Chapter 225: Chapter 85: Gu True Man at Your Service
Li Mo deliberately avoided the Taoists within the illusion realm’s mountain gate, traveling back and forth between realities several times to discern the differences between illusion and reality.
Not only could he utilize his Taoist Body in the illusion realm, but his Divine Skills were also unaffected.
However, within the illusion, Li Mo inhabited Ashen’s body, drastically limiting his strength. Even with the support of the Taoist Body, his power barely reached the childhood stage.
Aside from this, only the organ-like Da Ai Mi Tian could be taken with him; no Magic Artifacts could follow him into the illusion realm. It seemed that only Li Mo’s consciousness could enter the Eleventh District.
When he entered the illusion realm, his physical body would remain in the erosion cave. If he was unprepared, he risked being slowly dragged into the depths by the flesh walls.
Conversely, Ashen’s corpse disintegrated into dust due to the mark left by the Raiding Page. Each time Li Mo exited the illusion realm, the "Ashen" he portrayed would disappear with him.
Li Mo conducted an experiment in the illusion realm by severing one of his fingers to test its effects.
Ashen’s severed finger remained in the illusion and decayed naturally over time. However, when Li Mo re-entered the illusion, Ashen’s body reverted to its original state.
Li Mo was able to sense the finger within the flesh walls in the real world, and when it restored Ashen’s body, his physical form lost a portion of its flesh and blood in exchange.
This discovery greatly expanded his operational capacity within the illusion realm, but it also confirmed that the Mother Furnace was deliberately maintaining the illusion’s authenticity.
Simply relying on the Five Senses made it impossible to differentiate between illusion and reality.
If Li Mo spent too much time in the illusion realm, he might begin to question his perceptions and even lose the ability to discern whether the external world truly existed.
So, is that what it means to "wake up"?
In the Great Mother’s eyes, is the illusion realm of the Eleventh District the true reality?
Li Mo remained noncommittal. Perhaps even the Mother Furnace was lost in a dream of its own making.
What puzzled him was that if the Mother Furnace was under Chen Tiangang’s control, given the latter’s character, why would he construct the illusion realm of the Eleventh District? Why would he care about the tormented Tao Body disciples?
Li Mo secretly attempted to send thoughts to Mu Daoist again, but the latter did not respond—most likely, his consciousness had completely succumbed.
"I must finish collecting the Taoist Bodies quickly; this damned Eleventh District cannot be stayed in for long."
Li Mo deployed Taiyin Law Heaven, aligning the cave’s entrances and exits with the flesh walls. By doing so, if he entered the illusion realm again, he could use the Magic Artifact to conceal his aura, ensuring his physical body in the external world would remain safe.
Once he understood the rules of the illusion realm, he began to utilize Giant Swallowing Evil. It took him several attempts to nurture a satisfactory Gu Worm for his needs.
[Giant Stomach Worm]
[Sacrifice your own flesh and blood, add five taels of bone powder, one segment of stomach, and three spinal bones to foster the spawning of Giant Stomach Worm eggs in certain organs.]
After confirming the function of the Giant Stomach Worm, Li Mo placed his left hand against the flesh wall.
His consciousness sank into the illusion realm.
He specifically chose a moment when the mountain gate was just tinged with dawn, where only a few servant disciples were busily working along the mountain paths.
The outer sect disciples who had entered the Tao would only get up to wash and prepare themselves in about an hour.
Li Mo could discern that compared to the mountain gate’s previous tranquility, the number of Mountain Patrol Taoists had visibly increased. They carried Magic Lanterns, seemingly searching various parts of the outer sect.
The Mountain Patrol Taoists originated from the Law Enforcement Hall of the outer sect, clearly investigating Ashen’s unexplained disappearance.
Li Mo’s expression remained indifferent; he had long anticipated the undercurrents roiling within the illusion realm.
After all, the illusion realm was not real. If this were the ancient Sub-Device Sect, the disappearance of a single servant disciple would not have concerned any cultivator.
