Chapter 1766

Inkman City is a hexagonal black city with walls over two hundred li long, home to over eight hundred thousand people, most of them inkmen. Suddenly it shakes and floats into the sky. The shocked mortals realize that it is a huge mortal Gu House, which is unheard of. Fang Yuan, floating among the clouds beside Mo Tan Sang, the Inkman City Lord, spreads a huge green light with a wisdom path immortal killer move that puts the mortals to sleep. Mo Tan Sang, king of the Northern Plains inkmen, is a rank six Gu Immortal and one of the two remaining Gu Immortals of the city. The city shrinks and enters Fang Yuan’s sovereign immortal aperture. Mo Tan Sang says an inkman Gu Immortal, Yi Yan, created it. ^{ch. 1766}

Fang Yuan tells Mo Tan Sang to remain the Inkman City Lord, develop the city and nurture more inkman Gu Immortals, and Mo Tan Sang kneels and pledges to assist. Mo Tan Sang follows the city into the aperture, where it lands in Mini Western Desert. Long ago, when Fang Yuan was rank six, Mo Tan Sang did Tai Bai Yun Sheng a favor by selling him the nine clouds ring mortal killer move. Now Tai Bai Yun Sheng is dead, and Fang Yuan’s rank eight and incredible battle records leave Mo Tan Sang no thought of rebellion. Fang Yuan judges him talented, since in the previous life Mo Tan Sang expanded Inkman City into hundreds of cities across Northern Plains. Fang Yuan is confident of controlling him. ^{ch. 1766}

Fang Yuan’s main body leaves, and his clone stays with Lang Ya land spirit. The land spirit controls the Long Hair refinement path formation and reports that the seal of Lang Ya’s origin core will be fully removed in about a month. Lang Ya was once a rank eight grotto-heaven with a milky-white origin core, but after Long Hair Ancestor died its heavenly spirit, barely resisting the rank eight tribulations, sealed the core with a refinement path killer move. The core fell to a red rank seven, the heavenly spirit became a land spirit, and later calamities and tribulations came at rank seven. Fang Yuan’s rank eight is fake, since his own origin core is still red. Only after he annexes and fuses the unsealed Lang Ya core will he be a true rank eight, with a grotto-heaven producing white litchi immortal essence. ^{ch. 1766}

The method of sealing an origin core to lower the aperture’s rank lets a Gu Immortal face calamities and tribulations more easily and accumulate dao marks without fear. Most Gu Immortals die in calamities and tribulations, as Hu Immortal did. Fang Yuan likes the method and praises the land spirit at length. The spirit answers that it is only mimicking, since its main body got the method from Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable, who got it from Limitless Demon Venerable’s inheritance. The move began as a rule path killer move named one step back, and Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable modified it extensively into the space path killer move sea and sky expands. The land spirit, merely making a refinement path version, fused the two names into one step back, sea and sky expands. ^{ch. 1766}

Fang Yuan sighs at the method’s long history. It is a support move for managing the immortal aperture with no offensive power, but if it leaked, the number of Gu Immortals would surge by many times, even tens of times. He sees the immense talent of Limitless Demon Venerable and Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable and says they could have accumulated dao marks on par with rank nine before becoming venerable. Citing Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable, the land spirit corrects him: Limitless Demon Venerable already had Gu Immortal level dao marks as a Gu Master, and peak rank eight ones at rank six. ^{ch. 1766}