Chapter 254: Chapter 249: The Author of the Cultivation Technique Is Right in Front of Me

Next, the Thousand-eyed Wind Birds announced the second task:

"Have your Pet Beast climb the high mountain ahead. Success is defined as reaching the summit and planting a flag.

"If you have any questions, you may ask the Thousand-eyed Wind Birds directly. The test begins now."

After speaking, the Thousand-eyed Wind Birds scattered, landing on each contestant’s shoulder or head.

This time, the competition organizers had only hastily announced the two tasks before declaring the start of the test, without even explaining the details of the rules.

Gu Ming felt a sense of resignation at this casual approach.

He had no choice but to ask the Thousand-eyed Wind Bird beside him for the various details:

Could any type of Pet Beast be used?

How many days was the time limit?

Could they use the local medicinal herbs freely?

It wasn’t until Gu Ming had spent five minutes getting all his questions answered that he began preparing to work out a new Breathing Technique.

In the crowd, most of the student teams who weren’t skilled at creating Cultivation Techniques heard the second task and immediately rushed off. They led their teams headlong toward the mountain in a great hurry.

Lu You whispered to him:

"Should we try to devise the Breathing Technique while we walk?"

Gu Ming shook his head. "Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Let’s take this one step at a time and focus on perfecting the Cultivation Technique first."

He had a feeling that the second task was much harder than it looked.

It was just a matter of having a Pet Beast climb to the summit. He visually estimated the mountain to be just over a thousand meters high.

’Whose Pet Beast couldn’t do that?’

However, it was precisely because it looked so easy that Gu Ming felt the mountain must be full of traps, making it a difficult climb.

Rather than getting into a battle of wits and courage with traps on the mountain, it was better to first secure the points for creating a Cultivation Technique, which was his forte.

Hearing this, Lu You deferred completely to his judgment. She picked up her tablet and asked:

"Should I help you gather research materials for the Cultivation Technique?"

Gu Ming had no objection, so he nodded and asked her to look up research papers on the respiratory systems of fish-type Pet Beasts and Seed-Cracking Hamsters.

Upon hearing the latter, Lu You looked up at Gu Ming in surprise for a moment before lowering her head to continue her search.

Clearly, Gu Ming intended to create two Breathing Techniques simultaneously: one for Ah Kun and the other for the Seed-Cracking Hamster.

This was equivalent to creating a custom-tailored Breathing Technique for the Seed-Cracking Hamster, and she wondered if it would affect Gu Ming’s focus.

Lu You was touched but couldn’t find the words to express it. She figured that focusing on her research was the best way she could help the team.

Gu Ming did indeed want to strengthen Mouse Treasure. ’With the system,’ he thought, ’I might be able to piggyback off the creation of a future rodent-type Breathing Technique.’

After giving Lu You her instructions, he turned his attention to the system.

"At fifty years old, you enter the competition venue for the first time. Many of the younger contestants are surprised that you’re still competing at your age."

"You, your late-stage Cyan Treasure, a Juvenile Kunpeng, and a classmate with severe social anxiety are huddled in a corner, listening to the tasks."

"Task One: Modify a Breathing Technique to be usable for climbing within the forbidden area. Success is defined as crossing the Ice and Snow Mountain Forbidden Area before you and reaching the summit."

Gu Ming skipped past the long stretch of narrative and went straight to the task description.

He saw that the system’s task was also about a Breathing Technique, but it was different from the task in the real world.

The real-world task required creating a Breathing Technique from scratch, while the system’s task was to modify an existing one. The two were on completely different levels of difficulty.

Modifying a Cultivation Technique was clearly easier than creating one from nothing, as you had a reference. And the competition organizers had indeed specified that they could use the Green Treasure Breathing Technique as a basis.

In other words, in the future timeline, the technique the examiners provided for modification was also the Green Treasure Breathing Technique.

Now the reference Cultivation Techniques in both timelines were perfectly "aligned," giving Gu Ming an opportunity to piggyback.

However, Gu Ming hadn’t expected the system to merge the mountain-climbing task with the first one.

’Could that mountain have snow on it?’

Gu Ming looked up but saw no snow on the verdant mountain ahead.

Six minutes had passed since the start. The competition teams that had sprinted off at the beginning had already reached the foot of the mountain and started to climb.

Gu Ming was about three li from the starting point of the climb, so he could only see the vague shapes of people and Pet Beasts ascending, with no clear details.

Those Pet Beasts climbed quickly at first, but they slowed to a halt after two or three hundred meters. It was as if they’d hit an invisible wall, all of them stopping along the same line of altitude.