The reaction of the mountain gate indicated one thing: the Mother Furnace’s Spiritual Wisdom had been reduced to mere instinct.
Li Mo moved swiftly, weaving through building after building.
He had already memorized the patterns of the Mountain Patrol Taoists. Every time he turned a corner, he’d seemingly brush by one of them in a hair-raisingly close encounter.
As long as he didn’t court disaster himself, he was like a drop of water merging into the vast ocean of the outer sect.
Of course, this was limited to the outer sect.
The Superior Dao Bodies were all concentrated in the inner sect, which was protected by a Mountain Protection Array and patrolled extensively by Mountain Patrol Taoists, making it impossible to distinguish truth from falsehood.
Unwilling to waste time in the outer sect, Li Mo opted for special measures.
With the support of the Paoxiao Swallowing Body, his movements were agile and nimble as he lightly leapt into the courtyard of a servant disciple’s quarters.
The servant disciple in the quarters was responsible for cleaning the Artifact Hall, a task that would last at least two hours until Elder Sha Yan, who taught Artifact Refining, arrived at the hall.
*Creaaak.*
The wooden door opened a crack, and Li Mo slipped into the quarters, where silence reigned in the darkness.
He carefully maintained the arrangement of the furnishings before sitting cross-legged directly on the ground.
Taking a deep breath, Li Mo did not hesitate to use his flesh and blood as a medium to begin fostering the Giant Stomach Worm, feeling a tingling and numbing pain course through him.
To ensure the egg’s successful incubation, he chose his thigh as the site for the egg’s parasitism.
"Tss."
Li Mo sucked in a cold breath, fully aware of the worm egg gradually forming while his right leg withered in an instant.
He had minimized the materials required to foster the worm egg, but Gu Refining was not something a mortal’s constitution could handle.
The only solace was that the Paoxiao Swallowing Body offered some enhancement to his physical condition.
Li Mo quickly became skin and bones. When the egg began absorbing his skeletal structure, a cacophony of bone-cracking sounds erupted throughout his body.
Three spinal bones and one segment of stomach were the last to be consumed.
Li Mo collapsed helplessly onto the ground.
Using his fingers, he carefully extracted the amber-like worm egg from his thigh and placed it beneath the bed, sensing its continuous growth.
In essence, the illusion realm was a mass of flesh and blood.
The abundant nutrients allowed the Giant Stomach Worm to grow; otherwise, relying solely on Ashen’s body, Li Mo would have had to make dozens of trips to nourish the egg.
Footsteps echoed outside, accompanied by the weary chatter of servant disciples.
Using Paoxiao Swallowing Body, Li Mo’s consciousness returned to the real world, leaving only the worm egg behind in the illusion realm.
When he opened his eyes, the dim and chilly erosion cave greeted him once more. Faces pressed into the flesh walls screamed in suffering.
Given the choice, who wouldn’t take the illusion realm as the real world?
Through his Divine Sense, Li Mo confirmed that the Giant Stomach Worm egg was deep within the flesh walls of his surroundings, symbolizing that his plan was already half-complete.
Closing his eyes, he waited until the egg showed signs of nearing hatching. Then, as before, he returned to the illusion realm.
His gaze met the familiar darkness of the quarters.
Ashen’s body had already healed.
Lowering his head, Li Mo retrieved the dust-coated Giant Stomach Worm and swallowed it whole.
"I’m counting on you."
After enduring a burst of flesh and bone gnawing, a silvery-white beetle crawled out of Li Mo’s mouth. The Giant Stomach Worm appeared utterly ordinary.
Though slightly weakened, Li Mo chose not to leave the illusion realm.
As his thoughts shifted, the Giant Stomach Worm emitted an ear-piercing buzzing sound, resonating with a mysterious energy akin to that of a Mustard Storage Bag.
The noise was louder than expected.
The sudden commotion attracted the Mountain Patrol Taoists’ attention, as flashes of light converged on the quarters.
Remaining calm, Li Mo crouched down and directed the Giant Stomach Worm to rest atop his head.
