Sneak Attack Gu
Young Thieving Heaven keeps claiming he cannot control the fire, but Sha Xiao lets it devour him instead of killing him, and it soars over him with an enormous attractive force. Fang Yuan regains control of the body. He stays calm, because the recipe is rank one and he is a refinement path quasi-grandmaster, so the youth’s deliberate mistake is recoverable. He throws sandpit Gu unactivated into a chosen spot in the fire as a material, and it burns to powder. The fire’s pull drops sharply, and he jumps out and rolls to put out the flames. The body is badly burnt, and the loss of the precious sandpit Gu weakens the youth. ch. 1500
Because the refinement has not stopped, Fang Yuan activates chimney smoke Gu to smother the basin sized fire, expecting to end the refinement and save the body’s life. Instead the fire absorbs the smoke. Fang Yuan sees in it a phantom of the dead baby added as a material, and realizes the baby’s constitution is probably bizarre. When the phantom pounces at the youth, Fang Yuan knows the youth’s death would fail his exploration. Inspired, he throws the chimney smoke Gu as bait, retreats while the phantom devours it, and throws clear water Gu when it charges again. The phantom devours that too, the fire dims to orange-yellow, and the clear water Gu becomes a lump of emerald green water that the fire cannot evaporate. Fang Yuan advances, bites his tongue and spits blood into the circling water and fire. ch. 1500
They turn into a blue baby phantom that pounces at him, and he lets it enter the youth’s aperture, where it becomes a rank two Gu worm. The youth regains his senses and Fang Yuan becomes an observer again. Sha Xiao shouts in surprise at the new Gu worm, then decides the youth has a hidden nature that takes control in fatal danger and intuitively makes the best choice. He calls it pragmatic and extremely cunning and says he admires it. Unable to make out the Gu’s effect, he urges the youth to try it, and the youth activates it. ch. 1500
The Gu becomes a blue baby phantom, passes into a stone stool and returns, and the stool, looking undamaged, collapses into crushed pieces when touched. Sha Xiao praises it as a top tier rank two Gu worm with extremely high power that seems to pass through defenses. Activating it spent only ten percent of rank one green copper primeval essence, which he calls unimaginable. The youth worries that his D grade aptitude allows only two uses. Sha Xiao says first place is the youth’s, because rank three Gu Masters might dodge the extremely fast phantom with difficulty, and rank one and two Gu Masters are struck once the youth closes some distance. Sha Xiao names it sneak attack Gu despite the youth’s frown. ch. 1500
