Charging Crash Gu
Fang Yuan had chosen horizontal charge Gu and vertical crash Gu as his movement Gu with rank four already in mind, since together the two rank three Gu are the core materials for the rank four charging crash Gu. With careful preparation the recipe’s success rate is already high, and two days later he succeeds, obtaining charging crash Gu: its charge distance doubles from a hundred steps to two hundred, its reuse delay halves, and only its primeval essence cost rises, a little, which is nothing to a cultivator who possesses the nine eyes liquor worm and the heavenly essence treasure lotus. ch. 345
Counting up, Fang Yuan now holds six rank four Gu: bitter strength Gu, charging crash Gu, the yang Gu of his yin-yang rotation Gu, nine eyes liquor worm, expend strength Gu and blood skull Gu. All-out effort Gu, strength qi Gu, golden shield Gu and the rest of his set are still rank three and are slowly falling behind his needs; he notes that rank alone does not decide a Gu’s worth, since bone flesh unity Gu stays valuable to Gu Masters above its own rank, but on the whole a Gu Master fares best paired with a Gu close to his own rank. ch. 345
He settles on advancing golden shield Gu into golden bell shield Gu and tusita flower into tusita lantern Gu. All-out effort Gu cannot advance without the undefeated hundred battles Gu from the three kings inheritance, and strength qi Gu has no recipe he owns, so both stay shelved; self-reliance Gu and bone flesh unity Gu are left as they are, since Fang Yuan’s own strength already lets their rank three healing match a rank four Gu; breath concealment Gu is set aside too, since he has no present need to hide his aura. He also already holds the fusion recipe to advance heavenly essence treasure lotus into heavenly essence treasure monarch lotus, but the refinement is a large project needing spirit springs he does not yet have, so it waits as well. ch. 345
His iron bone, steel tendon and copper skin Gu are also only rank three and offer little protection in fights between rank four Gu Masters, and his eight beast phantoms are all ordinary beasts rather than rank four strength phantoms, so he means to replace them with phantoms like Biao and mastiff strength phantoms to fight at his full rank four strength. He had wanted Xue San Si’s own Biao strength Gu, but his habit of smashing enemies into meat paste destroyed it along with her body. Of the three rank four demonic Gu Masters he has beaten, he has gained only expend strength Gu, and only because Fei Li surrendered it himself; Gu Masters rarely take Gu worms as spoils, since fights are fought all out with no worms spared, and a Gu Master can self-destruct his own Gu worms with a single thought. ch. 345
Two days later, light pillars rise from San Cha mountain’s three highest peaks: the three kings inheritance has opened. Four rank four peak stage Gu Masters, the strongest currently on the mountain and each one step from rank five, converge from the four directions: poison path’s Long Qing Tian from the east, with pale green skin and cold green eyes; the righteous Wu clan’s Wu Shen Tong from the west, thin and sickly, coughing in the mountain wind; the demonic Kong Ri Tian from the south, smiling in a flower patterned gown among fluttering pink butterflies; and the Yi clan’s Yi Chong from the north, armored in blue fish scales, with a long nose, oversized eyes, wild hair and a shark like fin on his back. The four have contested San Cha mountain for months without any one gaining the upper hand, the two righteous elders outwardly allied but not of one mind, Kong Ri Tian and Long Qing Tian occasionally cooperating when it suits them. Kong Ri Tian chooses King Bao’s inheritance, Long Qing Tian chooses King Xin’s, and Wu Shen Tong chooses King Quan’s; Yi Chong hesitates before also choosing King Bao. Onlookers weigh the choices aloud, wary of Long Qing Tian after an earlier trap at King Xin’s inheritance, and noting that Wu Shen Tong, an enslavement path Gu Master reportedly already at King Quan’s middle stage, will leave little for anyone who follows him there. ch. 345
Rank four upper stage Gu Masters climb up next to enter the inheritances, among them a boy in black clothes who looks down at Fang Yuan before he goes in: Century Boy, Xue San Si’s own godfather and patron. Fang Yuan feels not the least bit of fear at the hostility in the look, and is instead secretly looking forward to it; with the three kings inheritance in sight, Century Boy has no mind to settle accounts now, but is certain to come for him once it closes. By his own assessment Fang Yuan is currently almost unrivalled among rank four initial stage Gu Masters, able to prevail over ordinary middle stage opponents and evenly matched against upper stage ones, with peak stage still a difficult opponent; he believes that once his Gu worms reach rank four he could beat upper stage Gu Masters outright and stand even with peak stage ones. ch. 345
As the last of the upper stage Gu Masters enter and the light pillars dim, a group of rank four middle stage Gu Masters climbing the mountain sees Fang Yuan and Bai Ning Bing charging toward them on charging crash Gu, and clears their path by unspoken agreement. The two of them enter King Quan’s inheritance together. ch. 345