They had clearly been stumped by a problem; the climb was not as easy as they had imagined.

Gu Ming mused to himself that perhaps a Mist Array had been set up on the mountain, requiring the students to use their knowledge of Arrays to find their way and break through.

’If it’s not a test of Cultivation Techniques, then it’s a test of one’s knowledge of Arrays. That’s a difficult task in its own right,’ he thought.

Just these first two competition tasks alone were enough to stump ninety-nine percent of the contestants. Teacher Ling hadn’t been exaggerating.

Gu Ming lowered his head and continued reading the system’s task.

"Task Two: Use a combination Array to simulate the true environment of the Ice and Snow Mountain Forbidden Area. The more accurate the simulation, the higher your score."

"There is no limit to the number of Arrays, but they must be operated independently by a Pet Beast under one year of age."

Reading this, Gu Ming had a moment of sudden realization, feeling the satisfying rush of having guessed the problem correctly.

’See? The second task really is a test of one’s knowledge of Arrays.’

Gu Ming looked up at the verdant mountain in the distance, becoming more certain that it was the so-called Ice and Snow Mountain Forbidden Area mentioned by the system.

He deduced that the examiners must have set up a restrictive Array within it. If the contestants wanted to pass safely or reach the summit, they would have to break the Array, and the difficulty would be anything but low.

Gu Ming planned to leverage the solution to the system’s second task to help him figure out how to solve the real-world problem.

As for how to actually solve it, he would naturally have to go up the mountain and investigate first.

For now, however, his focus remained on Cyan Treasure.

Since the system’s first task was to modify a Cultivation Technique, Gu Ming didn’t hesitate. He had Cyan Treasure begin circulating the Green Treasure Breathing Technique at the Great Success Realm in front of the other two Pet Beasts.

Quite a few Pet Beasts were now learning the Green Treasure Breathing Technique, but the top practitioners were Cyan Treasure and Ah Kun, the first two to ever cultivate it.

Ah Kun was a close second, with its Skill Level at the Master Level and extremely close to Great Success. One could even say it already had one foot in the Great Success Domain.

Gu Ming had originally felt this Breathing Technique was universal enough for all sorts of Pet Beasts to use, so he hadn’t planned on developing a second or third one.

But now that the competition task had been issued, he had to get to work, whether he wanted to or not.

He would just treat it as an opportunity to create custom-tailored Breathing Techniques for Ah Kun and Mouse Treasure.

Gu Ming pondered for a moment, then had Cyan Treasure begin to breathe deeply.

Soon, a vast amount of Spiritual Qi from the surrounding forest swept in, converging into a current visible to the naked eye. It flowed into Cyan Treasure’s mouth like a hundred rivers returning to the sea.

The nearby contestants all turned to look. Those who had met Gu Ming before didn’t hesitate to walk over for a closer look, observing Cyan Treasure’s breathing.

Someone on the spot even took out a Visualization Image Scroll for the Green Treasure Breathing Technique to compare. As they did, the jaws of the onlookers dropped wider and wider.

Finally, a girl shrieked:

"Oh my god, it’s Cyan Treasure!"

"The creator of the Cultivation Technique is right there!"

"That’s Gu Ming?"

After those three cries rang out, it would have been difficult for Gu Ming to remain anonymous. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

In less than two minutes, a tight crowd had formed around Cyan Treasure, completely hemming it in.

A huge group of students stared at Cyan Treasure as it breathed and cultivated, their eyes gleaming with excitement, like they were watching a rare animal at the zoo.

Since everyone had to create their own Cultivation Technique, it was only natural that they would want to reference the original creator’s work.

Compared to a mere Visualization Image, the sensory impact of watching Cyan Treasure cultivate up close was extremely powerful—it was almost breathtaking.

The prideful geniuses, who had approached with excitement, soon retreated with faces full of disappointment.

A Breathing Technique at the Great Success Skill Level was as dazzling as the sun to them. It was so bright it made their eyes sting, and they didn’t dare even think of competing with it.

As the founding master of this technique, Cyan Treasure was indeed leagues ahead of everyone else.

"Creating a Cultivation Technique like that is way too hard. The local Spirit Beasts could never manage it. We’ll just have to have our own Pet Beasts practice it."

The geniuses muttered to themselves; after witnessing Cyan Treasure’s Skill Level, their pride had taken a serious blow.

Fortunately, the task was to start from scratch, so everyone was on the same starting line. It was a headache, to be sure, but it was a long way from being an instant failure.

Now that they had such a prime example to reference, they felt a surge of inspiration for their own creations.