Chapter 1206

Fang Yuan sets the competition aside. He resolves to annex Ye Lui Qun Xing’s aperture now or later. He is willing to satisfy only part of the demand, giving up the body but keeping the soul to search Ye Lui tribe’s secrets before trading it to Lang Ya Sect for contribution points. He flies a winding route against heaven’s will, reaching Tai Qiu hours later, near Blood Plain. ^{ch. 1206}

Disguised, he slips into Tai Qiu and teleports through his prearranged super Gu formation to Lang Ya blessed land. Sixth Hair notices his return. Sixth Hair does not know Fang Yuan just killed a rank seven expert, Ye Lui Qun Xing. Shadow Sect, disordered since its defeat at Yi Tian Mountain, may have only Sixth Hair left in Northern Plains. But the news is too large to bury: it will reach even Central Continent’s ten great ancient sects, already watching this competition. ^{ch. 1206}

Fang Yuan leaves again almost at once. Sixth Hair senses something amiss, and Fang Yuan’s rapid growth is bad news for Shadow Sect. Fang Yuan needs to place the aperture away from Blood Plain’s attention, so he hides his tracks and flies to ordinary grassland. ^{ch. 1206}

He takes out Ye Lui Qun Xing’s headless corpse and stabilizes it so the aperture survives, using Blazing Heaven Demoness’ method, Old Immortal Kong Jue’s research and his techniques. Qun Xing’s soul, extracted and sealed, is badly hurt and close to dissipating, but Fang Yuan rescues it with the large guts Gu reserves he holds as Dang Hun mountain’s owner. He then throws the corpse onto the grass. ^{ch. 1206}

The aperture descends, and Fang Yuan’s Dog Shit Luck holds as its entrance opens smoothly. He holds the upper extreme heavenly eagle. Even so, he enters Qun Xing blessed land through the entrance. A dark sky hangs over a dim blue ground thick with rustling star fragments, and a magnetic force pins him when he tries to fly. ^{ch. 1206}

A basin-sized azure star core rises as the land spirit. It wants the true, complete version of myriad star fireflies, the killer move Qun Xing obsessed over, fused with the aperture’s power after his death to form this spirit. Fang Yuan hands over the move, taken from the soul of Dong Fang Chang Fan, which he later traded to Lang Ya’s land spirit for contribution points, and soon becomes the blessed land’s master. ^{ch. 1206}

He rests, then tests whether he can annex Qun Xing blessed land. Predecessors set three conditions: a specific attainment level, that a smaller aperture cannot engulf a bigger one, and that a dead aperture cannot be annexed. Fang Yuan satisfies two, but the size condition is ambiguous, since by cultivation rank his aperture is smaller, yet by its own foundation it far surpasses Qun Xing’s and should devour it instead. He had long wanted to test this but lacked a rank seven target and the needed attainment level. ^{ch. 1206}

With the land spirit’s help the test succeeds without an obstacle. It adds an enormous star fragment plain to his aperture and clears many outstanding calamities, so he rises from rank six to rank seven. In his first life’s five hundred years Fang Yuan only reached rank six second heavenly tribulation level. He now understands heaven’s will had deliberately suppressed him as a chess piece, an otherworldly demon against Shadow Sect strong enough to be useful yet weak enough to control. ^{ch. 1206}

He has broken past that restriction to rank seven, from luck and effort. Rank six Gu Immortals are numerous and bottom tier, rank seven mid-tier elites of high standing, and rank eight rare enough to stir a whole region. He is now an expert that rank six cultivators must detour around, wary among rank sevens only of characters at the level of Ye Lui Qun Xing, Unfettered Scholar and Nu Er Gu, and still somewhat below Chu Du, who for now remains his ally. ^{ch. 1206}

The sovereign immortal aperture begins producing red date immortal essence. He can merge stored green grape essence into it at a hundred beads to one, avoiding the at least thirty percent extra cost of using green grape for a rank seven Immortal Gu. Reserves of it will end his fear of drawn-out battles and the hardship Heavenly Lord Bai Zu’s attack on Hei Fan grotto-heaven left behind. ^{ch. 1206}