Chapter 288

Eight days later, Fang Yuan trains alone in Nan Qiu garden’s small square, ringed by a dozen stone pillars each twenty feet thick. Wearing canopy Gu for defense, he batters one pillar down to half its height with a flurry of bare punches, kicks, elbows and knees, then whips it in two with a single kick, its broken faces pitted from the blows. He reflects that this took plain attacks, since it is hard to call out a beast strength phantom without the all-out effort Gu. ^{ch. 288}

He calls up brown bear innate strength Gu next. A single smack, boosted through the all-out effort Gu, shatters a pillar that needs two people to wrap their arms around, and the recoil numbs his own palm. Fang Yuan reflects that breaking a pillar this size would ordinarily need dozens of hits, where the all-out effort Gu did it in one smack, and that his battle strength before and after the Gu is like the difference between night and day; the narration notes it as a rare case of a support Gu carrying the core role, most Gu Masters using one only to assist a core Gu the way Wei Yang’s rainbow light Gu is supported by broadsword light Gu and light source Gu. He weighs swapping canopy Gu for golden shield Gu, judging canopy Gu’s defense too rigid, but cannot currently afford it. ^{ch. 288}

He is also short on money more broadly. Of the more than nine hundred thousand primeval stones he once held, Bai Ning Bing took half, gambling for the all-out effort Gu and the costs of Shang clan’s third inner city took more, and he gave Li Ran eighty thousand in public eight days earlier. Under a poison vow contract he still owes Li Ran a hundred and twenty thousand primeval stones, and he intends to pay it anyway, even though he had already used eating one’s words Gu days before to dissolve the poison vow’s hold on Fang Yuan. Keeping Li Ran cooperative matters more to him than the reputation it buys. He judges Li Ran too useful to kill, since a death would draw Shang Clan’s suspicion, and hopes to eventually reach the rank five all-out effort Gu recipe through him from Wu Clan. Three days earlier, Li Ran told the Wu Clan emissary through an emergency contact method that Fang Yuan could be worked with, lowering the chance Wu Clan seeks revenge, a risk Fang Yuan judges small anyway since retaliating against a holder of the purple thorn token would force Wu Clan to use elder-level Gu Masters and break the unspoken truce between the high clans. ^{ch. 288}

Returning to training, Fang Yuan uses vertical crash Gu and horizontal charge Gu, his purchased replacements for jumping grass, to knock down stone pillars, and plans to fuse the two into a single Gu once he reaches rank four. Combining each movement Gu with a different beast strength phantom, he finds the boar phantom sends five pillars flying and knocks down eight, the bear phantom sends seven flying and knocks down five, and the crocodile phantom sends three flying and knocks down four, and concludes boar suits a long charge best while crocodile suits charging worst. Judging his current strength of two boars, a bear, and a crocodile at the limit his body can bear, he decides to add steel tendon Gu, which unlike the expendable iron bone Gu must be used continuously to reshape his tendons over time, and retreats to his secret room to begin. ^{ch. 288}

Three days later, at the fifth inner city’s battle stage, a burly man in a blue shirt already stands winded and afraid after five or six earlier exchanges left him badly hurt, and he pounces again with a rank three water prison Gu bought on a high-interest loan to counter him. Trapped in the water ball, Fang Yuan strikes it with the boar phantom, which shakes it, then the bear phantom, which deforms it further without breaking it, then the crocodile phantom, suited to water, which shatters it outright. Fang Yuan follows with vertical crash Gu, sending the man flying twenty full steps. He tries once to rise, falls back, and does not move again. ^{ch. 288}