Hei Fan's Four Treasure (2/2)
Refining an Immortal Gu takes immortal essence. Fang Yuan spends green grape immortal essence on the ant like Gu. The refinement goes smoothly, but a rank seven Gu costs him heavily, since myriad self and his rank seven sword path moves had already drained much of his stock in this trip’s battles. ch. 1129
Two shadows remain in the wall of light, and Fang Yuan leaves the smallest, at the bottom, for last. He reaches instead for the rock like shadow in the upper right corner, which reacts to his touch, feeling intensely cold. Pulled free, it is ice, sealing a Gu worm. Fang Yuan recognizes it despite the seal blocking its aura: Year Gu, ladybug shaped and thumb sized, black shelled and marked with golden images of a snarling beast he cannot identify. ch. 1129
Year Gu is famous among time path Immortal Gu. It can be parallel refined, rare beside the mainstream of normal and reverse refinement. Its rank tracks the years it holds: mortal below ten, an Immortal Gu at ten, raisable by parallel refinement to ninety nine, and only the harder method of normal refinement can carry it to a hundred years and rank seven. A thousand years reaches rank eight, the highest ever confirmed, though a theoretical ten thousand years would be rank nine. Spending it down past a rank threshold costs a full rank, so it must be used carefully, though unlike a one time consumable it can be expended and replenished again. ch. 1129
Year Gu shares its food, the water of the River of Time, with Spring Autumn Cicada. The ice, Fang Yuan realizes, holds more than the Gu. Flowing water fills over half of it, so much that the ice seems built to seal the water rather than the year Gu. He guesses boldly that this water might be a rank nine immortal material, rarer and more valuable than rank eight. Unable to remove the ice, he sets it aside and reaches for the last shadow, the smallest, pulling out a rank five information path mortal Gu holding a detailed record of Hei Fan’s true inheritance. ch. 1129
Reading it, Fang Yuan learns the rank seven Immortal Gu from the ant ball is a time path Immortal Gu named After. Its feeding is unusual. It can eat any immortal material, but only at one remove: the black ant mortal Gu it produces devour material and bring the nutrients back. After cannot feed itself directly, starves if too many of its ants are destroyed, and replaces them at only one a month. ch. 1129
The record explains the ice as well. It is a newly created rank eight immortal material, made by Immortal Bing Ren, whom Hei Fan invited to seal away two Immortal Gu: the rank six year Gu and the flowing water beside it. That water is the greatest treasure inside the whole inheritance, a rank eight time path Immortal Gu named Years Flow Like Water. Rank eight Immortal Gu are rare and of great value; Hei Fan, who led Hei tribe to dominance, held only this one in his whole life. At rank six he already holds three rank eight Immortal Gu: attitude Gu, wisdom sword Gu, Years Flow Like Water. ch. 1129
Years Flow Like Water produces year Gu, and the more immortal essence spent through it, the more it yields, up to immortal level year Gu. The rule that keeps every Immortal Gu unique still applies. Since the rank six year Gu already exists, Years Flow Like Water can only produce mortal level year Gu for now. It needs little essence to activate, since even a rank six Gu Immortal’s green grape immortal essence will work. It is also easy to feed, drinking the water of the River of Time, which solves the huge burden of feeding a rank eight Immortal Gu. ch. 1129
Its flaw is stated plainly in the record. Once its seal is broken, its aura leaks and draws year beasts, fierce beasts rare in the five regions yet common in the River of Time. Year beasts hunt year Gu as food and are drawn harder by higher ranked prey. Even an immortal level year Gu alone can pull them through the River of Time’s tributary into a Gu Immortal’s own aperture. Years Flow Like Water’s endless output would draw hundreds or thousands of times that attraction, which is why Hei Fan sealed both Gu away without a trace of their auras. ch. 1129
The Gu worms are now fully understood. Fang Yuan turns to what follows: the immortal killer moves. ch. 1129
