Chapter 366

Fang Zheng falls hard onto grass and mud, but the drop is short enough that he survives, spitting dirt and struggling upright, sore all over. He finds himself in a grassland stretching to the horizon, flowers carpeting it in every color, with a tall, half translucent, dreamlike pink crystal mountain rising in the distance; tiny human figures already climb its slopes. Recalling the fox tailed girl’s words about reaching the peak first, he wonders who she was, until Lord Sky Crane’s anxious voice urges him to start climbing Dang Hun Mountain at once. ^{ch. 366}

Fang Zheng asks who the girl was and why his Gu will not work. Lord Sky Crane explains that Hu Immortal Inheritance is intact and has only one true inheritor; the girl is the inheritance itself, and whoever reaches the peak first becomes her master and claims her. Worried by the head start the other climbers already hold and by his own sealed movement Gu, Fang Zheng runs anyway; Lord Sky Crane tells him Hu Immortal’s lingering will has sealed every climber’s Gu equally, so the ascent must be made on physical strength alone. Puzzled at how such a gap opened when they entered one after another, he learns the blessed land runs five days for every one outside, so what looked like a short gap on the way in became a wide one once inside, and why the ranking from the great competition mattered so much: the lowest ranked have almost no hope. ^{ch. 366}

Fang Zheng regrets his own placement, reflecting he is only a countryside boy beside the first tier disciples, Feng Jin Huang, Ying Sheng Ji and Xiao Qi Xing, who grew up fed by Gu Immortal resources and guidance, while he and peers like Fairy Bi Xia, Gu Ting and Wei Wu Shang sit a tier below; he notes he already gave his all in the competition and lost nearly every one of his ironbeak flying cranes doing it. Confused that Lord Sky Crane can still speak to him with Gu sealed, he learns his master, only a rank five Gu Master in life and now nothing but a soul inside the spirit incubating flea, has nothing of his own left to do it with; the reason he can speak at all is Immortal Crane Sect’s Supreme Elder He Feng Yang, since only a Gu Immortal can contend with a Gu Immortal. Fang Zheng is startled to find himself, even indirectly, bound up with a Gu Immortal of his own sect. ^{ch. 366}

Lord Sky Crane explains that Hu Immortal Inheritance carries a land spirit with a will of its own, inherited stubbornly from its dead master’s obsession, and that even a Gu Immortal cannot force it: an attacker risks the land spirit self destructing and taking the whole blessed land down with it, at ruinous cost to the attacker, which is why the sects sent disciples instead of coming themselves. He calls Feng Jin Huang a genius among geniuses, admits Fang Zheng’s loss to her was no shame given the gap in strength, but insists Immortal Crane Sect has not lost yet, because Fang Zheng is its hope for reversal. Realizing the disciples are really pieces in a contest between the ten sects’ own Gu Immortals, Fang Zheng understands he has become Immortal Crane Sect’s secret weapon without ever choosing to be. ^{ch. 366}

Asked how he can possibly win without Gu, Lord Sky Crane names the crystal peak as Dang Hun Mountain from the Legends of Ren Zu: any living thing entering its range suffers a soul shock that grows stronger near the summit, and weaker souls can scatter partway up. Because this is a righteous path inheritance, the land spirit has dulled that danger enough that failed climbers are only turned away, not killed. Turning solemn, Lord Sky Crane reminds Fang Zheng that surviving the destruction of his own clan as a boy, killed by his own elder brother, and carrying the resulting need for revenge, has tempered his soul harder than his peers, even if it still falls short of Feng Jin Huang and Xiao Qi Xing. That gap, he explains, is what Lord He Feng Yang’s plan closes: He Feng Yang revived the spirit incubating flea by secret means, and Lord Sky Crane will now spend his own soul pushing Fang Zheng toward the summit. ^{ch. 366}

Fang Zheng is glad but uneasy, and asks whether this counts as cheating and whether other Gu Immortals might discover it. Lord Sky Crane insists it is ability and talent, not cheating, and that Immortal Crane Sect’s protection means no other Gu Immortal will act against him even if they suspect something, since a Gu Immortal who enters the blessed land at all suffers the land spirit’s counterattack and can only watch helplessly from outside. Amazed that even Gu Immortals cannot match it, Fang Zheng hears Lord Sky Crane explain the imbalance: one side must hold back while the land spirit, fused into the blessed land itself, rules it like a deity that answers to nothing. Fang Zheng realizes the girl he met was that land spirit, and Lord Sky Crane confirms it and tells him to move. The climb will take at least a year or so, and from here Lord Sky Crane will mostly help in silence; with that help, he puts Fang Zheng’s odds at winning the inheritance at no less than eighty percent. Fired up and resolved, Fang Zheng vows to do his very best as his master spurs him on, reminding him the whole sect is watching. ^{ch. 366}