Two Immortal Gu obtained!
Fang Yuan asks to watch the refinement in person, half to test the land spirit. It agrees at once, calling this one of the terms of the old agreement, which surprises him. He reasons back to why: when Long Hair Ancestor once failed to refine space escape Gu, wasting a lifetime’s worth of rare materials that Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable, a rank nine Demon Venerable, had gathered, Long Hair Ancestor agreed to refine Gu for him afterward and to let him watch the whole process, both to hand over the recipe as repayment and to prove that any future failure would not be his fault. Land spirits, formed from a blessed land’s own power and a dead Gu Immortal’s obsessions, are usually candid by nature; Lang Ya land spirit, formed from Long Hair Ancestor himself, has lost most of his memories but keeps most of his refinement talent, so watching him work is a real prize for Fang Yuan. ch. 486
The land spirit teleports him to a refinement hall he calls Earth-grade Room C, its floor at least ten li across and crowded with cauldrons, furnaces, water tanks, and cave houses, a display that leaves Fang Yuan wide-eyed. Of his own five hundred years of memory, three hundred were spent wandering and fighting his way up, and only the last two hundred let him pursue his own ambitions freely; his refinement skill surpasses any mortal’s, but among Gu Immortals he ranks only second or third-rate, nothing next to a legend like Long Hair Ancestor. A few thousand hairy men appear at the land spirit’s summons, kneel to greet him, then rise and take up the recipe and materials he hands them for an Immortal Gu. Hairy men, the record says, have refined Gu since the immemorial era, once even binding Ren Zu’s first son, Verdant Great Sun, to try to refine eternal Gu from him. They work by instinct and inspiration rather than by human toolwork, and Gu Immortals commonly raise them to help refine; Fang Yuan once kept some in his own blood sea blessed land in his previous life, though its harsh conditions killed off batch after batch and cooled his interest, before he later gathered many more to refine in bulk for his demonic sect. ch. 486
These hairy men are plainly better kept than any he raised, sleek and bright-eyed, agile and skilled, with several old ones sharp enough to suggest tweaks to the recipe as they work. Fang Yuan judges that sold at treasure yellow heaven, such a group would fetch at least twenty-one meters of treasure light as elite slaves; several of the old hairy men are already refinement grandmasters, a rank he himself has not reached, still only a refinement master. With their help, the work moves more than ten times faster than his own refining once ran on San Cha mountain. The hairy men pass their half-done product up through the old hairy men to the land spirit, who destroys the flawed batches and orders them redone until satisfied, then finishes the last step himself and produces a half-done second aperture Gu of far higher quality than the one Fang Yuan already carries. ch. 486
Then the land spirit brings out divine travel Gu itself, its surface visibly damaged, and Fang Yuan’s heart jumps at the sight. The land spirit offers him one last chance to back out; Fang Yuan thinks it over and tells him to continue. Cursing him as a schemer, the land spirit hands over several Gu worms and rare materials besides, two of which Fang Yuan recognizes as items that raise a refinement’s odds of success, worth eighteen meters of treasure light in treasure yellow heaven. Every motion the land spirit makes draws the hairy men’s rapt attention, and Fang Yuan, entranced by its flawless, unhurried control, has to force himself to break away and begin his own plan. ch. 486
He sits cross-legged and activates two rank four Gu prepared beforehand, clear mind Gu, which becomes a breeze in his skull, and awaken cloud Gu, a small white cloud that settles over his head. Watching the light mass the land spirit is shaping, he unseals wine after wine, at least fourteen gathered beforehand through connecting heaven Gu in treasure yellow heaven, and drinks as divine travel Gu dissolves into flowing water and mixes into the recipe. Each vat brings a wave of drunkenness that clear mind Gu and awaken cloud Gu force back into clarity. After four wines he is still lucid, though nothing has happened yet and the light mass has swollen past the size of an elephant. Reasoning that an Immortal Gu takes more than an ordinary one to work on, he keeps drinking; by the eighth wine his vision is finally blurring, and in the land spirit’s hands the light mass expands and shrinks three to five times before settling into a finished second aperture Gu. ch. 486
The instant it forms, every trace of drunkenness in Fang Yuan’s body surges together into a single point, and a Dao mark descends, exploding that point into a second Immortal Gu: divine travel Gu, newly reformed in his own hands. Two Immortal Gu, gained in the same breath. Fang Yuan comes fully sober and laughs aloud in triumph. The land spirit, its body turning hollow with exhaustion, can only call it a truly profound scheme; bound to Fang Yuan as the holder of Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable’s inheritance, it cannot strike back, though the hairy men glare at him in furious, disdainful loyalty to their lord. Fang Yuan ignores them, stops laughing, and bows to the land spirit, calling his own scheme petty, admitting to a real eye-opener and real benefit from the day, and offering, shameful of what he has done yet respectful of the land spirit, to become its disciple. ch. 486
