Chapter 1615

Fang Yuan uses Soul Search on Xia Cha, but time path dao marks shine on her soul and completely block the move. He keeps instilling immortal essence, and after a long while a gap opens, letting him absorb a huge amount of information. The surrounding dao marks fill the gap and make that area’s defense stronger than before. The move stops there. The defense resists a rank seven soul search killer move, recovers itself and counterattacks. ^{ch. 1615}

Fang Yuan has stolen all the Immortal Gu from the Southern Border captives and separated their souls from their bodies. The souls of Tie Qu Zhong, Shang Hu Zhang and others give him little trouble, and he extracts all their memories. Yang Ku, a rank seven soul path expert, resists soul search strongly. Heavenly Court tampered with Liu Hao’s fixed space Immortal Gu and other Gu, so Fang Yuan cannot obtain them, and it layered strong defenses on Liu Hao’s soul. Fang Yuan soul searches both in the end and learns that Liu Hao is a spy of Heavenly Court. ^{ch. 1615}

Xia Cha’s soul is the most troublesome, since its dao marks form a tight defense against any attack. Fang Yuan suppresses it with immortal formations and pushes the move to its limit, yet each effort opens only a tiny gap that more dao marks soon close. Fortunately the dao marks on her soul do not increase, so a thicker gap means thinner coverage elsewhere and better chances for the next attack. Every other soul has been searched completely, leaving only hers. ^{ch. 1615}

Fang Yuan keeps targeting Xia Cha’s soul. Meanwhile his time path clone uses Fixed Immortal Travel to enter each captive’s immortal aperture. He will release the captives, because annexing their apertures and absorbing their dao marks would bring far less than extorting their super forces. ^{ch. 1615}

Fang Yuan cannot stop Heavenly Court from restoring fate Gu. He plans instead to enter the River of Time and inherit Red Lotus’ true inheritance, which likely holds plans to destroy fate Gu, since Red Lotus Demon Venerable alone broke it, though not completely. To claim the inheritance without being destroyed by Heavenly Court, he must raise his time path strength, because other paths’ methods are greatly weakened in the River of Time. The year essence pool and a time path Immortal Gu House require dealing with the righteous path, and the captives are his chips. ^{ch. 1615}

Several days later in the aperture’s time, a dark green rock dragon roars over Mini Southern Border and pierces into the ground until its tail disappears. It is the manifestation of a rank seven dark inkstone mineral vein that Fang Yuan has moved from an earth path captive’s immortal aperture, imitating that captive. The vein expands by absorbing earth qi, so limited yearly extraction gives a continuous flow of dark inkstones to sell in treasure yellow heaven. The profit is small but steady. Fang Yuan will breed rockmen near it, since the vein is extremely beneficial to them and they can raise its purity. ^{ch. 1615}

Mini Southern Border now has dozens of mountains, including Interior Rain mountain and Copper Seal mountain, which is formed completely of copper. Nearly half of the stolen resources went there, and the rest were split among the other four mini regions and the mini nine heavens. Mini Northern Plains now holds a heaven pillar wind, and Mini Western Desert a dozen hibiscus trees. Fang Yuan sighs that the aperture’s development has risen from three or four percent to eight or nine, and will definitely pass ten once the remaining resources and Xia Cha’s grotto-heaven are added. Heavenly Court already sells copper, iron and silver dragonfish at heavily reduced price, hurting his dragonfish business. But a dozen economic pillars taken from the captives will support his progress. ^{ch. 1615}