piercing Fish bloodline before him, his meticulous, thread-by-thread analysis slowly revealed a faint bloodline lineage.

It was a very simple, yet complex question: How did the Bone-piercing Fish come to be?

How had the countless species of Demon Beasts in the Endless Vast Sea evolved?

Clearly, it all stemmed from mutations arising from the combination of bloodlines.

Take the Flood Dragon Bloodline, for example. Dragons are inherently promiscuous, so in the Vast Sea, there is a near-infinite number of Demon Beasts that have mutated from the Flood Dragon Bloodline as their core.

Within this, there must be a traceable bloodline lineage.

This bloodline lineage was just like the theory of evolution from his past life, where one creature evolved into another.

Bloodline lineages were naturally the same.

For instance, in the legends of the Dragon’s Nine Sons, each son was different.

And when these nine sons reproduced, generation after generation, any mutations that occurred from combining with different bloodlines would clearly be mutations belonging to the Flood Dragon Bloodline, falling within the scope of the Flood Dragon bloodline lineage.

The path of bloodline Cultivation undoubtedly evolved according to these bloodline lineages.

The so-called bloodline transformations and Bloodline Divine Techniques were also clearly contained within these lineages.

If a creature was not part of the dragon bloodline lineage, it would be impossible for it to transform and acquire a dragon-type bloodline upon a breakthrough in Cultivation, nor could it awaken Divine Techniques belonging to that lineage.

The Bone-piercing Fish before him naturally had its own bloodline lineage as well, and his experiments had yielded an extremely clear conclusion about it.

The Bone-piercing Fish resulted from the union of a Silver Thorn Fish and a Skeleton Fish. If their offspring underwent a bloodline mutation, the Bone-piercing Fish was one possible direction for that mutation.

In other words, if a Bone-piercing Fish’s bloodline were to transform, there was a high probability it would become a Silver Thorn Fish or a Skeleton Fish. Of course, there was also a chance it could transform into a Demon Beast of another bloodline.

After all, the Vast Sea has existed for countless years. The reproduction and inheritance among Demon Beasts had long since made the bloodline lineage of any given Demon Beast unimaginably vast.

Even the most insignificant common sea fish might possess a trivial trace of Flood Dragon Bloodline. With some heaven-defying luck, it wasn’t impossible for a common fish to transform into a Flood Dragon.

But it was undeniable that transformation along the direct bloodline path had the highest probability!

Chu Mu retracted the Bone-piercing Fish bloodline swirling at his fingertip, his gaze shifting to Wangcai, who was lying nearby.

’The bloodline lineage is confirmed. The next step, then... is to follow the clues.’

’Take Wangcai’s Vajra Wolf Bloodline for example. What is its ancestral bloodline? What other bloodlines evolved from that same ancestor?’

’If these derived bloodlines from the same root are fused, could it... increase the probability of transformation? Or perhaps, after a perfect fusion of same-root bloodlines, could it directly transform and achieve Ancestral Return to the previous generation’s bloodline?’

As these thoughts swirled in his mind, Chu Mu’s eyes grew brighter. If these hypotheses were confirmed, it would mean he could artificially guide Wangcai’s Vajra Wolf Bloodline to undergo Ancestral Return, step by step, along its bloodline lineage.

’The Vajra Wolf is an Earth Tier Lower Grade bloodline. Its ancestral bloodline must be Earth Tier Middle Grade, or even Earth Tier Upper Grade...’

’With repeated fusions and transformations, even a Celestial Tier Upper Grade bloodline might not be just a fantasy...’

’The higher the Grade of the bloodline, the more powerful the awakened Bloodline Divine Techniques will be. If I can one day decipher the mysteries of these Bloodline Divine Techniques...’

’A nearly perfect cycle...’

Chu Mu didn’t delay for a moment. Based on his newly confirmed theory of bloodline lineages, another round of bloodline experiments began.

This time, with the new theory as a foundation, the bloodline experiments were far more orderly.

Demon Beasts like the Bone-piercing Fish, with their low Cultivation and Low Tier bloodlines, were the perfect subjects for his bloodline experiments...

In the time that followed, Chu Mu became completely immersed in this new series of bloodline experiments. He even turned down numerous requests for Alchemy and Artifact Refining.

With a single-minded focus that bordered on complete seclusion, time itself seemed to become the most insignificant of things...

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