Dio glanced at the Gu on his palm.

It was the mutated 'Heavenly Body Soul and Spirit Essence Lotus.'

He smiled maliciously, Dio was constantly activating its effect to produce more and more Primeval Essence and to strengthen his soul.

The method was coarse and rough he simply overexerted the Gu without caring about it breaking down or shattering.

Dio was only thinking about the short-term benefits of its activation.

As for long-term, he could simply refine another on the worst scenario and on the best he could plunder Ma Pa Hung's other Lotuses.

"Another clear benefit of using this, is the fact that as long as I can recover a bit of my Soul Foundation I'll be able to enslave dozens and even hundreds of those weak-willed humans of this world through the usage of my 'Flesh Buds.'

I'll use them to explore all those inheritances on the near future, though, for now I'll have to travel by myself..."

Upon making his decision, glanced at the Gu Big Reinforced Lizard house he had.

He was in awkward position, as he was now he would be unable to activate the Gu, after all, only a rank 3 peak stage would fit the bare minimum to activate the Gu, hence Dio was forced to make a hard decision.

Dio grabbed the miniature version of the Gu and forcefully he removed the armor, which after being split from the main body exploded into countless fragments.

Whilst the 'interior' of the Gu house had its size reduced and Dio suffered a backlash, around 3 of his bones broke, but he shrugged it off, as he regenerated the damage on a blink of an eye.

Then, he activated the Gu.

A considerable portion of his Primeval Essence was consumed, then, Dio closed his eyes briefly.

"Let's see, on the first day we moved around 9-9.5 Kilometers to the northwest, then on the second day...

He made calculation after calculation, whilst reminding himself the 'mental map' he had made before the start of his travel.

Finally, after this he gave an order to his Gu house, and he swiftly began to move towards one of the inheritances.

While he was moving, he also was analyzing his weaknesses and strengths.

"Let's see...Thanks to my quick thinking and sharp perception I can use the sound of my 'extended bones' to expand my search field, hence, my 'Investigation' weakness is half-covered.

My other methods are also looking pretty bright, but, I must rethink some of my strategies, for example, I was thinking on overwhelming my opponents through sheer-brute force.

As long as I stacked ten-times the amount of 'Jin Strength' Gu's I currently possess I could become invincible, unfortunately, my slaves who were dedicated to producing them are all dead, hence this path has already been removed.

However, one that has taken my interest is my 'Plunder' Gu, heh."

Dio smiled lightly.

Even though this rank 1 Gu was almost useless on itself, he had been interested on it since the beginning, he was completely captive in the thought of stealing Gu's from others.

But, because of his low-rank, his effectivity was simply too low.

It was not worth its use, not until he allowed himself to be hit by that 'Flying Star', the moment where his brain began to produce Star Thoughts 'naturally' was the moment that the idea of Bloody Plunderer came to be.

However, there was an issue.

Due to the nature of Gu worms and 'paths', and because as Limitless said Gu's are 'mementos' of events, they replicate something, exactly as it occurred a manifestation of a law.

Hence, to produce a 'Plunder Gu' you need to use the hand of a thief, but now that he had lost his slaves where he was supposed to take another few hands to refine it to rank 2.

Thus, his only option was to improve the Killer Move.

"Sigh, due to the heat of battle I could exactly 'point' what happened to my body while my skull was being pushed against the wall, if I experienced this a few more times I could recreate this, and I would be able to produce Star Thoughts by myself.

By myself?

Heh, heh, heh, I am a thief, I always have been one.

To survive I took what I needed to feed myself and that ungrateful piece of a shit of a father I had.

I also stole Jonathan's Hamon and body.

After taking his body as mine I was able to connect and control all the 'neurons' of his body, such as the ones in the spinal cord.

Those neurons...Even though they're only a fraction of the self, they hold memories.

Through them I deciphered, albeit partially 'Hamon', my originally plan was to find a method to strengthen myself to the point where using Hamon, even as a Vampire was viable.

Who but me, is the perfect thief?

For this reason, I shall take my own hand and refine it into an even stronger 'Plunder Gu!'

And now that I think about it, there's nothing which prevents a 'Plunder Gu' to actually serve the role of a hand, is not used merely because, well, is now that any mortal hand can endure the process, heh...

They're usually burnt off and rotten, however I believe mine, will do just fine.

After making his decision, Dio took a rope and made a noose and began to hang himself.

This was the beginning of the ritual.

On the past, to remind the men and women of not 'sinning', on many cultures around the world was to cut, tiny body parts which would escalate for each further sin committed.

Being the last direct execution by being hanged publicly, that was the 'tradition' of many cultures around earth.

However on the Gu world since the beginning was commonly immersed on this 'pain' and fear of death, since their first act of thieving, it was common to make them 'fear' for their lives, even if only for a moment.

