Strength Path and Ice Path
Nurture, use, and refinement are the three pillars of a Gu Master’s training, each one profound enough that many spend a lifetime without mastering even one. At Fang Yuan’s request, Wei Yang lays out the ladder: ranks one through five are mortal and six through nine immortal, and among ten million Gu Masters not even one becomes an immortal. Within the mortal ranks, one and two are beginners and four and five a high level fighting force, with rank three as the hinge where a Gu Master sets a direction and builds toward it. By rank three a Gu Master often holds elder rank in a village, and Wei Yang names the paths open at that stage: attack, defense, healing, storage, movement, and investigation, along with narrower callings like substitute refinement or Gu catching. ch. 275
Wei Yang explains that a matched set of Gu worms eases feeding since similar Gu share similar food, strengthens use since paired Gu cover each other’s weaknesses, and improves refinement since like Gu refine together more cheaply and more reliably. His own core is the Rainbow Light Gu, whose heavy cost is offset by a Light Source Gu, and he sketches Xiao Yan’s build as an example: a Red Fire Gu at the center, multiplied by a Duplicate Gu, enlarged by an Enlarge Gu, its cost eased by a Fire Source Gu, and paired with a Fire Discharge Gu for movement. ch. 275
Asked their direction, Fang Yuan and Bai Ning Bing both answer attack without hesitation, an inborn fighting nature in each of them that is not easily subdued, and Wei Yang, unsurprised, asks what core Gu each wants. Fang Yuan wants to keep building on raw strength to crush his foes with overwhelming force, and Bai Ning Bing names the Frost Demon Gu she lost fighting Gu Yue Qing Shu and still misses. Wei Yang approves of the ice path, whose advantage he says is defense, naming the Frost Demon Gu and Snow Fairy Gu as suited to women and the Ice Crystal Gu to men, but warns against the strength path. He tried it himself once and later spent heavily just to strip the excess strength back out of his own body, and argues that with a Purple Thorn Token and hundreds of thousands of primeval stones, Fang Zheng does not need so cheap and crowded a road, one he warns makes it hard to succeed in life. ch. 275
Fang Yuan and Bai Ning Bing nod along, and Wei Yang believes he has changed their minds, until Fang Yuan says he still wants the strength path and Bai Ning Bing announces she is giving up the Frost Demon Gu for the Ice Crystal Gu instead. She chooses it precisely because it is a man’s Gu. Fang Yuan argues that succeeding where the strength path usually fails would prove his superiority, and that a hard road is worth more for being hard; the choice is tied to plans for the Three Kings Inheritance that he can tell no one. Wei Yang, alarmed that his heartfelt advice backfired, presses them to reconsider, but Fang Yuan calls the decision final and returns to drinking, leaving Wei Yang resolved to change his mind later. ch. 275
After the feast, Bai Ning Bing spends twenty eight thousand primeval stones on the rank three Ice Crystal Gu and Fang Yuan four thousand one hundred on a rank two Brown Bear Innate Strength Gu. Outside the shop, Fang Yuan asks if she truly means to make the Ice Crystal Gu her vital Gu instead of advancing toward rank four, and Bai Ning Bing says she found her aptitude had risen by one percent again just the day before. Her Northern Dark Ice Soul Physique is a curse that will eventually restore her aptitude to a full hundred percent and with it the Ten Extreme Physique, so she would rather stay at rank three than advance, though the higher grade Yellow Gold Primeval Essence available at rank four would nurture her aperture better and speed that same recovery. Fang Yuan needles her that she cannot do without the Yang Gu he still holds and suggests she ask Feng Yu Manor, which trades in information, and tells her he means to walk around the gambling den instead. His smile drops the moment she is out of sight; after quietly ordering more supplies from the Gu shop, he slips through its back door and down a lower path to reach the gambling den, intent on finding a sealed legendary Gu fossil he remembers from his previous life. ch. 275
