Chapter 477

Fang Yuan spends a day and a night inside Dang Hun palace and comes out exhausted. Dang Hun Mountain has produced another batch of guts Gu, but the harvest keeps shrinking: this round is half the size of the first, and most of what he pinches is useless because of Immortal Gu Gruel Mud’s powers. The souls he took from slaughtering Yan tribe still push his soul strength past five times its former level, and a third, thinner harvest that takes only an hour to gather raises it again to six times, though he remains far short of the threshold he calls thousand man soul. Fang Yuan credits Dang Hun Mountain as the second most valuable thing he owns, behind only Spring Autumn Cicada, recalling Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable’s naming of it and Luo Po Valley as soul path’s two sacred lands, one for strengthening the soul and one for refining it. Lacking Luo Po Valley, he refines his soul instead with wolf soul Gu, which turns a Gu Master’s soul into wolfman soul. Little Hu Immortal keeps busy with her own work. ^{ch. 477}

The stargate Gu carries him back to northern plains, where his own wolf group is waiting. He sends the poison beard wolves and water wolves into Hu Immortal blessed land, keeps wind wolf myriad wolf king and turtleback myriad wolf king with him, and replenishes all three groups until the wolf group totals sixty thousand. Before returning to Ge tribe he finishes refining a half-finished Gu, and by first light over crescent lake he produces a rank five breath concealment Gu, refined up from the rank two version he had obtained at Zi You mountain and still shaped like a purple leaf, only deeper in color with a slight metallic luster. Because a Gu refined inside northern plains is born already recognized by the region, it escapes the suppression that strikes a Gu carried in from elsewhere. Fang Yuan uses it to mask his true cultivation, rank five peak stage even after suppression, down to rank four middle stage, reasoning that an unexplained jump in strength would draw suspicion. ^{ch. 477}

Fang Yuan returns to Ge tribe with the wolf group, and the tribesmen are shocked and pleased, though the region’s many wild wolf packs and crescent lake’s spirituality give the haul a plausible explanation. Ge Guang reports the spoils taken from Yan tribe: over six hundred and thirty-four thousand primeval stones, a rank five Gu, twenty-seven rank four Gu, and over two thousand Gu refinement recipes. Beyond that comes three hundred hump wolves, many big stomach horses, thousands of lizard house Gu, hundreds of mushroom Gu, and over seven thousand captives, many of them rank one and rank two Gu Masters willing to surrender, more than doubling Ge tribe’s strength. Fang Yuan waives his half share under grassland custom and tells Ge Guang to keep it for the tribe, then offers to have his wolves fed from that share; Ge Guang refuses, insisting the tribe will bear the cost itself and asking for guidance. Impressed by how far the young leader has grown, Fang Yuan agrees to become an external elder, but Ge Guang kneels and asks for a supreme elder instead, and Fang Yuan accepts. ^{ch. 477}

Near crescent lake, Wang tribe leader hears from Bei tribe’s envoy, an old rank three Gu Master named Bei Cao Sheng, that Yan tribe has been wiped out by Ge tribe. Bei Cao Sheng asks Wang tribe to join an alliance of Bei, Zheng and Pei tribe against Ge tribe. ^{ch. 477}