Apart from 'reminding' them the fear of death, they'd also take the hand of the thief directly, grab it and impale it directly with a stake, whilst the hand is being burnt on a furnace.

Whilst this happens, a man with a hammer would hit the wound over and over the stake until the skin and flesh are slowly torn apart.

To prevent the man from fleeing and to raise their fear of death, they'd be tied from neck to legs, which as a nice side effect also improved lightly they chance of succeeding on the Refinement.

When the flesh is already burnt and rotten you must grab an axe and swiftly cut it from the arm.

The process of 'burning' was necessary to decrease the chance of death, increasing the punishment but at the same time reducing the probability of death.

Anyway, at difference from most Refinements were it was of vital importance for the flame to be blue, which represented 'efficiency' of the flame, the flame must be impure and imperfect.

Flawed and dirty like the man who did this.

Thus, the flames must be composed of ashes of previously burnt materials or ashes.

On Dio's case, he simply used his black blood made of Death Qi for the process.

While he was making the arrangements, even though he was hanging himself Dio wasn't flustered, at most he was slightly annoyed.

"If only there was an audience who threw rocks at my face I could increase the chance of success of Refinement..."

This was not all, to ensure the preservation of the hand for the refinement it was necessary to use brine, a substance made of water, sugar and salt, effectively this was 'adding salt to the wound.'

Dio carefully moved the noose, whilst humming to a song which he commonly heard back on his hometown.

"What's the greatest kind of knot you can tie with ease..."

While he was singing inside his head, the flames were extending to his arm.

To prevent their spreading Dio used 'salt' which he directly applied on all his wounds, if he wasn't a vampire just this would be unbearable to him.

Naturally, he didn't forget about hammering his stake, piercing his hand.

The process which would be seen as a carnage was slightly nostalgic to Dio.

He recalled with joy how many old men or even kids of his age who had tried to kill or rob him had ended on this very place.

When he was young, his mother tried to cover his hands to not taint his 'childish vision', however, little she knew that Dio secretly enjoyed every second of those public executions.

Though, when his mother still lived, Dio suppressed his natural violent tendencies to embrace the beliefs which contradicted all of his natural impulses, that was the hint of 'kindness' of his heart.

Which began to drown little by little on the day of the death of his mother.

Dio sighed, recalling those memories which he had suppressed which flourished once more.

His pulse increased by a thousand, his heart was literally bleeding, though, part of the reason of this was due to the self-induced torture.

After returning to reality, Dio injected a lot of his Primeval Essence inside his hand, a dazzling red light surged, a fog began to extend covering all his vision.

"mmm?

I see, perhaps if I were to create a fog a few dozen times stronger, I could create Blood Sense Gu?

Unfortunately, I lack the relevant recipe and my attainment on refinement path is still too low."

The browns of Dio were lowered, if he had a year or two he could at least become a quasi-master on Refinement path, the bare minimum needed to create new recipes from scratch without relying on external methods.

Dio inspected his arm, which had already turned purple, however, he could still move it and control it as he liked.

As he moved, a continuous crimson fog was following its arm.

Due to his natural attainment in Blood and Theft path, he quickly realized that he was just a step away from succeeding on his refinement.

Dio took an axe he had and slashed his own hand with all his might.

Right at the moment he did this, an intense crimson barrier surged, blocking the impact of the axe, the barrier slowly decreased on size as it solidified on its center.

Finally, after all he did, a continuous stream of blood began to fall from his palm, until Dio forcefully stopped the process.

At this moment, he realized that he had finally completed the refinement.

He inspected his arm many times, it was almost the same, albeit, it felt slightly stiff and was surging with the aura of a rank 2 Gu, close to rank 3.

Dio moved his arm side to side, made multiple movements but his hand didn't react, until suddenly when he decided to 'inject' a bit of his Primeval Essence on it, the air around was pulled and absorbed.

He was actually syphoning a tiny percentage of the stream of air, Dio had another thought, he increased the amount of Primeval Essence he injected by 3, 5, 10 times.

At his limit, he could actually pull so much air, that he could actually create enough force to 'fly' on the skies, although only for an instant.

His hand, had a tiny weakness.

The more Primeval Essence he injected and the more materials he absorbed, the redder his hand would become, finally when it became completely red, it would hit its limit.

The first time Dio attempted to push to its limits, all of the bones of the hand broke down into pieces, and his flesh was torn apart, whilst the Gu was harmed lightly.

Luckily, this Gu had inherited Dio's natural regeneration, hence, it quickly repaired itself, though, it took an equivalent sum of Blood Qi out of his body, hence, he felt slightly tired after healing the Gu completely.

While he was playing around with his new Gu, Dio had not noticed that the first inheritance was already within reach.