Fang Yuan ignores Gao Wan and absorbs the primeval stone’s essence while watching his aperture, letting the drained primeval sea climb slowly back up. After half an hour it reaches forty four percent, its maximum, and Fang Yuan then calls out his Liquor worm and feeds it ten percent of his primeval essence, which the worm condenses into a lump of liquor mist. He feeds the mist another ten percent, and the mist shrinks by half and turns from jade green to pale green as it becomes middle stage primeval essence, at least twice as efficient as the initial stage essence ordinary students use. ch. 34
By the time Fang Yuan opens his eyes again it is nearly dawn, and he counts that the night’s cultivation has cost him three primeval stones. He accepts the cost as the price of his speed. Gao Wan sits asleep in a corner, and Fang Yuan steps outside to stretch his stiff limbs before Gao Wan wakes and orders him to surrender and apologize to Mo Yan. ch. 34
Fang Yuan lunges at Gao Wan with both fists, and Gao Wan, whose muscular body is almost twice Fang Yuan’s size, blocks a jab at his waist with a forearm hard as steel. Fang Yuan recognizes he cannot out muscle a mortal who has trained his body for years and pulls back to keep his distance rather than trade blows barehanded. He drives strikes at every vital point instead, jabbing at eyes and throat and jaw, and Gao Wan, unwilling to risk killing a clansman and facing execution, holds back while Fang Yuan does not, so the fight tips in Fang Yuan’s favor. ch. 34
