Chapter 1198

Humans rank highest in intelligence but their bodies are extremely fragile, and their skin is no different from paper against a desolate beast. Transformed into the sword dragon, Fang Yuan gains the beast’s qualities and stands far beyond human limits, though he still falls short of a true sword dragon. Transformation path was founded on studying every living being and adding each one’s advantage to one’s own body. Reckless Savage Demon Venerable created the path. ^{ch. 1198}

Fang Yuan flies to the rank seven immortal material dark inkstone, firm and hard to work. His claws leave no mark. He whips it with his tail instead, and though the blow stings, it cracks the surface, proving more menacing than the claws. The sword dragon is slender and nimble, and the power of its tail outmatches its two small claws. ^{ch. 1198}

Speed outranks even the tail. The sword dragon is weak at range, but its standstill burst falls short only of sword escape Immortal Gu and matches Blood Torrent, turning more nimbly since the speed is innate to its body. Its strongest weapon is dragon breath, an ability almost every dragon has innately, like the upper extreme heavenly eagle’s rarer gift of piercing space. Upper extreme heavenly eagles are very rare; even rank eight Gu Immortal Hei Fan obtained his only by fortune, and no one else in Hei tribe’s history has gained a second. ^{ch. 1198}

Fang Yuan tests dragon breath on the rank six subterranean adamantite: a flash of white light, and moments later a straight crack splits the boulder-sized stone cleanly into two. The cut is smooth. His claws had only scratched a few inches into the same material; his breath cuts it clean through. Fang Yuan nods his dragon head slightly in satisfaction. ^{ch. 1198}

He then tests dragon breath on the firmer dark inkstone, cutting marks several inches deep, and manages sixteen consecutive breaths before his throat runs too dry to continue. After about five minutes he recovers enough for a seventeenth. He judges the cycle barely sustainable. ^{ch. 1198}

Adding dragon breath mortal Gu should let him use it more times, but Fang Yuan has not yet added it. The Gu is hard to refine, since only a living dragon’s breath serves as material, and his own sword dragon was already dead when he bought it in treasure yellow heaven, at a considerable price. A living dragon of another kind could substitute, though with slight differences needing extra Gu to smooth over. Instead, he refined dragon scale and claw Gu directly from the corpse. ^{ch. 1198}

The test confirms what Fang Yuan had deduced: with only a rank six core, sword dragon transformation has strength but not enough against rank seven Gu Immortals, whose defenses usually exceed dark inkstone. It is not yet fit for the blood battle martial competition. He has a follow-up plan. ^{ch. 1198}

Cancelling the transformation, he flies to Lang Ya land spirit to trade goods for sect contribution points. Lang Ya land spirit, aware of Fang Yuan’s Hei Fan grotto-heaven, is glad. Lang Ya Sect needs precious resources, and cannot simply force other Gu Immortals to hand theirs over. ^{ch. 1198}

Fang Yuan first offers a Gu Immortal’s soul, valuable as immortal material, more valuable from a soul path Gu Immortal, and more valuable still for the cultivation memories it holds. Gu Immortal souls are not common. Many Gu Immortals can detonate their own, and Shadow Sect is most adept at it. Feng Jiu Ge once sensed a powerful soul detonation method in Qin Bai Sheng and let him go rather than fight to that extreme. Holding back is hard in a Gu Immortal battle, and Nian Er Ping Zhi destroyed Granny Yin’s soul outright when he killed her. ^{ch. 1198}

This soul Fang Yuan had already tampered with himself, so it can no longer be soul searched, and the land spirit values it at only a hundred contribution points. Fang Yuan proposes placing it in Dang Hun Mountain to make guts Gu instead, since production has not kept up with the rockman tribe’s requests. Lang Ya land spirit agrees. He raises the offer to two hundred and ten contribution points. ^{ch. 1198}