While everyone was busy preparing for the moonblade throwing contest, in a quiet corner of the village, a girl by the name of Gu Yue Li Mei had a despondent look upon her features.

She sighed as she looked at the Moonlight Gu in her hands. She was a D-grade talent, with only 20% aptitude, and because of such, she had not even refined her Moonlight Gu yet. Forget trying to contest in the moonblade contest, she had not even done the basic step of being able to throw a moonblade in the first place.

But, there was little that she could do. Neither of her parents could help her with this as they were both mortals with no aptitude to cultivate – although they had been overjoyed to see that she had some aptitude, it was bottom of the barrel aptitude that would mean it would be a huge hurdle for her to even get to Rank 2.

It was still better than the kind of lives that they led, but she was faced with an obstacle so soon into her journey that it broke her heart.

‘I’m struggling so much with this, and as time goes on and on, I’m going to fall even more behind, aren’t I?’ – she thought to herself.

She had a single primeval stone left, but even with that, she would make very little progress. Based on her own estimates, it would take her two more weeks to refine this Moonlight Gu. And by then, the others would leave her even further behind in the dust.

“What’s wrong?” a voice called out to her, snapping her out of her slough of despond. She turned her head to see someone standing near her, though this person was looking out at the sunset rather than at her.

Still, there was no doubt that he was talking to her. There was no way that she couldn’t recognize him, being how he had been the talk of the village for so long. It was Gu Yue Fang Yuan! The twins dressed quite differently, and she was rather sure it was him and not Fang Zheng.

“Fang Yuan?” she asked, wanting to confirm nonetheless.

“Indeed,” he said and sighed. “I came here to enjoy looking out at the setting sun, only to see your face encased in gloom. What’s going on?”

“Oh… it’s nothing,” Li Mei answered. Truth be told, she had also come here to admire the sunset- it usually cheered her up to gaze upon it from this vantage point that her father had once showed her. No matter how bad the day was going, it could always cheer her up. At least, that had been the case up till now.

Right now, even this could not lift her spirits.

“You’re having trouble refining your gu worm, aren’t you?” Fang Yuan asked.

“H-How did you know?”

“It’s written all over your face, and I saw that you weren’t practicing earlier,” he said.

Li Mei was a bit shocked that someone like Fang Yuan- a future elder and someone who had already made his mark in Gu Yue Village history by finding the Flower Wine Monk’s inheritance, would bother to even notice someone like her.

“Well, yes, it’s hard with my poor aptitude…” she said, seeing no reason to hide it now.

Fang Yuan then turned to face her and extended his hand. “Would you like me to help you with it?”

“Ah-eh?”

“I was the first one to refine his Moonlight Gu, you know,” Fang Yuan said. Li Mei already knew that, but didn’t interrupt him. “I think I can help you out…”

“No… that’s fine…” she weakly protested, though now Fang Yuan approached her.

She blushed a little- he was rather close to her face, and she could see his individual teeth in detail from this distance, and how smooth his lips were…

‘No!’ she told herself inwardly. ‘I can’t kiss Fang Yuan – else I’ll become preganant just like Mother warned me about!’

Naturally, her mother had also told her that she must absolutely avoid any lewd activities with boys that could soil the family name. Things such as premarital hand holding were an absolute no-no.

Fang Yuan gently took the Moonlight Gu from her hands, and took it in his own palm.

He stood there, as the sunlight dimmed, and half an hour later, he handed it back to her. “All done.”

She took it, and saw that indeed, it had been refined completely. Since Fang Yuan had already refined it and was giving it to her, she could refine it with just a trace of primeval essence, and now it was hers to keep!

With a thought, it turned into a small crescent moon emblem on her forehead. She didn’t have any primeval essence currently, and so she could not practice throwing any moonblades right now, but this was a massive step up from her situation earlier!

“How did you do that so fast? I thought I had been handed a rather stubborn gu worm…” she said. As if a testament to her bad luck, it was harder for her to refine her gu worm than it was for others, so it seemed like she had gotten one with a very strong will.

“No, I don’t think so,” Fang Yuan said. “I think you were rather close to succeeding, and loosened it up for me like a jar, which is how I succeeded so easily.”

Li Mei had very little experience, but she was sure that Fang Yuan was not telling the truth. She had not made much progress with her moonlight gu, after all.

No, he was able to succeed so fast because of his higher aptitude and using the Liquor Worm. Roughly, she was only able to use about 4% of her primeval essence to actually refine the Moonlight Gu, while the other 16% were spent in overcoming its natural ability to reject her essence over time. With Fang Yuan having over 100% effective essence, he would be over twenty times as fast as her.

She sighed as she thought of the Liquor Worm. Like many resources in the Gu World, it was also a ‘rich get richer’ scheme. Even if she had it, she would only have 40%, or its equivalent, of primeval essence – lower than what Fang Yuan’s was before he had gotten boosts from the system. Even with it, she would be no better than the worst C-grade talent, while someone like Fang Yuan who already had a massive boost over her would find that advantage amplified. It was no wonder why the clan invested more resources in those with better talent, she realized.

What she hadn’t realized was that Fang Yuan had been able to refine her Moonlight Gu instantly using the Spring Autumn Cicada, though he had pretended to take half an hour simply because she was watching.

“Fang Yuan, you shouldn’t have wasted your time and primeval essence on helping me…” Li Mei said. “Even if you help me, I won’t be able to do much with the moonblade contest. But you, there was a chance that you could win, wasn’t there? And if you waste your primeval essence on helping me and time as well, it might be why the others will get ahead of you in the contest…”

The words felt extremely bitter in her mouth, but she knew they were true. Even if Fang Yuan helped her get over this hurdle, would he be there when she went to refine another gu worm? Even if he helped then, he couldn’t help her advance to the next minor realm, now then could he?

She was likely destined to be nothing more than a Rank 1 Gu Master, with even Rank 2 being a big stretch as to whether or not it could be attained in the future. Someone like Fang Yuan who was a future elder was better off improving himself rather than trying to help stragglers like her.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep