Chapter 492

Fang Yuan judges his wolf group’s numbers, now at two hundred thousand, still not enough, and decides he no longer needs to hunt ordinary wolves himself since others will bring them to him in time. He turns his attention instead to upper level battle strength, since the beast emperors that occasionally appear in treasure yellow heaven sell out to Gu Immortals almost as soon as they are listed, making a run of wolf emperor purchases unrealistic. He settles on mutated beasts instead, each mature one matching a myriad beast king in battle strength and forming the trump card that every first rate enslavement path Gu Master keeps: southern border’s King Quan with his mastiff group, Jiang Bao Ya with his mountain drilling rats, Yang Po Ying with his thunder eagles, and Ma Zun with his pegasi. ^{ch. 492}

Four kinds of wolf type mutated beast are on sale. The blood forest wolf carries a mound sized body and rows of bone growths on its back that form a miniature forest for its cubs, slow but overwhelmingly strong. The shark fin wolf, scaled like a crocodile and finned like a shark, holds the greatest defense of the group and can fight underwater as well as on land. The frenzy wolf is smaller, three eyed, and turns berserk in battle, its strength surging five times over once its third eye opens, though opening all three at once kills it regardless of the outcome. The white-eyes wolf sees clearly even at night through its pure white, pupil-less eyes. Fang Yuan buys all of what treasure yellow heaven has: one blood forest wolf, three shark fin wolves, two frenzy wolves, and five white-eyes wolves. ^{ch. 492}

Far off in southern border’s Shadow Sect blessed land, the rank seven wisdom path Gu Immortal Old Man Yan Shi notices the bulk buying through his connecting heaven Gu and tries to deduce Fang Yuan’s purpose. The result, that Fang Yuan means to raise wolves for trade, leaves him unsatisfied, since his instinct insists there is more behind it. Long before, working out where Fang Yuan and his Fixed Immortal Travel Gu could be found had cost him seventy years of lifespan for a result that only placed Fang Yuan inside Hu Immortal blessed land, beyond reach; a second attempt, another eighty years, instead found the best future opportunity to strike, showing him that Fang Yuan would one day return to southern border for the battle of Yi Tian mountain, a hundred and fifty years spent on the search in total. He now weighs using his vital Gu, Heavenly Secret, again: out of ten uses, at least eight fail, and a failure can cost him ten to seventy years of lifespan against the roughly eighty years he has left, though a matter this minor would likely cost him only about thirteen or fourteen years if it goes wrong. He decides against it, reasoning that his existing trap already secures Fang Yuan’s fate regardless of the wolf buying, and turns instead to ordinary means, working other Gu Immortals to drive up prices against Fang Yuan’s purchases. ^{ch. 492}

Fang Yuan tries to buy the same wolf enslavement materials himself, only to find someone a step ahead of him: several Gu Immortals are deliberately bidding up the price, leaving him with less than he expected and costing him far more for it. He reads it as deliberate interference, rules out Lang Ya land spirit as lacking the reach, weighs Immortal Crane Sect against it, and settles on the mysterious Old Man Yan Shi as the source. He laughs it off. He holds wolf enslavement Gu recipes spanning ranks one through five, including Lang Ya land spirit’s own personal recipes, whose material needs the interfering Gu Immortals cannot even recognize, so their blockade only catches him at the edges. ^{ch. 492}