The worm’s mouthparts unleashed immense suction, swallowing Li Mo’s entire body in one gulp.
The beetle silenced itself, nestling discreetly into a shadowed corner of the room.
By utilizing Giant Swallowing Evil, Li Mo had designed the Gu Worm with storage capabilities, granting it an internal space of two cubic meters.
Once concealed within this space, Li Mo used his consciousness to monitor external developments via the worm.
"Someone?"
A patrol disciple cautiously pushed the wooden door open, raising his lantern to illuminate the darkness. Yet the earlier, inexplicable buzzing seemed like mere imagination.
Scanning the room, he found no suspicious traces.
"Nothing here. Let’s move on."
Reluctantly, the patrol disciple shook his head at his companion, and the two departed together toward a nearby thicket.
He muttered complaints under his breath, "If we don’t find Ashen, the Outer Elder will surely blame us. We’ll probably lose our contribution points."
Their silhouettes vanished into the shadows, wholly unaware of the unremarkable beetle fluttering its wings as it slipped out of the quarters.
The Giant Stomach Worm alighted on a towering tree’s apex.
Insects were not uncommon in the illusion realm, allowing the Giant Stomach Worm to avoid drawing attention. If all went well, it should easily evade detection by the inner sect disciples.
The worm did not head directly to the inner sect; instead, it lingered among the tree branches for several days.
Li Mo soon grasped the peculiar advantages of Gu Worms within the illusion realm, a realization that brought him some satisfaction.
Initially, he had thought the worm would need to swallow his body each time he entered or exited, but to his surprise, his connection with the Gu Worm and his Divine Skills allowed him to appear directly within the worm’s internal space.
The sole drawback was the insufficient oxygen within the worm’s interior.
Only the Paoxiao Swallowing Body’s enhancement to his Five Internal Organs allowed him to survive inside for roughly three days.
The Giant Stomach Worm began exploring the mountain gate in earnest.
Simultaneously, Li Mo began dispersing Gu Worms—not Giant Stomach Worms, but a new creation: highly toxic "Big Hornets."
Starting from a single queen egg, the Big Hornet King quickly propagated within the illusion realm.
To bolster the Big Hornets’ combat abilities, Li Mo embedded cancer cells into each Gu Worm, allowing them to gradually corrode the mountain gate bit by bit.
His understanding of the illusion realm deepened.
The mountain gate’s structure was almost identical to that of the ancient Sub-Device Sect, circa eight thousand years ago, before the catastrophic upheaval of the heavens and earth.
The rules within the illusion realm mirrored those of the outside world.
Most of the outer sect disciples were of the childhood stage in cultivation. Without having reached Foundation Establishment, they relied on Fasting Pills to meet their metabolic needs.
In ancient times, Fasting Pills were considered an inexpensive low-level elixir.
Even childhood cultivators with no prior experience in Alchemy achieved at least an eighty percent success rate when using Alchemy Furnaces appropriately.
However, this presupposed the availability of raw materials.
Upon observing the mountain gate’s outskirts, Li Mo noticed the fields were barren. Outer sect disciples spent their days solely in cultivation, as if their resources manifested out of thin air.
"Could it be?"
To maintain the illusion’s authenticity, such inconsistencies would be impossible. Otherwise, the Taoists would inevitably develop suspicions of their own.
Li Mo made another observation.
The illusion realm seemed expressly used to house the vestigial consciousnesses of various Taoist Bodies, transforming them into Taoists. It was hard to fathom that this was Chen Tiangang’s doing.
Could it be that the Mother Furnace was not Chen Tiangang’s work, but someone else’s...
Narrowing his eyes, Li Mo set his sights on the outer sect’s only openly acknowledged "Great Mother," Luochen Daoist, who behaved with extreme caution within the illusion realm.
Even Luochen Daoist appeared fearful of being identified by the Taoists, playing the role of an ordinary outer sect disciple—completely devoid of the grandeur they once exhibited in the outside world.