Formation Path Great Grandmaster
Flying clear of the beast tide, Fang Yuan reaches the immemorial corpse. It is elephant-shaped, tattered grey-blue skin over rotted flesh, its skeleton forming a half-collapsed shelter with an intense residual aura. He wonders what killed it. He is very near the center of Tai Qiu, one of Northern Plains’ ten great fierce areas, very dangerous and unknown. Immemorial beasts match rank eight strength. All of huge Northern Plains holds only five rank eight Gu Immortals in the open, and it is Tai Qiu’s immemorial desolate beasts and beast tides that keep the region’s Gu Immortal forces from meddling here. ch. 1089
Nearing it, Fang Yuan feels a repelling pressure and hears a sound like water: abundant water path dao marks, still active in the recently dead elephant’s bones and skin, affecting the whole area. The corpse is nearly complete. Its dao marks far outnumber those in the immemorial immortal materials Fang Yuan has obtained before. A long-resident immemorial corpse reshapes its surroundings this way, which is why there is no wind or life here, though equilibrium may take decades, centuries or even millennia. ch. 1089
Alone amid the stillness, Fang Yuan feels out of place, and the beast tide once turns chaotic nearby before steadying and sweeping past elsewhere. This confirms he is safe here. Desolate beasts take heaven’s will’s influence easily, yet only weakly in the short run, so a tide already formed cannot be turned onto this corpse, matching Shadow Sect’s intelligence. Stopping at the right distance, he feels Lang Ya land spirit’s investigative Gu worms signal, in sound only he can hear, that the site suits the formation. ch. 1089
Fang Yuan drops his transformation, injects immortal essence and activates his Immortal Gu, some circling him and some inside his aperture. Heaven’s will, uncovering him, rages with thunder, but futilely: it can only act during tribulation or while he refines Immortal Gu with the hairy man nature Gu refinement technique. Neither is happening now. A huge seven-colored spiral forms around him as a vast number of Gu worms arrange at lightning speed, some buried, some floating. He mainly supplies the essence while rank six formation plate Gu, plate-shaped, floats above him and actually sets the formation. Setup takes six hours; by sundown he retrieves every Immortal Gu, leaving a vast number of placed mortal Gu as a hidden formation undetectable unless activated. ch. 1089
Fang Yuan marvels at the attainment behind the formation, and though his own formation path level is ordinary, laying it leaves him much insight. The method recalls a great grandmaster’s use of heaven-and-earth dao marks, and he thinks of Immortal Lady Jiu Hua, a famous great grandmaster of Long Hair Ancestor’s era whose style was beautiful and extraordinary, guessing this one may be their past exchange. The formation is complete. His caution would surely have him inspect it, but he lacks the formation path skill to find flaws in it. ch. 1089
He activates it: an illusory formation spreads over a wide radius, the water-sound grows, and the pressure on him vanishes, confirming it draws on the corpse’s water path dao marks and explaining the land spirit’s choice. Gu formations that transport Gu Immortals are very rare, and though this one works it is too slow for a quick escape. He activates the crucial Immortal Gu; light gathers and condenses into a ball on him, an intense pressure rises then vanishes, and the ball bursts loudly into specks while he is gone. The site turns tranquil. He reappears at the center of a huge Gu formation inside Lang Ya blessed land, the same one he touched down on from Feng Bo Cliff before. He realizes this is the main formation and those at Tai Qiu, Feng Bo Cliff and elsewhere are sub-formations keyed by that Immortal Gu. Lang Ya land spirit appears, laughing that Fang Yuan did not disappoint him. ch. 1089
