Chapter 1187

Fang Yuan casts the immortal killer move Days Pass Like Years, and Gu worms fill the sky burning green grape immortal essence as light floods the sovereign immortal aperture. The tributary of the River of Time inside it shrinks and thins, and the aperture’s rate of time slows greatly, lengthening the interval before his next calamities and tribulations. He relaxes in his cloud city in Lang Ya blessed land, having returned there at once after annexing Han Dong blessed land. Tai Qiu is too dangerous and his Dark Limit runs on a time limit, while heaven’s will plots to kill him at every moment, so the slower rate eases his pressure. His changed cultivation method already means fewer tribulations, and annexing blessed lands lets him skip them regardless of his own aperture’s time rate. What he needs now is more blessed lands. ^{ch. 1187}

He considers Hu Immortal and Star Form blessed lands in Central Continent, but Central Continent is a death zone for him. Star Form’s land spirit begs him for help against its own tribulations and gets only some mortal Gu and immortal essence to save itself, and the exposed Hu Immortal blessed land is further out of the question. He considers the former site of Luo Po Valley, where Feng Jiu Ge led Central Continent’s Gu Immortals through an intense battle that defeated Shadow Sect’s Northern Plains branch under Qin Bai Sheng, leaving many blessed lands behind. Central Continent’s ancient sects, Heavenly Court and Shadow Sect all know of it, and rank eight Prince Feng Xian is secretly helping reclaim those apertures. So he gives up the idea. ^{ch. 1187}

He turns to Eastern Sea’s City Well, where Gu Immortals he killed himself left many blessed lands, the most tempting being Ding Qi blessed land, whose owner self-detonated leaving no resources but an intact immortal aperture. Its land spirit demands blood path Immortal Gu recipe Blood Revenge completed for ownership. Forcing ownership would destroy the land spirit and the blessed land with it, raising winds of assimilation. Without the light of wisdom his blood revenge Immortal Gu sits under ten percent finished, a cost in time not worth the gain, and his old method, which prized potential, argued against annexing too. But the Eastern Sea trip failed to finish off Ying Wu Xie’s group, whose growth now outstrips his own, and his deepening alliances leave him feeling trapped. His five hundred years of cultivation experience in his previous life warns him that if he does not change, the future will be very bleak. He realizes the sovereign immortal aperture’s own trait for annexing blessed lands is exactly such a chance. ^{ch. 1187}

He cannot tell whether annexing turns on cultivation level, which would bar his rank six aperture, or on an aperture’s own foundation, and only an attempt on Ding Qi’s rank seven blessed land would answer it. He is not Spectral Soul Demon Venerable, whose high attainment in every path let him absorb blessed lands with ease, and wonders whether Shadow Sect refined sovereign immortal fetus Gu to devour immortal apertures. Had Fang Yuan not taken that Gu and let Spectral Soul revive, his combined use of dao marks and annexed apertures would have brought incredibly shocking growth. Fang Yuan realizes this is why Spectral Soul succeeded in his previous life, and why heaven’s will tried every means to send him back to stop it. His gaze turns south, toward Southern Border, where the giant dream realm holds a trace of Spectral Soul’s remnant soul, the thing Ying Wu Xie’s group has been desperate to save. He names Southern Border the cultivation opportunity he needs. ^{ch. 1187}

At Snowy Mountain’s first peak, Lady Wan Shou drives Ma Hong Yun through lightning refinement again, and he screams, twitches and faints. She notes his cultivation level has risen again. He also held out thirty percent longer this time against the lightning refinement. Blood runs from her own eyes, nose and ears in the backlash of Gu refinement, which she has weathered many times and heals very rapidly from. She worries that his growing resistance makes this crucial step ever more likely to fail. Changing the method now would mean rebuilding the whole recipe and wasting half the gathered materials, a cost Snowy Mountain cannot bear, and she sighs, extremely worried. ^{ch. 1187}